Van now in USA

I've spent more time in Colorado than anywhere else in the US so know that state and the states to the south and west better than elsewhere but I did like Washington (the sate not the city) very much. Seattle is unique .......
 
Puddleduck said:
I've spent more time in Colorado than anywhere else in the US so know that state and the states to the south and west better than elsewhere but I did like Washington (the sate not the city) very much. Seattle is unique .......
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Puddleduck, how long since you have been to Seattle? The reason I ask is we visited earlier this year for our first time and thought it busy and crowded compared to what we had heard from others. We thought maybe it was just our take on it so concentrated on enjoying the setting and two fantastic museums there.
On the same journey we travelled from Seattle to Minneapolis by long distance train and struck up an acquaintance with a charming young lady in her mid thirties. She lives in Seattle but was on her way back to where she grew up for a family funeral so was reflective and just wanted to talk.

She is a successful fashion designer for sports wear, has her own large condo in Seattle, travels the world for business etc etc. She startled us by saying she was thinking of moving to LA (which we do know due a friend who lives there and we have visited a number of times). The reason "It's calmer and more relaxed than Seattle due to the big tech companies taking Seattle over and expanding at a furious rate". Nearly spat my tea out, LA calmer!

By co-incidence about 2 months later we were making a delivery to the high Pyrenees, to a mid thirties American couple who had just bought a village house in a mountain village. He was born in Seattle and when we said we thought it was busy but no-one else had ever said that he said "I trained as an engineer and worked for Boeing. It was a good job but I got fed up that the plant car park was not big enough to take all the employees cars so you had to arrive for work up to 2 hours early to get parked. So we left and moved to Norway" He was manager of an engineering workshop in the oil industry for 6 year but wanted to move to a better climate, his wife could work anywhere as she worked online as an editor for technical features.

On the same trip we visited for the Nth time San Francisco, also San Diego and Austin. We know people in some of these places and when talking to locals they all had the same story, big tech had started to take over many American cities accompanied by enormous amounts of building to create this expansion.

Sorry if I've hi-jacked the thread, but the west of the US has really to started to change in a short time and thought it may interest others.
 
Hi Veevee
We have done most of the touristy things previously with our children.Orlando,Miami,LA,LV,Grand Canyon,etc.This time on our own its more off the beaten track so to speak.Posted yesterday some screen shots of route.Louisiana and Oklahoma are in the mix
 
@veevee it is about 3 years since we were in Seattle. It was busy but also vibrant with quite a "can do" buzz. We were actually south of Seattle and very near one of the Boeing factories. On Sunday everything was closed so we took a picnic to a park with views over Lake Washington - there was what we took to be a bridge over a river running through the park and as we watched a new aircraft taxied across the bridge to an airfield and then was run up and down the runway. Interesting to watch :) We also spent time watching the seaplanes taking off and landing on the lake.

I really enjoyed the Underground Tour of Seattle, the museum about the gold rush and the glass artist exhibition at the base of the Space Needle. The University sector was quieter but rather run down........ We did go out to the coast which was a nice trip, lots of greenery and hills.

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Must stop getting distracted.Due to set off west this morning but checking my Lonely Planet realised we were not too far to visit Monticello.
This is famous ,to Americans at least,as the home of Thomas Jefferson the third President responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence.
He designed the house and owned many slaves.Despite his "all men are created equal" .
The stories of those poor slaves I found far more interesting than the house tour.
When he died in 1826 he had freed only 5 slaves and left huge debt.Within six months the house was sold along with the 136 slaves to various owners splitting up the families.
The house and a slaves house pictures.
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mojo said:
Must stop getting distracted.Due to set off west this morning but checking my Lonely Planet realised we were not too far to visit Monticello.
This is famous ,to Americans at least,as the home of Thomas Jefferson the third President responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence.
He designed the house and owned many slaves.Despite his "all men are created equal" .
The stories of those poor slaves I found far more interesting than the house tour.
When he died in 1826 he had freed only 5 slaves and left huge debt.Within six months the house was sold along with the 136 slaves to various owners splitting up the families.
The house and a slaves house pictures.View attachment 246422 View attachment 246423 View attachment 246424
Click to expand...

Thank you, my kind of trip report

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veevee said:
Thank you, my kind of trip report
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ditto

Another example of the public persona being very different from the reality ...... but then at that time the enslaved people were seen as subhuman and we should not judge yesterday's actions with today's standards.

When we were in parts of Utah there were similar examples and I found the casual racism very difficult to cope with. That was around 15 years ago so I hope things have changed since then.
 
Used Walmart ,Staunton,WV last night.Open 24hrs so some form of security in that.
Question from another forum was customs .
I expected to have to unlock the garage for inspection but in fact I never saw a customs official.On collection of the papers from the shipping agent in Baltimore they had already been stamped as cleared .Proves they did not bother looking.
 
Our first proper shop on Walmart after staying overnight
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without rushing brought up some interesting items.
All the times we plan to spend on National Parks it may pay to buy a hunting bow.Fresh meat instead of road kill would make a pleasant change.
And what a great time saving device for my socks !
 
mojo said:
Our first proper shop on Walmart after staying overnightView attachment 246490 View attachment 246491 without rushing brought up some interesting items.
All the times we plan to spend on National Parks it may pay to buy a hunting bow.Fresh meat instead of road kill would make a pleasant change.
And what a great time saving device for my socks !
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Reminds me of a story Rosie loves to tell.

Just arrived in N Carolina for a fly drive, our first USA visit. Headed south from the airport for a couple of hours and decided to get a snack and some water to tied us over until we ate that evening. We had been on the go since the very early hours and Rosie just needed to sleep. I pull in at the first Wal-Mart Supercentre we've ever seen. Rosie asked is it ok to stay and sleep, no problem say I, only need a few things.

An hour and a half later I come back with one of their giant trolley's full to the top, opened the boot of the car to hide my shopping before Rosie woke up! Don't ask what I bought please, too embarrassing, but managed to resist the automatic rifle in pink... for the ladies you know.
 
mojo said:
Used Walmart ,Staunton,WV last night.Open 24hrs so some form of security in that.
Question from another forum was customs .
I expected to have to unlock the garage for inspection but in fact I never saw a customs official.On collection of the papers from the shipping agent in Baltimore they had already been stamped as cleared .Proves they did not bother looking.
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You don't know what they did. Your vehicle could have been X-Rayed, sniffed by dogs and machines and any locks opened by their lock experts.
But risk must be a factor. Who smuggles drugs or whatever from Europe to the US? So they probably didn't look. :)

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DBK said:
You don't know what they did. Your vehicle could have been X-Rayed, sniffed by dogs and machines and any locks opened by their lock experts.
But risk must be a factor. Who smuggles drugs or whatever from Europe to the US? So they probably didn't look. :)
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They are most likely to search for illicit fruit and veg. At some airports the sniffer dogs are operated by the Dept. of Agriculture (one of our party once tried to stroke one and was rebuked with a "Don't touch the dog, ma'am"). They don't want any pesky foreign critters/diseases infecting their domestic crops you see.
 
Some of my favourite signs spotted in the US (quite a while ago now).

At the check-in for an internal flight: "All guns must go in the hold".
Entering Canada by land from the US: "No guns under 2ft long allowed".
Shop in Jamestown: "Beer and ammo" -- not a great combination, I thought.
 
GWAYGWAY said:
Do the NORTH bit first whilst it is warm then go south for the coldbit.. SNOWBIRDS do it every year.
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That's the plan,looking at the State Fair,Des Moines,Iowa on our route but camping there looks like it's full .

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A eye opener on how run down a lot of communities are that we travel through.Most properties are timber built and are simply abandoned ,left in ruins.
If we want a Aldi just look for the poor part of town,they seem to locate themselves in poorer locations.
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I bet you can buy a house in that area for just a handful of dollars.

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