When I got my first car in 1990, I bought the current Rand McNally Road Atlas. The promotional literature in its opening pages told me that there had been ca. 15,000 changes since the 1989 edition and that this was roughly how many changes there were annually. I've bought one every year since, just in case. Later I discovered DeLorme Atlas & Gazeteers and a whole nother level of addiction was revealed to me.
The attrition of my road maps can mostly be attributed to donation and theft. The one above guided 02McDonald and myself during Hell-Ride '01. It was largely destroyed by rainwater entering the cab while driving through an Indiana thunderstorm.
Curiously, except for that little white one I'd never owned a world atlas until I started working at the Missoula Public Library. Now I have so many that I can afford to be picky. These were either donated and not added to the collection (after which I bought them), or weeded to make way for newer editions. 
Apparently I got the little white atlas sometime in late September 1981, if my 2nd-grade scrawl can be trusted.I say 37 atlases constitutes an atlas collection, but Mitch denies he collects atlases. Hmmm.
It'd be a good bet that Ludwig will never have a GPS in him.
3 comments:
For most of this decade I was on the new atlas per year kick, but last weekend I finally got around to replacing my 2006 atlases with 2009s. I think it's because I didn't do as much driving the last two years as I had in previously. Even still, the '06 in my car was beat pretty badly.
You're lucky you weren't led astray by a missed change.
I forgot to post a picture of what is either a Trekkie's joke or a copyright trap on a National Geographic/Mapquest road atlas I have: near the small town of Riverside Iowa is a marker that says "Future Birthplace of Capt. James T. Kirk".
Alright,
Mitch.
There is an actual marker there and a replica starship named the USS Riverside. You can see it in Google Earth.
I'm glad you brought it up. I'm actually in Muscatine, IA this weekend - might have to drive thru there on the way home on Sunday and snap a pic or two!
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