The Road to Montreal

The title sounds like efforts leading to a major achievement. Well, at least the effort was major and the achievement is important to our family. The last few days concluded about two months of tireless web research, phone calls and arrangements. The result: a car and a travel trailer parked in a camp near Montreal, awaiting our big trip to begin.

The plan was a bit complicated: from Washington DC to Norfolk by Greyhound buses at night to pick up the car on Wednesday, then driving from Norfolk to Milford, DE to pick up the trailer on Thursday or Friday, then tow it to Montreal and get back home for final arrangements. The return flight leaves on Wednesday morning so there is not much room for errors.

I left our home at Budapest at 04:45 on a Tuesday morning. Flew to Washington via Vienna in about 15 hours total. Then killed a few hours walking around Washington as a first time visitor. From the Union Station to the George Washington Monument, The White House and then back to Union Station. Was great to see these landmarks seen so many times on screens before.

The wait for the Greyhound bus felt endless and the delay did not help either. But all things come to an end so finally the bus left Washington with me onboard. There was another hour if waiting at Richmond where I had to change the bus and traffic grew quite strong in the morning but finally around 10:00 am, after 36 hours of travelling I walked into the Ford dealership in Norfolk to pick up our car for the journey.

To my European eye it is a huge white block of metal and quite spacious inside. The main selection factor (on top of our maximum budget) was the earlier decision to have a trailer and a car, not an RV. We think it will be usefulnto make short excursions with our kids and the dog without the trailer. So it is heavier and more difficult to maneuvere but gives more flexibility and freedom. So I was looking for the car with the maximum towing capacity and the Ford Expedition was a clear winner. Later on I plan a more technical post to review it after a few weeks.

Now time for a good night rest and then I head North to Milford, Delaware to pick up the travel trailer.