Recently, we have been giving Royce a hard time about his driving. Dan purchased a Garmin GPS system for the bus about 3 months ago. The GPS unit, affectionately called the "Garminator" keeps us going in the right direction (most of the time) and helps us keep track of time. It also keeps statistics such as average, slowest, and fastest speed.
Now, Royce has a love/hate relationship with the Garminator. He loves to hate it. It features a woman's voice telling him when to turn and where to go. That doesn't sit well with Big Daddy. He likes making the calls. He has, on occasion, made a wrong turn and has suffered the humiliation of the woman's voice telling him that it is recalculating as a result of his mistake. These deep feelings of animosity are in sharp contrast to Dan's embracing of the GPS. According to Dan, the Garminator makes no mistakes.
On our trip to Fresno, CA Royce drove through the night. Dan woke up complaining of the rough ride. So, Dan went to the Garminator to see how fast Royce had been driving. The GPS readout said that Royce had reached a maximum speed of 104.7 mph. Well, that's all the rest of us had to hear. We razzed him the entire trip. In fact, we were talking the guys from Legacy V about our trip out, so Scott Fowler publicly made a big deal of it with Royce. Royce kept on insisting that there was no way that he was going that fast, but we wouldn't hear of it.
While talking to Legacy V, they mentioned that they had saved $15,000 a year by keeping their speed at 65 mph and below. So, we decided to track our mileage, drop the speed, and see what difference it would make. It has already made a huge difference in mileage.
Well, on a trip up to Moscow, ID on a Sunday afternoon, Royce was behind the wheel again. Doran and Dan were sleeping in the back and I was working on my laptop. All of a sudden Royce yelled out, "Keith, you gotta get up here! And bring a camera." Royce isn't usually that excitable so I rummaged around for my camera and made my way to the front of the bus. Royce pointed at the Garminator and said,"See if you can top that." The picture tells the story.
Royce was, of course, vindicated and now the tables have turned. Now, it's Dan who's on the defensive trying to explain why the GPS made the calculation that it did.
Life on the road. We create drama.
1 comment:
I now see that I/WE owe Royce a heartfelt apology. He wasn't driving like a crazy person and putting all of our lives in danger on the way to Fresno! :-) We now know that The Garminator isn't perfect and that humans can win an arguement against a machine! I'm sure this makes Royce very happy. Shanna
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