13 April –
Well here we go again for our last trip to the USA. Nicola
and Pique (their new pup) drove us to the airport for the first of the three
flights to Atlanta, where Ernie is resting up waiting for us. The flight from
Auckland to L.A. was a bit bumpy but not too bad considering we were in “zoo”
class. The queue at customs was horrendous taking an hour for us to clear. The
customs officer said we meet again! What a surprise. He had processed us
before. He recognised his stamp. Quite a fluke when you think of the 1000s of
custom guys working at LAX. We had time for a meal before our 4 hour flight to
Atlanta. (no free meals on this flight.) Atlanta Airport is huge with a train
running between the gates and the baggage pickup. A free shuttle took us to the
Motel 6 (a cheap chain which we had used before). It was 1.00 am when we
eventually got to bed - 22 hours after leaving Christchurch. A bit of a long
day.
14 April –
Out of the hotel at 9.30am and breakfast at Subway. Did not
realise they served breaky. A taxi took us to the storage place where Ernie
was. As soon as the taxi dropped us off we realised there was a problem. The
passenger’s lock had been forced out either with a screw driver or a small crow
bar. Bugger!! Inside there appeared to be no damage or anything missing.
Perhaps someone disturbed the #$$%*%s before they got inside. The battery was
flat so I used the emergency start button on the dash to get us going. (this
puts the house battery across the crank battery.) At the office we complained
loud and long but with no result other than an apology. On the road and a stop
at Walmart for a huge stock up and on to AT&T to get our cell phone going.
Still no joy with the battery but the emergency system works fine. We travelled
about 60 miles to a Georgia State Park where we booked in for the night. I
decided to check out the battery which is still flat and to my surprise found
that it was disconnected. I did not remember doing this before we left last
year. Next problem was that I could not find my tool kit. This resulted in a
full search of the RV to find a few funny things missing. Those bastards must
have got inside after all! On the
missing list was: The power inverter (only good for making NZ power), the scrabble
set (missing letters and just about worn out), my tool kit, and our portable
DVD player (only good for NZ DVDs.) They also tried to steal the battery! All
very bizarre! Nothing else was touched including the booze (that would have
been serious!) and no nasty surprise in our bed! Thank God! We decided that we
had been very very lucky.
15 April –
It is quite cool and drizzling so we decided to head south
for 160 miles using the I-75. We had a stop at Walmart again to replace some of
the stolen items. The missing power inverter meant that my haircutter is useless[VM1]
so we added that to the list. The DVD player will be a problem as they only
sell region 1 players which do not play NZ region 4 DVDs. We replaced everything
except the DVD player and the scrabble set for less than US$30. There is minor
panel damage which we will have to fix shortly. We are now in another Georgia
State Park near the Florida border. Seem to be dead dog tired going to bed but
then cannot get to sleep. We will settle into the new time zone hopefully.
16 April –
It rained again in the night so we headed further south into
Florida, thru the city of Tallahassee and into sunshine and warmer
temperatures. It is the weekend and the State Park we had planned on was full
so we continued on and found an RV park on a bay on the Gulf of Mexico. It is a
bit expensive but we are backed right onto the water. We have not had any
exercise so off loaded the bikes and rode a short ride to the main beach
looking out into the Gulf. We had a chat to the couple next door who had been
in Florida for some time and they gave some great tips. We have really good internet so will publish
this blog. We also spent some time booking weekend accommodation for the next
few weeks. We both slept better during the night.
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