I don’t know if I ever mentioned that we bought a GPS unit back in North Carolina. Kat had been wanting one and we were in Wal-Mart very near her birthday when we found a unit she wanted. So we got it! The pity of it is, and I swear this is true, not 10 minutes after we bought it, Kat’s son Rick called and asked if she would like a GPS for her birthday. I’m thinking, “crap Rick, you could have called 15 minutes earlier and saved me $200”. Her was even going to buy the same unit at Wal-Mart and have us pick it up at the Wal-Mart in NC. Anyway we got the GPS. It’s a Tom-Tom for better or worse and Kat appears to be happy with it and play with it a lot. I don’t get to use it much, but I do get to follow the directions of my new “over the road” boss, Susie. That’s her computer generated voice, Susan actually. The are other voices, there’s even a Mr. T, and we understand other folks have more descriptive ‘pet’ names, some not so nice. The Wayward B#@&*, and the Navigator from Hell, among others, have come to my mind. Susie can be very accurate or she can be very inaccurate, or put a different way, she can be very, very good, or very, very bad. It’s a ‘garbage in, garbage out’ kind of a thing. One of the problems we encounter is that she doesn’t know we’re driving a land barge and pulling a dingy behind us. She just doesn’t have a real good conceptual knowledge of road width and clearances. And sometimes an address we use for a destination may not be the address we should use, like campground X may get it’s mail at address Y, and it’s hard for us to park at address Y, a PO Box. And sometimes addresses and coordinates are wrong or get entered wrong. Anyway it can be a challenge at times. I have found that a little common sense and skepticism go a long way. But it took some experience.
When we left Washington DC and headed for destinations north we had some specific problems that kind of highlight our learning curve. Our intent was to skirt Philadelphia and the major metro areas, spend a couple of nights in Pennsylvania and take a back door into New Jersey. Well! Susie avoided everything. We did see a couple of barns but I don’t know that they were in use, and I had to stop a couple of times to clean the broken branches off the TV antenna and air conditioner. Then I missed a turn! Believe me, you don’t want to miss a turn in these circumstances. It may be OK on the Interstate or somewhere they don’t actually have to pump sunshine into, but you don’t want to miss a turn in rural Pennsylvania. Susie will recalculate! And after a tough day of recalculating I think she becomes a little agitated and slightly vindictive. It’s like, “OK you stupid sucker, let’s see if you can follow this”. In this case we were headed down a road between two cow pastures and then the pavement ran out, and then the fence ran out, and then the cows ran out, and then the gravel disappeared down a gully and into the forest. And there is no place to turn around. I mean it’s disconnect the car and back the RV a half mile back up the road and turn around. Just before I start that process a pick-up pulls up behind us and a rural Pennsylvanian gets out and says “ya lost?” I said “ah heck no, we were just getting ready to spread a blanket get out the cheese and bread and have a glass of wine, care to join us”? Well actually that wasn’t the conversation at all, but the rest is mostly true. He asked if we were headed to Muddy Run campground, which we were, and then told us the road (for want of a better term) does go thru to the highway and it’s just a couple miles to the campground. Whew!!!!! But it was down through the forest and gully and pretty tight for the barge. What he didn’t tell us was that there was a tree down covering half the road (for lack of a better term). I was able to get out and pull it off the road some and then Kat held the branches out of the way while I drove thru. But we made it! And Susie proved to be right. But like I said she doesn’t know I’m not driving a Volkswagen Bug!
Muddy Run was! And all the RV sites available were hillbilly sites. That is; Hillbillies, like me, built with one leg longer than the other to be able to stay level walking down the ridgeline. Except here they were so far from level the jacks just couldn’t compensate enough. Even with ‘Boarding House’ rules we were bumping into each other frequently, not that that is such a bad thing when Kat is the bumpee, nevertheless I made certain I got the uphill side of the bed. But it wasn’t all bad, they had lots of critters for Jade to watch and a nice little café with great ice cream cones.
When we left Washington DC and headed for destinations north we had some specific problems that kind of highlight our learning curve. Our intent was to skirt Philadelphia and the major metro areas, spend a couple of nights in Pennsylvania and take a back door into New Jersey. Well! Susie avoided everything. We did see a couple of barns but I don’t know that they were in use, and I had to stop a couple of times to clean the broken branches off the TV antenna and air conditioner. Then I missed a turn! Believe me, you don’t want to miss a turn in these circumstances. It may be OK on the Interstate or somewhere they don’t actually have to pump sunshine into, but you don’t want to miss a turn in rural Pennsylvania. Susie will recalculate! And after a tough day of recalculating I think she becomes a little agitated and slightly vindictive. It’s like, “OK you stupid sucker, let’s see if you can follow this”. In this case we were headed down a road between two cow pastures and then the pavement ran out, and then the fence ran out, and then the cows ran out, and then the gravel disappeared down a gully and into the forest. And there is no place to turn around. I mean it’s disconnect the car and back the RV a half mile back up the road and turn around. Just before I start that process a pick-up pulls up behind us and a rural Pennsylvanian gets out and says “ya lost?” I said “ah heck no, we were just getting ready to spread a blanket get out the cheese and bread and have a glass of wine, care to join us”? Well actually that wasn’t the conversation at all, but the rest is mostly true. He asked if we were headed to Muddy Run campground, which we were, and then told us the road (for want of a better term) does go thru to the highway and it’s just a couple miles to the campground. Whew!!!!! But it was down through the forest and gully and pretty tight for the barge. What he didn’t tell us was that there was a tree down covering half the road (for lack of a better term). I was able to get out and pull it off the road some and then Kat held the branches out of the way while I drove thru. But we made it! And Susie proved to be right. But like I said she doesn’t know I’m not driving a Volkswagen Bug!
Muddy Run was! And all the RV sites available were hillbilly sites. That is; Hillbillies, like me, built with one leg longer than the other to be able to stay level walking down the ridgeline. Except here they were so far from level the jacks just couldn’t compensate enough. Even with ‘Boarding House’ rules we were bumping into each other frequently, not that that is such a bad thing when Kat is the bumpee, nevertheless I made certain I got the uphill side of the bed. But it wasn’t all bad, they had lots of critters for Jade to watch and a nice little café with great ice cream cones.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment