Thursday 20th October - finally, time to hit the road.

I awoke to hear that Tash was already home after her early morning flight from California.  She was seeing off David and her Mum with the children – I had slept in well!  There had been a power cut in the area, so Tash was home alone with no electricity.  I was happy to be able to step-in and offer her a much-needed cup of tea - the first to be prepared using our brand new $6 red kettle on our gas hob, in new red cups with our new tea bags and milk.  You get the idea… it was great to be able to cater from our new abode. Tash then drove me to a local AAA store (American Automobile Association) where, due to her family membership and much to the displeasure of the surly shop assistant we requested the AAA Tour books for almost every State in the USA, for free! These books normally retail at around $15 per book so we saved at least 100 bucks this way.  They were going to be priceless for our trip.

My lovely Mum

We returned to the house and Simon had sorted everything else out on the RV; we were finally ready for the off 11 days after our arrival in the States.  This date is particularly befitting, as it happens to be seven years ago to the day that my incredible Mum passed away without whom, as I have mentioned before, this entire trip would not have been possible.  

Ready for the road

I took the first stint, we had decided to head to Hartford, Connecticut to visit the home of Mark Twain, author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn before heading to a campsite we had chosen in the Catskill Mountains for our first night in the wild!  Looking back now, we were brand new to the experience of deciding how far to drive in a day, being able to look at maps and judge distances and whether to ring ahead and book somewhere or to just ‘wing it’ (the plan is there is no plan, remember).  But we did quite well on this first day I think.  We arrived in Hartford in good time. Well, plenty of time to have lunch before taking some photos of the landmark that we weren’t going to pay to get in, we’re not that cultured!

Mark Twain house.... from the outside anyway!

We try to get as many State line photos as possible - please excuse the bug-splatting on the windscreen on occasion.....

We also started the travel budget for real today, making a note of every cost in the back of ‘the book’ so we could see where our money was going.  The North-East likes toll roads – just on that first day we spent over 10 bucks on them!  

We then had to stop at a gas station for the first fill up – how much would a tank of unleaded for our 5.7 litre V8 beauty set us back?!  I went to pay up front guessing that about $80 should do it (about 65 quid) and then we hit a wall – my credit card was declined.  Unbelievable!  I had ensured that I had told Halifax of my travel plans to avoid this problem - so why had they panicked at my spending? I tried calling the emergency number on the back of my credit card from within the gas station.  At first it worked, I tried to explain to the Halifax in the UK that I was on a mobile phone, from the States, so please could you hurry it along a bit?  It was confirmed that a hold had been placed on my card and I was given a code before being put through to the fraud department where I was placed on hold.  ON HOLD!! FROM THE USA!! Within a couple of minutes my phone died and I received the inevitable message from AT&T that I had no credit left. Brilliant, first day, no, afternoon, on the road.  The gas station had no public phone and Si was in the same position of having no credit.  In the end, I used our reserve cash store (for emergencies) to pay for $92 of gas plus beer (Walmart in Massachusetts don’t sell alcohol – shock horror) – both essential for our stay in the Catskills.  Darkness was well on its way when we reached our first campsite and paid (in emergency cash) $57 for two nights.  That was for a site with no electricity, just a water tap.  There was a helpful sign at the entrance reminding us NOT to try and feed the bears... just in case we were considering it.

Our first ever RV campsite at dusk

This was nowhere near as cheap as we were hoping, to stay in our own van essentially! I guess we paid for the view, which became apparent the next day after the fog cleared! There were rules about how late you could run a generator so we had to quickly turn ours on to be able to make dinner and have some electricity backed-up for lighting before it was quiet time…. 7pm!  But we felt proud.  We had made it to our first campsite without too much drama, we were self-contained and had managed to make chili for dinner which went down nicely with a couple of beers.  We were in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal and no wi-fi so the credit card issue would have to wait.  Nothing else for it but to get out the playing cards and put some tunes on.  The road trip had commenced for real.

Wednesday 19th October

I woke in a panic… I don’t think I locked every door and hatch on the RV… it may have been stolen!  I had to get up and double check but, relief, our new home was still there.  

After the usual morning routine of using copious amounts of coffee to get Simon to wake up, it was time to load up the RV.  It was an amazing feeling hanging up the clothes, making the bed (complete with TWO memory foam mattresses!!) and there was so much storage space, adequate room was not going to be a problem. However, this took until lunch time and we were yet to do a food and supplies shop. 

Where else but Walmart, the devil in disguise.  It will become a theme in this blog - even when popping in for a quick, cheap shop we end up spending a fortune at that blooming place, they must see us coming! Okay, so this time was an exceptional shop as we literally had to get everything – coffee, tea, washing up liquid, meats, veg, pasta, rice etc. but even so the total bill was a shocker! (Another one to add to the ‘preparation costs’!  It’s okay, there is a page listing it in ‘the book’).  After spending a couple of hours traipsing every single aisle finding lots of extra ‘essentials’ to buy it was heading into late afternoon and so a re-think was required.  

The great departure would have to wait another day.  There was no point setting off with only an hour or so of light left.  Plus, we could spend a night getting used to our new home on the safety of our friends’ driveway, a 'road-test' of sorts but in fact the complete opposite!

I think we had a pretty early night.  Our new bedding, or comforter to our American friends, is incredible – a dark red sheepskin woolly cloud on a bed – no overstatement, I slept like a baby and this is still our favourite purchase yet in the US…. Apart from the RV of course!

Tuesday 18th October – RMV hell! *Warning - This is a wordy one folks but was a CRITICAL day for the trip!*

As planned, we rolled up to the RMV in Lowell, Massachusetts before 9am.  We paid for parking at a meter for up to 2 hours, we had our appointment at Campers Inn at 11am for our lesson on how to use our new toy/home so we had to leave the RMV by 1030am to get there in time. Our paperwork was arranged perfectly, in order.  We joined the queue in the street outside with other efficient people with the same idea – get in there early.  The doors opened and we edged forward nervously before being directed into the ‘have you got all your paperwork in order’ checking queue.  The male clerk made positive, affirming noises.  We had our bill of sale, insurance cover note…. But, no.  ‘This stamp is a scan, we can’t accept that.’ We asked him to explain the issue.  Our insurer, Progressive, should have a square, printed stamp that would have been accepted as official, but what we had on the form was a clear photocopy of a scrawled signature. It wouldn’t cut the mustard.  

Plan B was required, back to the car outside having been reassured that the rest of our paperwork was in order.  Instead of waiting for our overnighted paperwork delivery at lunchtime, the next plan was to get the necessary stamp at a local representative of progressive insurance.  So what if the head office was in California? – there were progressive brokers locally, if we showed them the paperwork surely they would be happy to give us our required stamp?  But across the road at our nearest option we were met with stony-faced refusal, not possible. Again, U.S Insurers don’t work like that. I looked at my watch.  We didn’t have time to drive about to other insurers on the off-chance of getting help and still be able to make our 11am appointment.  But while we were there, and the queue was small we decided to tackle the issue of payment so I waited for the second time that day.  The same male assistant, our ‘stamp-refuser’, confirmed my fears. We could not pay via credit card.  Having explained that cheque was not possible and that I could do with some guidance on where I could get a money order, he patiently directed me to the nearest post office suggesting that they should be able to assist.  I left again and grabbed Simon and our passports from the car before dragging them towards the post office.  The Post office clerk was intent on being helpful… until he heard the amount we needed for the money order. “No, not for that amount, you’ll need to go to a bank. There’s one across the street”.  Off we trundled. “Sorry, we can’t help unless you’re a customer of the bank”.  That’s a problem when you’re in a country where you aren’t the customer of any bank!  This wasn’t going to happen – we weren’t going to be able to get hold of such a large amount of cash in one day.  I was going to have to transfer money across again and we wouldn’t be able to get our plates until we had it.  And the damn stamp…. We returned to queue a third time at the RMV to explain our predicament. Nothing.  The stamp-refuser was made of stone, there was no room for any flexibility with these people!!  I was starting to despair and Simon and I were snapping at each other as a result of our frustration.

Leaving empty-handed from the RMV it was time to head to New Hampshire and Campers Inn for our lesson, despite the fact that we were now unable to drive away our new RV.  We arrived on time.  The young guy showing us the ropes was somewhat surprised that we were complete amateurs which became apparent when we explained that we needed to video his instructions! Despite the bad start to the day we were both smiling – the RV was even better than we remembered and everything had been thought of on-board to make it comfortable for us to live in; heater, air-con, water heater, generator, tanks for fresh water, propane to run the fridge-freezer, TV and DVD player.  It was ready and waiting for us…. And some index plates.  As we had time to waste we retrieved our trolley full of goods and loaded it into the plentiful storage on the RV.  There was nothing more we could do at Campers Inn without our plates, so it was back to Westford to await our lunchtime delivery from our insurer containing the paperwork with the original stamp we needed.  These locations are not just ‘up the road’ from each other and it must be mentioned that we were only able to do all of this running around and extra mileage due to the fact that Tash and David had allowed us to use their spare car whilst Tash was away that week.  Otherwise we would have spent a fortune more on hire cars or taxis to be able to achieve our purchase.  

Back at the house I was curtain-twitching and pretty much ran to the post box when the post man arrived.  It was mostly junk mail, but definitely nothing addressed to us, where was our urgent paperwork?!  We both got straight onto our phones – me to Progressive to find out what had gone wrong and Simon to Campers Inn.  I got hold of someone different at Progressive who seemed to understand what I was talking about when I tried to describe the official printed stamp we needed and offered to email me through another version of our RMV1 form with this correct stamp on.  Whilst on this call Simon was gesticulating to me that we needed to go again.  He had identified that Dave the finance manager was off today, but Simon had pleaded with a colleague of his, ‘Stand-in Dave’, to check his mail – our Fed-ex package had been delivered to Campers Inn where we had been until about an hour ago!  I don’t know if I’ve ever used the phrase ‘it beggars belief’ before, but that is how it felt.  

Meanwhile, David had arrived home to be bombarded with an update on the saga including the issue with the payment method.  Without hesitation, he told us to follow him to the nearest bank where he withdrew the cash we needed in anticipation that I would repay him directly into his account as soon as I possibly could.  We had the money; a quick glance at my watch told me that we were cutting it fine but we should have time to drive back to Campers Inn, grab the paperwork and drive back to Lowell for about 330pm with the RMV open for business until 5pm.

On arrival at Campers Inn I told Simon I would wait outside while he just grabbed the paperwork.  Plus, I was famished and would have time to squeeze a snack in while he was gone!  However, a few minutes passed.  What now? We couldn’t afford more delays, had they lost our paperwork in the time it had taken to drive there?!  Telling myself to count to 10 and breathe deeply I walked towards the reception.  Simon calmly informed me that our insurers had posted us a copy of what they had emailed us. A copy! Not the RMV1 form with an original signature or stamp on that we had been waiting for.  The exact same and pointless thing as they emailed us that was not accepted at the RMV.  It would take us no further forward.  You just couldn’t make it up, but there was no point going back to the RMV with this, so what now?  

I recalled the conversation I had with the insurers just before we’d left Westford.  I checked my emails and found a new RMV1 form from Progressive with a different, clear square stamp on it.  We begged ‘stand-in Dave’ at Campers Inn for help and I forwarded him the email to print.... Except they had sent a blank form with ONLY the stamp on! So, I dictated the content of our original RMV1 form verbatim to Stand-in Dave who typed it patiently onto the new form and printed it out for us.  Oh, and we told him that Dave had volunteered him to write us our refund cheque today as well (Dave was not going to be popular on his return!).

Time ticking by, we returned to the RMV in Lowell and paid for another 2 hours parking. 

Fourth time in the advice queue that day we saw a female staff member this time.  She was intrigued by our accents and when we gave her an overview of what we were planning to do with our RV she was genuinely interested and appeared to be on our side.  She was happy with the RMV1 with new stamp, she checked we had the money ready.  Then we got on to proof of residence.  Both of our names were on the documents as the registered keepers, but Simon’s name was not on the insurance binder document.  Had I forgotten to add him too?!  I tried to offer alternatives for residency – showing the lady a printed phone account page didn’t suffice as it wasn’t a bill.  I tried showing her Simon’s speeding ticket with the local address on – it made her laugh but strangely wasn’t on their list of accepted documents! We were sent away to make another urgent call to our insurance company to try and resolve the issue.  Thankfully, it wasn’t my mistake after all!  The Progressive call taker was apologetic and couldn’t explain why Simon’s name was absent on the binder.  I explained our time constraints and she said that an updated binder would be emailed to me immediately.  To our relief, the RMV had a public access computer that I could log on to, check my email and print the new, updated binder.

Fifth visit to the advice queue that day.  To be honest I was convinced that another hurdle would inevitably spring up, it seemed that anything that could go wrong that day for us, was! But Simon is less negative than I am and was proven right when the friendly female checked our documents and authorised us to move on to the hallowed ground of the green ‘ready to go’ queue! After only 5 minutes or so we were called in front of another female member of staff – the lady with the power to hand us our licence plates…. Or not.  She cast her eyes over our paperwork and immediately said ‘we don’t accept insurance binders as proof of residence’.  My heart sank.  She asked who had reviewed our forms and we explained how they had been reviewed…. 5 times in total!  The power-crazy lady disappeared in the direction of our friendly advice queue lady.  We stood dejectedly, awaiting our fate.  We couldn’t hear the conversation but after 5 more minutes or so the lady with the power appeared in view again.  She was carrying something…. A paper bag…. It had plates in it!!  We didn’t ask any questions, not wanting to tempt fate.  She counted the cash we had brought, all was in order.  Our beautiful registration plates were handed over – they said ‘1026H’ with ‘Massachusetts’ and ‘Camper’ written on them:

The lady turned out to be more helpful than expected when she provided us with a 2017 sticker we would need to adhere to our plates at the end of November….. instead of having to return to the RMV to collect it then, a terrifying prospect!

Beaming, we left the RMV in triumphant mood.  It was now about 445pm.  Simon rang Campers Inn and explained that we still had our hearts set on collecting our camper today.  Probably relieved to see the back of us, they explained that the staff would be leaving at 5pm but if we were content with the idea, they would conceal our keys in the generator hatch of the RV and leave it parked out front for us to collect.  Deal.  We reached Campers Inn for the 3^rd time that day around 515pm.  Hastily, we managed to find something resembling a screw driver to enable us to affix our shiny new plates and took a couple of well-earned smug photographs: 

Simon drew the short straw to drive our new home back to Westford, alone and in the fading daylight, not ideal.  I led the way in Tash’s car, making sure I kept my speed down whilst Si got used to how fast he felt comfortable driving the RV.  On arrival at Westford Si did a cracking job of reversing the RV onto the drive and up near the house.  We had been eager to start loading all our worldly goods onto the RV ready to hit the road on Wednesday.  But, not surprisingly after the day we’d had we just hit the beers and sank, exhausted onto the couch.  We decided to enjoy one last day in a solid bed and tackle moving into our new home after a good night’s sleep!

Apologies for the mega-blog entry but there were times that day when I really felt we had bitten off more than we could chew and the dream was not going to become a reality.  The fact that we had to     overcome so much adversity now makes the result even sweeter.

Monday 17th October - Back to the admin folks!

We’d had four lovely days of tourism, getting to walk around and appreciate the country we had come to visit. I have to admit I’d enjoyed the admin taking a back seat for a change, after the hectic times before leaving the UK and getting immediately stuck in to more admin on arrival.  Despite warnings from Tash and David about the trials that lay ahead to insure and register our new vehicle, we had enjoyed having a break and let it slide for a few days.  But today there was no getting away from it – if we were going to collect our RV tomorrow we would have to have insurance in place and we wouldn’t get it registered without cover.  Thinking it would be as easy as putting our details into comparison websites to see what offers we could get, it soon became apparent that as we didn’t have a home address, or another car, then insurance companies were reluctant to cover us solely for a mobile home.  One of the main issues expected at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) was the fact that our pedantic friends in Massachusetts only accept an insurance certificate (or temporary binder) with a wet signature/stamp on it – i.e. not even an e-mailed, copied and scanned image is acceptable.  We hoped to avoid this issue by using a local insurer who we could obtain a stamp off by visiting them in person but this was beginning to look unlikely. They just didn’t want to take the risk unless we were an existing customer or were looking for additional insurance products. We even dropped into some local insurers in person – we were not well received!

Just to clarify all this, because it’s SO different from registering a vehicle in the UK, the things you need to register a vehicle and legally drive it are:

• ·         An address in the U.S to register it to – and proof you are staying at that address (i.e name on a bill or rental agreement)
• ·         An insurance company prepared to give you Insurance. Once the policy has been agreed, you will be issued with an ‘Insurance Binder’ from them.
• ·         Also from them, you’ll need your RMV1 form (which is your application form to register a vehicle in your name) this needs to be the original document, stamped by the Insurance company WITH A WET STAMP! E-mails and scanned copies of it are not accepted.
• ·         A Bill of sale. This is paperwork given to you by the seller of the vehicle you are buying, confirming the sale has been agreed and the price being paid for it. It is from this bill that the R.M.V staff work out how much sales tax you owe.
• ·         Finally, you need to physically visit the R.M.V and show them the RMV1 form – complete with Insurers stamp, the Bill of Sale from the seller, the Insurance Binder and finally a proof of residence in that State. If it is all in order they’ll stamp the paperwork and give you a bill for the sales tax you now owe. Only once this has been paid in full will they then give you your registration plates, which you physically attach to your vehicle.

Of all the above, the only thing – but crucially the main thing – that we had going for us, was that Tasha and David had agreed to let us use their address for registering Insurance and the RV itself. I have no idea how we could’ve proceeded otherwise. For this, we’ll be forever thankful to them!

So, after an entire morning of failure we contacted Campers Inn who had previously offered to assist us with getting an insurance quote.  It transpired that the only companies that we would be able to get insurance through were RV specialist firms but in a way, that was reassuring – they would be best placed to assist us in the event of a breakdown or issue with our RV.  The problem – the two companies we found were based in California, so we had no chance of dropping by to get a wet signature or official stamp! As we now know No stamp = No Registration and you’re back to square one…

Also, having been promised a reasonable rate of insurance I was thankful that I looked at the small print for a change – the nice, low quote we received was great but clearly stated that if we were planning to use our RV for 150 or more days in a year we would need to request an enhanced quote. This took both of our quotes above $1000 for a year’s cover. We had no choice, but at least we would be fully insured and the quotes included breakdown assistance so time will tell how essential our cover is.  But insurance is certainly an expensive factor to consider when travelling to the USA, factoring in this RV cover in addition to the enhanced travel and medical insurance you need! I tried explaining that we didn’t need a full 12 months cover as we would only be in the country until July next year, so could we pay monthly by instalments? Not possible, unless you have a U.S bank account. Do you have one? …erm, No.

In the end we headed back to Campers Inn.  We had to complete the bill of sale paperwork we’d need at the RMV in any case and we decided to go with the Insurance quote that our RV sellers had got us, in the hope that they should know what they were doing more than us.  The finance director there was helpful.  We sorted the paperwork including the bill of sale and RMV1 form that we would need to produce tomorrow having explained our concerns about the registration… and the stamp! In a direct call with our insurers, we were assured that the scanned, stamped RMV1 form they sent to Campers Inn who printed it for us, would be accepted at the RMV. We weren’t overly convinced but, as a back-up, in addition to e-mailing the completed form to us they would also over-night the original signed form by Fed-ex so that if the printed version wasn’t accepted we would have that by the middle of the day. It was water-tight.  However, Dave the finance manager did explain that we were trying to register a vehicle in the state that makes it the most difficult, a comment for which we were extremely grateful!

On to the issue of the money owed to us by Campers Inn due to our over-payment for the RV – would we accept a cheque? No, we have nowhere to pay it in. Couldn’t they just repay it to my UK bank account? Or how about cash? No, they don’t hold that amount of cash. The solution? We needed to stock up on RV stuff for our new home but were clueless as to what we’d actually need. So, we hit Campers Inn store with a sales advisor helping us with the essentials for any RV owner – various hoses for water & sewage, blocks for levelling out your mobile home, biodegradable toilet paper, chemicals for different systems etc. We then used as much of our overpayment as possible to get a fold-out table, chairs and a BBQ.  Our goods were piled into a trolley and left parked in the service area that night, ready for us to collect the next day. Despite our best efforts we were still owed a couple of hundred dollars so we agreed to ask David if he would cash the cheque if made out to him and give us the cash.  We left Campers Inn in buoyant mood – our new RV along with tons of goodies was waiting there for us. We had the paperwork to prove we were the owners and had the necessary insurance to hit the road.  All we needed to do was overcome the RMV system to get our plates and we were there.

Back in Westford that evening David painstakingly went through the RMV online advice with us in preparation for the next day.  We got all of our paperwork together and thought about possible hurdles to overcome.  Was the stamp official enough?  Could we prove residence in Massachusetts? We printed out our phone bills showing our US address in Westford, and we even had Simon’s speeding ticket as back-up! We had our new insurance certificate showing our address in the USA.  Would that be enough? Another issue – valid payment method.  Other items in the RMV could be paid for on credit card.  We worked out we needed to pay roughly $3500(!) in sales tax with registration fees on top… and their website stated they wouldn’t accept credit card! Only cash, money order or cheque.  I reassured myself that there must be room for exceptions – I could offer to transfer the money direct to a relevant account.  Surely a one-off payment via credit card would suffice when no other payment method was available to us for such a large amount? We braced ourselves for the next day and got an early night so that we would be on our best form.

Sunday 16th October – Boston City

We had extended our hire of the Hyundai for an extra day having arranged with Tash and David that it made sense for us to return it to the airport at the same time as waving Tash off on a business trip to California.  We then squeezed into the car with David and the girls to go on a sight-seeing day in Boston, or to be more specific I squeezed in between the girls’ child seats in the back whilst the gents rode up front.  David was a very motivated guide – we walked miles and saw many important landmarks around the city including Mike’s pastry shop and the holocaust memorial (very different ends of the tourism spectrum there….).

  

Infamous Mike's pastry

The Original City Hall (and the even more rare sight of Simon with a pushchair)

David and Olwyn (being kept occupied with an aeroplane)

We appreciated some amazing architecture, including stopping off at Harvard on the way out of the city.

Having been bought a Fitbit for my birthday just before leaving the UK, I think this is still one of the highest daily step-counts yet on the trip!

Saturday 15th October - Exploring

Thankfully, Eleri had been released from hospital the previous day, and we decided to go for a day out with Tasha and family as planned, whilst bearing in mind that we would have to be guided by how Eleri was doing.  We headed off in convoy having agreed to follow the others to Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, taking photographs en route of some of the lovely autumn (or should that be fall) colours.

This was our introduction to the fact that you find the same named towns over and over again in the US.  This Concord (N.H) was entirely separate to the one we’d visited only 2 days ago, despite being only slightly further away geographically, but in a different State.  We also passed NH’s version of Salem and have gone on  to see at least 3 Lexingtons, a very popular town name indeed!  We also started paying attention to the State slogans displayed on vehicle number plates and NH is one of our favourites – ‘Live free or die’ which appears to be the thought process behind such decisions as not bothering with motorcycle helmets and other overly-cautious items like that.

We weren’t overly enamoured with what we saw of Concord, very industrial. So we drove east towards the coastal town of Portsmouth which had much more character, and a lovely bar/restaurant which brews its own beer.  We had a lovely lunch followed by a walk around to soak up the atmosphere in the bright, though fresh, sunshine. Eleri was somewhat quiet, understandably, but we all had a lovely day out.

Simon and I had a previous arrangement to visit someone in Boston on the way home to part with more cash.  After the prior experience with Craigslist I was hesitant, but Simon was very excited about the potential purchase of our inflatable boat, a Sea Eagle 330 don’t-cha-know.  We had viewed some YouTube clips of other proud Sea Eagle owners displaying how easy it is to inflate and use the boat, how tricky could it be?! We made contact with the sellers outside their flat, a very nice young couple who were gifted said boat but had never got around to using it.  True to their word, it appeared as good as new with all of the accessories present.  We passed on the idea of inflating the whole thing to double-check for holes – their flat was very compact and we were exhausted from our day out so we took their word that it was a sound purchase.  We parted with $50 cash and heaved the canvas bag containing our new inflatable boat down to the hire car and headed back to Westford.  I was yet to be convinced how regularly we would be getting the opportunity to use our new purchase during our trip but Simon was enthusiastic that we should embrace the outdoor American lifestyle in as many ways as possible!