routes

Route 66 Muffler Men: Collect them all

LIVINGSTON, Ill.--I see that you have a mint condition Rocket Firing Boba Fett action figure. That's pretty cool, but not as cool as my fully restored Gemini Giant with all accessories, astronaut helmet, and rocket ship intact.

I'm collecting Route 66 Muffler Men for the Geek's Guide to Route 66. These massive fiberglass statues dominate the parking lots and roadside attractions where they live. They all come from the common birthplace of the now defunct International Fiberglass in Venice, Calif., during the 1960s. As impressive as they look standing in place, imagine seeing one trucking down the highway on its way to a new home.

Roadside America has a handy spotter's guide to get you oriented when starting your own Muffler Man collection. I bagged three Muffler Men in one day of driving on Illinois's extensive chunk of the Mother Road. I was going to have them mounted on plaques for my living room but couldn't find a willing taxidermist.

Gemini Giant This bad boy is a reminder of the days when the Space Age was upon us and all things rocket-related were cool. The Gemini Giant holds down the fort at the Launching Pad Drive-In in Wilmington, Ill. He weighs 500 pounds and is a towering 28 feet tall. That's more than 27 feet taller than your average action figure.

Bunyon's Statue The Gemini Giant's twin brother hefts a honkin' huge hot dog just down the road in Atlanta, Ill. He once stood sentinel over a cafe in the town, but decided to stick around after the the diner closed. Really, who's going to tell a 500-pound man with a hot dog that he can't hang out?… Read more

Route 66: Build your own giant Blue Whale

CATOOSA, Okla.--There's a big Blue Whale in a small lake in Catoosa, Okla., on Route 66. It's an unexpected sight as you come over a rising bend in the road. I had heard there was a whale here, but the scale of the beast is enough to make Captain Ahab think twice about his life's mission. It's 80 feet long and 15 feet high.

Clearly, the Blue Whale didn't just wander inland from the ocean. Someone put it here. It's a maker project on a scale maker projects don't usually achieve. If Make Magazine had existed back in the '70s, the Blue Whale would have been a centerfold model.

In the spirit of DIY, I'm going to help makers prep their own whales. Here is your materials list:

2,650 feet of sucker rod 1,179 feet of 2-inch steel pipe 100 feet of 1-inch pipe 2,520 square feet of plaster lath 126 bags of concrete mix 19.5 square yards of Redi-Mix concrete 19,400 pounds of crushed stone 15 tons of sand 2,454 linear feet of wood 20 pounds of nails Assorted tubing and valves

If you can find a hardware store that hasn't changed prices since the '70s, the material costs should work out to less than $3,000. You will also need to find a friend willing to donate 100 hours of welding time. Assuming you want to follow the original build timeline, it will only take you two years of work to assemble your own Blue Whale. … Read more

Cadillac Ranch: Texas-size lawn ornaments

TULSA, Okla.--Welcome to the second installment of the Geek's guide to Route 66. I've been giving a lot of thought to how this iconic highway ties in with CNET's Crave blog, and I keep coming back to the second part of our mission statement--that bit about "other crushworthy stuff." Well, I'm totally crushing on the kitschy paean to big American cars that is the Cadillac Ranch.

Located just outside Amarillo, Tex., the Cadillac Ranch features 10 classic Caddys buried nose into the ground and fins to the sky in the middle of a field. The cars are covered in thick layers of colorful graffiti. Visitors come from around the world to ogle this very American version of Stonehenge and add their names to the ever-evolving art project.

Usually, I grab a discarded paint can and add my own message. Today, however, gale force winds removed all of the debris from the area and made it hard to even stand up against the massive force. Perhaps on my way back I'll be able to tag "Crave wuz here" across a protruding fin. In the meantime, I'm still picking little bits of Texas out of my teeth and hair.

How does the Cadillac Ranch tie in with tech? You can talk about cars as one of the most impactful inventions ever created. You can sit back and muse about what the Cadillac Ranch says about our culture, our obsession with the road, and how that obsession sometimes leads to being stalled out, nose down in a field while the winds and plants continue on around you. … Read more

Geek's guide to Route 66, part 1

It's packing time. A jumble of tech gadgets will be my road companions as I head out on the highway, looking for adventure, and whatever comes my way. Beginning tomorrow, I'll be traveling in my Toyota Prius from Albuquerque, N.M., to Chicago on Route 66, with a side trip to Carbondale, Ill.

Route 66 screams retro. It whispers Elvis' name. It reflects long, chrome-laden cars and poodle skirts at the local drive-in. It comes from a land before cell phones. That might make some high-tech gadget hounds feel a little out of place, but I've always been happy to park my Prius right behind my 1956 DeSoto and call it harmony.

I'm taking a small pile of gadgets to get me through. Notably, I'm going to attempt to navigate, work, book hotels, shoot video, and amuse myself with a 32GB iPad 2 with Verizon 3G. I was going to leave my cranky old Asus Netbook at home, but it's coming with me because I'm worried about running into limitations with the iPad 2. I'll let you know after I get back if that turns out to be the case.… Read more

Garmin Mechanic app for Android: Hands-on

If the reports are to be believed and Garmin (and by extension the rest of the GPS market) is having a hard time selling portable navigation devices, then we're sure that its EcoRoute HD add-on modules aren't flying off the shelves. But Garmin is making the device useful to a whole new market of potential users--namely, Android fans--with the release of its Garmin Mechanic app for Android.

We'll cut to the chase: if you already own a Garmin EcoRoute HD, the Garmin Mechanic app for Android is free application that allows you to take advantage of the data provided by your car's onboard diagnostics port (OBD) to view and log very accurate fuel economy information, engine operating parameters, and trouble codes. It is very cool. However, we're sure that most people don't have an EcoRoute HD just lying around, so for the rest of you, the Garmin Mechanic app is a useful app that requires a $100 piece of hardware to operate effectively, which makes it, essentially, a $100 app--which is not so cool and a much harder sell. We prefer to see the glass as half full, so we'll be taking a look at the Garmin Mechanic app for Android from the former of the two perspectives. We took the app for a spin in a variety of vehicles to see how it handled.… Read more

Hyundai: To save fuel, take the green route home

If you're trying to save fuel, keep in mind that the shortest route offered by a vehicle's navigation system isn't always the most fuel-efficient route. Factor in traffic jams during peak commute hours, and you could burn a lot more fuel in addition to time. But Hyundai says its navigation system's new "green routing" feature will offer drivers definitive fuel-saving directions based on Navteq's digital map and traffic data.

Announced at the 2011 International Motor Show in Geneva, the new navigation option uses details in Navteq's digital maps, such as hills, road … Read more

TomTom debuts Go 2505 M Live with HD Traffic service

LAS VEGAS--TomTom has just expanded its flagship Go series of portable navigation devices with the addition of the new Go 2505 M Live, which adds TomTom's Live connectivity suite and is the first unit in TomTom's lineup to feature the HD Traffic service.

As a Go series device, the Go 2505 M Live features the same hardware as the previously reviewed (and quite similarly named) Go 2505 TM, including a 5-inch, glass, capacitive touch screen with multitouch capabilities, Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free calling, and a metal-backed chassis that attaches to its windshield mount with magnets. The unit also … Read more

A GPS device from the 1920s

What did people do before the days of GPS satellites and battery-sucking A-GPS phones? Not only was there a navigational device that gave driving directions in the early 20th century, it was small enough to fit on your wrist.

This product from the 1920s is a scroll-map navigator in the shape of a watch. It came with tiny interchangeable instructions that you scrolled manually to see which roads to take when driving.

Named the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator, this relic from the past was a British product that would have cost about 5 pounds at the time, about 50 … Read more

Know your routes

Hybrid GeoTools' 3D Route Builder enhances Google Earth's built-in Path Editor with sophisticated GPS route planning capabilities, fine-grain, real-time control over 3D paths, and editing for location, altitude, and time stamp. It can use existing data or generate new GPX, KML, or Garmin TCX data from scratch.

This free program's interface combines typical Windows elements, including icon-based control and navigation toolbars, with a media player feel; in fact, it calls itself the "Media Player" of GPS playback in the animated ad banner that divides the interface's controls from the main display window. Clicking Embed GeoTool … Read more