Does anyone get out an atlas, and look up where a person on the board is from? I have a few times. If they are in a neighboring state and mention a quilt shop I want to see if its close enough.

Map Quest is my best friend:)

Ditto!

I look folks up too, if their city,state is listed.

I took part in an Internation Round Robin here on this board, and I looked up my fellow partners on Google Earth, that was fun.

Sadly, the little backwater village I live in desperately needs a new photo - its worse than the ones I take! LOL.

I have!

I bought a map of the world today.

you can actually see someone's house on Google Earth if you have their address. I have done this when I sent something UPS and the tracking shows, Left at back door. If the house is rural then I don't worry about it.

I use Google maps. :-)

Ditto Ditto!!

Someone was talking about a quilt shop in TX and I'm going to be there visiting my son in April so I got directions to see how far it was from my son's - over 2 hours! Bummer!

Two hour drive in Texas is just around the block, when you remember that it is 1000 miles from ElPaso to La border LOL
we use to drive that to get a dairyqueen on Sat afternoon.

Where in Lower MI are you?

google earth makes things more interesting for me

Karen, I'm in Brooklyn

It would be interesting for quilt shops to put up maps ie: US an world maps on their walls (backed by cork of course). When customers come in form out of the area, they can place a pin on where they are from.

deb,that's a good idea.

I have a collection of maps from the Canadian provinces and the different states, and a big World Atlas. I consult them for a couple of reasons 4-5 times a week. I guess I could be good as a person tracker!

Google Earth doesn't get updated very often. I looked up my house, which we built 5 1/2 years ago, and there's no house there, but you can see the trench that they dug for the underground wiring : )

Lower Michigan? Have you been to Shipshewanna's Lolly's? I live in northern Indiana and make the occasional trip there -- from where I am, it's an all day excursion, but there's lots to see in Shipshewanna!

Lucky you being near the Irish Hills - just one of the lovely spots in Michigan.

Since Childhood have had a love of maps. Since we were an Army family and changed schools freq. (11 times in 12 years of school)my mother would get books and maps about where we were going next and we would pour over the maps and check out info. about the place and people.Some time we know more about the place we were stationed than the locals. I always did great in naming states and capitals, what the area was known for,etc.Over the years it has become a hobby to me,and I am amazed how little young people today know about our country and the different states. Some high schooler can't even name their capital or where it is located from their town.I don't know why but it seem to be a problem with learning about this great country we have and the various people that are in it. You can't have pride in something that you know nothing about. So get those google and mapquest going and get the atlas out and show the kids where something is located and learn what is produced there and what kind of people are there.You can goggle or bing( I prefer bing) any state or town and get tons of info from their web page. Even if you can't visit in person, you can have a pretend trip by just going online and getting all the infor. needed for a trip. I can't afford a cruise right now, but I went into that ship page and planed my perfect cruise to Alaska,or Europe. Hey, teach your kids to dream outside the box so they can put down the ipod or phone some day and see what a great place we have here in the USA.
No matter what the political climate or the jobs are doing, We have the option to move where we can enjoy a better life and it is still in the good old USA. There are no other countrys where you can do that.

There is another country where you can have the same freedom,it is a well-kept secret. Look north of your borders!

Yes and I have had the pleasure of exploring there too, I mostly fell in love with Vancouver Island and those great ferry rides and the mountains that drop down to the sea and most of all the great friendly people. I took a train (on ViaRail)vacation two times from Toronto to Victoria in the Fall 2007 and 2008 and it was great,a bed to rock to sleep in, some of the best food and service on par with a four star hotel. It all started with me just looking up info on BC and the northwest coast on the internet.

I keep a road atlas by my chair and refer to it frequently when a place is mentioned on the news or by one of you.

yes i have. see how far away everyone is.

I do it all the time. I was looking online at a shop today that I thought was in NC. The site did have a map. When I pulled it up to see where in NC it is, I found out it is in NE. We go to NC, not NE. Lashes with wet noodle for me.

I needed a non-local phone number & was told to try whitepages.com. I did, got the phone number alright, but was astounded at the additional info provided -- like the person's age, their address, the value of their house, even a photo of their house, and the names of the other occupants! Kinda scary!

http://www.googleearth.com

I love to spend time here. I have been around the world and been to places I would never have had the opportunity to see otherwise. Moscow is my favorite place to visit.

The download is free & doesn't take very long, either.

When we were looking for a job for DH, I'd look up the city we would be visiting. Found the LQS and then looked at the photos of the store. Made it a whole lot easier to find it as I knew what the building looked like and the surrounding area, too. Same with the hotel we had booked, eating places, etc.

i know where littlehud lives. in a town called 'in hiding'. but i know where it is.
looked it up.