General Map ?’s

I, too, live for Andrew Maher's "Map Breaks. "

What I especially enjoy is the transition from imagining the landscape to realizing it, the difference between what I saw in my mind from what I saw with my eyes, and felt with my body.

What kind of people are we that love these maps so? My wife doesn't love them, for instance. Is it a right brain/left brain thing? Are we the analyst types?

Any left-handed map lovers out there?

>Any left-handed map lovers out there?

Yup.

Roman, nice to see you back on the forums again! I hope you have been on wonderful adventures. I may be working in Denali this summer, so I may have more map and other questions for you than you'd even care to answer.

But back on topic… my roommate and I were just having this conversation the other day. He, like you and me, loves maps. Covets maps. Pours over maps. He is also a right-brainer, chemistry and math major. Although I'm not what one might think of as stereotypically right brained (English and music composition major), I do have an analytical bent. Still, it's hard to say.

Like you alluded to, the best part is looking at a map to dream, then being there and comparing, and then, perhaps best of all, looking at a map to remember. You can take a huge state map and say, "I was there, and there, and that's so-and-so lake," and everything that's abstractly represented on the map ties to a memory in your mind and body. It's a wonderful sensation!

Yep left handed too.

I remember reading a joke:
Q) How do you torture an engineer?
A) Tie him up then make him watch you fold a map the wrong way.

This is very true.

Miles,

Yes, back from a month long tropical ecology course I teach every couple years. We went to Borneo. Found and climbed some very tall trees there — redwood sized tropical hardwoods, too, with my Australian tree climbing friends.

Also doing an 88 hour WFR course over a ten day period on top of full time job with new responsibilities. Have to limit my recreational forum time, I am afraid.

But I am a compulsive analyst, cartophile.