Monday, March 21, 2011

Mar 21 Monday - The GPS gets the unknown route test and passes with flying colours

Mar 21 Mon Day 63 – Cooler cloudy, AM wind & rain showers, rain showers all day

We woke to high winds followed by rain showers. I had Sheila hold an umbrella over me while I unhooked the services. We got away 10:05 @ 136916. I found that on the GPS there is a button for “fastest route” or “shortest route”, so I pushed shortest & away we went. I started to be concerned when it didn’t take me back to the main hwy ½ mile north but headed me south, oh well, it must know. After several more turns going down country roads, (two lane but good pavement and I could do 50 mph or better, (80kph +), I was getting a bit concerned about where it was taking us. The rain continued, you couldn’t see the sun so I had no idea which direction I was going. The roads curved & we turned a lot. Finally we came back to the hwy I originally was going to take and the GPS took us directly to the campground. We pulled in @ 12:10 @ 137061. The RV park have free WiFi & cable. The rain continues off & on so we have decided to wait till tomorrow before going to Organ Pipe Cactus National Park. I checked my MS Streets & Trips program & it had the mileage here as 155 kms so the GPS route was 10 kms shorter. After lunch we phoned Garmin and got the girl, her name was Brenda, there to talk Bren through the update program with the GPS plugged into the computer. It was a 20 minute call & the girl was very patient & pleasant. We now have our Australian English voices that we heard on the demo that pronounces words as we are used to & that we can understand. By the way the Canadian voice choices seemed to all be in French We also discovered we can set “avoidances” so the GPS will not route us onto gravel roads, or ask us to do U-turns. This afternoon Sheila is going to the local IGA while I do clean up & odd jobs. Sheila returned in time for supper then is off to the club house, (across the road from our site, to watch Dancing with the Stars on a much larger screen). I will catch up on blogs & watch “Castle” with Sheila after the Dancing thing.

Addendum: Oops, plans go amuck. Sheila came back to the RV at about 8:30 to say the show started at 7 not 8 & she missed the first half. Even people in the park say they never can be sure when something will be on. My opinion is that the stations are picking up some shows from from a Central Time zone network feed and so they are an hour early and some from the pacific time zone so are on when they are supposed to be.

Distance travelled – 145 kms – 90 miles

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