Gertrude

Gertrude has accompanied us for the entire trip. We have come to look forward to her input and seldom fail to do what she suggests. Sometimes we question her advice but invariably she turns out to be right.

We have especially appreciated the way she often takes us off the freeways to enjoy seeing more of the U.S. than just the standard Interstate highway environment. The U.S. is full of interesting little towns and the lesser highways often take us right thru them to see what the homes and yards look like and provide some insight into the make-up of the town.

Gertrude doesn’t just give advice but she also is interested in hearing what we like and we have shared with her some of our route preferences.  So I guess I can’t entirely blame her for what happened.

We were at an RV resort in Tom’s River, New Jersey. We had a good stay there and enjoyed our first New Jersey Boardwalk experience.   Still early spring and early in the day so it wasn’t crowded and the beaches were empty other than areas where beach volleyball was in progress. We would have enjoyed walking on the neatly raked beaches but there were toll booths all along the boardwalk with signs telling how much you have to pay to walk on the beach.

Our destination, Wompatuck State Park, south of Boston MA was carefully entered into the GPS and we were on our way. Soon it was evident that Gertrude had some very special experiences in store for us including a trip through downtown Newark. Newark is not one of the little towns in the U.S. that we wanted to tour in our motorhome.

There ensued numerous instances where we were baffled at Gertrude’s directions. I remember one intersection in particular where her directions just did not make sense and we would go where we thought was right only to find that wouldn’t work and Gertie would patiently bring us back to the same intersection with the same instructions. The third time around we finally got it. She had been correct. Her instructions were right on.

But we were still in Newark and wanted out. At one intersection we ended up trapped in the lanes going across the George Washington Bridge. That seemed OK until we got to the toll booth and the lady said our toll was $68. She seemed sympathetic but didn’t offer to reduce the price.

Soon Gertie suggested a tour of the Bronx in New York including a pass by the Bronx Zoo. We were in downtown New York before we realized it. If it had to happen I’m glad it occurred after six months experience driving the motorhome. It was obvious from people on the streets that a large motorhome driving through the Bronx was not an every day happening.

Gertie is a dear friend but we were getting tired of the big city tours, consulted the map, found the first signs to Interstate 95 N and ignored all of Gertie’s advice until we neared our destination at the other end.

Gertie is still a best friend. We depend upon her but we have learned to be more careful about what we tell her about the kind of routes we want to take. We also are more careful to look ahead of time to compare where she is taking us with the map.

For a GPS we use an Android app called CoPilot on our Nexus 7 tablet. The app only costs a few dollars, regular updates are free, and the larger screen size is helpful for old eyes.