GPS Woes

April 20, 2016

So I decided since we were planning on traveling for the next few months into some new, uncharted territory that maybe it would behoove us to update our RV GPS since it was last done back in 2013 before we went to Sturgis, SD. Wow! Did I ever regret trying to do this!

We have 2 different GPS's. The first is a small Garmin unit. Basically it's just a car GPS and served us well when in the car but not nearly up to the Magellan unit we purchased back in 2013 for traveling in the RV. The Garmin is a small screen, no frills device that when entering a destination, it gets you there. The problem we've been experiencing with it is whenever we touch a letter or number on the touchscreen we end up with a totally different character than the one we pressed. I've reset and re-calibrated the device numerous times but unless you've mastered the technique needed to enter data it is a real pain to program.

The Magellan has all the bells and whistles. It gets you where you're going, is easy to program, knows how tall, long and wide our RV is so as to (hopefully) avoid all those roads that might become a real hassle should we find ourselves on them and even has lane-assist so we know which lane to be in at major interchanges and don't find ourselves trying to dodge other vehicles at speed with 65 feet of RV and tow dolly to get on the correct path down the correct ramp to our destination.

I went to the Magellan website and found, as with Garmin, that all updates are performed online. This is normally not an issue with those of you living in a house with faster Internet connections but for the traveler who has to rely on their phone or a Mi-Fi device it can be quite a challenge. I started the process of downloading the file to my PC and was told it would be a 90 minute process. I waited and over 90 minutes later I saw the device was finally being loaded with the new software update. Upon finishing the update I rebooted the device as instructed and found I now owned a brick. The GPS would boot and I could attach to my PC but the device was never seen by the software nor could I do anything but stare at it. I opened the device, disconnected the battery attempting to reset it but still nothing.

I resorted to sending an email to Magellan Support with the Serial Number, Model Number, the fact it was now turned into a brick and any other information I could find. Upon receipt of my email a technician replied asking me for the same information I had already sent and asking a few other questions such as Operating System Version and Map Version. I had no idea what the answer to his questions would be because I couldn't access the device to find out. I again replied with my now patented answer of "I cannot answer your particular questions because my GPS is now just a brick" and again waited to see what was to come. My hope was they would send me a file I could manually update my operating software with or at least instructions on how to reset my device. Nothing! I waited 4 days and was resigning myself to having to buy another GPS but it sure as hell wasn't going to be a Magellan device.

After 4 days I looked into the Magellan company and found many dissatisfied customers. A lot of issues involved their on-line update system. I also found a site that told me the names of six of the companies highest ranking officers. Those of you that know me well will already know what I did. For those of you not so up on my tactics over the years, read on!

I replied back to the original technician and CC'd all those higher up officials. A few of the emails I sent came back undeliverable but a few also made it through and apparently to the right person. Back came an email from a name I didn't recognize telling me he had been assigned my case and asking if I still had the device. After a few emails back and forth (he was very quick to answer), I was sent a link to a boot file to be loaded on a 4GB SD card and instructions to restore my device. After robbing the SD card from my cell phone, reformatting it and extracting the file to the card I was able to restore my device and even keep all my old settings. Hooray!

We're one step closer to being able to leave for our trip on time and saved $400. My faith in the tech support system has been restored!

Our First Days!

April 11, 2016

Here we are on April 11th. We officially retired on April 1st. We thought that would be a good day to retire. No one would really know if we were joking or not until April Fool's day came and we really didn't show up for work.

Things didn't work as planned for our "escape from work with no one knowing" strategy but we were able to keep it fairly quiet. Only about 30 people found out before we left. We didn't want people knowing we were retiring because we aren't great at saying goodbye. We prefer it to be more like "See you later". We also didn't want all the parties, lunches, cake and hoopla everyone seems to think is necessary when someone leaves for retirement. We figured if I, Carl, didn't get up to make a speech we would leave with everyone thinking we were a great couple instead of thinking a whole lot less of us once I was completed saying what I really wanted to say and inevitably would have once I got going. Our true friends knew how we felt and that was all that mattered.

So if you are here reading this it's probably because you are family or we consider you great friends we would like to stay in contact with throughout the rest of our lives.

So far the first few weeks have been fairly uneventful. Kathy had her back surgery on March 14th and is doing very well at recovery. Her doctor saw her a week after the surgery and said "See you in 3 months" so we took that as a good sign. We try to walk as far as she is able at least once a day and twice if she is up to it. I push her a little to get her to push herself and not get complacent. In her eyes it is a long process and going too slow but I see her improving daily.

Our plans haven't changed. We plan on leaving here in the motor home May 1st and heading towards Flagstaff, AZ where we will check out Ashurst Lake to see if it is a viable camping location to hold one of our events. After a day or two there we will head north out of Flagstaff, headed up to Sioux Falls, SD to establish our domicile (become citizens of South Dakota). This makes filing taxes every year simpler. South Dakota has no state tax so we will only have to file for federal taxes. Also vehicle registration is cheaper in South Dakota and we will have a mail forwarding service which will collect all our mail and then forward any important mail to us whenever we ask.

Welcome along for the trip and thanks for joining us! We will try to post weekly and include pics when and where possible. You can always shoot us an email with questions or if you just want to say "Hi"!

Carl & Kathy

Getting Ready!

January 25, 2016

We are about 10 weeks out from our retirement date of April 1st, 2016 and finding we have a lot of paperwork and legwork getting everything in order to facilitate our retirement without any undue problems. It is nerve-racking making the final decision to retire and then choosing a date. I'm sure the closer we get the more nervous we will become. We have completed the required paperwork and will drop it off at our local PERS office later this week. We've met with our financial consultant and she states we should be good to go in retirement.

We are looking forward to this next chapter in our lives but also dreading the unknown. Our plan is to travel with other RV friends across and around the country staying as long as we see fit wherever we stop and not knowing precisely where we will be headed or where we may end up for the night. We've decided if we ever stop in a place we feel is so perfect we never want to leave then that's where we'll stay. I imagine most of our travels will be west of the Mississippi but we also hope to spend a lot of time touring the Eastern states as well.

As we travel we hope to post our current location as well as pics of the area for our friends and family to follow along on our adventure so sit back, log on and join us for what may just be the most exciting time in our lives.