Dates with extended time away from your coach during the rally

Q. Which days during the rally will we be away from the coach for more than four hours? We would like to try to arrange dog walking ahead of our stays. 

A. At first glance I believe there are 25 days during the rally where we expect to be away from the coach for four hours or more.

Stop #	Date	Estimated Time
1	6/30	8:15 a – 6:00 p
2	7/3	9:15 a – 4:30 p
3	7/6	8:00 a – 4:45 p
3	7/7	9:30 a – 4:45 p
8	7/19	8:30 a – 2:30 p
10	7/23	10:00 a – 4:00 p
11	7/25	8:45 a – 4:30 p
12	7/27	8:45 a – 4:45 p
14	7/30	8:45 a – 5:30 p
15	8/1	8:45 a – 5:00 p
16	8/3	11:00 a – 3:45 p
17	8/6	10:00 a – 7:30 p
18	8/8	9:15 a – 2:30 p
20	8/11	11:00 a – 2:30 p
22	8/16	12:30 – 5:30 p
23	8/18	10:00 a – 5:00 p
27	8/24	9:00 a – 5:00 p
28	8/26	9:00 a – 5:30 p
28	8/27	9:00 a -  1:30 p
29	8/29	9:15 a – 3:30 p
32	9/4	8:45 a – 1:30 p
33	9/6	9:30 a – 2:00 p
34	9/9	10;30 a – 5:00 p
35	9/11	9:00 a – 3:00 p
37	9/16	8:15a – 1:00 p

Canadian Maritime Rally Activities

There are 34 stops on the Canadian Maritime Rally with planned activities. This activities document is intended to provide a schedule (subject to change), local history, and directions to scheduled and optional activities for each stop on the rally.

• Where time and scheduling permits, we will try to get together as a group in the campground around 4:30 or 5 PM. Primarily as a social hour but also to discuss the upcoming activities and what’s going to happen next.
• Scheduling of tours may run through a normal lunch period with no meal scheduled. When that happens, I suggest you “brown bag” lunch or a snack.

During this rally, stops may seem somewhat eclectic.

•  We will visit historical sites, see local reenactments that are intended to give us a sense of how the people of the area lived in the past and to a lesser extent how that impacts their lives today. We may even gain a little better understanding our two countries have impacted one another in times of war and peace.
• We will visit several national parks and regional gardens that will provide some insight into the geographic diversity and visual splendor found in the Maritime provinces. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we caught a glimpse of animals we might not normally see in our day to day lives (black bear, woodland caribou, otter, muskrat, fox, lynx, & moose)
• We will stop at several locations that showcase the innovations and inventions of the Canadian people.
• We will also spend some time visiting lighthouses along the coastline and yes, we will spend time on the water. This is, after all, a Maritime rally.  Who knows, you may catch sight of a Humpback, Finback, or Minke whale along with dolphins, porpoise and killer whales.
• You can expect to see birds like the Atlantic puffin, northern gannet, long-tailed duck to name a few. There are over 100 varieties of birds native to the Maritimes.
• You will have several opportunities to sample the local cuisine. Items like Poutine, Bakeapples, Cod tongues, Touton, and, of course, Lobster. In fact, you should be able to determine whether the lobster is better in the Maritime provincess or in Maine.

Canadian Maritime Rally - group departure times on travel days, GPS & insurance question

59 days till the start of the Great Gaspe’ and Maritime rally and there are several topics I would like to address.

Item 1 - I put together the attached “Coach sequence on travel days” document. it is intended to help answer the age-old question on a rolling rally: Who are we traveling with and when do we leave?

The first page lists group departure times for each stop on the rally. The intent is to have the first group arrival time close to when the next campground or RV park allows check-in. It follows that, the last group departs at or before the checkout time for the campground/ RV park we are leaving. For obvious reasons the specific times listed will be subject to change as the rally proceeds. The second page is intended to associate each individual coach with a group to identify when your group, for that particular day is scheduled to depart from a specific stop number. When you arrive in Ottawa we will ask you to draw a number from 2 – 14 to identify where you fall on departure times through the first 12 stops on the rally. Coincidently, the first 12 stops are in predominantly French speaking areas. Once we reach Prince Edward Island we are looking for the group at large to put together a travel days schedule for the remaining stops on the rally. The only requirements are that Eileen and I will need to be with the first group to pay where required and Peter & Connie will need to be in the last group. They are serving as the tail gunners/ sweep on travel days. Page 3 and 4  identify our groupings going into campgrounds in the National parks (Petit Gaspe' in Forillon NP and Newman Sound  in Terra Nova NP). The specific sequence entering the campground should expedite getting into the individual sites and this will be particularly important in Petit Gaspe'.

Item 2 – When I was talking with Glenda Ferris a couple of days ago she reminded me that not all GPS’s provide US and Canadian coverage. You might want to double check the GPS you use for both the coach and your car to make sure they will wok in Canada. If anyone doesn’t have GPS’s that work in Canada we will need to stop at a welcome center when we enter a province to pick up paper maps.

Item 3 – When we reviewed our RV insurance with Ron Jarvie at Overland he suggested requesting a  Canadian Non-Resident Interprovincial Motor Vehicle Liability Card when we renew the policy. This may be something you may want to consider before arriving in Canada.

Social Hours on Canadian Maritime rally

As many of you know the social hours on Beaver rallies are a way to unwind in the afternoon and get to know one another a little better. Typically, a social hour might include snacks, hor d’oeuvres, or heavy hor d’oeuvres at the discretion of the hosts. On a rally of this length providing plates, glasses, flatware and napkins become the responsibility of each attendee. We have tentatively scheduled 30 social hours during the rally.  The social hour is also where we may discuss upcoming activities and/or travel plans. Please keep in mind that activities like this are subject to change as the need arises. Connie, Pete, Eileen and Keith (your rally masters and co-rally masters) will host 7 of the 30 social hours. That leaves us with 23 scheduled social hours needing two couples to serve as hosts for each social hour. To make this as fair as possible I have put together the attached schedule. You will notice the only names currently assigned are Cooper & Bradish. When you arrive at the campground in Ottawa you will be asked to draw a number from a bag (1 to 13) and that number will determine which social hours we are asking you to help host. Chen and Margie will be with us from stop 12 to stop 30 and will be assigned number 14.

Canadian Maritime Rally revised Calendar

Canadian Maritime Rally - smart phone apps for this trip.

It’s a good idea to make sure you have one or more smart phone apps to perform the following tasks:

• Translate French road signs to English as we are driving down the road.
• Translate your speech to French providing both an audio and text output. In addition translate the person you are talking with from French to English with both an audio and text output.
• Find fuel stops along our route and identify current prices wherever possible. Since we are traveling in small groups it might be helpful to identify truck stops.
• Be able to text other members of the traveling group if necessary. This is more of an iPhone problem.
• Use the smart phone as a backup to your GPS, if your GPS stops working. This needs to continue working irrespective of whether you have a cell phone signal.
• Provide information about public transportation in Ottawa along with what activities are available for free on Canada Day.

The list of app’s we use to accomplish the tasks above can be found in the Maritime blog at http://keithc1402.blogspot.com along with prior group communications.

Canadian Maritime Rally Day one (June 29)

The Canadian Maritimes rally (Great Gaspe’ & Maritimes) starts in 63 days on June 29^th at Camp Hither Hills. The RV park is located at 5227 Bank St, Gloucester, ON. 
Need directions to the RV park from your current location? This Google Maps link should help: https://www.google.com/maps/dir//45.291145,-75.574864/@45.291145,-75.574864,11z?hl=en-US
Planned activities for the first day include the following:

Time	Activity	Location
6/29   2:00 pm	Meet & Greet	Rally Master Coach
6/29 3:15 pm	bus to Parliament Hill (30 minutes on bus)	RV Park
6/29 4:20 pm	Tour Centre Block of Parliament (1 hour)	Parliament Hill
6/29 7:00 pm	Happy Lam dinner (Chinese food) in RV Park	RV Park

Please come by our coach when you arrive at Camp Hither Hills to pick up your rally bag. It will contain a rally book, rally bars, several loose pages and a flash drive with copies of all pertinent documents for the rally.  The rally book is broken into three parts:

• Trip Log – provides some information on Canadian road signs, English to French phrases, turn by turn directions for our travel days as well as potential fuel stops along the way (54 pages). 
• Activities – background information for most stops  and daily schedules of activities (87 pages).
• Police/Hospital/Vet & Grocery for each stop.

I will text our site number to everyone the morning of June 29^th.  We will have three member couples who are attending their first BAC rally with us on the Maritime rally. Normally I would request that you wear your Bolo badges to the Meet and Greet and subsequent meal. However, since we will be touring the Canadian Parliament building on the first afternoon, please wear your dress badges. Over the course of the rally, we have prepaid for a significant number of the planned activities.  Dress badges will help identify us as part of the Beaver group at numerous venue’s. 

Canadian Maritime RallyTrip Log

Canadian Maritime RV Park GPS co-ordinates

Canadian Maritime RV Park GPS  co-ordinates 

With 63 days to the start of the Canadian Maritimes rally it’s time to provide a little more detail in several areas. This particular e-mail contains a .csv file (comma separated variable) with the GPS co-ordinates for all 37 campgrounds/RV parks we will be visiting. The locations were verified against Google Earth using http://www.gps-coordinates.net/ . The .csv file can be used to create a POI file in most GPS devices

When you download the file DO NOT OPEN IT.  Let the GPS do that. Here are instructions on how to use this information with several types of GPS’s:

Garmin nuvi - This information applies to Garmin Nuvi™ GPS units made since 2005:
Before you can upload the data into your GPS for the first time, you will also need to have downloaded and installed a free program called POI Loader, from Garmin.  You can obtain either the PC or Mac version from:
http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-99999-12
After installing the POI Loader, use it to open the attached file you downloaded and follow the instructions in POI Loader.  Some newer GPS will allow you to maintain the route stop order.  Others will accept the POI, but you must connect them in order to follow your desired route.  

Rand McNally Dock - The Rand McNally Dock works with the both the Good Sam and Rand McNally RV GPS units. The Dock software is available at http://www.randmcnally.com/support/s/dock-software
After downloading the trip GPS information to your computer, run the Dock software to bring the information into the Rand McNally GPS.
These instructions do not apply to the Rand McNally RV Tablet. You will need to load the information into a tablet app called tripmaker. With the RV Tablet you are limited to 15 entries per trip segment.

Microsoft Streets and Trips - Microsoft no longer supports this product.

Delorme Street Atlas USA Plus - Delorme Street Atlas USA Plus using the ‘import data’ instructions and importing the data in to an XData dataset.
Once the dataset has been created, the next step is to select the query button in XData.  This will cause all of the stopping points to be displayed in the correct order, in the XData field.
Right click on the first entry (XMap ID 1) Select Route > Set as Start
Right click on each succeeding XMap ID Select Route> Add Stop.
Note: Always use ‘Add Stop’ when the starting and ending location are the same place.  Once the last point is identified as the end point turn by turn directions will be calculated.

TomTom - TomTom uses a file format called .ov2.  You can convert .csv files to .ov2 by following the instructions here. 

Magellan

The Magellan RoadMate Pro 9165T is a joint venture with Good Sam Enterprises and does not permit adding POI to the unit.  We can, of course, create a trip data file, but it is up to the manufacturer of a given GPS to provide software to take that data and bring it into the GPS.
In this case, it would appear that the power of the Good Sam marketing machine controls the 9165T.  Should we find a way to upload POI to the unit, we shall publish it, of course.  Magellan has said, "The ability to enter coordinates as destination may be considered as an update in the future."

Other Magellan RoadMate models come with software that lets you convert POI files to Magellan format and transfer them to your GPS.
Basic Steps:
Use Magellan POI File Editor to convert files to Magellan format (.mgln file)
Use Magellan RoadMate Tools to transfer the the .mgln file from your computer to your GPS via USB cable
Enable the file on your GPS by going to: Navigation Options > Configuration > Custom POIs > Select a POI File

Most of this information can be found on the RV Trip Wizard site at www.rvtripwizard.com

Trip Log The gps coordinates can also be found in the Maritime Trip Log that I put together. You will receive a hard copy of this 54 page document at the start of the rally

Communications on the road in Canada

Communications on the road in Canada

On our travel days in Canada we will typically travel in groups of 3 coaches. To communicate between the coaches or with the entire group we will probably use one of three methods:

• CB Radio – in some remote areas this may the only way to talk to the other coaches that are traveling with you,  on any given day.
  Does this mean CB radios are required for the rally? No, it’s convenient and desirable but it is not required.  
• SMS messages – As we drive through spotty cell phone coverage SMS messages will get through in places where calls drop frequently.  The text communications should be between the passengers in the coaches (co-pilots).
  Don’t text and drive. Not only is it a bad idea, the RCMP hands out tickets with really hefty fines.
• Cell Phone – The best practice is to have the co-pilot talk on the phone with hands free operation. If you are driving don’t hold a cell phone to up to your head, even at a stoplight.
  If you are caught by local police or the RCMP the fines are large enough to ruin your day.

To make this possible you are going to need the rally roster.  It’s attached to this e-mail in a pdf file.

Setting up contact groups in iPhones for texting can be a real pain. However, I have a program that helps with this and we can try to address this issue once the rally starts.