I allowed Gertie to guide me on my first trip today. Gabble Gertie gabbled all the way to the destination as I had told her to update me each 5 minutes. It has been a long time since I had a female companion along with me to keep me company. I think I am in love.

Unfortunately, the city center Gertie gabbled me to was not my real destination. Let me back up. When I first fired up the iWay350, it had both my then-current RV park and my next destination RV park in it’s database. But after I downloaded and installed the firmware update, both disapperred. Go figure.

When I went to the web to get the street address of my real destination, I had no useable connection. So I used the city/state instead, and in the manner of pre-Gertie days, stopped and asked where the park was located when arriving at the city.

I apparently maintained gps lock all the way, with Gertie sitting on the dash about 8-10 inches behind the windshield. However her view evidently was not as clear as mine because a few times she told me to turn left/right in x hundred feet, which I had to look for in the rear view mirror as I had already made the turn. I think ber bytes are missing a bit and probably was held back a year in school, as I wasn’t driving fast.

As I drove away from city center, she got very agitated, trying to get me to turn left. right, whatever, just turn dang it, at every little road I passed. Never mind that my Jeep might barely fit in the driveway.

Visibility of the screen time/distance to next turn was good. Probably this was helped by my setting both to ‘enormous’ as my eyesight is so poor that I can hardly see the wipers. However, this was not a good test, as it was overcast but not raining, a perfect day for driving and a perfect day for lcd viewing.

Since this is my first gps nav experience, I don’t know if these results are typical for the average gps unit, but based on a statistically meaningless sample of one unit, one trip, I would give it a score in the vicinity of B-.

So here I sit, in the middle of a many-hour rain, parked backward in the site so that my dish would not be under a tree, contemplating how the heck I am going to turn wrong-direction-right around that tree without scraping my dish or awning off the RV as I leave.

Wish I could blame the reverse parking decision on Gertie.

I have to admit that I had to make many u-turns when feeling up, I mean, punching menus on Gertie. I guess I still have a lot to learn about her desires.

One good thing – the update activated the ‘avoid-interstate’ option, which did nothing before the update. But they forgot to fix the auto-zoom, which still works when zooming out to see the entire routs; zoom out, blink and it has zoomed back in.

Where is Singing Hills Campground?
After an extended visit of cuzs in the Nashville area, I have finally moved on to wetter pastuers. The skies have been overcast with periodic sessions of rain since I left TN.

This RV Campground is a little outdates, primarily evidenced by the small spaces and short turns. I parked reversed so that my satellite dish would not be under a tree, and now as I peer out the windshield I wonder how I am going to get out of this site.

I will go exploring, spoecifically Mamouth Cave NP before I leave the area.

I spent extra time at Nashville due to technology problems. My lousy internet service still has no solution. I have a call in to the president of Motosat currently to force this issue to a head.

My laptop has had problems since last summer. Those problems have gotten worse, and the computer has been running very slowly. Support sessions with HP failed to resolve the problems, so they recommended a ‘system repair’. This step is a next-to-last effort that would save my loaded programs but require the laborious process of reupdating from SP1 back to SP2.

That did not work, just hung up before finishing. So I had to revert to the last-ditch effort by reformatting the hard drive and creating a fresh system install. That was accomplished, and the update to SP2 was accomplished. I am now slowly building my cadre of loaded programs on a as-needed basis. The good news is that external memory devices now do not crash the computer when disconnected. But it will be weeks before I have restored programs and organized the computer to something similar to it previous state.

Where is Lebanon, TN?
Alright, already! I will catch up. Geez, some of those folks that travel vicariously through my travels should take a trip of their own! (Kidding, of course).

I finally arrived in the Nashville area and parked at a RV park that is convenient for my current needs: within 15 mi. of my cuz, across the street from a RV repair shop, reasonably priced and satellite friendly.

My awning developed roll-up problems so I have been using the shop across the street to fix it. They were here yesterday, and will be back on Tuesday with a part that may or not fix it. The fellow was earnestly trying to id the problem, but burned about two hours in the process. I have been afraid to ask what his labor rate is. The good aspect is that they drive across the street to me so that I do not have to keep driving the Barth to them.

Cooked out with cuz and spouse, ate out with cuz, visited an aging Aunt, visiting the area of grandparents burial Saturday, probably fishing above Old Hickory Lake on Sunday, Wilson County Fair on Monday. Tuesday is laundry day as I have depleted my wardrobe to the limit. I also have other relatives to visit and a high school classmate to say ‘hello’ to if I can connect.

I had 5 care packages awaiting my arrival. And I am seriously considering ordering a GPS navigation unit for delivery here before departing. So I will have to make that decision very soon.

So I will probably be located here until the later part of next week. I will need the GPS to drive 1 mile to I-40 and turn West… or should that be East? I really considered turning toward Asheville, NC and the Outer Banks before coming here! Shoulda-done-it!

Where is Tennessee Tech?
Better late than never! SO I will play a little catchup here.

I spent Tuesday night at the home driveway of Mr. Carl F. He is a Barth owner that happens to live in Cookeville, TN my old college town. I contacted Carl months ago and suggested that I might stop by and see his Barth and revisit The Quad at Tennessee Tech. He graciously invited me to park in his driveway, so I am here where I am.

As is usual when two Barth owners collide, there was a mutual inspection of each Barth, kind of like two dogs meeting. Carl’s 1988 33′ gasser is in great shape, especially inside. Carl has had the unit only a short time and had some questions, some I could guess at, others left me clueless.

I visited the Tech campus and visited the sites of places I lived off-campus during my Tech years. It was no small task cruising now unfamiliar streets trying to remember exactly the locations. Surprisingly, despite the massive amount of on-campus and immediately-off-campus construction, three of the four places I lived are still standing. However, one is now a commercial office and one is rather slummish. Of the two dorms I lived in, one is still used, the other is a parking lot. And a few of the 1960s era buildings are still in use for the same function now.

Cookeville used to be a small town. Now one has to search for the old town, which has had modern multi-arrowed turn signals installed. One constant is the old courthouse. But Walmart, Lowes, etc has had the predictable effect on the old business.

I had about turned in for the night, as it was late sunset except for the clouds that loomed above. I had eaten cookies and snacks (and three burgers) so I was not hungry.

There was a knock on the door; my site neighbor that parked across the street was a’standing there. He invited me over for ‘breakfast’, as they had a lot more than they could eat. So I could not refuse by saying that I was not hungry.

So Thomas and Tony, the neighbor family traveling with him, and the wives were still at the table. The four kids, eight to fourteen, that they had between them were trying to start a bon fire. Pleasant and well behaved kids as I had observed for three days. Didn’t bother dog, except for the once that she snapped at one of them. And teren’t noisy.

I had to ‘force’ myself to eat biscuits, homemade apple butter, tomatoes, eggs, ham, pork loin, bacon, and did I mention the apple butter? Since it was homemade, and they had lots of it at home, they gave me a quart. And they insisted that I bring a plate full of food with me.

They talked of making apple butter, molasses and butchering their own hogs. I knew enough about those topics that they may have thought I was a pro. The conversation was interrupted when we were accompanied to our respective RV’s by those looming clouds that suddenly became more looming. Still waiting to see if a storm materializes, but after the wind assisted in clearing the table, it quieted somewhat.

When he knocked on my door, Thomas didn’t say “Can I give your dog some supper?” So I guess it all balances out – it isn’t always a dog’s world.

If I get up before they leave for home near Johnson City tomorrow, I will try to get a picture of the nice folks.