We've pretty much come to the end of our summer touring so its time to pack up and prepare for winter in Canada. Given that we were advised by US border and customs in April that we need to go home or somewhere else before we are allowed back into the US, we have decided to come home for 3 1/2 months after Canmore, and will then come back to the US for the solar eclipse. We've booked flights arriving in the UK on April 27th, and returning to Calgary on August 10th in time to get down to Oregon for the eclipse on the 21st. Consequently we've been looking at what to do with Badger for 10 months and came up with 4 options:
so we have decided on the latter. Actually, we had initially planned to spend 4 periods in the US including next summer in the west around the eclipse, so this is not that far removed from our original plan. We also pushed the pace a bit this summer so we got to see everything we wanted to over this side, including the Canadian Atlantic provinces. We would have revisited Washington DC for a few more days if we had headed back south, but we chose to stay in Vermont to see the colours change and glad we did, so we can do DC again as a fly through another time.
We've found somewhere to store Badger near Calgary airport so we can access him if needs be over the winter so even though its going to be cold it should be OK as long as we winterise the plumbing and tarp him up to keep the snow off. We start heading west on Saturday and should be in Montana by the 24th so can have a couple of days there before crossing the border and moving into the Canmore apartment.
So, next summer we can fly back into Calgary to pick him up, visit Drumheller for a couple of days set up as we skipped it on our first Canada visit (rather than doing a long day trip from Canmore), head down through Glacier National Park which we skipped this spring, and then on to see Pris and Bill in Oregon for the eclipse. Then we can put him up for sale again on the west coast as we head down slowly through northern California revisiting a few favourites at a different time of year (Crater Lake, Yosemite) and spend the late autumn and early winter doing the snowbird thing in the south west. If we manage to sell up in time we can head to Hawaii before our 6 months runs out, if not once we get to February we will leave him on consignment in snowbird territory while we head on to Mexico and central America, and do Hawaii on another fly-through.
Not sure where we will be living for our time back in the UK - our Mycenae Road property will still be let out, and our Blackpool tenants have shown no sign of wanting to leave, so we will probably have to rent somewhere ourselves - we've one possibility in play but won't know for sure until much closer to the time. but hopefully this trip we'll have time to make it to see friends in Europe who we didn't get a chance to see last trip, and more time to revisit everyone else....
- A......sell him privately - he's been advertised on-line for the past 6 weeks and whilst we've had a couple of semi-serious viewers we've not sealed a deal, so....
- B..... leave him with a dealer on consignment to sell over here on the east coast. Spoke with a couple of dealers over the summer who would have been willing to take him at this time of year, but we would have lost a lot in the process. Plus they were based down the I-95 which is currently under water from hurricane Matthew, so timing is against us, even if there are probably a lot of people down there right now who could do with a self contained home that can jack itself up.....
- C..... Put him in storage on the east coast south of the snow belt and pick him up again after the eclipse and just take the car to Canmore - possible but would have meant a week each way in motels, and would have also been affected by Matthew, or
- D.....take him west now and put him in storage over there so we can pick him up before the eclipse
so we have decided on the latter. Actually, we had initially planned to spend 4 periods in the US including next summer in the west around the eclipse, so this is not that far removed from our original plan. We also pushed the pace a bit this summer so we got to see everything we wanted to over this side, including the Canadian Atlantic provinces. We would have revisited Washington DC for a few more days if we had headed back south, but we chose to stay in Vermont to see the colours change and glad we did, so we can do DC again as a fly through another time.
We've found somewhere to store Badger near Calgary airport so we can access him if needs be over the winter so even though its going to be cold it should be OK as long as we winterise the plumbing and tarp him up to keep the snow off. We start heading west on Saturday and should be in Montana by the 24th so can have a couple of days there before crossing the border and moving into the Canmore apartment.
So, next summer we can fly back into Calgary to pick him up, visit Drumheller for a couple of days set up as we skipped it on our first Canada visit (rather than doing a long day trip from Canmore), head down through Glacier National Park which we skipped this spring, and then on to see Pris and Bill in Oregon for the eclipse. Then we can put him up for sale again on the west coast as we head down slowly through northern California revisiting a few favourites at a different time of year (Crater Lake, Yosemite) and spend the late autumn and early winter doing the snowbird thing in the south west. If we manage to sell up in time we can head to Hawaii before our 6 months runs out, if not once we get to February we will leave him on consignment in snowbird territory while we head on to Mexico and central America, and do Hawaii on another fly-through.
Not sure where we will be living for our time back in the UK - our Mycenae Road property will still be let out, and our Blackpool tenants have shown no sign of wanting to leave, so we will probably have to rent somewhere ourselves - we've one possibility in play but won't know for sure until much closer to the time. but hopefully this trip we'll have time to make it to see friends in Europe who we didn't get a chance to see last trip, and more time to revisit everyone else....
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