Archive A

The Journey Begins

Here goes.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

On 10 April Deb and I start our gap year and we have a sketchy plan; in fact there are two plans – Plan A and Plan 2 – which to a large extent depend on USA Immigration

Plan A is that we travel around the USA in an RV (that one up there) for 12 months on a tourist visa visiting as many national parks as we can. The key requirement here is to get permission from immigration to stay for the year, but we will not know that until either we enter the USA or we apply for an extension to our original visa.

Plan 2 comes into effect if immigration only give us 6 months. In that case we will head back to Europe and spend 6 months in southern Europe.

For now, we are assuming that Plan A will be the one. and have a rough idea of a route. We will start in Manchester, NH and head south until we get to Tennessee and then turn right and wander our way to Utah where we turn right again and head for a rendezvous with the girls in Yellowstone.

The girls will be with us  for 3 weeks before we drop them off in Seattle. Then we are not sure but will probably drive down the west coast before spending winter in the south.

Whenever I can get a decent wifi signal I will add blog posts and you can see where we’ve been.

The Timeline

10 April 2018 – Fly out to Boston and meet up with Katie & Bill

14 April 2018ish – Set off in the van

05 July 2018 – Eleanor & Milly join us in Wyoming

26 July 2018 – Eleanor & Milly leave Seattle for Boston

The first steps

12 April 2018

We managed to get through immigration without a hitch and our passports are stampred with a 6 month visa. That’ll do for now and we’ll make an application at the end of July to extend it for another 6 months.

We’ve been a bit busy over the past few days starting with an appointment to register with a GP to make sure we can get care if we need it. WalMart is doing rather a good trade in RV essentials – bedding, crockery, water filters, buoyancy vests(!), and a digital tyre pressure guage.

I’ve driven the RV but not with the car attached. The first trip was out to the coastal town of Portsmouth which was like an upmarket English town. That drive went without too much hassle; the key is to remember what a massive lump you’re in without much acceleration, but sitting in the slow lane and letting everything happen around you keeps the stress levels low.

The next stage is to attach the car and have a go at towing. I just need to remember not to reverse.

We are currently in Belmont NH at Katie’s new house on the lake. It is the most spectacular location; I’m looking out onto the partially frozen lake where we watched a Bald Eagle looking for its lunch.

Once we’ve had our tutorial in all the things we need to know to keep us moving and living comfortably for the next 12 months then we will head south to some warmer weather. We need to be sure that we can get water in, water out, poop out, propane heaters to work, electric pumps to pump, levelling, batteries to charge, bbq to work, etc.

Other things that I’ve discovered in the first couple of days –

• I’m useless at playing pool – I think my eyes are wonky
• Mobile phone shops are as dull over here as they are in the US
• The amount of processed foods in WalMart is scary
• The price of standard prescription drugs can vary four-fold from one pharmacy to another but are generally cheaper.

That’s enough for now. Next post will be when I can get some free wifi, maybe somewhere down near Washington DC.

Bus bums

20 April 2018

Wednesday ended up being the longest day and the most painful. With the RV not being looked at until Friday, we decided to do a budget trip to New York – Megabus and Airbnb.

Up at 0500 and out of the house at 0520 headed for the first bus of the day, the Boston Express park’n’ride. That got us to Boston where we took the Megabus to New York and got a flavour of how efficiently the air conditioning works to cool the chill air to arctic temperatures. God it was cold.

5 hours later we were ejected on a side street and set about looking for the bus stop for a hop on-hop off bus tour; this was a breeze for a man who likes an ordered street/avenue system – 4 streets up, one avenue along. The Big Bus people gave us a lesson in how rude (direct?) the New Yorkers can be. No pleases; no thank yous and no indication of customer service.

Bus route 1 took us south or, as I now call it, “Downtown”, from the Flat Iron building. The tour guide seemed to know where all the famous people had apartments; stalker alert. We saw some whopping buildings, the Statue of Liberty, and some extremely aggressive driving. It seems the car horns are attached to the accelerator pedal. I could quite happily take an apartment in the Jenga building though.

Next bus tour took us north and there were more big buildings, more history and a great big park. Once we got off that bus, we made time for an over-priced hot dog in Times Square which was just amazing; so much for the senses to take in.

As dusk arrived, so did the night bus tour to Brooklyn. Here we got some cracking views of the sun setting behind the skyscrapers. Unfortunately the plastic roof of the bus made it impossible to take a decent photo.

A quick bit of tea and a walk to Central Station, the most stunning station, and we took the subway uptown to our cheap and cheerful room for the night and a rest from sitting down.

Thursday was more of the same except there was rain and mist. We started with a walk through Central Park, a trip up the Empire State building and a ride on the Staten Island ferry to get close to the Statue of Liberty.

And then it was time to head home. Another 6 hours on a freezing megabus and a rapid hop from Boston to the park’n’ride and we crawled into bed at midnight.

New York was not in our original plan for this trip but now I’ve been I am really glad we took the opportunity.

As for the RV; the mechanic is looking at it today. God knows when we will start this trip but there’s plenty to do until we get going.