BASSMAN50 wrote: Thanks All for the reply.
Galvanized... you said that you set your GPS to BUS function. What type of GPS do you have? And how did you do this?
Thanks
The big reason I bought a GPS is cause the wife doesn't do maps and doesn't want me to bother her with minor details such as routes and travels. she just wants to enjoy the scenery and the critters we see.
Garmin, Street Pilot 2620. Its about 5 years old. Garmin has newer ones. Mine talks to me (I have it set on a female British accent.....its great, I once dated a.......nevermind, that's another story) You go into the preferences and you can set it for various things such as type of vehicle, miles or kilometers, daylight savings, major or minor routes, waypointes. etc. In fact there's probably way too much info on it. It'll even speak to me in about 3 or 4 different languages. Little pricey but it allows you to purchase updates as roads and highways change and get built. Getting ready to upgrade the software on mine.
I bought the portable one cause when we get to new places, it allows to me move it to our towed vehicel. Great for finding addresses, banks, walmarts, etc
I still use a road map to check our route cause the GPS is still a machine and will do only what you tell it to do. It is real handy little machine
Trouble with towd only one time. Last year in TN campground receptionist made a big deal of telling me to turn on the second intersection of the higway and road where she was. I, instead, listened to GPS and turned at the first intersection - road was kind of a flattened U running around a couple of big hills with some cutbacks and esses and then intersected back with the highway. About 2 miles after turning, road got narrower and narrower - think Deliverance and wild bear territory. Came to a sharp curve followed by several more that could not make with towd attached. Now I am in trouble - no copilot, just me and the dogs. Couldn't turn around or back up - dogs don't drive worth a damn. So, ended up disconnecting towd, driving motorhome for a little while, walking back for car, etc, etc for a couple of miles. Took most of the afternoon, but made it. When dw joined us the next day, I never said a word and dogs did not tell, so noone knows about how stupid I can be.
Joe and Bonnie
2 Lazy Dogs
07 Allegro Bay FRED 35 TSB
Seems we need to backup or unhook the toad about once a year. We tow four down with the Jeep and with a tow dolly for the Windstar or Hyundai. A few years ago at the Flying-J in Billings, Montana I thought I saw the way around the station, but it was the McDonalds drive thru. Had to back up the tow dolly with Hyundai about 90'. Just kept it perfectly straight and lucked out.
Driving a 40' Country Coach, towing a Blazer, we made a wrong turn in Elkhart, Indiana and had to turn around. Can't back up, of course, but there was a factory off my left, with a huge parking lot full of cars, but wide aisles and an entrance and exit that would work fine-- I could turn left into the lot, drive down the first aisle, and go out the next driveway.
Turned into the lot, and get halfway through the turn between the aisles when a lady pulls up in her car and parks at the end of the aisle (not in a parking spot). She's oblivious to the fact that, with her where she is, I can't go any further.
I get out to ask her to move, and before I can get to her car a bell rings-- and the factory lets out for the day. Hundreds of people stream to their cars, get in, and start heading for the exits-- or at least as far as they can get before our rig stops them. There are only two driveways, and we're right in the middle of one of them. In seconds, we are the center of a massive traffic jam, the lady that was blocking us can no longer move, and the air is blue with the language of a whole bunch of pissed-off blue collar workers.
Took an hour and a lot of diplomacy to get enough of them to move so we could unhook the Blazer, get it out of the way, then back up the motorhome enough to make the turn.
I turn around in shopping center lots now. Preferably, after the stores are closed.
Had to unhook a couple of times in ten years full-timing, which includes 4 coast to coast trips, a S FL to Newfoundland trip, and more; and like a poster above, was once forced unhook in NS due to poor signage that led me down a dead end.
What I ask myself is: How many times would I have had to hassle with the diabolical tow dolly during my travels? I do know that there have been scores of situations where that clumsy piece of ironmongery would have been hard to deal with without a ray gun to dematerialize it.
What a lot I have learned from all y'alls posts.
I used to drive a tow truck, big'un,so I had to back up semi's with their trailers still attached.
Got so good I could put it around a corner in reverse and be between the lines in the repair lot, all three vehicles attached.
The professional drivers that pull twin trailers also do that.
What I am trying to say is:it can be done.
And you get better with practice.
And you can lock the steering with the key of the toad, to avoid the jackknife effect backing, use the skid-steer technique, short distance only, of course.
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