Its a bit fishy round 'ere

Ha haaaa... we be in Cape Cod! Right at the end of the land bit, a nice town called Provincetown. It's a bit like Brighton, but with New England style houses.
So, today we popped into the Land Rover dealer at Cape Cod. Charlie, having had his gearbox replaced just before we left and now having covered just over a thousand miles was due a gearbox oil change. The chaps at the dealership were amazed. Most had never seen a real live 110, let alone a Camel, so after lots of picture taking, they finally got on with the wrong job... they changed the engine oil, D'oh! No worries, I pointed out that it was the gearbox oil we wanted changed and they jumped into action again, but this time without the photo session.


We also popped into a bike shop near a place called Mashpee (tee hee... I love that name!!). Here I found a lovely bike for me, and Jen ordered the bike she has been after. With the exchange rates the way they are at the moment, we have both managed to get excellent bikes for a lot less than the UK value. Only trouble is, the brakes are round the wrong way... I tried to pull a skid and nearly flew over the handlebars instead. LOL.

So we are here in Provicetown (where the pilgrims first landed) at the Dunes Edge camp site, until tomorrow afternoon when Jens bike should be ready. In the meantime, she's gotta ride my old boneshaker. We are planning on taking in some of the dunes here in the morning before heading back towards the mainland.


The last couple of nights we have spent at State Park camsites. These vary in quality but are remarkably cheap, about £7-£8 per night. The private camp sites like this one here are a little more pricey... about £15 - £20... and they charge you a quarter for 3 minutes in the shower. Back to the State Parks tomorrow then ;-)

Gotta go, the midgeys are lunching on me big style despite the jungle formula insect repellant and Jen is giving me "eyes" 'cos I'm using the lappy!

Night night everybody :-)

We're on the road!

Wahoo! Finally :)

We picked Charlie the Camel up on Friday morning and it looks like he came out the container unscathed which was excellent news for us, only thing was all the little 'Land Rover Spiders' (part number AEU28570) had loved having the 110 all to themselves so the little hoover Nan and Granddad gave me came in quite useful for getting rid of all the cobwebs! :)

We hit the road... and then turned around! Dan had left his phone on the seat of the car which belonged to the nice lady from the container transporting company! A quick phonecall from the office later and she returned (very kind of her) to Dan looking sheepish. The people we have dealt with regarding the shipping have all been very friendly and tolerant so for that we are very grateful.

When we finally got on the road again we decided to hit the intersate. Having spent 2 weeks in New York/New Jersey and Maryland we wanted to start heading north. Luckily the interstates are easy to understand and we soon found ourselves heading for the first campsite in Andover (lol!) New Jersey, Panther Lake. A private site with lots of lovely lakes and stuff, but more important - BLACK BEARS! I couldn't belive it, I thought we had at least a few weeks before we reached bear country, but apparently not. I spent so much time organising getting here I really should of done more research into what's actually here. Still, the frige is air-tight and we followed all instructions so got through the night without being eaten ;)

After 2 weeks of lovely weather it's only right that I should tell you it poured down all night! Massive thunderstorms and pathways that turned into rivers, but being in the rooftent we had no problems :)

The next day we headed off north again, taking the local roads this time. We also managed to find a mall in which i brought excellent lighter trousers (Jeans not funny in this weather) and nike stuff for about 98p... :) The scenery's lovely, the houses amazing and last night we also discovered the joys of State Park campsites :) Clean showers and toilets with beautiful scenery all for £8 a night for both of us. Bargain. Will try to use more of them.

We're spending today doing some scenic trails and driving towards Cape Cod which we aim to hit tomorrow as we were told it was best to avoid at the weekends. Either tomorrow of tuesday we're getting our Mountain Bikes (as nothing's open today - Sunday) so we can do some of the lovely trails we've aready found.

We've discovered all Holiday Inn's have free internet and are handily advertised everywhere, so should be able to update the blog with relative frequency, will sort some pics out for next time too :)

The end is near...

Of our wait, that is. Had a phone call from Bridget this afternoon, we will be getting picked up at 10am from the hotel lobby tomorrow morning and taken to the warehouse to collect Charlie Camel! So please excuse me while I go all American for a moment... WHOOP, YEAH, OH MY GAAAAAAD, WHOOP!!! :-)

The cities we've been to have been fantastic, but we hoped to be on the road a week ago, so we are kinda looking forward to tomorrow!

The temperature here in Baltimore at the mo is about 88, so we're off for a swim before going out to celebrate :-)

..The Cheesecake Factory! Oh, and Baltimore..

We tend to avoid the 'chain' resturants if we can, but we've heard people talking about 'The Cheescake Factory' around here so we thought it would be worth checking out :)

It was. The food was excellent and there was a huge choice, it's the first time since we've arrived that to be honest, it would have been satisfactory to order one main meal and a side salad for both of us. We've got by so far by only having breakfast and one main meal but even that today was far too much. Luckily enough, the waiter guy Jeff was a good man and put the rest of the lovely cheescakes we'd ordered for pudding in a little carton for breakfast! lol! Cheesecake for breakfast. Perfeck. (note to self: Go to gym tomorrow)

As for Baltimore, we arrived back this afternoon to the news that Charlie had cleared customs - WAHOO! Just got to wait for him to be transported to the collection area now, which with anyluck will happen tomorrow and we can (fingers and toes crossed) pick him up on Friday.

We explored Inner Harbour tonight, there was a baseball match going on but being more of a basketball girl we avoided that and took a stroll instead. Lots of streetside entertainers (including an excellent Doo-Wop group and a little Dave wannabe playing with fire). Lovely atmosphere but we'll head back there tomorrow for a better look and trip to the aquarium during the day.

...and what's wrong with Harry Potter books?! :) ...

Last day in DC

Everywhere I look people are reading Harry bloomin Potter books... on the trains, on the buses, at the stations, in the street... everywhere!

Got up late today as it's our last full day here in DC and eventually made our way down to the Space and Aeronautical museum. Its free to get in dont'ya'know :-) Now, I'm not really a museum person, but this place kept me busy until they kicked us out at 5pm.
We then thought we'd get the Metro over to the Pentagon, take a couple of pics before heading back to Foggy Bottom... Bit of a waste of time as you ain't allowed to take pics of the Pentagon and from ground level it just looks like any other office building. Hey ho, back on the Metro and back to the Froggy Bottom pub for a bite to eat and another couple of beers... I'm gonna miss that place.

All the sunshine we've had, I've now got burnt ears! LOL :-)

Busy bees...

Wow... what a day! Last week we had a call from the US shipping agent who needed us to sign the US equivalent of a Carnet de Passage. So today we were up bright and breezy (7am!!) to get the train back to Baltimore. We hopped onto the Washington Metro to Union Street Station and caught the commuter train to Baltimore. Then picked up a cab to the Dartrans office where we met Bridget for the first time. It was good to meet her and she was very re-assuring about the progress of our container. Then it was down to business... The bill needed paying! Dartrans normally do business with other US based companies so don't take credit cards. Not a problem, says I, we'll leg it down to Dartrans bank with my credit card, their bank account details and a total amount and bobs your uncle! If only it was that simple. The first branch of M&T bank basically said we couldn't pay the money. So when we went into the next branch I tried a different tactic which completely confused the bank clerk (I think she had an IQ of about 2). Eventually, after explaining about 4 times that we wanted to pay money into Dartrans account from my credit card, she finally twigged. The transaction took for ever, but we finally left the bank with a reciept showing that the money had been paid into the Dartrans account.

After all that rushing between cities we needed beer, so stopped off at the Froggy Bottom Pub again for a bite to eat and some light alcoholic refreshment... Several pints later we staggered the 3 blocks back to the hotel with the satisfaction of a few good jobs done... hick! ;-)

Washington's National Mall - wow

What an excellent day :)

The sun was shining when we woke up, temp in the high 80's all day today which made us think of all of you in Billing's mudbath (still would have loved to have been there :) ), Berkshire even made 'the weather channel' this morning (my new favourite past time!), the flooding looks scary! Hope everyone's ok and Hampshire isn't too affected.

We decided to spend the day walking around the National Mall (not the shopping kind). On our way there we stumbled across the National Treasury and figuring the US of A has lots of money we thought we'd ask if they'd fund the next Flying Spanners trip to Ladoga... but they wouldn't let us in.

Not to be perturbed we completed the short walk to the White House (we're staying on the same road don't'chaknow - it's alot smaller in 'real life') and thought we'd ask the President if he could spare the cash... but they wouldn't let us in there either. Sigh. At least we tried :)

Shortly after that there was a security alert which meant we were all rushed from the gate as the fire engines and Police cars came rushing past, we're hoping it was nothing to do with dodgy people with Russian t-shirts on looking for money....

We completed our walk down to Capitol Hill, looked at the building (no sign of Will Smith or giant Alien crafts) and the free botanical gardens (very relaxing) and walked up the National Mall to the Washington Monument (very big, 555ft actually), past the WWII memorial (very moving), reflecting pool (very green) and up to the Lincoln Memorial (very marbley). Stunning scenery and a lovely relaxing day after the hustle of New York.

Sadly the excellnt pub we found yesterday called the 'Froggy Bottom' (in Foggy Bottom) wasn't open, so we settled on a TGi's (because it was there) before heading back for an early night before rushing back to Baltimore tomorrow.

Tracey - that sun cream you recommended is excellent, I know because I forgot to put some on a bit and that bit's now very red! lol! P20 for anyone who's interested.

Welcome to Washington DC!

WOW! You should see this hotel room! It makes the Milford Plaza in New York (the one we just left) look like a stinky old hole... We have just arrived at the Melrose in Washington DC. The sign on the back or our door says that this room normally goes for $499 per night! Thanks to Expedia, we are paying about £58 :-)
And to make matters better, I'm updating this blog on the back of somebody's unprotected wi-fi connection, so I don't have to pay the $9.99 that the hotel wants per day :-)
Had breakfast in New York, now just about to go out for dinner and beer in Washington... aren't we just the little jetsetters!
Mind you, we still can't wait to get Charlie Camel back, then the holiday will really begin.
Thinking of you all having a fun filled funky time at Billing... kinda wish we could be there, sort of, in a roundabout sort of way, maybe ;-)

(lack of) Shopping in New York!

...Mm. Forgot I'm not really a shopping person! :) Lasted a whole hour before I thought it best to get on and see some more sights. Admittedly I couldn't find the 6 story 'Nike' shop and if I could it would have been a whole other story!

So, popped into the Grand Central Station, part of it was still shut off due to the huge steam explosion yesterday, but saw most of it and it was stunning. I love the buildings here in New York, they've been a really pleasent suprise, lots and lots of history for such a 'young' Country.

Got another call from the shipping agents ... they were suprised the Landy was in a container! Which suprised us due to all the conversations we'd had with them about the Container!! We now have to head back to Baltimore to sign more papers (the equivalent of a Carnet), despite already sending quite a few back. Still, these things have to be done and tbh I'll do anything to get Charlie through at the moment!

Oh well. That's life. A lovely Italian meal helped calm the nerves and I finally managed to pick up a bit of New York cheescake on our last night in New York before we head off to Washington tomorrow...

Good Things and Bad Things

Good Things: Ben and Jerry's also make smoothies. This I did not know. But it makes me happy :) hehe.

Bad Things: Shipping! Grrrr.

Well, we flew out on the 15th, Charlie originally been promised as arrived and ready to go on the 16th.. then we were told there had been delays, no worries, this gives us time to 'do' New York, Arrival expected by the 24th.... now we're told he will arrive by the 22nd (maybe) but will need 5 days to clear US customs. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I apprieciate it's not the companies faults, but it is frustrating :) Not being a 'hotel' or 'city' person, I now find myself in a hotel in a city... for another week. Poor Dan is bearing the brunt of it, but doing well (I think he keeps switching his hearing aids off :) ). I can hear Canada and my lovely shiny new bike calling, but at the moment we seems to be confined a bit!

Still, not to be perturbed (sp?!) we've booked in to a hotel in Washington (yet another great deal from Expedia who always seem to beat the pants of everyone) until Wednesday when we'll make our way back to Baltimore (maybe) to hopefully pick Charlie up. We've gone for the train option this time so if we get the call saying he's ready we're only a 40minute train ride away.

The cities are amazing, but I can't wait to get on with the 'proper' holiday :)

Well, having spent all morning sorting that little mess out, it's 12:51 and we've yet to have breakfast, more importantly, it's 12:51 and this was my shopping day! Oh well, I've now spent all my money on hotels anyway, hehe. Off to Grand Central Terminal and the Library again, then going to see what bargains I can hunt out - we're getting over $2 to £1 on the credit cards at the moment, excellent news :)

I'm starving. More New York Pizza anyone?

Jen

New York.... err, New York

Well, since the last entry the battery on the Laptop went flat. This was when I realized that A) we didn’t have a vehicle to plug it into to charge it up B) we didn’t have a US mains plug for the lappy… D’oh! I asked in one of the dodgey computer shops that lines 7th Avenue and they wanted $60 for a power lead. If you read any of the travel books, they all say to be careful in these shops. Boy, they ain’t wrong! As soon as you walk in, they know you are a tourist and try to flog you stuff you really don’t need or want. I was strong enough to resist the power of the dark side and walked out empty handed :-) We eventually found the lead we needed in a shop called J&R’s for $8.99. So now we can update the blog!
We left Baltimore on Monday and caught the Greyhound bus to New York. This is by far the cheapest way to get around if you don’t have your own vehicle. We got a return ticket each $70 (about £35). Train was over $200 and plane nearly $300. But you can’t be choosy about where you sit, just grab a seat! Jen sat next to a Martin Lawrence look-a-like New Yorker called Shawn. Sounds like he was a bloody nice chap who gave loads of really helpful advise. Me… well, I got some overly camp bloke! He was ok actually, but he was very loud and insisted on shouting “oh my gaaaaad!” everytime I said anything (Shawn and I found it most amusing - Jen).
We are staying at the Milford Plaza on West 45th street (1 block from Times Square and Broadway… it’s not too bad, but the maids aren’t overly good at cleaning… there are bogeys on the bed side table! And the wi-fi internet access is $11/day! But, mustn’t grumble, its cheap, comfy and we have air con (even if it is the loudest in the world!)
So anyway, here we are in New York, with a few days to kill. It’s manic here, think of London on a busy Saturday night, multiply the buzz by 10 and you still ain’t quite there!
We bought sightseeing bus tickets (thanks for the tip Eric! Jen) that included entry into various attractions and headed Downtown. These buses are frequent and you can hop on and off as often as you like so are a great way to get around if you are new in town. The guides on the buses are full of useful local knowledge, not just about the usual attractions, but about things that you probably wouldn’t normally try.
Downtown is the lower half of Manhatten Island, where the twin towers used to be. It’s a really weird feeling being there, kinda hard to describe. I know we never knew anyone there or that was directly affected by 9/11, but we both still left the area with big lumps in our throats!
We then got another bus and did the “Brooklyn loop”. Jen really liked the brown stone houses that typify this area of New York. (but then I would, they sell for over $1million and that’s just the ones in Brooklyn!)
Finally, in the evening we ventured up the Empire State building while it was still light and stayed there until it got dark.
Next day we headed “Uptown”, the area north of Central Park. Checked out the American Museum of Natural History… very cool. Everywhere we go is like walking in a movie set, the Natural History museum from that Tom Hanks Film and in Friends, the subway from various movies, times square, empire state, Ellis Island from Hitch… We then walked back to Time Square via Central Park. Luckily we missed the Steam Pipe explosion on 41st St, only a few blocks from us, apparently there was flames and mud and street flying everywhere! Some impressive pics in the paper and one lady died of a heart attack, but luckily no more deaths.
Today was the day for catching the Circle Line ferry over to Liberty Island and Ellis Island, we started well by walking to the wrong port! 2miles later and we were back in times Square to catch the subway downtown again, still, it was good as it meant I got to ride the subway. Statue of Liberty is bigger than you think! Ellis Island was interesting and again some fabulous old buildings.

Tomorrow we are having a “shopping day” interspersed with Grand Central Station and another visit to the Library – we went on Tuesday, but didn’t get time for a proper look around and it looks excellent! (and is the one in Ghostbusters which is just cool!)… then on Saturday we head back to Baltimore to meet up with Bridget at Dartrans and hopefully get Charlie Camel out of his container. The news here is that the boat maybe ahead of schedule. A last minute hiccup with paperwork not being sent through from Kingstown was sorted (hopefully).
I will be speaking to Dartrans again tomorrow to make sure that everything is tickerty-boo. When we get Charlie back, this is when the proper holiday will start!
Thanks to everyone for the text messeges and posts on the blog :-)

We're here!

Wow, what a day! We were up bright and breezy this morning, Moo gave us a lift to Southampton Parkway railway station. An hour and a bit train ride to Woking and then a coach to Heathrow. Total journey time about from leaving the house to checking in just under 3 hours. With the flight not leaving until 1pm we had some time to kill so splashed out on probably the last full english breakfast of the year!
We boarded the Boing 767 and the flight took off about 15 mins late. I'd forgotten how boring long haul flights can be, but the in-flight entertainment system was quite good despite there being a dodgey headphones connection!
We landed at Baltimore and the cabin crew made an announcement that approximately 100 bags had been left behind at Heathrow. Fortunately for us, ours weren't in amongst that lot :-)
So anyway, I've just switched my phone on and got a text from Brookies Steve (Cheers matey!!)
It's about 32degrees C here, so pretty warm :-)
The light tram system got us from the airport to the hotel in about 20 mins, and here I am in our room, on the 7th floor of the Holiday Inn... WOW!! Its just coming up to midnight back home, 7pm here. Jen is in the shower, and I stink, so I'm going in next. Gonna grab some grub and a beer then I reckon we'll end up getting an early night.

WOW... We're in America!

Farewell Parties, hangovers and cleaning!

Well, 'tis the morning after the night before 08:54 and I'm sat in the garden on the laptop whilst the rest of the house is snoozing :) My habit of recent weeks of waking up at 5:30am after having nightmares about the huge list of things to do was only slightly modified to 6:45am after a 3:30am bedtime...sigh. I think I'll sleep for a week when I get there, but still - I certainly can't complain!

HUGE thanks has to go to Richard and Tracy for being daft enough...er... lovely enough to let us all invade their house last night to save the nightmares of cleaning today (the wonders of owning a dishwasher), I really, really apprieciate all the effort they went to to set the house up/clean out the garage and the huge amount of cleaning Tracy Rhodes did.

The celebration of the going away and Mike's 32nd Birthday also ended up being a celebration of Kev's birthday (although he didn't tell us until 5 minutes before he was leaving) and Crine's birthday (on Sunday) so ALSO and without a doubt we have to thank everyone who turned up :) Dan's Dad and Sister Bab's who travelled down from Colchester, Marky Hankin (git) who surprised us by turning up from Somerset after pretending he had to work (git git), Tim and Lou who didn't turn up until almost midnight after being sat in traffic for 3 hours on their way down from the midlands and Jez/Zuz who travelled down from Basingstoke, which admittedly isn't as far as the others but is still a fantastic effort in a rented van! Thanks also to everyone for the good wishes/cards/pressies and alcohol :) We ended up with a huge assortment from SLRC ladies tops and wind up torches to an excellent mix-CD full of songs about places in America and Russian Vodka (which I think is now going to Billing!). Very cool.



An excellent party ensued; Steve ended up in the hot tub (fully clothed), JU brought much Bubble happiness, Little Dave played with fire, various experiments happened with the Chocolate fountain and the 'boys' spent all night sat in the garage... they feel safe in there. Bless. Pics to follow when Bab's gets up and I get get back in the lounge to get the Camera!

The list of 'things to do today' is still huge... I've tidied the bedroom already and finished packing, so: one more lot of washing, dusting, hoovering, getting tyres on my new Mini Wheels (Mmmm.... white superlite :) so he has a hope of passing the MOT on our return), cleaning, waxing and making sure Mike and Becky know where the keys are then paying cheques in, posting t-shirts to Jules, dropping the HSE back to Moo, picking lots of stuff up from Richard and Tracy after last night, buying pillows for anyone using the house whilst we're away and checking I've got all the paperwork in place... Ah. No worries.

Help.

The waiting game

With not much to do now, other than pack bags and have a going away party, all the stresses and strains of the past couple of months seemed to have been whisped away. I'm sure they will return tho as we still have to get Charlie through customs when we arrive in Baltimore. But for now my mind has started to wander a bit... We have a container on a ship called MSC Christina, operateed by the Mediterranean Shipping Company... What can I find out about that vessel? So armed with the internet I get to work! Anybody who is bored by ships should probably switch off now!!

I initailly used the google image search thingy and turned up a multitude of pictures of people called Christina! Amazingly enough (for me, anyway), google-ing the vessels name turned up a couple of photos from http://www.shipspotting.com/. The Shipspotting website is the nautical equivelent of train spotting. You may mock this sort of stuff, but it can be amazingly useful when you want information. Anyway, thanks to Stan Muller in the Netherlands, I now have 2 photos of the vessel carrying Charlie Camel. And judging by the time they were taken, I'd even go as far as saying that our container is in those pictures somewhere! How cool is that! I would have sent him an email, but his profile on the shipspotting website lacks any sort or contact details.

Having a quick scout around on the MSC website I found out she was built in 1998 and has a gross tonnage of 37,579. I have no idea if thats a lot for a container ship, but I'd guess it would hurt if it ran over your foot!

Rather worryingly, I also stumbled accross this little snippet... It appears that MSC Christina was involved in a fender-bender in May 2005! I hope she has a better driver now!

Oh so quiet...

Since we delivered Charlie Camel to Felixstowe, things have been pretty quiet here. I had news today from the shiping agents that the vessel, MSC Christina will be sailing tonight at 2300hrs. So if anyone fancies running down to wave goodbye...

Without a vehicle to prepare, we have spent the last week sorting out paperwork. The never ending list of things to sort out seems to be, well, never ending!

Bye bye Charlie Camel

Today we loaded Charlie Camel into the container at Felixstowe!

After spending an age cleaning and polishing the car before being shipped, it chucked it down with rain on the way to Felixstowe, so we thought we'd better get him washed again, just to be on the safe side. Then we pulled into the container yard to find that it was covered in muddy puddles!

Our container was delivered by the coolest fork-lift truck type thing that could lift and manouver the containers around with such ease. It was positioned in the yard and I drove Charlie camel into the container. Then we watched as Martin, Kingstowns main man for loading cars, secured Charlie using chocks, rope and some metal poles! Apparently he hasn't lost a car in 40 years of loading then into containers... thats a pretty impressive record I think :-)

We were advised that the container would be delivered to the quayside later today and loading of the ship would start on Thursday ready for the sailing on Sunday. Then if all goes according to plan with Dartrans in Baltimore, we should meet up with Charlie Camel again around about July 24th.... Can't wait!

Thats it, we're outta time!

After a few last minute panics with the new gearbox, and having to change it again last week the tension and stress levels were astronomical. But both Brooklyn 4x4 and Ashcrofts came through and sorted the problems out in plenty of time for the weekend.
Friday night the weather was fair enough and we were able to get out and give Charlie a good wash and polish, both inside and out. Even with all the dents he turns out quite well!
I spent Saturday morning doing a full service of the Landy while Jen sat in the living room sorting out paperwork. I had to let it over to Brookies to get the last few spares that I forgot to get during the week. So by the time I got home the oil was nice and warm and ready to drain. But the weather wasn't so nice over the weekend, and doing the service lying on the ground in the rain ain't much fun... I got a really wet bum! But never fear, a couple of hours later and looking like a drowned rat, Charlie had an oil and filter change, fuel filter and air filter change, and a newly sealed transfer box sump (which keeps leaking for some reason).

Sunday we hoped to put as many miles on the new gearbox as possible to make sure it's ok... we managed about 150... a very poor effort! In the morning we loaded eveything into the car. Then we headede out into the New Forest. Before we knew it, lunchtime had arrived and we were both starving, so a pub lunch later and it was time to head off to see a few people. We took the most indirect routes possible wherever we went.

Then we noticed that we had a slow puncture in one of the rear tyres! So off to Richards house with a bottle of wine to bribe him with (he has a tyre changing machine... it beats tyre leavers any day of the week!).

Some last minute panics this morning as we realised we hadn't packed a load of stuff into the vehicle made me a bit late for work (sorry boss!!). I also noticed that our newly repaired tyre is going flat again!!! ARRGGGHHHHHH!!! Oh well, we can't do anything about it now as we need to be in Colchester tonight to stay the night with my Dad, then up bright and breezy in the morning to get Charlie in his container at Felixstowe. So I'll be putting one of the spares on after work tonight.