Huffman Coding

… with a bunch of Family Stuff too

Boxes and Arrows

I won this Italian cycling vacation in a Livestrong raffle and it is due to the generosity of many people, most especially the tour operator, Cicloposse, which is owned by a husband and wife in Pienza.  She does all the correspondence; I think I have about thirty emails in my gmail account helping me figure out which trains and make other arrangement.  She’s been very pleasant to work with and extremely helpful.

He does the cue sheets, which give bicyclists the directions on where to go along the route.  For the interesting days, I have an elevation graph so I know when I’m suppose to panic.  (I’m breaking no land speed records over here.)  But for every day, I have a full page color map with the route highlighted.  There are a dozen or so numbers superimposed on the route that correspond to the times I have to turn.

The separate “cue” sheet, I have diagrams for each of those numbered locations.  They are hand drawn representations of the intersections with landmarks and arrows indicating which way to turn.  Next to each diagram is description of the intersection and what to do.  Here is an example of just one of the paragraphs:

Continue along the Cassia. After the road sign marked Buonconvento and behind the train tracks, you come to a large intersection with a gas station: stay on right on the Cassia road.

At the third intersection, after passing a building marked “consorzio Agrario” on your right, turn right into road SS451, towards Chiusure, Asciano and the yellow road sign marked Monte Oliveto Maggiore see picture 4.

And that is just the details for a single turn.  Only an idiot could miss a turn with that much information at his disposal.

But I can explain… I was pre-occupied with the beautiful scenery.

Comments are currently closed.