Week Four Update

Hi all,

That is another week over and one closer to New York. We have stopped over in a place called Delphos Ohio, which has great facilities and will allow us to action some e-mails before the weekend. We are now moving into our last week so there is a lot of preparation to be done in readiness for NY. We have been in contact with Lt Col Paul Fanning of the US Army about organising some sort of low key reception for our arrival at the Ground Zero Memorial. Luckily Paul has been very helpful and is liasing on our behalf with all the appropriate agencies, NY Mayors office, NY Port authority, NYPD, NYFD, as well as the media. It is our intention to lay a wreath at the memorial when we arrive to honour all of the coalition civilians and service personnel killed, wounded or involved with the ongoing operations, and we are trying to arrange for a representative from the military, police, fire and mayors office to join us, and I will keep you all informed as things develop.

This week has seen us move through Missouri, Indiana, and into Ohio, and has been largely dominated by the weather. All week there has been a strong NE wind blowing which to us is a head wind. This in real terms means that our speed is reduced by as much a 10 mph, adding 2 -3hrs onto the journey time for that day, as well as requiring a lot more effort. We have also had days of heavy rain which just adds to the misery. We received a severe weather warning for the county we were staying in last Monday, and they weren’t kidding. We watched the storm move toward our RV site which was producing hail, lightening and 60mph winds. The RV site manager evacuated into town after getting a tip off from a friend in the local weather office about the likelihood of tornados!! The storm quickly moved over us, and proceeded to put on a good show about 20 miles to our North. We saw several “funnels” drop from the bottom of the storm, but they never appeared to touch down. We were informed the next day that the storm had produced tornados and had caused damage. We were a little disappointed not to have seen them. The weather forecast for the weekend is for sun and hot temperatures, so we are hoping the wind will swing round to behind us.

The terrain is changing the further we head east. It is very similar to the UK, with rolling farm land and small villages, thankfully gone are the mile after mile of open prairie, and things are becoming more interesting.

Well tomorrow is the start of the last week and we will all be glad to complete the ride and even more so to get out of the RV and into a hotel. Mind you we still have the fun of returning of the RV to look forward to!!! I will keep you all informed.

Jason