You know, we, just like you, are getting cabin-fever and ready to get out of the house. My wife, Robin, had a great idea the other night. She told me, “Hey, since we are getting five to six weeks to a full tank of gas so far, why don’t we go for a ride around the area?” I said, “Sure!” and off we went.
We took all the back roads that we have not been on for years. Drove out to Port Republic, Shenandoah, Elkton and only took the backroads. It was fun!
We saw places we have not been to in a long time. We went out to Island Ford and of course by the Merck and MillerCoors plants. Gravel roads were the game…reminded me of when we first moved to the Shenandoah Valley and lived in Mt. Sidney.
We talked a lot, no music, no interruptions. Well, ok, wait a minute there. You see, I was the guy on some of those roads you may have passed. I decided to go about 10 mph below the posted limit. So, there were a few interruptions from people passing us, but surprisingly few.
We rode, we talked, we pointed, and laughed. We discovered new owners of old builders and old buildings with new additions and signage. It was a fine time.
Then we got home and we tried to figure how far we had gone and how long we were gone. We did not pay attention when we left. We just wanted out!
I said with all authority that we had been gone well over two hours; maybe 2.5. Robin, on the other hand, said around two hours. I said about 60 miles and she had no guess on that one. She said that we should have checked the time when we left so we would know for sure. So, my tech mind kicked in and I thought, “My Android phone is set for Google Maps to track my travel all the time, yes!”
When we got into the house, I browsed on my notebook to google.com/maps/timeline. Up popped my travels for the past several months all clearly plotted out. It would have been a larger range of time but I cleared it a while back to see how that works.
I choose the year, month, and then clicked on the actual date and immediately our travel for the evening was displayed on Google Maps. It showed that we were gone for exactly two hours, three minutes (Robin won). It also showed the roads we took and the distance traveled: 56.1 miles.
I clicked on the map as usual and changed it to the satellite view to zoom into areas and look around. Then I saw a gear icon at the bottom of the map in a list labeled “Show raw data.” I figured I might as well see what that does. When clicked it displayed red dots along our path fairly evenly spaced. When I hovered my mouse over them, they showed the exact date and time to the second. Then I noticed there were almost exactly 15 seconds between each dot. That tells me that Google is recording the location regularly all day long. Now I know why my battery life is not what I expect. I like the feature so I will just plug in to charge my phone often as usual.
If only Hansel and Gretel had cellphones…
