Our Trip and First Week

Our flights went without a hitch, no delays or miss adventures. We flew Qantas all the way to New York  via Los Angles. We landed in LA, cleared customs, basically did a loop of the terminal got back on the same plane and waited for 20 mins for the flight from Melbourne to arrive.  We did manage to frequent the Qantas club for about 40 minutes though!  The plane was not full and we were advised not to move seats as the plane was in "critical trim". What this meant was that they had us seated accordingly to balance the weight based on the  small number of passengers and luggage aboard.  Have never heard of that before! 

Champagne Breakfast at the Qantas Club, Brisbane

We flew into the JFK airport in New York (flight time of 5 hours) collected our bags and caught the shuttle bus to our hotel where we were greeted by the one of the most delighful receptionists we have ever met.  After travelling for some 25 hours  to have Darlene greet us the way she did was great, nothing was too much trouble.  Bags dropped in the room we headed straight to the bar. (Now isn't that a surprise! )   As tired as we were we just needed to wind down so we had a wine and one of our favourite US foods, buffalo wings with a blue cheese sauce, fantastic! Two hours later we were in bed and slept like the perverbial logs. 

Buffalo wings after arriving in New York after some 25 hours of travelling

We awoke early ready for the next leg of our journey, back to JFK for our 1 hour flight to Buffalo NY.  We paid a little bit more for this flight as it was direct , most of the other flights go via what is called a "hub" and can take many hours to travel a short distance.  After travelling 25 hours the day before the shorter the better!   A  quick cabin service, ah yes that all American packet of pretzels and a tin of pop!   No cabin baggage on this flight, they take it off you at the gate and stow it seperately, anything bigger than an iphone did not fit on this plane.

We arrived at Buffalo airport greeted by a big smile from Ceil, who was very excited to see us again as we were her.    A 40 min trip south and we arrived in Fredonia (home of the Fredonia seed company JB) and were re united with our truck and trailer.  Happy days!!!!  With a wine in hand we made a bee line down to the barn and removed the cover from the 5th wheeler.  It had been in storage for 12 months - it was going to be interesting to see how it survived the New York State winter!   

In our absence we had received regular updates from Ceil and Chuck but to actually see it again was fantastic. All the effort we put into winterising it before we left last year was worth it. It was clean , dust and bug free. I put the key into the ignition and my baby kicked into life, ah nothing like a 6 litre turbo diesel idling away, I was in heaven. 

Needless to say that night was filled with much laughter and catchup stories. By the time Chuck got home from harvesting grapes we were exhausted but we soldiered on and talked way into the night.

The next morning we moved the trailer from beside the barn up close to the house on the black top so we could start preparing it for the next stage of our journey.  We flushed the anti freeze from the pipes, made sure the furnace worked, hot water heater was working etc. We still cannot fathom it sat in minus 20c over winter and it all still worked. Over the next few days we unpacked our stored clothes and bedding, they were all fresh and clean as we had  put them in vacumn bags with dryer sheets. 

I wont say we had jet lag but we were having trouble waking up most mornings, we had no trouble sleeping until 10am!  Coffee and cereal for brunch then back out to the van.

Of course no stay would be complete without a trip to the nearest Camping World, so off to Buffalo we went.  I needed to get some rubber roof patching to fix the "wear" marks left by the cover. Sitting high on the hill looking over Lake Eirie the wind has a habit of blowing and this is what has caused the rub makes on the roof. Visiting Camping World is like going to Bunnings in Australia the intention is to buy one thing and you buy several. I had been thinking about getting a flag pole and had done quite a bit of research before we left Australia.  Imagine my joy when I spotted the one I had decided I would get, at Camping World, and on sale!!  We hung our Aussie flag, attaching it to the awning with a couple of pegs last trip, so  I decided to fly our Aussie flag a bit better this trip.  Flying the Aussie flag is one thing but as American's are very patriotic, and given that we are visitors in their country we figured it was best that the American flag is positioned above the Australian. I am sure this will be the subject of discussion in the parks we visit.  

Our new flag pole works a treat!

I got Rose cleaning the roof

Handing over of the mop 13 foot up

A great view from the roof of our trailer looking at Chuck and Ceil's vineyard.

We knew we were going to have to replace the tyres on the truck so booked that in ready for our shakedown trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York State.  Most RV parks in the north of America close down during the winter months due to the sub zero temperatures which causes the water pipes to freeze.  We were lucky to find one park that was open until the end of October - extra bonus was that, as members of 'Passprt America' the cost was only going to be $16.50 a night - full hook up.  We  are hoping to catch up with some friends we met last trip while we are there.    

Truck is all clean, new tires and is ready to go.

Sunday we head off to Finger Lakes.

As Promised We Returned to Finish Our Journey

We left our great adventure in November 2013, but luck is on our side and we are returning to continue our journey come October 2014. We always planned to return we just didn't know exactly when?  Our personal situation has changed so we can head back early, am I excited? Bloody oath I am.

For the past year our trailer has been in storage at our friends - Chuck and Ceil's place in upstate New York. We have kept in touch with these guys on a regular basis and we know our trailer has been in good hands - thanks Chuck and Ceil. We spent countless hours preparing our trailer for storage over the winter months before we left, something completely new to us but from all reports we did a mighty good job - the only intruder was a small spider and her web at the front door. It is still hard for us Aussies to fathom a minus 20 c winter.

As the preparations began the the conversation went something along the lines of:

Me  - "this time will be different - we won't have to buy stuff for the trailer" Rose - "Ah hah  yep sure - I kow you will find something to buy".

She knows me too well.

Experience has shown us that the water is "hard" in quite a number of the USA states -  it dries the skin and makes you itch. Solution?  A water "softner".  Rose was right  - first gadget ordered. Then there were new water filters, a new shower head to compensate for the low pressure water and then the most exciting of all - a heated hose -  essential for cold weather camping.  This is basically a hose wrapped in wire which plugs into the power, and then a thermostat heats the hose when the temperature plummets. We aren't planning to camp in the cold this trip but at least we are now prepared!

So as my list of gadgets grows the UPS man and Ceil are becoming very well acquainted. We have also renewed our yearly National Federal park pass, Passport America membership - which gives us a 50% discount at some parks, $16.50 for full hookup is pretty impressive! Then there is our Good Sam roadside assist, camping world membership and the list goes on.

After travelling over 36,000 kilometres last trip the truck and 5th wheeler will need a little TLC before we hit the road again - new tires, oil change, new batteries, wheel bearings repacked, and re protecting the rubber roof. We anticipate that this will take a week or so and will require many a happy hour sitting on Chuck and Ceil's front verandah overlooking Lake Erie. Before venturing off completely we will do a 'shake down' trip to the Finger Lakes and hope Chuck and Ceil will be able to dust off their motorhome and join us.

We are slowly working through our list of 'things to do" and, given that we know this won't be our last "RnRUSAGapYear" adventure, what to take and what to buy to leave in our mobile holiday home is a big consideration.  Let's see if I can convince Rose to pack just the one suitcase this time!

Travel insurance, DFAT departure forms, money transfers, packing up house, farewell drinks and catch ups with all our wonderful families (and very special Grandbabies) will certainly keep us busy in the upcoming weeks.

Although the dollar has dropped (at the time of writing)  the price of gas in the US has reportedly dropped also and may be as low as $3 a gallon  (78 cents a litre).  This is great news as fuel is one of our big consumer items.

We don't have any definite plans for this trip  - more like a general direction -  we will however head south, away from the cold,  like the millions of other "snowbirders" from Canada and the northern states of the USA.  We will visit  Rose's brother and sister in law in southern Ohio, attempt to catch up with some wonderful people we met on our Alaskan cruise in their home state of Tennasee, onto Dallas to enjoy prize winning smoked ribs with Bobby and Libby, onto Corpus Christie to hopefully get to taste fresh roasted duck breast with Kathy and Jay and then follow the highway around the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida to catch up with David and Monty for a few drinks from their under sink liquor dispenser -  no rush - we are after all retired folk now!

These final weeks will be huge, busily trying to catch up with everyone before  we leave and making sure that that "to do list" has all been checked off.  We are sure we will get on the plane and just collapse.



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