Goings on in America

Moon Song
Laura & Alan Grayson
Wed 20 May 2009 21:17
Well after a very exciting time in Bonaire we moved the boat to Curacao and put her in the Santa Barbara Marina Where I'm sure she is now feeling very neglected. We came back to the states in late Feb for Laura's mum's 80th birthday party. We were hoping for a family get together but the Philips family dynamics being what they are put an end to all that. In fact the only other sibling that turned up was the one we figured was not going to show. Anyway we had a good time and that is all that really matters.
We then spent the next 2 months looking for something to buy that would be close to Laura's mum  and we ended up looking for B&B's in a small town 22 miles from Betty called Fredericksburg, Texas. This is a town that was built up by the Germans way back when, and even today has a strong German influence. We had a fine selection of places to choose from as this is a very touristy town and there are about 200 B&B's there. We looked at one that was a Victorian style mansion another that was a farmers Sunday house. The German farmers had a house in town that they would use so they could go to church. This farmer was obviously very wealthy as the house had 5 bedrooms. The pick of the bunch for us was a place called Queen Anne, which was a 1929 era built house which had 5 rooms in the house and a converted garage all of which had been done up very nicely indeed. Well we ummm and arrr'd for a while but decided not to pursue this avenue, for a couple of reasons. 1st Laura did not want to give up the boating life and a B&B would have meant a full time year round business, NOT acceptable at all. 2nd 22 miles might have been just a bit close to the mum in law, nah just kidding. So we abandoned that idea and moved on.
I had a heartwork retreat in the end of April that my sister was coming over from Dubai to attend and just by coincidence there was a RV Park workshop being put on by a broker in Tennessee at the same time so Laura drove to Tennessee in our new car , (yes see how committed to being land lubbers we are) which is a Subaru Outback, god what a great car. Anyway while we are having fun at the heartwork Laura was learning all the good stuff about owning and running a RV Park. She came back all excited with a couple of good possibilities, so we had a good couple of days in Austin with my sister before dropping her off in Houston and heading north. All the parks we are looking at this year are in the northeast US. The one park that really caught Laura's attention got an offer put on it 4 hrs before we could get there and man did we try to get there. It was a 18hr drive and we left Houston at 6.00pm and made it there at 5.00pm the next day. This park we fell in love with as soon as passed the gate and man you cannot believe the disappointment when we were told the owner had accepted an offer just 4hrs before hand. This is probably the only park we have really wanted and we missed out by 4 hrs.so a few bottles of wine later and a good sleep and a small hangover we moved on. This park was in Indiana and since then we have seen about 6 parks in 4 states. I'm actually starting to think that I can say I've seen a fair bit of the US by now. We saw one other camp that does everything we need it to do, ( make enough money so we can spend 4-5 months on the boat) but we are going to have to put everything into it to get which means we might have to spend the 1st winter at the park, not a really enjoyable prospect as we now consider ourselves warm weather bunnies.
Right now we are parked at a picnic area on our way to see Niagara Falls. We are so close that we have decided to take the day off and check the place out. Will let you know what it is all about in the next paragraph.
Well we checked out the Falls, pretty impressive... Lots and Lotsa water. Not as impressive as Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The Canadian side is so much better then the American side. I figure the Americans don't even think it is a tourist destination. The town is all rundown and I can't even see anything touristy here. While on the Canadian side there are flash hotels, casino's and plenty of touristy things to do.
Then we get to crossing back into the states, Christ I'm so sick of this shit. Of course we get selected for the random computer check... Pull over here sir and let me break out the rubber gloves. After sitting in the waiting room for 15 mins, Miss Personality comes out to pull the bus apart, The only highlight was she is scared of cats, Perfect. 2 of the little buggers should make her day. Anyway after she has broken a drawer and pulled the cover off the speaker she lets us go. Another guy checks our passports and asks for my green card. After looking at it he tells me I should keep the green card and throw away my passport. Luckily my brain was working much faster than usual and I told him I should probably keep the passport as it makes it much easier to escape this hell hole..... Whoops.. out come the rubber gloves again. The whole deal winds me up, They make it out to be one big prison and no time off for good behavior either., getting pretty tired of the whole deal.
Ok so we are at the library looking for more opportunities who knows where we will end up next.