Only us …
This will be the perfect example of what happens when you are stressed and just trying to get out of town. Plus, I installed a new map application and was using that. Definitely a recipe for disaster!
Daniel and I were caravanning from Colorado Springs to Norfolk, NE. He would drive Winnie with Xander as his copilot and I would lead in Princess, our VW Eurovan. Mind you, I have done this drive from Colorado Springs to my dads house at least half a dozen times so theoretically I should have known better. We knew it would be slow going as lots in Winnie was still not really bolted down and we hadn’t gotten the alignment and wheel balancing done yet. We wouldn’t drive fast if we could help it.
Everything started out well. The familiar drive from the Springs to Denver was comfortable and easy. Once past Centennial (quick wave to my sister and her family) we got into Denver proper. We kept getting routed onto the toll road. We didn’t want to have to pay tolls so were ignoring every instruction to turn onto it. You know how these ‘intelligent’ mapping services are – it kept rerouting us back to the toll road where it wanted us originally. Finally, I pulled over and searched until I found the option that allowed us to avoid the toll roads. What I didn’t realize at that moment, is that it also turned on the ‘Avoid All Interstates’ option. Oops!
When we started being directed towards the back highways, I didn’t question it. I just grumbled to myself about the stupid tollroads. Well, hours later as even ‘I’ realized it was taking a bit too long to get to Norfolk, we stopped for directions. I had my Rand McNally atlas open but the small highways and county roads we were on could not be found anywhere on my map. As I asked the nice lady behind the counter for directions to Norfolk, she said the words you never want to hear, “Oh honey, you are Lost!”
Meanwhile my poor dad was trying to figure out where we were based on my texts and was having trouble finding us because we were 50+ miles away from where he was looking on his much more detailed map. ‘Surely they have to be somewhere close to I-80!’ I am sure he was thinking. NOPE!
Finally he suspended his disbelief long enough to find us. Now providing us with relevant directions – my iPhone freaked out. Dad would call, only to discover that I was unable to receive. My iPhone was spontaneously shutting off. I had to pull over, run back to Daniel driving the rig and have him call dad for the instructions! Throwing caution to the wind, Daniel and Xander took the lead and pushed the pedal to the medal!
“Whatever you do, do NOT under any circumstance get off of East 22 until you hit Columbus and hwy-81!” was the last direction from dad. Daniel dug out his old trusty hiking GPS – (you know, the ones that have just the roads and stuff without fhe direction?) which actually handled the county roads and NE state highways much better than our phones did. At least now, Daniel could see the whole picture so to speak.
At somewhere around 2:30am we finally rolled into Norfolk. We left Colorado Springs at 11:00am. Our 8 1/2 drive took 15hours. It was a beautiful day though and Nebraska in the Spring is beautiful. The sunset was gorgeous. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so distracted taking pictures, I would have noticed sooner that we were lost. I am thrilled to report that Winnie did great!
Enjoy the pics!
Randall Gypsy Caravan 