GPS???Feb 23, 2010
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| We navigated our way Monday to Little Rock, Arkansas. That's the short version. As Paul Harvey says: NOW, FOR THE REST OF THE STORY!!! Having left my cousins farm mid day we attempted to wander to Little Rock. First thing that happened was the GPS didn't know where we were. Unfortunately I didn't realize that until we were on a rather narrow Western Tennessee road. I am usually get verbal commands from the computer telling me where and when to turn. I call the voice my "little man in the box". I have a secondary program that gives me a "little lady in the box" too! Since it takes a lot of room to turn around a our 60 foot long train, I have to find enough room to do such. Although room is ample in Western Tennessee, it's mostly water soggy and not pavement. The stormy weather gave complete cloud cover and since one cotton field looks like the next I had no flipping idea of our intended southerly heading. The compass built in the motorhome said "west" while the GPS said "north" while my internal compass said "east" and Linda said "south"!! What a flipping zoo!! The 9 foot wide motorhome in a 10 foot wide lane meeting a big dually pickup truck created a level of angst that I hadn't felt even during cancer treatment!! You see there was not one inch of shoulder on the road. Just a mud slough!! I switched to the "little lady in the box" and she couldn't even find the roads!! So I deferred to the old but reliable method of having Linda read a map. Only trouble is that if you don't know where you are, and you are trying to describe to your co-pilot what to look for on the map while you are white knuckle driving and simultaneously praying you don't come across one of those 10' clearance bridges with a 12' 3" high rig, the tension factor hit an all time high! The conclusion was when Linda yelled "Turn left toward Jackson" in such a way I didn't even attempt to think doing otherwise. The good news is we were headed finally in the right direction. The bad news is that it was 10 miles of following this cow path to town. The "little man in the box" finally found himself and our motorhome and the computer screen but what we didn't know was that he had now become dyslexic! So at an intersection I turned left as HE said when we discovered once again we were headed out into the wild wet Tennessee landscape! We came upon a school and Linda again barked an order in such a way that I didn't argue and I promptly turned into the parking lot!! Two men pruning trees looked at our behemoth vehicle and shook their heads. Linda insisted I could maneuver the tight area. She has an absolutely uncanny ability to measure with her eyeball. A thought that gave me great comfort. But just because there is 'room' doesn't insure that I can keep from playing bumper car with the trailing jeep. My white knuckles now went into rigor mortis as we wove skillfully through the maze. A happy man is seeing that school in my rear view mirrors and camera. When we finally made it to the freeway we were supposed to be on an hour before, I pulled off to empty my bladder and change my shorts!! We proceeded on to Little Rock vowing to get the latest updates to the GPS programs since ours are about 4 years old! So when we arrived in Little Rock we found an RV Park and spent the night. I'm sorry to inform you that due to the above described events we were unable to visit the Clinton museum, the thought of which did not keep me from getting a good night's sleep. Not a red letter day but one I will remember for years to come. And yes, Linda and I are still speaking to each other. |
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