Tuesday 25 August 2015

Counting the Days

Seems like only a year ago I started talking about this trip and yet here it is, within touching distance. Oh wait, it was!  Anyway, there is now less than a week to go before we fly into the Windy City, Chicago. Weather forecast for the day of our arrival, is high eighties fahrenheit, so if it lives up to it's name, that might be just what we need, a cool breeze, as we are doing our sightseeing. It's a little warmer than I was expecting, if I'm honest but not too hot that Ms Dozey will go into shutdown. The photo you see of her on the blog was taken in Vegas and the temperature there was 114..... way too hot for Ms D.

This will almost certainly be the last time I post from Blighty. I have too much to get sorted now and still have to take care of the day job too. Little piles of papers, plug converters, chargers, etc, have started to appear around the place but I've not yet started to 'pack' as such. As I write, I haven't a clue what I'll be taking on the clothing front but if the weather is going to be that good, the whole time (fingers crossed), then I can probably afford to travel light.

Wifi and my stamina allowing, I'll aim to update the blog at the end of each day, though I know some places we won't get free wifi, so there may be some days delay, coz I'm damned if I'm paying for it! If I can, I may even knock out a quick update during the day, on the phone/tablet. Again that is wifi dependant. Even if I can't post, you'll be able to see from the hotels listing, where we are along the route and track us that way. We start the drive and thus end the day in Springfield, IL, on Wednesday 2nd September.

That's all for now. Looking forward to the ride and having y'all along with us.

Till next week.



Monday 10 August 2015

Three Weeks and Counting

Yes, can you believe it?  Three weeks today we'll leave Blighty for the new world across the Atlantic.

When I left you last, we'd sorted our sightseeing day in Chicago and were turning our attention to Los Angeles.  Well, we have that pretty much sorted, though we've yet to sort out when we'll meet Dean & Carol and we've also logged our must do's for our spare days in Springfield, Illinois and Santa Fe.

The admin side, i.e. our ESTA, has been sorted and I finally managed to book our room at the Cactus Inn, in McLean, Texas. You may recall the Cactus Inn were proving difficult to get hold of  previously and when I finally got a response from them, they said to wait until August to book. Well, after another email and Facebook message, in July, for which I got the standard silence, I decided to bite the bullet and call them. I think the woman who answered the phone was a bit thrown by my accent (she sounded just like Sheldon Cooper's mum from The Big Bang Theory) but it could have just been the delay on the phone. Let's just say it wasn't a free flowing conversation. Booking though was as easy as mom's apple pie! I gave her my dates and with an "awl righdee", it was booked.......I hope.  We'll find out soon enough, as we're due in town 9th September.

Now, it's just a case of double checking I have all the paperwork sorted, getting the route maps downloaded to my TomTom, preparing what we want/need to take with us and making sure we don't have any last minute panics.

No Problemo!

That's all for now.

Cactus Inn, McLean, TX