Travel Day With New GPS Fiasco.

Our Location today is Texarkana, Arkansas, U.S.A. 

Since we have left our site at Wildwood Golf and RV Park in McGregor we have either had to be awake early or have been naturally waking early because our bodies are not letting go of the Daylight-Savings-Time we became accustomed to during the summer months. Even after our evening out at the Grand Ole Opry last night, we went to bed after posting the blog that I’d mostly written before going out and still I was up by 6:30 and Kathy before 7:00. That does have its bonuses though because we had our breakfast, did a quick read on the computers closed the trailer up and were on the road by 9:00 this morning. 

We’ve been having difficulties with updating the maps on our 7” Rand McNally RV GPS. We actually set out this morning with only a piece of paper with the highways written down that we needed to use to get out of Nashville. For over an hour we managed to escape the chaotic traffic but Kathy realized that we needed help so as soon as we saw a sign for a Flying J we pulled in. The RV Parking area was packed so we did as we usually do, we parked with the Semis. 

We figured having a backup GPS was not a bad idea but we weren’t going to spend the money we did on our good one. We chose a moderate priced Garmin that would get us by until we could get the other one going. Since it was already past 11:00 we had lunch at the Denny’s restaurant before returning to the truck to set our purchase up.

Imagine our surprise when after unwrapping this machine and turning it on we couldn’t read the screen. Going back inside and explaining the problem they promptly replaced it with another Garmin. Going through the unwrapping process for a second time the machine turned on beautifully but as soon as we agreed to the terms of usage this screen went totally dark as well. There was no way to make any adjustments because we couldn’t see any of the prompts. This time the manager checked them both out but still couldn’t get them to work. We ended up paying double the cost we wanted to but walked out with a 5” Rand McNally GPS.  

Programming a distant address was no problem and we could see the screen fairly well so after losing an hour and a half on the Garmin GPS Fiasco we were finally back on the road. It wasn’t until we’d been on the road for a while we found we had another problem. The volume was set so low that we could barely hear it. We needed a rest so we stopped at a rest stop on I-40 so we could walk around and stretch. We took the time to look at the GPS but still couldn’t find a way to adjust the volume. As we started driving past Memphis, Tennessee we had to change to a number of different highways that were plagued with construction but because we could barely hear the GPS commands we added extra miles getting back on track. 

Nice Rest Area but limited Parking.

After crossing into the state of Arkansas we stopped at the first Flying J we saw in Marion at 4:15. We circled the RV parking area only to find it filled with Expediters so we found ourselves a nice spot by a curb in the Semi Parking Lot. Being near a curb allows us to open the slide on that side of the trailer without interfering with truck traffic or parking.  

Nice place for a picnic but limited parking.

Since we’d been on the road since 9:00 this morning and it would soon be dark we called it a day and were parked for the night. We ate supper at Denny’s before returning to our Home on wheels. With only a few things that tumbled from their travel spots we were soon set up for the night. As I write this post Kathy managed to raise the volume on the new GPS and added a few of our travel destinations as well. 

Tomorrow will be another travel day as we make our way to warmer climates. Thanks for following along and feel free to leave a comment. Be Safe and Enjoy! 

It’s about time.

Krackers 

Joke of the Day 

Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.