Plymouth Ho

We made our sad farewells to Pete and Jan and set sail for Plymouth, where we duly arrived mid afternoon, finding the fairground was straight forward, so we then searched for the optimum parking space – shade, power, water, flat…… but only got a little way when we were hailed by some of the people we had met at Calusa last October. ‘Hey, here is your parking space, pull up beside us…. Here, we will run a power cord, hey and you can share this water spicket, ho there is a gray water dump just here, then we can do some pickin.’ We had arrived at the Plymouth Bluegrass Festival! It was really great to have people who remembered us and were still happy to welcome us.

Settling in and a fabulous night of Bluegrass.

Friday saw Terry washing the trailer outside and hosing down the truck and doing myriad of other things to get us ready to move on. Sally unpacked and organised the inside of the trailer. We spent time catching up with Peter and Jan, who had been doing a days supply teaching in her old school. An early night was needed as we are both still jet lagged.
Saturday was busy as Terry tried to chase up a spare part for the truck which was put into a paint shop to be sprayed silver to match the truck and was never delivered to our friends house as promised. This was despite about 6 phone calls both from the UK and back here in the USA, and numerous emails. Success, Terry finally managed to catch Hugo at his home and retrieved our spare part.
Then Terry had to find two replacement plastic roof vents as they disintegrated when he washed the roof of the trailer! It's amazing how things degrade in the strong sunshine over here. Well, they have lasted 6 years so let's hope the new ones will last as long. He spent ages fixing them and I managed to get all the internal parts washed and cleaned before he reassembled them. We are water tight once again.( Very important as one vent is above the bed!)




Last night we had been invited, along with Peter and Jan to their friends' music party.

It was great fun with fun people , good music - from Bluegrass to golden oldies - and fabulous food.

Debra and Glen had cooked a huge slab of roast beef which melted in the mouth and everyone brought a dish to share. Jan had cooked an amazing cake with cream cheese and raspberry frosting which was used as a birthday cake as we discovered it was Debra's birthday.

I only had a mouthful, just to taste it, and it was scrummy. Terry had a huge piece so bang went his weight loss again!!!!

We really enjoyed our night with these lovely welcoming people and hope to meet up with Helen and her hubby at the 49ers Encampment in Death Valley later on.

Today, Sunday finds Terry putting the spare part on the truck and trying to straighten out the running board which was damaged last trip and fixing it back on. Hard to do when the temperature is already up to 84F (29.5C) in the shade and likely to reach 94 as in the two previous days. I'm busy doing washing - the pillows needed a wash and then we already have a weeks worth of clothes to do. Big thank yous to Jan and Peter for their hospitality and help - Peter is helping Terry to fix the truck.
Tomorrow we plan to set of for Plymouth to get there in good time to get an electric hookup - we really need the air con. There is a Bluegrass Festival there the following weekend which we are booked into. We hope to meet up with Mary and Steve Tilden who we stayed with near Mount Shasta two trips ago.

We were reunited with our trailer and truck yesterday, after two nights in San Fransisco with our lovely friends, Rich and Debra- a well needed rest day. All was well inside but everything outside was covered with a thick layer of dust, leaves and spiders webs. Terry found three wasps nests under the bonnet (hood) of the truck but quickly dealt with them with a killer spray. He still got stung though! It is very hot here in the Central Valley in California - - our outside thermometer is saying 94F. Thank goodness for air conditioning. We have spent today unpacking and getting the inside of the trailer and truck organised and shopping for supplies. Terry is going to get up very early tomorrow to wash the trailer before it gets too hot! The truck will go through a car wash. It's great to be back.

Here at last

Well we have made it here at last.
I am tucked up safe in our bed in the attic of Rich and Debra's house in San Leandro, ready to drop to sleep. It has been quite a journey this time as the flight was delayed for two hours while we waited for a pilot to show  up. While in the departure lounge we saw on Facebook that today was Emma and Julia's first day back a school, so that was nice. Sally seems to have coped quite well with the travel, though we are both tired and have bum sores from sitting down for so long.

My saddest memory from today was a conversation we had with a couple in the departure lounge, they looked like they were in their eighties, they explained to us how this was to be their last visit to Vancouver, her illness now meant they couldn't return to Canada again, they had to sell up and dispose of everythingnever to return again, she was almost in tears as she told us.

I spy a giant Teddy outside Harrods


Sally single handedly stops Starbucks from sinking into liquidation as we get a drink.

Ready for the off!

Well, we are finally ready to set off tomorrow to travel by train down to London Kings Cross. We get a taxi from there to Paddington Station and then catch the Heathrow Express to the airport. We will stay overnight at a motel and get to the airport for 7.30 am for our 10.30 flight to San Fransisco, pick up a hire car and drive to our friends Debra and Rich who live in San Leandro just over the bay from SF.
We are going to stay a couple of nights with them before heading of into the Central Valley to be reunited with our rig. Some friends, Peter and Jan have stored our rig for us on their land, near Merced, for which we are very grateful. Then we will be ready to set off travelling again.
We are really looking forward to seeing our friends again and to getting some lovely hot sunshine.

USA here we come!!

Last Minute Trauma

It seems an unwritten rule that as we approach our departure to the States things happen.
This trip's catastrophe (we hope the only one) is that our trusty car, the Toyota Previa, that has seen us through the last 13 years has given up the ghost, by somehow running out of water and (I think) seizing the engine, anyway it is now lying dormant in the garage awaiting last rites to be delivered when we return in November.
Other preparations are moving inexorably to their climax when we turn off the lights on Monday and take the train to London.
So far though we have few definite plans apart from a bluegrass festival, a booking for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in October and going to the 49er Encampment in Death Valley in November.
In theory our next posting should be from California.

First thoughts

Well, we are gearing up again for our next trip to the USA. The first significant date is September 4th, when we fly from Heathrow to San Francisco, making our way from there back to our truck and trailer in Central California.