USA RV
USA RV Intro
We are kiwifruit growers from Te Puke in the sunny Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, getting close to being classed as “seniors’, so thought it timely to follow a long standing dream and have purchased a Recreational Vehicle (RV) in the USA and a Jeep Liberty to tow behind it, and are going “camping” through the states when time allows. Our RV is a 38 foot Alfa See Ya and is very comfortable and cosy, it has two slide outs which gives us a lot more space once parked. Our first trip started on Thursday December 21st, meeting with our son Neil and his wife Nicolle at Auckland airport, they had come in from Melbourne on the plane that was continuing to Los Angeles. This was to be a shakedown trip, let’s see how it goes.
The first trip went well, no major problems, so after being back home and working flat out to get everything up to date, here we are at the 14th March, off in our next adventure, heading eastward across the USA, come along with us and see what happens on the way.
Well after a good start and seeing lots of nice scenery when we leaving El Paso encountered a problem with the transmission which took a long time to sort out, so had to leave the motorhome behind and proceeded with the Jeep for the rest of our time.
Next trip started on 1st June and we are accompanied this time with Karen and Grant Wilson from Maketu also in the Bay of Plenty, and we start off in Dallas, Texas for a weekend and then fly to El Paso to collect the motorhome and then drive back to Dallas to connect again with our Jeep, before heading through the rest of Texas and onto New Orleans and to Florida, making it across the country from coast to cast for the first time.
In October we started off in Jacksonville Florida for another month of travelling the south eastern states, and backtracked along the Florida panhandle beaches through a small corner of Alabama and then headed north through Mississippi and onwards to Arkansas before taking an eastern turn through Tennessee and over the Smoky Mts through North Carolina for a short time and then into Georgia and ended our journey in Savannah.
It is now March, Easter weekend and we are off on another trip for a month, leaving behind beautiful warm sunny autumn days and not knowing what sort of weather we may encounter in the northern springtime. We are well equipped for all weathers, but hope we do not get into severe conditions. that trip went well, saw lots of nice scenery and had springtime several times over, we stored our vehicles in the Harrisburg PA area, and headed home on 21st April to harvest our fruit.
Now it is 2nd June 2008 and we are off again on a further trail through the USA, our fruit is all picked and packed and the pruners are ready to start.
We travelled a lot of miles, through the New England states and the Atlantic marine tines of Canada, and have seen some beautiful and diverse scenery, a little bit of wild life but not as much as we would have liked. Have met some nice friendly and helpful people, being summer more folk were out and about the campgrounds and were ready to chat. Our weather has been very good, only two wet days, and a few light showers all the time we have been travelling, now back to face winter.
We have left the wet and cold behind as we travel again at the end of August, this trip we are joined by my sister and brother-in-law from Scotland for the first part of the trip, around the Great Lakes area. After three weeks they departed from Chicago after 2 very wet days there, and we continued on our way through Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Missouri to our final destination of Kansas City, where we have put both vehicles into storage in a old limestone mine, that has been converted into a massive storage and warehousing complex. Our travels have taken us off the beaten track to many places of interest, and we have seen some beautiful countryside, the weather has been kind to us and we have enjoyed the company of fellow campers on occasions. As we have seen the warmer states, we will not return until late May when the central and northern areas we wish to visit are starting to warm up.
May 28th 2009 and we are travelling again, my sister and brother-in-law are joining us again for the first three weeks of our journey. We have travelled many miles, eastward through Missouri, Oklahoma, the north of Texas, into New Mexico then northward through Colorado and Utah then detoured to Las Vegas, back north to Utah then over the mountains to Colorado where our visitors departed from Denver. The two of us carried on northwest through Wyoming seeing some spectacular scenery around Teton NP then made our way through southwest Nebraska, into Kansas heading back to Kansas City to storage. Our weather was mainly sunny and hot, we encountered many thunder storms mostly at night so they did not hamper our travels. Back home for seven weeks then we resume our travels at the end of August.
The end of August came round very quickly, we had a trip to Melbourne for six days before getting ready to go tripping again. This time we have friends from Te Puke travelling with us, Judy and Brian Tanner, this is their first time to USA, so all keen for a big adventure. We travelled many miles and saw some great sights, lovely scenery and wildlife in the north, we crossed rivers, climbed over mountains in the RV and down again into the valley’s. Now we have been in every state, don’t claim to have seen them all, but have had a reasonable look at many, and will revisit those of particular interest. The motorhome is once again stored in Kansas City for the winter, and will hopefully will return in May to continue our journey.
It has come round to May again, and we are once more on our travels, leaving home in a rain storm which has disrupted the first part of our journey, let’s hope things go better from there. This trip we will be revisiting some of our favourite places, trying to take a different road, and to fill in some of the gaps.
We certainly did that, fill in the gaps, but still travelled some previous routes and did the same things, never as good the second time around! The weather was good, very hot and only had rain one whole day, but lots of thundery showers which cleared quickly, but did not stop us from enjoying our travels, the only time we had to put on a jumper was in San Francisco. We go home for a few weeks, have a short trip to Melbourne to catch up with the grandkids then we are back on the road again late August, keep watching!
August has come round very quickly and here we are on the road again, leaving the New Zealand winter behind. We have Brian and Judy Tanner with us again this trip. Our travels have taken us on a large circuit, west to the coast, north into Canada, then east across Canada through the mountains and prairie lands, then south again to Kansas City to our storage place. We have had a variety of weather situations, seen some wildlife and beautiful scenery, done a fair bit of shopping, but it does not rank as one of our better trips. We have revisited many of the destinations and they never have the same appeal the second time, plus we have had a few problems with the motorhome, nothing that cannot be overcome, but frustrating and time consuming. Back home safe and sound, ready for our summer weather to kick in, we have missed a lot of the wet spring weather which has been so horrible
Here we are again on 19th June a bit later than normal as our harvest was later, this time we are joined by Alex’s sister Pat and her husband Denis for a few days as they have just completed a train tour around USA, and were in LA the day we arrived, so after a bit of service and repair work we will head south to Texas and beyond. The air conditioning caused us a bit of grief for a while and we had to have a couple of repairs made before it was up to speed. The weather was hot and dry, drought conditions in the south in many places. We visited some small places along the Texas coast then went westward along the Rio Grande valley and then through New Mexico to Monument Valley and the Four Corners before going back to Kansas City through Colorado.
We have now sold the motorhome and Jeep as a package with most of the contents included, did not get as much for the unit as we would have liked, but with the US economy in crisis, feel fortunate to have made the sale, so now the great adventure of travelling through the USA and Canada has come to an end, with very mixed feelings. Our impressions - the scenery was varied and spectacular, the sights and museums were interesting, the small towns had their own appeal, the roads and driving was great, the shopping was marvellous, especially the outlet shops, my grandsons must be the best dressed kids in Melbourne if the amount of clothes I have bought them is the measure, the people have been helpful and friendly, mostly liking our accents and willing to chat. The negatives - tipping, don’t like it, people should be paid a decent wage and not expect extra just for doing their job - our feelings are tips to be given for exceptional service only, not as a matter of course. Taxes added at the counter is another negative - price listed should be price paid. Different states have their own rules regarding sale of liquor, very confusing for the traveller. Let’s not forget the grumpy dining server at a Cabelas shop and the asshole who was going to set the police on us as we took a photo of the ferry arriving at Liberty Harbour, even though we were paying guests at the RV park there, that put a blot on New York for us, but I guess 2 idiots out of the many is not too bad.
The costs -the vehicle purchase, international and domestic airfares, fuel, lodging and food - huge! - repairs and maintenance - annoying! - the experience - priceless! Our great five year travel adventure is now at an end. Goodbye.
