Something Interesting and 'Helpful'?

WOW, never heard of this. What a great idea if it really works. It's so hard to give directions because I never know any route numbers. I've always said this island needs a really good map but this is even better.

I believe they have offices here on STX/ I've seen ad's for jobs for them here.

o.k., since Teresa started this post for "Something Interesting and Helpful", I've found something extremely interesting and really fun. A friend of mine has one. It's the Skyscout and it's really cool! And, yes, pretty pricey. But......I have some American Express gift cards that are going to expire and well........I'm thinking about blowing the whole "nut" on this device.

http://www.celestron.com/skyscout/new/index.php

Cool tech toy! Thanks for the post. The best thing on island was seeing all the stars at night. I never lived anywhere where I could see so many at night. I am such a city girl. I would get out my star charts, but inevitably had it upside down or sideways. I guess it helps to know which way is North. 🙂

Teresa

I guess the GPS feature is okay.

But why would you pay to listen to commercials. Or am I missing something??? Probably

The SkyScout is pricey, but it works well and I am learning the names of lots of stars.

Everyone that I have let use it has said wow also. Go for it.

Jim

Wow! That is pricey but it looks SO COOL!!! I want one! We have often said since being here that the stars are so much clearer than any place we have ever lived.. I would love to start getting an understanding of them.... I didn't see, but does it tell you constellations, too?

It give you a text and for most of the brighter stars a 30 - 50 second audio description including the constellation they are located in.

If you push the locate button and select constellations you can choose which constellation you want to see and it will guide you to it in the sky.

Jim

Interesting. Just yesterday my mom (who doesn't live here on STT) was wishing that she could have a GPS nav device on STT in case she ever wanted to dare driving.

My question about this device: is it useful for driving on STT? Last she looked, road map GPS units were not available for STT. I assumed it was because of the lack of anything resembling a complete and useful road map. How can they have a navigation GPS without a road map, and how can they have a road map when most streets are unnamed? I guess a GPS nav system could work by saying "turn left in 20 feet...".

Maybe it the could make a really accurate STT GPS nav device that gave directions like this:

"Take the next unmarked road to the right where the old cow is usually tied up to a bush"

"Go 0.1 mile and take a left at the second unmarked road where the old cemetery USED to be"

heehee.

I am telling you all. The pocket maps (we called them Esso maps because Esso gas stations made them or bought all the advertising) which cover STT, STJ, and STX have all the main roads and most back roads and they are free on island. We just drove around for hours based off of those maps and explored all kinds of places. My favorite being Peterborg Point. When you are driving, either you hit a dead end or you go in a circle, either way you will find a way back out. Most back roads are big enough for a one car so you just have to learn to know how far back to the last driveway in case you need to pull over to let someone pass. Just give yourself some time and you will get around just fine. I was so nervous at first, but once behind the wheel it was fine.

I had to drive up to Villa Fairview almost every day for a week and I felt like I was rubbing people's front doors to their homes on each side and going up and down some steep hills, but it was actually fun. Than I found out if you came from another direction it was quite easy with wide roads. No fun after that. 🙂 The best thing about driving on island is that most everyone will stop for you at an intersection to let you out even when they do not have a stop sign. Of course you might have to stop behind someone who is talking to a friend on the street, but then you will find yourself doing the same thing.

Just don't drive drunk and you will be fine.

Teresa

(here is a link to those maps to preview: http://www.virginislandsmap.com/stthomas/map.htm ) (there is also a map online that you can zoom in and even has shadows of individual buildings: http://usvimaps.com/stthomas/Map.asp )

Yes, that pocket map is very good for finding places on the main roads. If you're trying to find someone's house, though, it is of limited use.

From what I can tell of this product's website, it is programmed to help you find the "usual" places that are already easy to find on that pocket map, plus perhaps a few more things like grocery stores, etc. It looks like a fun gadget but I don't think it would be significantly more useful than the regular printed map.

A GPS map would only work if it was programmed to find locations by parcel number, since there are not traditional street names and street addresses here.

Jules,

That is all true. I have to say, we got pretty good after a year and could get somewhere by instructions only, but we explored as much as possible. Getting to someone's house is difficult at times, we usually met them by the main road and followed them to their house or drove them home.

I have to say, one of the maps shows a road from Frenchman Bay to Tutu by going over the hill. It would have been a major shortcut, but we never found it. It may not exist or someone's home blocks the entrance. It is a mystery we never solved, sigh. 🙂 We have looked at Google Earth and still saw the road, but not where it connected at the top of the hill. It may just be grown over. We lived in Frenchman Bay and sometimes driving to Tutu could take 30 minutes or more. That is a long drive when the roads are bumpy and lots of stopping and turning.

Teresa

do the gps systems in new cars these days work....with maps of the island (stx)?

based on what I have read, I am guessing not, but want to be sure.

Teresa,

I am chuckling at your post because I have been continually searching for that elusive mystery road for myself. I can see it on the map and I have asked dozens of people about it, but no luck.

I thought I had finally found it a few weeks ago while I was driving around with two very long time residents, a "bahn yah" and a "newbie" (26 year resident), who offered to show me the "short cut." I must not have made myself clear about what exact road I was looking for because their supposed "short cut" turned out to be the same old one that I already knew about.

My husband loves to hike, so maybe we will set out on foot to find this road one day. If I do ever find it I will let you know!!!!

🙂

I'm in that area & I sure don't know where it is. I'd love to know about that shortcut but I don't think it exists. Maybe it was planned & never happened?

I think it was a map-maker playing a cruel, cruel joke on us. He is probably reading this and laughing at us right now................................

I'm not familiar with the "road" in question, but I have seen non-existent roads in other cities' maps. Once, back in the States, I was searching my city's neighborhoods in preparation for buying my first house. There was a fabulously located lakeside neighborhood but I could never find the road or neighborhood. It just did not exist. I spent hours and hours in fruitless search.

Eventually I inquired and was told that mapmakers sometimes put something inaccurate in the map for a sort of copyright protection. In other words, if a business/publisher/etc tries to copy the map with subtle changes to pass it off as their own, they would unwittingly include the map maker's fake road, proving the copyright infringement.

I'm not sure that this explanation is true or if it could apply in the case of the STT mystery road.

That would make sense & might solve this mystery.

Hello all,

Well I think I have sort of solved part of the mystery? There are two roads that I can see on Google Earth that go to the top of the hills and don't seem to meet up on the other side which would be Flag Hill and the hill just NE of Bolongo. My husband has been to the top of Flag Hill many times for work. That 'road' has a locked gate that only businesses involved have keys too. It appears that at one time there was a road that split from that road and went South to Frenchman Bay area. I can even see it on the Google Earth page, but I have driven up there and it is overgrown with the bush and trees and I think I was actually trespassing. The other road doesn't connect at all to any road on the South side, but it does go all the way to nothing on top of the hill. At one time someone may have wanted to put a tower up there or something. It seems too steep of a hill to actually connect to the South side. I drove up there and couldn't even find a place that would allow a connecting road. I have a friend that used to live on top of the ridge in Frenchman Bay and we could stand and see Buck Island and turn around and see towards Tutu and the other side of the island. I thought if I could have lived there I wouldn't have moved back to the states (probably not true, but I can dream). It was never hot up there. I would be down the hill in my home sweating like a pig, sitting in front of a fan, trying to survive - then drive up there to that house and be cold with the wind blowing. Anyway, don't know why I told that story, but my point is that I think currently there is not a road, but we did find a cool shortcut from the North side to Shibui (spelling?) (which is Japanese style group of homes where a friend lived over looking the airport area) without having to go thru town or even down the hill. I am sure everyone knows that shortcut, but we thought we were cool. Involves going thru four corners. Okay, I got to lay off the caffeine.

My main point to all of this. Explore your island! Get out there and find hidden beaches, hidden shortcuts, etc. It was our favorite weekend thing to do when we had no money to go anywhere! Oh, there is a place that does have beautiful views of the ocean, but don't turn around because those views will make you sick. That would be Stalley. My husband worked out there too and I went to see the view. It was incredible. Turn around and you view the dump. let me just say that you can see the pile of tires from space. Oh yes and the mosquitoes were so thick that you could feel them bumping into you thru your jeans! No lie. Okay, I am stopping now.

Teresa

Sometimes plats are designed and permitted but then never actually built by developers. Sometimes these new plats get included in maps about to come out and they are not removed because the map makers never get told the developer went bankrupt or whatever. Other times roads are there and eventually close due to wash outs or a bridge collapsing, etc. and remain on a map. It may be that the missing road was a Hugo or Marilyn casualty as so many things were. There are quite a few neighborhood "roads" on STX that are now completely overgrown with tan tan but could be cleared again if the people who own the vacant lots the road was meant to access decide to build.