This summer reflected the new reality of our RV trips: whereas once we crossed from one side of the country to another we now prefer fewer stops with longer at each point. This minimizes the wear and tear on human as well as vehicular bodies.
The route was about 2,000 miles and started and ended in Albuquerque. There were a few changes along the way and the California section was scaled back a lot (originally we would have crossed from Fresno to Monterey then down the coast to LA). Put simply, we had run out of time and this was going to be a bit rushed so I changed the route to simply turn us around and head back at a more leisurely pace.
We had a number of visitors too. In the first section of the trip Gill came and combined with a train journey.
She flew from London to Chicago and took Amtrak #5 to Glenwood Springs Colorado, a distance of 1,200 miles.
It became a bit more complicated because her next train was massively delayed (due around 2pm but was showing an arrival well past midnight) so I changed the route. She took a bus from Glenwood Springs to Eagle Country airport about thirty miles to the east (with an overnight stop in Eagle). This small airport exists mainly to connect people to the ski resorts in Colorado. It is fairly high in the Rockies itself (around 6,500ft). Once at Denver she flew to Sacramento.
This saved a bit of time and allowed her to catch up with her next train from Sacramento to Los Angeles. This was the Pacific Coast Starlight that runs down the west coast from Seattle.
At Los Angeles I had flown in and met her so we could take another train out to Tuscon to meet the RV. Fortunately her LA train arrived at the platform right next to the Tuscon train and I was waiting at the train door for her.
Our second guest was Hannah, one of Hatty's best friends from school. Her mother texted me to ask if we were near Los Angeles because they had just moved there. To explain: her sister is an actress and had just got a part in a Netflix show so the whole family were moving from New York to LA while she was filming. They had literally just signed the lease on a new NY apartment the day before the news came in.
It was a bit tricky to work everything out but I arranged to pick up Hannah when I flew to LA and then I would drive us both up to Fresno to meet the RV. After that weekend I drove Gill back to San Francisco from where we both left for London on different planes (United for Gill and BA for me). Hannah remained with the RV, which turned back and carried on to Flagstaff.
This is where it gets super complicated. As explained above I changed the route to shorten the California section but some of my flights were booked long ago and were non-refundable. Originally I had a flight going into Los Angeles on Saturday, which is also where guest number three Sarah Cowls would be flying to from London on Sunday.
The updated plan had been that I would wait in LA for Sarah and then we would fly to Flagstaff to meet the RV. However, Hannah needed to be back from school so what I actually did was fly from New York to Los Angeles then Los Angeles to Phoenix. That flight got in fairly late so I stayed overnight in an airport hotel and in the morning drove up to Flagstaff to get Hannah then drove back down (about 175 miles each way). Then I flew back to Los Angeles with Hannah and dropped her off with her mother.
So I should have then met Sarah Cowls but that is a story for another day.
The route was about 2,000 miles and started and ended in Albuquerque. There were a few changes along the way and the California section was scaled back a lot (originally we would have crossed from Fresno to Monterey then down the coast to LA). Put simply, we had run out of time and this was going to be a bit rushed so I changed the route to simply turn us around and head back at a more leisurely pace.
We had a number of visitors too. In the first section of the trip Gill came and combined with a train journey.
She flew from London to Chicago and took Amtrak #5 to Glenwood Springs Colorado, a distance of 1,200 miles.
It became a bit more complicated because her next train was massively delayed (due around 2pm but was showing an arrival well past midnight) so I changed the route. She took a bus from Glenwood Springs to Eagle Country airport about thirty miles to the east (with an overnight stop in Eagle). This small airport exists mainly to connect people to the ski resorts in Colorado. It is fairly high in the Rockies itself (around 6,500ft). Once at Denver she flew to Sacramento.
This saved a bit of time and allowed her to catch up with her next train from Sacramento to Los Angeles. This was the Pacific Coast Starlight that runs down the west coast from Seattle.
At Los Angeles I had flown in and met her so we could take another train out to Tuscon to meet the RV. Fortunately her LA train arrived at the platform right next to the Tuscon train and I was waiting at the train door for her.
Our second guest was Hannah, one of Hatty's best friends from school. Her mother texted me to ask if we were near Los Angeles because they had just moved there. To explain: her sister is an actress and had just got a part in a Netflix show so the whole family were moving from New York to LA while she was filming. They had literally just signed the lease on a new NY apartment the day before the news came in.
It was a bit tricky to work everything out but I arranged to pick up Hannah when I flew to LA and then I would drive us both up to Fresno to meet the RV. After that weekend I drove Gill back to San Francisco from where we both left for London on different planes (United for Gill and BA for me). Hannah remained with the RV, which turned back and carried on to Flagstaff.
This is where it gets super complicated. As explained above I changed the route to shorten the California section but some of my flights were booked long ago and were non-refundable. Originally I had a flight going into Los Angeles on Saturday, which is also where guest number three Sarah Cowls would be flying to from London on Sunday.
The updated plan had been that I would wait in LA for Sarah and then we would fly to Flagstaff to meet the RV. However, Hannah needed to be back from school so what I actually did was fly from New York to Los Angeles then Los Angeles to Phoenix. That flight got in fairly late so I stayed overnight in an airport hotel and in the morning drove up to Flagstaff to get Hannah then drove back down (about 175 miles each way). Then I flew back to Los Angeles with Hannah and dropped her off with her mother.
So I should have then met Sarah Cowls but that is a story for another day.
