Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Originally Posted By: M1Accord
You are from the cold region, OP is from sunny Florida. I bet you can't survive the heat and humidity of Florida in the summer if you don't know what you're doing. People die from heat just as they are from cold even though cold kills quicker and much harder to avoid.
Yeah, right. It never gets hot or humid in Iowa or Minnesota during the summer.
Originally Posted By: M1Accord
CNet editor found that in a hard way. All of the schooling in the world couldn't save him. He walked in circle for days and died while his family was found almost dead next to the car. I guess they could figure out that they could start a fire with all the woods surrounding them. If needed to, set that [censored] forest on fire, that's one way to get emergency service people come out fast.
With all due respect to James Kim's family, what happened to him was the result of his own incompetence. He was far off the regularly traveled roadways and had no business endangering his family like that. He needed a good dose of common sense more than he needed his GPS and other technical toys.
The fact that the original poster is asking the questions he is this far in advance tells me he has a lot more common sense than James Kim did.
Originally Posted By: M1Accord
I don't think most people in the world think Iowa is a tour destination. People just don't say "I want to visit Iowa when I grow up." They tend to think of Florida when singing the above tune.
And we prefer it that way. It keeps the riff raff out of the state.
Iowa doesn't get the same kind of humidity as Florida. Trust me, it is very bad. You can fight the heat by just staying in the shade but humidity will wear you down to nothing.
Jame Kim traveled that route many times as part of his family vacation to see other relatives. On this particular trip, he took the route his GPS unit, which may not be the same unit he used on his last trip due to him being a gadget king, and that path didn't have the chain link up. Normally, fire road, hiking and horse trail, and emergency route have a chain link up to prevent them from being used as normal route.
I can't figure out what James couldn't figure out that path was not meant to be traveled on since it wouldn't be plowed or has any fresh tire tracks. Around here, we have Shenandoah National Park with one main road called Skyline Drive, which is closed if it snow. However, there are paths and trails reachable by 4x4 and horses and they are meant for emergency personnel or skill hikers/campers. A GPS will tell people to take those paths even though such paths shouldn't be listed as normal roads. My first time up there I couldn't find the turn my GPS tells me so I pull over and tracked on foot right near the exit should be. I found a path hidden behind the bushes with a chain link over it. I came back to the same are in fall and winter and that path is visible because the leaves are all gone. I can see how an inexperience young person can take such path if they think their vehicle can take it. James drove a Saab, aka Euro Pontiac in my opinion, and couldn't make it very far.
I guess you are correct that he didn't have common sense because he should track back to main road instead of going off into the woods and play redneck when it's not in his blood. I always thought he knew his stuffs from reading his CNet articles and he had a huge following even from the earlier day of Tech TV. He owns a little groceries story too so you would think this guy is no dummy. I guess he got caught up with the Kalicrapnia image and drive a Saab instead of a good Toyota 4Runner or Land Cruiser if he likes to take winter vacations that require driving through the wilderness.
I do like your point about riff-raf. We have a lot of them here and they are from the New England, New York, and northern area. They tend to be the one in the ditch first every winter.
