Part of the GPS Mapping Tutorials series.
This tutorial will teach you how to record route data on a Garmin automotive GPS and extract it into a GPX file (which can then be used by mapping software).
I wrote this tutorial using a Garmin DriveSmart 50 LMT. However, I’ve had success using the same steps with other variations of the Garmin nüvi and DriveSmart series.
Continue reading “Extracting GPX Files From a Garmin Automotive GPS”flighthistorian.com/airports/AVP
I flew into AVP for a work trip to Binghamton, New York, where flights directly into Binghamton were expensive enough to make the drive from northeastern Pennsylvania worthwhile.
The most unusual part of the airport was that (at least in 2011 when I visited) the taxiway didn’t extend all the way to the end of the runway – which meant we got to taxi down part of the runway itself, then make a U-turn to take off.
I remember that the airport gift shop had quite a lot of The Office merchandise, which made sense as that’s probably Scranton’s biggest pop culture claim to fame. I was excited to go to Scranton for a different reason, though: to drive down the hill known for the banana truck incident in the Harry Chapin song 30,000 Pounds of Bananas.
For my 2010s Decade in Travel post, I manually created a heatmap showing the parts of the United States and world where I’d spent the most time traveling. Since I’ve been playing around with QGIS recently, I went ahead and used it to create a proper heatmap of my travels.
The hotter (more yellow) each area of the map is, the more nights I’ve spent there. The map clearly shows that the majority of my travel is within the United States, with a lot of travel to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in particular. Other especially hot areas are Seattle and Orlando, both of which have had many work and personal trips.
Although the map data only goes through March 2020, it is up to date as of this post – due to COVID-19, I haven’t traveled since March.
I first created a directed graph of a year’s flight data for my 2019 Year in Travel post. I went ahead and created graphs for the rest of the years in my flight log, and posted them on my portfolio:
Since I originally drew BWI in 2015, Concourse E (the northernmost concourse) underwent an expansion. As this was one of my earlier-drawn terminals and had some parts I wasn’t happy with, I took the opportunity to entirely redraw BWI.
This post was updated on Saturday, 4 July 2020
I’m fortunate that my health and finances have both been well during the COVID-19 crisis. Nonetheless, my job temporarily suspended travel for several months, and I didn’t take any vacations while my state had a stay-at-home order in place. This was a bit of a change of pace when I’m used to constant trips.
This stay-at-home was the longest period I’ve been home since my first work trip:
| Rank | Nights at Home | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 113 | Thu 12 Mar 2020 | Fri 3 Jul 2020 |
| #2 | 53 | Thu 28 Apr 2011 | Mon 20 Jun 2011 |
| #3 | 45 | Fri 14 Feb 2014 | Mon 31 Mar 2014 |
| #4 | 42 | Mon 30 Dec 2013 | Mon 10 Feb 2014 |
| #5 | 41 | Thu 27 Jan 2011 | Wed 9 Mar 2011 |
I’ve made a small update to DTW – a few of the piers on the old North Terminal were removed, so I changed my silhouette to match.
