Navigating Vamoose!

People ask me how we go about navigating going across the country.  Often people who venture out on the road are willing to “wing it.”  Well, that is very much not our style. More so me as I am a planner and hate to leave things completely to chance.  It does not mean I am not adventurous and willing to lean to fate occasionally, but as you learned in a previous post, things can happen that are not all good. In preparation alone for this journey took over a year planning.  Between locating safe routes and camping spots to then nailing them all down and booking those places to stay it was quite a task.  Once done we had our base plan for our adventure.  No plan is fool proof, so we take many other precautions and utilize several tools when on in route.  As the navigator, most of the time, I have a lot to manage.  First utilizing two different apps, Waze and Trip Wizard, I toggle back and forth between them.  One being better at alerting us of things like objects in the road, road construction or closures, hazards/accidents ahead and the other manages our approved routes specifically for our size camper so that we do not get on a road we are not suited for height or weight etc.  We, like tractor trailers, have restricted roads we must be aware of.  I then have my preprinted directions, pre checked with any added notes by the campground and of course the good old-fashioned MAP.   Having a good GPS signal is not always the case so you need back up.  You can see that this is quite the dashboard.  Like managing a small aircraft.  But that is not all! There is also the close watching and alerting Kevin of upcoming merging traffic on    on-ramps. This is especially critical when it is a tractor trailer coming into our lane and we aren’t able to move over. Same goes for just moving back and forth between lanes.  Regular drivers do not always respect the fact that we do not have the maneuverability of a car.  And we can’t just change lanes quickly or stop on a dime.  We are 26,000 lbs. of vehicles.   I constantly survey the road ahead for un-reported things like potholes, road lane shifts, left hand exits, speed changes and the list goes on.  AND if you think that’s the end of it…. not quite.  There are also 2 separate tire monitor gauges monitoring the jeep and motorhome tires.  Tire pressure loss signals that something could be wrong and taking precautions, should an alarm sound, and pulling over for a safety check is so important.  We also do several periodic tire checks when camped and each time prior to hitting the road.  Lastly, is the observation camera on the back of motorhome.  This keeps an eye on our tow vehicle making sure its tracking properly.

In summary, being the driver of over 55 feet of vehicles is a HUGE responsibility, and so being a good navigator and co-pilot is essential.  I take pride in the fact that I am excelling at my new job.