Automapic.com updates

As we are having a quiet night in I am doing some updates to the site, based on feedback and my own to do list. These are the current things to do. (Be warned that this may be a little geeky)

• Fix zoom level and scroll position when selecting a leg. When a leg is selected the zoom level is currently too high so I will scale that back. Also the map is centered incorrectly at the first Point of Interest, rather than the start of the leg. (I published this fix a little while ago.)
• Fix the XML Atom news feed. Although the feed contains a fair bit of information, the structure isn't correct and nothing other than the title is showing up in the news readers I have tried (Google Reader and Bloglines).
• Fix the Calendar export. The ICAL export button downloads the journey itinerary in iCalendar format so that it can be imported into a calendar application. This currently works fine for iCal on the Mac and Google Calendar (the only ones I have tried). However Outlook users are reporting that it complains that the calendar scale is not a Gregorian one. Even though I am setting it to Gregorian something isn't working with Outlook. Not sure how easily I can fix this as I don't have Outlook but it's on the list.
• Google Earth export. The Google Earth export buttons have been there for a while, but are simply teasing as I have yet to hook this up.
• Nicer itinerary view. Although the current itinerary shows a nice view of the locations of the stops and their dates, unless the itinerary is imported to a calendar there is no way to glance at the itinerary as a whole. I want to add in a popup table of the itinerary or overlay it on a calendar within the site.
• Better URL handling for locations. If a URL is set for a new location, it will not work correctly unless beginning with http://
• Safari problems. Safari has been working during my tests, but it locks up when displaying a leg path on Jared's machine. I am certain this is due to me not being clever enough with the Google Map path zoom levels; each point in a path has an associated zoom level at which that point should be displayed. I can probably just set every nth one to show up when zoomed out and scale them from there.
  
• Some additions to the admin section, but those are low priority as they just affect me for now :)
  

Day 5: Miami FL to Tampa FL

A quick sprint today from Miami to Tampa. There was a danger that we would have to go a long way round as there were some big fires apparently along the road we were planning on taking, although by the morning these warnings had disappeared. We left Miami in reasonable weather; a little muggy but not raining, although it was threatening.

From 2007 USA Elises

An hour or so later and the threat level was increased from guarded to high.

From 2007 USA Elises

Then we encountered a storm that would have had Noah scurrying anxiously to his workshop, wood plane in hand.

From 2007 USA Elises

The Elises performed well in this weather even at decent cruising speeds, although I had no idea where we were or what was around us. I saw these supports at one point and inferred that we were on a bridge of some sort.

From 2007 USA Elises

Back to those fires; we saw no real evidence ourselves apart from some roadsigns warning of smoke and occasionally we could smell the remains of a fire. We were also hoping to visit a gator farm but they were apparently not on the route we took.

Tonight we are relaxing in the motel, then tomorrow we are off to Panama City.

Day 4: Miami FL

Today was a rest day. Having said that we still drove for over an hour to the beach and back (the return bit took a while due to traffic and roadworks).

South Beach, Miami is a really cool place; a quality stretch of restaurants and cafes with a very nice beach, and not cheesy or over crowded. There was a rumour that Spring Break was going on this week, but thankfully we saw no evidence of it. We got plenty of attention cruising around. Here is Cory about to race a Miami cop:

From 2007 USA Elises

He won but got arrested and tortured horribly. Never mind. Here is a pic of us heading into South Beach. I love the flared corners at the front of the Elise; they are the only things one can see in front of the windscreen when driving:

From 2007 USA Elises

We had a brunch at the edge of the beach and walked around a bit. Weather was 85 or so with nice humidity and the water was lovely. I did my customary 5 mile swim. Well...I paddled around a bit with the water up to my knees then ran out of the water. One thing we did ponder was that there can't be many people that have undertaken a drive where they have dipped their toes in the Atlantic, The Gulf and The Pacific. Looking forward to completing that hat trick :)

You know you are with Elise-obsessed people when they tell you to meet them at "the lifeguard hut that looks kind of saffron yellow and krypton green with the chrome orange trim"

From 2007 USA Elises

I came across this place. I remember rolling a car here once. I think it was in Grand Theft Auto 3:

From 2007 USA Elises

We cruised back to the hotel after the beach. Plenty of attention and amusing conversations coming back, including:

Boy: "Is that a Lamborghini?"
Jared: "No it's a Fettuccine"

40-something woman leaning into car: "How much does it cost?"
Me: "45 grand or so."
*pause*
"Are you Jewish?"
"No"
"Oh you sound Jewish"
"Ummm..." (light turned green at this point)
I never worked it out...

The guy on his little moped revving enthusiastically next to us at a light made me laugh a lot, and he and his girlfriend were cracking up too. It's the little moments that make the day...

Day 3: Orlando, FL to Miami, FL

First bit of sight seeing: we went to Kennedy Space Center. Here is heading towards it:

From 2007 USA Elises

We had a nice chat with one of the security guards when we parked, as a big crowd of people descended on the trio of Elises. Given the amount we had to pay to get into the Space Center we could have subsidised that with charging for rides in the cars.

Having said that Kennedy Space Center is an amazing place; awe inspiring, immense and very humbling. Truly the pinnacle of human achievement in my opinion.

From 2007 USA Elises

I had a nice time meeting a family from Ireland. I got my fix of talking football :) Meeting them triggered memories of our family trip to Florida in 1983 (I think), although their kids were a lot more well behaved than we were (again, I think!).

From 2007 USA Elises

After the space center we moved on down to Miami. The traffic behaviour changed again about half way down. In northern Florida people are just fast drivers. Further south they are not only fast but pretty awful, and quite aggressive. We think one guy in his Acura blew his engine trying to weave and race around us. We had one police car pulling up beside us at a light, but she just wanted to hear about our travels and what club we belonged to.

The hotel is nice and relaxing:

From 2007 USA Elises

I am currently having a bloody mary outside a cafe in South Beach, Miami, but more about today tomorrow :)

A note on automapic times

Something has the wrong timezone set (the database, web server or client machine), so points on the map for the Elise journey are currently set to GMT +0. I will cogitate this problem when driving around tomorrow and hopefully come up with a fix soon.

Day 2: Charlotte, NC to Orlando, FL

Another long day, but an enjoyable one. The route can be seen here (click on Day 2). It has been colder than expected so no top off driving as of yet. We passed 1000 miles of driving as we got to Daytona beach. The next few days will be shorter distances, perhaps half as long as we have been driving, so more stopping and visiting places.

From 2007 USA Elises

We left Jared's place in Charlotte this morning, three bright Elises each with a number of little modifications so them. A nice touch about the Elise (and therefore Elise owners) is that they are all different the moment they roll off the dealership floor. We have three different exhausts: Quicksilver, Stage II and Larini. Wait for some ChaseCam clips with those three roaring. Then there are HID kits, LED lights, painted diffusers, petrol caps and shift knobs, audio and video recording hook-ups, carbon fiber mirrors, different rear view mirrors, upgraded stereos and speakers, Sector111 goodies a plenty, the list goes on...

From 2007 USA Elises

After a quick sprint we met Dave, a good friend of mine, for lunch in Columbia, South Carolina. By sprint I mean about two hours; but distance and time has a bit of a distorted scale when one is driving 8000 miles over the course of a month! South Carolina was nice as it had the first Palm trees. Being a Northener (and a Brit) it's one of those little things that gets you excited. Well it got me excited; the others couldn't have cared less.

Then we went straight through South Carolina and Georgia without too much drama. We met a friendly bloke at a rest stop who was a guitar player on his way to a gig in Savannah, Georgia. He convoyed with us for 50 miles or so in his white pick up truck. He did pretty well in keeping up! With my rubbish mind though I forgot he was going to tag along and for a while was a little confused as to why this white pickup had raced up and leeched onto us.

Next we headed down into Florida, our 8th state of the trip already. Dave was right; as soon as you get to Florida people drive a good 20 miles and hour faster. I decided to step up our speed when a 90 year old granny cruised past us in a beaten up Honda at about 90 miles an hour.

From 2007 USA Elises

We stopped off in Daytona at the enormous Harley dealership. They had a festival thingy going on outside which we milled around in for a while. I like the Harley crowd; we often exchange waves on the highway and they are always a good laugh to chat with.

We have decided to have some kind of hotel plan before getting to a city. We tried to ad-lib it in Orlando and ended up in, let's be kind here, a bit of a slum. See the GPS route where we doubled back. We capped the day off with a steak dinner and a Yuengling; was a bit of a treat to have Philly beer down here.

Off to Universal Studios tomorrow to go play then off to Miami!
** Update ** Cory is feeling unwell so sod it; I am going to go to Kennedy Space Center and dream about being an astronaut when I grow up.

Some numbers so far:

• 1050 miles traveled
  
• 8 states visited
• 12 tanks of fuel used between us all
  
• 1 cars seen flipped over

Day 1: Philadelphia, PA to Charlotte, NC

The journey is underway. Apart from some horrible traffic in Virginia it was otherwise nice and uneventful, although quite long. We are quite tired so will write more later, but here is a nice picture I took:

From 2007 USA Elises

GPS data for today is available at my automapic site.