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! ;-)