Children of the Corn

In the early morning hours before the coffee brews and while all is quiet, I think about what the day will bring, all the possibilities of things we might find somewhere down the road.  As all the preparations for breaking camp are done, there is an excitement that comes each time we hit the road.  Today we would travel through Ohio and into Indiana, a journey of about five hours.

Well, all those wonderful thoughts began to sour as the day unfolded.  I read in the news how the infrastructure of our great country is in a sad state.  I cannot say that is true or false, however I can say that the roads we traveled today were for sure in need of a great deal of improvements.  The roads went from bumps and humps and potholes to washboards that jarred our teeth.  We kept thinking that everything in the rig would be scrambled eggs!  When pulling an RV, you can feel the road surface more acutely than in a car.  Each time the road surface went across the threshold of a bridge and off again, the uneven surface gave us a jolt.  Our expected 65 mile per hour average dropped to 50 or 55 and sometimes not that much.  Driving under these conditions is stressful and very tiring not only for us but also for the girls.

After seven hours of travel, our journey was nearly at an end.  The GPS gave us directions to turn on roads that wound through cornfields that stretched for miles and miles.  

 We laughed and started referring to ourselves as “Children of the Corn”.  In the middle of no where, the GPS stated “you have arrived at your destination”.  What?!?  We are in the middle of fields!  Now the real adventure began.  

We called the campground where we had planned an overnight to ask for directions.  We were told that GPS directions often took folks way off track.  She gave us vague directions to the park, no problem.  Rightttttt!  We backtracked and headed out only to find that the road we were to take was closed for repairs.  Okay, so let’s look at a real map, but where the heck are we exactly — no idea.  Funny how we have become so dependent on GPS that we forget how to plan a trip using paper maps.  Now, we have not one but two GPS in the truck.  One is built into the dashboard and the other is a Good Sam GPS specifically for RV traveling.  You would think we would be all set, geez what a stupid feeling.  Meanwhile, all that corn seemed to be closing in all around us!  In the end, we finally found our campground and settled in for the night.  Tired yes, for sure but also a bit wiser. A GPS is after all, just a machine.  It is up to us to have a plan B paper map to fall back on when the miracle of electronics fails.  Lesson Learned!