Water is made holy when it is blessed by a priest. After it is blessed, it becomes “Holy Water”.
Water and the Bible
Water has been important throughout Bible times. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, speaks of water in the very second verse, “and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters. ” Again, water is discussed in the second book of the Bible, the Book of Exodus, this time the Lord turns the very water of the river Nile and all the water in every bucket and pail in all the land of Egypt into blood when Pharoah refuses to release the Israelite’s from slavery. These are only two of many, many references. Over and over, water is important to our faith story.
Essentially, Holy Water is water that has been blessed by a priest for the purpose of making it holy. The water that becomes Holy Water can be from any source of (perferrably clean) water. Our particular Church has purchased gallon jugs of a local spring water just before the priest is going to bless water at the Easter Vigil or before a baptism. Click this link if you would like to read the actual words said by a priest during a baptism and the blessing of the water for baptism
How Do You Make Holy Water?
Once the water has been blessed it becomes Holy Water and is therefore also considered a sacramental. The definition of a sacramental can be found here. Catholic Churches will have a font of Holy Water near entrances that is used by the baptized to bless themselves as they enter the Church. As we enter our particular Church, there is a small metal bowl affixed to the wall that contains Holy Water. We dip the first two fingers of our right hand gently into the surface of the Holy Water, then make the sign of the cross on our body. By doing this, we are reminded of our own baptism into the family of Christ, as well as placing ourselves under the care of God.
What Does Holy Water Do?
By themselves, a sacramental such as Holy Water has no actual power to help us on the way to Heaven, but it does have the power to excite in those that use it rightly, a fear and love of the Lord, hatred of sin, and aligns our hearts toward God.
A home holy water font
This guide is one ouf our exclusive Guides. Check out our other exclusive Guides found only here on LincOn.com
How Can I Lose a Pound a Day?
How can I lose a pound of surplus weight in a day? That is an interesting question that needs to be broken down a little further. Everyone wishing to lose weight or begin an exercise program should first have their health checked by their physician.
Burning Calories
It is important to note that the current health and fitness of an individual will determine the amount of calories used throughout the day and during exercise. An individual with excess weight uses more energy doing the same motion as a lighter and more fit individual.
Did you know that a pound of fat equals 3500 calories? You have to consume 3500 extra calories above and beyond the approximately 2000 calories the average adult uses per day in order to add a pound of fat to your body. A few weeks of consuming more calories than your body needs, and pretty quickly you will begin to feel the pounds adding to your body. Your metabolic rate is the rate at which your body uses calories doing all those involuntary actions your body does naturally. So that means all the calories necessary for pumping your heart, restoring cells, inhaling and exhaling. In order to lose weight, you have to move and bring in fewer calories than your body uses daily (your metabolism).
Lose a Pound a Day
Remember that you must eat, even when you are losing weight. Starving yourself of caloric intake can be harmful and cause health problems.
In order to lose a pound in a day, you will need to find the right combination of diet and exercise. Below are weight loss recommendations that might help you lose a pound a day.
1. Curb Your Desire for Food
Ask your physician if she recommends using a hunger suppressant. One such suppressant is called Leanbean.
Cut simple carbs (white bread, pastas, baked goods, sugar-added beverages etc) from your diet.
4. Eat smaller and more frequent meals.
Consuming protein along with vegetables and fruit regularly during the day will help to make you feel full and decrease your appetite for those fat loving simple carbs.
Strenuous work can aid in burning calories
5. Exercise.
Losing a pound a day is going to mean doing strenuous physical work. You will need to do a substantial exercise, such as cross-country running or arduous manual labor, such as digging fence post holes or shoveling snow. This kind of demanding physical exertion will use additional calories.
6. Check your stress level.
Excess stress can contribute to weight gain. Some helpful activities that will help reduce your stress would include meditation, walking outdoors, yoga and deep breathing. If you have extra stressors in your life, try talking to a mental health professional. There are many underlying mental health factors that contribute to consuming too many calories.
7. Eat several servings of fish every week.
Fish contains healthy omega-3 fatty acids that help improve your body’s fat-burning ability.
Conclusion
We wish you the very best as you strive to become more fit and healthy. Be sure you speak with your physician before undertaking any weight loss or new diet & exercise regiment.
How long is a football field
How long is a football field? It’s 300 yards but what is you want to know how long is a football field is in feet? Miles? Look below to find out how long it is in different units including thou, cubits, leagues and other fun archaic ancient measurements.
How long is a football field?
How long is a football field in chain?
A football field is 13.636 chain long. A chain is a measurement used in surveying. It is 22 yards long.
How long is a football field in cubits?
A football field is 76.595 to 205.949 cubits long. It varies because the ancient cubit is 17.48″ to 47″ and there are 3600″ in a football field.
How long is a football field in fathoms?
A football field is 50 fathoms. It’s usually used to measure depth and is 6′ or 2 yards in length.
How long is a football field in feet?
A football field is 300 feet in length. There are 3 feet in yard.
How long is a football field in inches?
A football field is 3600 inches long.
How long is a football field in furlongs?
A football field is 0.454 furlongs longs. A furlong is 220 yards long and 1/8 of a mile.
How long is a football field in kilometers?
A football field is 0.091 kilometers long.
How long is a football field in leagues?
A football field is 0.056 leagues long. The NFL has leagues 32 leagues but a league is an ancient length that 1760 yards long.
How long is a football field in line?
A football field is 43,200 line long. A line is 1/12 of an inch.
How long is a football field in meters?
A football field is 91.44 meters long.
How long is a football field in miles?
A football field is 0.056 miles long.
How long is a football field in nautical miles?
A football field is 0.49 Nautical Miles long.
How long is a football field in rods?
A football field is 18.182 rods long. A rod is 16 1/2 surveyors feet long.
How long is a football field in thou?
A football field is 3,600,000 thou long. A thou is 1/1000 of an inch in case you were wondering.
Conclusion
You can basically take any unit of measure and determine the length of a football field as you can see. If there is a unit that we’ve left off this list, be sure to email us!
Snow is typically associated with colder weather but just how cold does it have to be to snow? You might be thinking that it has to be below freezing (32°F/0°C) but that’s incorrect. It actually can be well above freezing. Snow has been recorded at 52° on 10/27/2015 in Minneapolis/St Paul and at 49° at JFK Airport in New York City. The theoretical limit is 52°/11°C but it takes a lot of different circumstances to line up. Generally though, the temperature at the surface needs to be below 41°F/5°C for it to snow.
How can snow form above freezing?
Snow can fall even with temperatures above freezing
You’re probably asking yourself, how can snow form above freezing? Doesn’t ice form at 32°F or 0°C? It does but remember that snow is a tiny ice crystal formed way up in the atmosphere. While the temperature near the ground may say one thing, it’s a different reading the higher up you go. If the temperature in the clouds above you, the snow crystals can form and still fall through the air producing a snowfall when the temperature near the ground is above freezing.
Also, the air contains different amounts of moisture in different places. If a place is dry enough and you introduce moisture to it, that moisture will start to evaporate. That evaporation produces a cooling effect on the surface below it. That’s why we sweat – so when the moisture evaporates we feel cooler! Have you ever noticed frost on a windshield but nowhere else? The moisture evaporated off the surface and cooled it enough until it was below freezing and it froze. Eventually it becomes too warm to sustain ice crystals and melts but that ice formed while the air temperature was above freezing!
Combine those two factors and we have a large portion of the puzzle as to why snow can form at temperatures above freezing. In order to understand that, let’s look at how snow forms for a clue as to how cold does it have to be to snow.
How does snow form?
When moisture is introduced into the atmosphere and the temperature is below freezing, it starts to crystallize. These crystals start combining and then fall to the ground as snowflakes. These flakes in turn fall to the ground as snowfall.
A close look at snowflake crystals
What happens if the temperature is above freezing? That moisture stays as a liquid but it is subject to the conditions around it. If the air is dry, some of that moisture is going to evaporate until the air is equally moist. That evaporation will cause the surface of the water droplet to cool. If it cools to below freezing, it too will freeze and form a snowflake. Get enough of them and they will fall producing snowfall at temperatures above freezing.
Can you predict snow above freezing?
Sure you can! There’s a lot of math that goes into it, including fancy calculations that can factor in the air temperature and the amount of moisture in the air and tell you if snow can form or not. However, there’s a nice calculator that will do this for you:
The Snow Probability Calculator can calculate the chance of it snowing at a given temperature and humidity level.
Another way is to pay close attention to whats called the Wet Bulb temperature. You can do this with a sling psychrometer. It basically has two thermometers – one for the air temperature and the other has a fabric around it to measure the temperature if the air was saturated with moisture. As long as the wet bulb temperature is below freezing, it can snow as long it’s also below freezing in the clouds above you.
Concluding thoughts
So, how cold does it have to be to snow? As we’ve learned, there’s a lot of different factors that come into play but generally it has to be cooler than 41°F/5°C to snow but under some special circumstances it can snow up to 52°F/11°C.
Are you a railfan? If you’re railfan and looking for ways to enjoy watching trains in your local area and in areas in other parts of the country and world, this comprehensive list should help. Enjoy this guide to virtual resources to watch trains from the comfort of your home!
Raifan’s can watch trains virtually through live streams
United States Railfan Streams
Here are are some virtual railfan resources in the United States:
California
Tehachapi Live Train Cams at West Cable MP 357-358
Florida
New River Live Feed
Iowa
Ft. Madison, Iowa USA | Virtual Railfan LIVE
Illinois
Illinois Railway Museum Tower Webcam Live Stream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTyuKf2kkB0
Miller Station Live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aJ11Iy5yVw
Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas USA Train Cam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-kAmTtJ9Io
Kentucky
Hopkinsville Elevator / Solutions Technology Group
Guitar is one of the most popular instruments in the world. The combination of portability, ease of upkeep, monetary investment and gentle learning curve make guitar an instrument of choice for a lot of beginners. However, it is no fun to buy an instrument and not be able to play anything interesting anytime soon. So the real question is: how long does it take to learn guitar?
Guitar Learning Goal
The first thing you need to do to figure out how long it will take you to learn guitar is set a goal for yourself. If you want to play guitar, you have to define what is an achievable milestone that will make you feel like a good, old-fashioned guitar player.
Playing the Guitar
You aren’t going to be an Eric Clapton anytime soon and you probably won’t be playing Wonderwall at your friend’s next house party. Setting a realistic goal will give you a reason to learn guitar, and to keep learning to reach that goal.
If you want a goal that you can reach within a few months, set out to memorize the ten most used guitar chords. If this is what makes a guitar player, you can become a guitar player six weeks after you walk out of that music shop with your first Fender acoustic guitar.
If you are more willing to extend the time period to six to eight months, set out to play a popular, but easy to learn song. “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan, or “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran are a couple of easy to learn guitar songs with minimal chords. Any one of those could be mastered by a properly motivated beginner in only a couple months. Nothing says “I play guitar” like singing sweet Bob Marley ballads on a stone bench at your local park.
Basic Guitar Lessons
If you really are serious about learning guitar and want to keep the time period down to a reasonable amount, consider lessons. Lessons keep you motivated, give you an experienced teacher and help you develop a routine that will improve your skills an exponential amount.
Guitar lessons will help you learn the guitar
There are a multitude of online courses available for guitar lessons, but I highly recommend booking a teacher in your city. Simply googling “guitar lessons near me” will bring up tons of results of nearby teachers.
As far as timelines go with basic guitar lessons, you will definitely improve a lot quicker if you attend 3-4 lessons a week and practice everyday in between. If you want to know how long it takes to learn to play guitar with lessons, the answer is the same as every other method: it depends.
Like any new skill, the amount you improve will directly be affected by the time you put in. If you only pick up your guitar once a week, it will take you a year to learn a basic song. If you fit seven playing sessions into every week, you will be reaching new milestones every few weeks.
Online Guitar Lessons
I’ve found that online courses are much harder to keep yourself motivated for. A lot of their main, beneficial selling points are also their drawbacks. The fact that they are so cheap means you are more willing to blow them off and lose the five dollars you paid for the online video. It is much harder to justify skipping a 35-dollar in person lesson.
Online Guitar Lessons can help learning the guitar
Also, it is much harder to learn a physical instrument without a teacher to help you in a live setting. Video calls as lessons would help bridge this gap, but it still doesn’t replace a teacher being able to help you tune your guitar or properly show you where to place your fingers on certain chords.
However, if you are properly motivated, online lessons can help you learn to play guitar, although I would expect the timetable to increase by a few months at least. The lessons are bound to be less personalized (unless you are really shelling out the dough) and you will have to build your own lesson progression, which might not be as smooth as a teacher planning it all out for you.
As far as how long it takes to learn guitar using this method, If you are planning on using youtube and google to learn guitar, I’d give yourself around nine to ten months before you are fully comfortable with a range of chords and figuring out how to play multiple popular songs.
Guitar Learning Pathway
0-2 Weeks: Learn all of the basic parts of the guitar and the string names. This is also the step where you need to focus on building a solid foundation of music theory. If you don’t know the terms chords, progression or scales, you need to go back and get that knowledge. It will make every step from here on out easier.
2-4 Weeks: Learn how to read chord diagrams and memorize some of the major chords. If you google how to play a song they are going to tell you two things: the chords and chord progression. If you understand what they are saying and can play those chords, you are already well on your way to becoming a guitar player.
4-8 Weeks: Learn basic riffs and continue to work on chords. The riffs will help you familiarize your fingers with the movements necessary to learn more advanced songs. Chords are going to be more difficult because you have to put multiple fingers on multiple strings, but riffs will give you the practice of moving your fingers quickly. They will also help etch the names of all the strings and notes into your head.
8-12 Weeks: Learn some songs. Congratulations. You have now reached the point that you are a certified amateur guitar player. Open up that case, find a street corner and start raking in the dough.
Hopefully you found this Guide helpful. Do you have any suggestions for Guides you’d like to see? email Dave at dbroer@lincon.com
How To Get Slime Out Of Hair
By Gage Hanson
Slime in hair can be a sticky situation!
Slime has officially swept the nation. There’s countless youtube videos on how to make slime. Every toy store is selling buckets of slime. Kids everywhere are making it. It is made from a simple concoction of Borax, baking soda, food coloring and glue. However, this simple recipe makes for a very sticky product. With kids that like to make messes everywhere, some slime may end up in their hair and leave their parents wondering how to get it out. Well, this short guide will help you figure out how to get slime out of hair.
Remove Slime With Conditioner
The simplest method is to remove slime with conditioner. You can find conditioner in most households, and you don’t need any special, high-end salon conditioner. Any old conditioner should help remedy the situation.
Conditioner can help get slime out of hair
First, soak the hair in hot water. Then, apply the conditioner and make sure to apply the conditioner from the scalp to the ends of the hair. If you want to get rid of the slime, you need to make sure that the entire head is covered so the conditioner can help remove the slime from the hair.
This method is effective because the conditioner will naturally break down the elements of slime. After the slime is broken down, it will wash away easily. Some slimes might not be as easy to get out though.
Take Slime Out Of Hair With Food
Mayo and peanut butter are two key ingredients for sandwiches (hopefully separate sandwiches), but they are also useful tools when looking to take slime out of hair.
Mayonnaise
If you find slime stuck in a kid’s hair and the conditioner doesn’t cut it, grab a jar of mayonnaise and rub it in as if it was a bottle of shampoo. Using a brush or comb is a good idea too. This will help even out the mayonnaise and catch more clumps of slime.
Wash out the brush or comb as it collects the slime and mayo. Keep brushing the mayo into the hair with a comb and soon enough, the slime will start to break down into small enough pieces that can be easily washed out.
Peanut butter works in a similar way to get slime out of hair, but is tougher to wash out and should only be used when the slime is extra sticky.
Peanut Butter
The oils in peanut butter will act similar to the conditioner and break down any tough slime. Make sure to rub it into the strands of hair super well. Once your hair is evenly coated and on the verge of being ready for a layer of jelly, it is time to wash the peanut butter out with running water. The shower or sink will work great. Then, viola, your hair is slime free and you have a mostly full jar of peanut butter for snacking on.
Get Rid of Slime With Vinegar
If you’ve had to read this far on how to get slime out of your hair, you have some particularly hard to work with slime. Whether there was too much glue in the slime recipe, or your hair is extra thick, the slime just won’t break down and come out. Thankfully, we have vinegar. While you can get rid of slime with vinegar, it is a little bit trickier of a process.
Vinegar
To start off, you want to pull out the larger chunks of slime with your hand or a comb. These large chunks will keep the vinegar from properly applying across the entire head of hair. After the large chunks of slime are gone, you will want to apply the vinegar.
Apple cider vinegar and distilled white vinegar are both good options, but you will want to make sure to distill the vinegar in a two to one ratio with water. That means for every cup of vinegar, mix in a cup of water. Vinegar can be rough on your scalp and hair, so you want to make sure it is diluted so as to not damage your skin.
Put some goggles on—vinegar in the eye will sting, a lot—and start to apply the vinegar mixture. Rub it into the hair thoroughly and wash it out with warm running water. Your hair might give off a faint salt and vinegar chips smell, but now the slime will be gone.
Tips And Tricks For Slime Stuck In Hair
While these are the three main, and effective, methods for removing slime from hair. There are a few other tips and tricks for slime stuck in hair.
Wash your hair immediately after slime gets stuck in it. Dry slime is much harder to remove than wet slime. If you notice slime in you or your kids hair, grab that jar of mayonnaise and start spreading.
For children with sensitive hair, dilute your vinegar solution even more than the 2:1 ration. The acidic nature of vinegar is what makes it great for getting slime out of hair, but it can be damaging to someone with an extra sensitive scalp or fine hair. Diluting the solution more, and wearing goggles are even more important recommendations for children.
The slime might leave behind food coloring in lighter colored hair. Either wash the hair a few times with shampoo, or use a dab of rubbing alcohol on a paper towel. Rub the hair gently from top to bottom to remove the color. In extreme cases, you can use a color stripping shampoo to get the food dye out.
Hopefully these methods solve your problem and help you figure out how to get slime out of hair. It may vary on a case to case basis as to which solution works best for you and your kids, but these are the main products and strategies to use. Good luck, and have fun sliming.
This is part of our Guides series. If you have any suggestions, please email Dave at dbroer@lincon.com.
How To Stop Eating Sugar
By Gage Hanson
How To Stop Eating Sugar
Sugar is everywhere in our modern diets. Soda is filled with it. Sugar coated desserts are offered every dinner. Candy is a common snack. Even Carbohydrates (breads), are sugar in disguise. And unfortunately, sugar is not that healthy for us. Sugar leads to obesity, diabetes and heart disease as well as a rollercoaster of glucose levels that our bodies aren’t naturally prepared to handle. However, as anybody who has tried a no sugar diet can tell you, sugar addiction is a real thing.
Not too long ago in human history, we could only eat sugar when fruit was in season. Sugar wasn’t found in ancient diets. So how do we get back to these low sugar diets? How to stop eating sugar?
How To Stop Eating Sugar – Sugar Alternatives (Click to enlarge)
Sugar Alternatives
First off, you have to figure out what food has sugar in your diet and how you can substitute those items. The obvious is to cut out soda, candy and baked goods. Those are easy enough to find alternatives to. Water, vegetables and low-sugar desserts are alternatives that can be quick, easy and cheap. If prepared right, they can taste as good, if not better than their less-healthy counterparts.
The less obvious sugary foods, bread, condiments, soup, granola bars, etc. are harder to find alternatives for. To substitute noodles, people often eat spaghetti squash. In place of buns you can use lettuce. You can find natural protein bars with minimal sugar.
At the end of the day, it is really about how much you pay attention to the contents of what you are eating and how you can replace that. Get in a habit of keeping track of the amount of sugar you are eating and you will see how quickly it adds up. I personally like to use MyFitnessPal to track what I’m eating. It is good for seeing an overall breakdown of what you’ve eaten, including the amount of sugar, and setting goals for what you want to eat. A simple pen and paper would work just as well though. You can find the amount of sugar in anything on the nutritional guide on the packaging.
After that, it is only a matter of dropping the food items that top your list and replacing the rest with sugar alternatives. You can be as creative as you want. A lot of people on the keto diet craft some delicious foods void of all sugar. Or, you can go on a carnivore diet and stick strictly to steak for every meal. There’s so many no sugar diets out there that give you just as many options as you have with sugar.
Diet Motivation
The most difficult part of a low sugar diet is keeping it going. Like I mentioned earlier, sugar addiction is very real. A day or two off of sugar is no big deal, but imagine seeing a freshly baked blueberry muffin after not having an ounce of sugar for two weeks? It would be tough to resist. That’s why you have to have something to keep you accountable.
One of the most popular, and probably most effective, techniques at following through with your diet is going on it with someone else. If you have a best friend or significant other on the no sugar diet with you, then you have someone to keep you motivated in return for keeping them motivated.
Another popular technique is to give yourself a reward of some sort. Whether it is putting five dollars in a jar every day you stay away from sugar and then using that money for fun after a year, or using the money you will undoubtedly save after cutting out expensive, unhealthy food from your diet to buy yourself that pair of shoes or jacket you’ve had your eyes on.
A good technique that I’ve always used in fitness and dieting goals is to set realistic, short term goals. Instead of aiming for no sugar for six months, I aim for two weeks. Instead of losing thirty pounds, I aim for ten. Achieving these smaller goals week after week is a lot easier than chasing a huge goal that takes months, if not years, to reach. You will get discouraged. You will think you haven’t accomplished anything. The high of reaching these smaller goals again and again will keep you motivated.
How To Stop Eating Sugar – Motivation
Keep Going
Now, you are successfully on your no sugar diet. Whether to lose weight, fight illness, or simply to eat more natural, you are on the path. It is only a matter of continuing to fight the influences of society.
You will continually be bombarded with chances to fail. Every commercial break will bring and advertisement about the newest sugar-filled food. You will be invited out to eat at restaurants where most of the options are filled with sugar, grease and carbs. The grocery store will look like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
It is only a matter of you building up your mental and physical fortitude. You have to continually tell yourself that you are strong enough to keep going and remind yourself why you’ve started this journey. Whether through some mantra or a daily notification on your phone, you have to keep yourself focused. It will only get easier as time goes on.
And if you cave, don’t think it is the end of the world. And definitely don’t think you have to start all the way back at day one. You just made one mistake. Get back up and keep going. One meal with sugar won’t ruin all the progress you made. If you slip back into eating sugar daily, you will ruin all the progress you made.
Figuring out how to stop eating sugar is easy. Following through with the plan is the hard part. With the plan I’ve given you, plus your own personal strategies, you will be able to cut sugar out of your diet and get healthier than you’ve ever been. Without sugar, you’ll be healthier than most of America.
Covid-19 Official Information Sources
The following are links to resources for covid-19 official information sources. These resources are from all 50 states’ official sources of information for the Covid-19 virus. Your main place for information about the covid-19 corona virus should be the CDC’sCoronavirus (COVID-19)site.
John’s Hopkin’s is maintaining a realtime map and update of the current covid-19 cases, deaths and recoveries.
How to read a paper map
Paper maps can be a very useful tool
Are Paper maps still a thing? Yes! Imagine a tool that you could hold in the palm of your hand and at a glance see the world around you. Imagine being able to look at detail in all directions and find interesting places to visit. Paper maps can do all of this and more! That is why this guide on how to read a paper road map exists!
Paper maps may seem archaic but they contain so much more information. They can be useful for navigation, finding places or looking at the big picture. The problem is that not everyone knows how to read a paper road map. That’s what this guide is for – to teach you how to find & use a paper map.
Where to find paper road maps
Welcome or Tourist Information Centers can be sources for free maps.
Years ago you could pick up paper road maps at any gas station. The companies that operated the gas stations wanted to encourage road travel so they had all kinds of maps. Sadly, that’s not the case any more. So where can find paper road maps in the 21st century? Just about anywhere.
While you could buy maps on a bookstore or travel store, a better approach is to go to places that have maps of the area. You can start with a tourist information center. This can be a local office or a dedicated center along an interstate or major road way. If you don’t see maps readily, you might have to ask.
Most states will have tourist information centers when you enter them or at least the nearest town will have one. They might have different types of official maps like bicycle route maps or even scenic routes. These places are a great place to pick up a free resource. It’s interesting to note that free maps will gain value over time. Save those official maps!
AAA is another great resource and you can pick up maps before you even leave on your trip. They have state maps as well as regional maps which can be great for planning your trip.
Opening the map up
Most paper road maps come folded to reduce their size. This allows a great deal of information to contained on a very large piece of paper. The first time you use a map, you might want to find a table. That way you can open that map up and orient yourself to it.
Once unfolded and laying flat, look at each side of the map. Most maps have a side that contains the subject matter of the maps title on one side and detailed maps on the other. Start by looking at the larger scale (more on map scales later). Look at roads, streets, highways and the different features. Follow these until you slowly start to figure out where you are on the map.
The Legend
Generic Map Legend
Once you know where you are on the map, look around the map until you find what is called the legend. The legend will tell you a lot of different things about the map. The legend will tell you what each road type is – whether it is an Interstate or limited access highway/freeway, a boulevard, street or road. Some maps might even tell you if a road is paved or not. It will tell you how to distinguish different parks. It will tell you what schools and churches are.
Map Scales
One of the more important things that a legend will have is the maps scale. The scale will tell you how far about things are on the map. For example, without knowing the scale, is 1″ on the map a mile or 20 miles? It’s important to know the scale of the map.
Map scales can usually be found near the legend.
The larger the map scale, the less detail the map will have. A large scale map like 1″=20 miles means they can only fit the detail that they can in that 1″ so not everything within those 20 miles will make the map. A larger scale can also be represented by other numbers such as 1:24,000 or 1:100,000. Just know that the larger the number, the less detail the map will have.
Large Scale = Less Detail Small Scale = More Detail
Planning a Route
Now that we know where we are and what different features are on the map, we can plan a route to where we want to go. Start by finding your destination or the first place that you want to stop.
Once you’ve located where you are going, look for major roads near you that head in the direction where your first stop is. Interstates or limited access freeways are your best bet because they don’t have traffic lights. Traffic lights can add 1-3 minutes every cycle so it’s best to avoid them. Try and find a combination or single road that can take you to your stop.
Once you’ve found a system of roads, orient the map so you know how to start on your route. Once we have that we can get started.
Using the map enroute
Folding the map
Before we start going to our destination, you should fold the map to allow you to quickly look at it if you need to make adjustments. The easiest way to do that is to find a center point between your starting point and destination and then fold in all the foldable sections that are outside of this zone. Start with the narrow sections on the left and right and then fold down the larger sections on the top and bottom. If this section is still too large, fold the map in half so you can flip it over when you are half way. You might also find that even that is too big if you’re on a very long try so just fold it so it is a reasonable size and unfold it as you make stops.
Using a map can be a great tool along with a GPS and Waze
Along the way you can pick up the folded map and see where you are relative to your destination and places you might see along the way. Let’s say you’re travelling down an interstate and you need a rest area. You could wait for a blue “Rest Area” sign to show up but you can also look at your map and see when the next one will be. You can also see where larger towns are along your route if you’re looking for food or lodging.
Driving tips with the map
In an urban area, it might be best to either have a passenger help guide you or supplement the directions you obtained earlier by using a GPS or other wayfinding tool. The map will still give you the larger picture and you can always reference it at traffic lights but at least you’ll have it to keep the GPS honest and on a safe route.
The map can tell you all kinds of information like how far it is to the next larger town or how much further you have until you’re outside of the city. It can tell you what exit you need if you want to stop at one of these places and it can tell you where you can find places of interest along the way.
Using GPS or Waze with your paper map
Waze, along with a paper map is strong combination.
You might think that you have to use either a paper map or an electronic map for your navigation but that’s not the case. Using both gives you information like exactly how far it is to your destination or the best route to take to avoid traffic. Waze is the best app for that but it’s also good to have a paper map because sometimes those tools will take you a certain way just because a calculation shows it as being 1 minute faster than another. The problem is, it doesn’t take traffic lights or the fact that you might get stuck behind a slow truck into consideration. A GPS can’t tell you how long it is until the next rest area while a paper map can.
While you can pull up some information but it’s also a lot easier to lift up a map and find a place to stop before your destination. You can also use the map to check to see if the route you’re on makes sense. Why drive 30 miles out of your way just the interstate has a higher speed limit when you could take a straight road to your destination at a lower speed? Having a paper map can save you that time and money and provide you with more information along the way.
Conclusion
Hopefully this guide has helped you learn how to read a paper map. The combination of modern tools does not make using a paper map obsolete. Rather it makes using one a strong tool for getting safely and comfortably from point A to point B.
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