Garden clearence/BBQ. 29/30 September 07

[tazet]

Driving on the wrong side is not as bad as you think once you turn your brain upside down. I had to for the first and only time with my lorry and trailer when I went to Portugal last year with work. Not so much fun when you go wrong with something the length and size of an articulated lorry 
We were thinking of a vehicle that would be more like a Mustang, or a Charger etc. Or hire a Motorbike and do it on that 

[tazet]

Ok back on the thread.
The present list of people coming are -

1, Tazet
2, Manky
3, Lunatic,
4, Twisted
5, Janie
6, Dave
7, Byzmax
8, Dave Satan
9, Chevy Rick
10, Panthershaun
11, Pete & Chrissie (possibly Emily is she aint working)
12, BG

I presume most will be staying (14 of you). I have a 2 man tent I can lend someone. I also have spare sleeping bags and Duvets and pillows.

[los lobo]

Amirican road trips I was going for three weeks last summer until my daughter broke her leg 5 days before departure. We rescheduled for 8 weeks later.
Apart from the flight and the first night hotel which we booked (US Immigration requirement) we just moved around from place to place. Motels are generaly clean especialy the bigger chains like Motel 8 etc. $69 for a room with a breakfast (sort of) thrown in for two adults and a 13yr teenager. Car hire was Alamo booked in the UK, pick and return can be anywhere but you are charged extra, £350 2 weeks, unlimited milage, Car was a Buick big mutha, auto A/C leather cruise in fact all the extras you can think off and a pleasure to drive.
Flew into O'hare Chicago, drove down through Illinois,across Missouri, got lost in West St Loius, which is not a good area for any one, other than another brother in the hood. Kansas, Stopped in Kansas for a couple of days, up Into Neraska, all across Iowa and back into Illinois. took two weeks, saw some fabulous scenary, met real nice genuine people, even went to the birth place of John Wayne, which is in Madison county where they have all the covered bridges and they made the film.
Brilliant road trip, cost me all together about £2500
I would recommend it to any one, we chose mid west because i made a mate on a bikeweb forum and decided to visit. I would go again with out hesitation.
The three week holiday we were going to camp, buying a tent when we arrived, as the weather in the mid west is up in the 90's to 100' in the summer and there is a brilliant organisation called KOA Kamping sites of America who sent me so much info on sites and places to see all free, Cost $20 to post to the uk.
 

Family type restuarants offer the best food and some do all you can eat for $10. Biggist headache was working out there petrol pump nozzles, Deffinately not straight forward, they are designed to stop drive off without paying. You pay first.
If you can you should
Sorry posted after getting back to thraead

[panthershaun]

Go for it (no apology  for going off thread ) Done it twice and would go again asap if I could.
California, started LA finished LA via Grand Canyon, Vegas, Death Valley, Yosemite, San Fran, San Diego, Tijuana. must drive/ride the Pacific coast highway between LA and San Francisco.
Florida, Started Miami finished Orlando via Key West.

Both trips worked out to be very good value for money, motels cheap and clean and safe (except in Stockton ) Should you go you would be mad not to.

[Manky Monkey]

Only time I've ridden abroad was when I took my Bonneville to Cologne & back for a weekend, but that was nearly 30 years ago. Don't remember much about it.

[wizzkitt]

Driving on the wrong side is not as bad as you think once you turn your brain upside down.

I adjusted really quickly to driving on the 'wrong side' - you're in a left hand drive car after all, and I was amazed at how natural and easy it seemed. Four-lane intersections are the only headache - they're sort of roundabouts without he roundabout and no-one ever seems to know who has the right of way!

Car hire will initially seem cheap but there's always taxes and make sure you have all the insurance waivers. Hiring from the airport-based hire offices is a little more expensive, but it's worth it for the convenience. It's also generally less than half the cost of hiring a bike, and it will be cheaper if you book online from here first.

As Los Lobo says, motels are many and plentiful - Super 8, Motel 6, Travelodge. All are relatively basic (usually no hairdryer or kettle), and you can generally find somewhere for around $30-40 a night, although it depends on the area. Even the budget chains are more expensive somewhere like San Francisco. I'd recommend Best Western. BW inns are slightly more (although usually not much) expensive than the budget motels, but every one I stayed in was brilliant and had a coffee maker, hairdryer, fridge and microwave, which is ideal if you're staying a couple of nights in one place. You can often haggle on the price. In Santa Cruz I got BW to drop the price on a room from $139 to $70 (£35 - less than the price of a Travelinn on the A1!!) and upgrade me to a room with a whirlpool bath. As Los Lobo pointed out, you have to have somewhere booked beforehand for your first night or the Immigration authorities get very vexed.

Tips:

a) Invest in a road map. It sounds obvious, but there aren't the cut through and turn offs there are in this country, and if you find yourself on the wrong road your only options could be to turn round (usually easy, I've done the Blues Brothers cloud of dust thing across the median of an Interstate although I'm not sure it's entirely legal!) or make a lengthy detour. Allow more time than you think it will take you - it is a very big country!

b) Plan before you go. Half the joy of a trip is the planning, even if you don't stick to it, and if you don't, you'll find places afterwards that you missed. I've got loads of guide books if you want to borrow them. A couple of good web sites are www.roadtripamerica.com (the forum is really helpful), and for quirky stuff, www.roadsideamerica.com.

c) Don't be afraid to ask people things. Virtually everyone I came across was really friendly and eager to help.

d) Drive Highway 1 - Panthershaun, it's wonderful. I've done it twice from San Simeon to Santa Cruz and it takes my breath away. North is better than south because you don't have to worry about falling into the Pacific!

e) Take notice of the speed limits. Interstates tend to move at about 80mph without the police being unduly concerned, but anything over 100mph will get you a night in jail.

f) Take a credit card. A lot of hotels want a credit card as collateral, and so will your car hire place. And like Los Lobo said, almost every gas station is pay first and it's a lot easier to do it on a card than guess how much fuel you need and pay by cash first. It took me ages to work out the petrol pump nozzles too. The first year I was out there was a nightmare, I ended up driving away from one place because I just couldn't get it to work. The second year, bizarrely, I didn't seem to have any problem. Shell stations seem the easiest to use.

g) Don't let your fuel tank drop below half. It's a cliche, but it might be a long way to the next filling station (and no guarantee it'll be open).

h) Enjoy.

[Manky Monkey]

Too much information!
This is the Monkey you're talking to here- I need someone to say, phone this number, book this motel, point the car in this direction.
2 1/2 grand is an awful lot of money, (to me anyway), so it's definitely gonna be a one-off trip, but then my regular 10 day breaks in Scotland probably cost me a grand by the time I've paid for car hire, B & Bs, petrol etc.
I don't own a credit card -would a debit card be acceptable? Does the driving licence have to be a photo type? (got to change mine when I move to Taz's cottage anyway, but I've still got the old paper type).
I'm definitely gonna be an innocent abroad. Any help anyone can give Taz & I on this one will be very much appreciated.
 

[wizzkitt]

Too much information!
This is the Monkey you're talking to here- I need someone to say, phone this number, book this motel, point the car in this direction.

This is why you have Taz.

Don't forget that LL's trip included a teenager. £2500 is a lot of money, but you should be able to do it for less, and that is for two of you. Later in the year is cheaper for hotels and flights (and the earlier you book, often the cheaper it is. I booked my flight in March and it was £749 - but that's for business class - if I booked it today it would be over £1300) but you will have less daylight. Shop around, look in the ads in the back pages of the Sunday papers and you should be able to find a flight for around £350 return each.

Car hire for a couple of weeks will be about £350, and if you do a couple of thousand miles, then expect to spend about £120 on fuel. That's less than £1200 so far, and food and lodging is cheap. I went to the US last year with 2000 dollars. I came back with over 500...

[Manky Monkey]

That certainly sounds a little less scary!
Once I move to Tazet's cottage I'll have no outgoings at all except my share of the utility bills & my petrol, so, in theory, an annual Stateside trip would be possible. We'll see.
Still waiting to sign the contracts on my flat so it really will be a last minute trip. How do you go about booking the first night's hotel accomodation? Taz is horribly organised at this kind of thing, but both of us are complete novices at foreign travel.

[wizzkitt]

On the web. Virtually every hotel has a web site now. Pick one of the big chains, select where you're going, book room, print out confirmation.

www.motel6.com

www.bestwestern.com

www.super8.com

www.daysinn.com

www.ramada.com

Alternatively, you can book through sites like www.hotel.com or http://hotel-guides.us (they often will have special deals) and you can see what other people thought of places at www.tripadvisor.com.

A few more tips:

Don't forget to take a US adaptor plug for the two-pin sockets.

Make sure one of you has a mobile phone that's tri-band so it will work in the USA. Most phones do now, my old Nokia works fine in the US and automatically changes phone provider.

Before you go, photocopy all your documents - passport, driving licence, insurance details - and take one copy with you, and leave one copy with someone at home. It'll make life a lot easier if you lose something.

Get travel insurance. Medical care in the US is very expensive. I get my insurance free with my bank account, but the Post Office has a good, cheap scheme.

Some places will take debit cards, but don't rely on it. If Taz has a credit card, then she should make sure she tell her credit card provider she's going abroad beforehand. With increased security, some providers won't allow the card to be used abroad unless they've been informed by the card holder.

[tazet]

  info overload. Will have to print this all off I think.

I do have a credit card and I used it in Portugal so I had to let them know what countries i was going accross as we did France and Spain too. Once I have cleared it then it should give us enough to live on while we are there. The same goes for my phone but will check if it does America too.

Very good idea about photo copying everything. I never thought of that and will check with my bank about travel insurance, I'm sure with my account I should be able to get something.

[wizzkitt]

Always have a credit card as back up (and for ease at places like gas stations), but try and pay cash where you can because it'll be cheaper than pay the credit card's charges for changing the currency.

But, above all, don't be scared of doing it. I'm someone who won't walk into a pub on their own, and I would have ducked out of my first trips if friends hadn't insisted I went. Since then, I've ended up travelling thousands of miles - across California, Utah, Nevada and Arizona - on my own and loved every minute of it.

[tazet]

I'm sooooo looking forward to it. 
Yes Steve I know don't forget the ignition 

[Manky Monkey]

If I can possibly change my holiday dates at work, we'll try & do Brock's suggested itinary as both Taz & I would love to take in a drag race/hotrod meet while we're there.
I really want to see the lights of L.A from Grapevine Hill while listening to Chuck Berry in a big ol' Cadillac!

[tazet]