The Map

I may have gotten a little carried away. This is just to the first checkpoint.

It's a crying shame that in this day and age I still can't count on magic access to google maps out in Hillbilly Holler or wherever the hell it is we're going. (No, I'm not buying an iPhone, shut up.) I guess this is what they mean by 'roughing it.' Oh well, if Kinko's was good enough for Lewis and Clark it's good enough for the Paddlephiles.

I wanted a good sized printed map showing all the highways following the river so I wouldn't get lost between checkpoints. Easy, zoom in on the starting point enough to where I can see everything I need to see clearly, then print screen, paste into photoshop, scroll over a bit and repeat.

When I finished, a week had passed and I had a photoshop image roughly twice the size of my front yard. Apparently Kinko's doesn't have printers that size. ("Sir, your document is larger than our store.") So I had to break it down into manageable bits. What you see above is a map from the start of the race to the first checkpoint. So, map 1 of 8.

I knew it was going to be pretty big but I didn't really expect it to be THAT big. It will be next to impossible to wrangle that thing around in the truck and at $0.75/sqft it cost me $21 to print. Needless to say I'll be scaling the rest of them down a bit.

Bonus Chatlog

Mike: Good Lord, you're trying to map the river, not build a half-scale diorama.

Mike: looks like Bletchley Park war room circa '43

Bryan: we could get scale model canoes and push them around on it with sticks

Mike: how many damage points for hitting a wing dike?

Bryan: well, it depends on your armor class

Bryan: are we talking chainmail or leather or what?

Mike: assuming my canoe is a class4 paladin

Bryan: that has nothing to do with armor class you doof

Mike: kevlar

Mike: and i have nothing to do with d&d

Bryan: i don't think a kevlar canoe would float very well

Mike: Oh yeah, we demo'ed one. they go for around 3K

Bryan: Probably good to have in gator country

Mike: or brush creek