20 January 2018 – Got up before 7:00 a.m. to have the
clothes washer to myself. I washed my
clothes and ate breakfast. It was probably the best breakfast I had since I
checked into this hotel. While my clothes were washing I read over my blog
document. I found a few clinkers that I removed. I then started plotting my
route out of Bogota. I found all my waypoints and then I entered them into
Blanche. I really hate when Blanche starts thinking on her own. It is usually a
mess that she comes up with. Well, it has been some time since I built a route
in Blanche and I ended up entering the way
points into her incorrectly. She spit
that back at me with a message that said “NO AVAILABLE DATA” in big, bold, mean
letters. I panicked and I thought I blew her brains out. I checked all her
functions and they all seemed in order. When I checked her Recently Found
directory, it was empty. Everything was gone. Just as a test, I searched for a
city. She found it and then I checked her Recently Found directory. The city
was there. I started feeling a little more confident that she didn’t lose her
mind.
At this point I had less than 1/4 battery left. I tried
plugging her into my computer to charge her battery. She won’t fire up with the
battery cover off. So, that ended my best laid plans. I can only charge Blanche
in my GPS cradle on my motorcycle. So I entered all my way points as fast I
could and then tested them out. I had everything working fine and was thanking God.
I decided to name the route and save it in my Favorites. I did that and went
back to check the route again. Sure enough, naughty Blanche had changed it. I
had already received two low battery warnings and that’s it for reprogramming
her till I get outside on my motorcycle. I was really bummed out. If I can’t get
her programmed the way I want I will have to navigate the old way; one way
point at a time till I’m out of the city. I’d rather not work that hard. So I
took the precaution of writing all the way points down so if I had to reference
them I had them handy. I also got all the road numbers recorded on masking tape
to stick on my gas tank so I knew what to look for as I am driving. Then went
to work re-organizing the stuff I had laying around the room and dug out my
South American Maps. After I got everything put together I had a pile I could
take down to my motorcycle.
I gathered up my stuff, went down to Reception, and asked
the receptionist how to find the elevator to the motorcycle parking area. She
drew a rough map for me to follow. I followed it to a tee and arrived at the
elevator. When I came up the elevator the first time it was with a security
person. When we left the elevator the security guy snaked around through the
building and I lost track where it was. I can’t tell you how seriously they
take security around here. The bicycles 3 levels down are padlocked to a
u-shaped pipe in the floor. You cannot get your own bike because security has
the key for the locks. You have to get the security guy and he unlocks your
bicycle. I’m not sure if the owner has to have some type of card / or
identification to get their bikes back. My plan is to take my stuff down and
then put Blanche back into her cradle and let the motorcycle battery charge her
for 20 minutes. While she’s getting charged I will put all my stuff back in the
top box and saddle bags. I will stick all the route data I have written on the masking
tape onto my gas tank. After all that, I still had 10 minutes to wait until the
twenty minutes were up. I just stood around for that time. Then I pulled
Blanche out of her cradle, put the rain cap back on and locked it up. I checked
that I had the ignition switch off so the battery didn’t run down, and that the
fork was locked. I checked that I had my saddle bags and the top box locked,
then I put the cover back on it.
On the way up, I bought a bottle of water for the trip
tomorrow and headed back to my room. I fired Blanche up, set her by the window
to pick up satellites and then re-entered all the way
points in the correct way
this time. I then ran a preview test to see how the route looked. It was
perfect. I saved it and didn’t name it or save it in my favorites. I can’t risk
losing this route. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it worked the
way I programmed it. I did another review of the route after I saved it.
Blanche repeated the route perfectly. Whew.
I just talked to Mary and she told me that back at home, our
cat Hissy boxed up the neighbor dog. The hound is really friendly but Hissy
wasn’t having any part of her. Mary said Hissy was in the garage and the hound
cornered her, wanting to play. Hissy leapt onto the dog’s back, dug her back
claws in and was boxing the dog with her front paws. When the dog squealed, she launched off the
dog’s back onto the top of the garage workbench. She stood on the bench looking
exactly like a black Halloween cat. All her hair was standing on end and her
back was arched, and she was glaring daggers into the dog below. Hissy doesn’t
take kindly to hounds, friendly or not. I must send this to Mary and then get
something to eat. Tomorrow I’m leaving Bogota and keep working my way South.
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