We covered 11 kilometers (7 miles) since our start in Houston, Texas!
Sat, 13th February 2010
Hi everyone!
Landed safely in the USA and we were welcome as well.
Thurdsay 11 feb we arrived at schiphol airport at eight. Really nice to see a lot of friends and relatives for a final goodbye. Some of them were already worried about the whole trip, because within half an hour we already lost one of the boarding passes.
We had a good flight and landed around 2 o clock in the afternoon with a 7 hrs time difference. Getting through customs took some time, and after that we got our rental car. Too bad, the price wasn’t as advertised. And we are already the laugh of the town in our HHR (chrysler PT cruiser look-a-like) while the rest of Texas is driving a pick-up truck. Unbeleivable….so many trucks. After a ride through cold and wet Houston we arrived in our hotel. Finally.
Today we got up early and got a truckers breakfast in the motel (not that we had any choice). We spent the entire day driving the local highways around and through Houston. We needed to get a bike insurrance, getting our bike cleared by customs and after that we went to the cargo depot. The bikes are really there! Well,….the crates, still not sure what’s in it. Evertything is arranged to get the bikes and hit the road. Tomorrow we are planning to get there early and uncrate the bikes…..
First impression of Houston:
- a lot of trucks
- cold and wet
- a lot of concrete
- a lot of fastfood
- helpful people
Cheers,
Bas, Roel, Steve
Ps1. Thanks for all the nice comments! (the bad ones we’ve deleted)
Ps2. We already let go of the travel light principle….Roel has an electric nose hair trimmer with him.
The last three days were very busy. We’ll give you an impression:
Got the rental and drove all day (on friday) to arrange all sorts of things
Went to the Wal Mart to buy some last equipment. Bas still needed a small chair.
Went for lunch.
That day we arranged our insurance, customs and paid the final costs for getting the bikes. Friday night we were invited by Dave, a Houston biker, we met on the internet and was very helpful. We had a good meal and went for some beers. After that unable to drive, we end up couch surfing at Dave’s place. Nice
Next day (saturday) we got our crates and we were allowed to open them at the logistics centre. We thought this would take an hour…
We thought it was only getting the front wheels in and start…
But none of the bikes wanted to start quickly and this took quite some time. After jumpstarting them all, we thought we were okay. But there was a great inbalance in Bas’ bike. It appeared that his rear tyre was damaged, and needed to be replaced.
So after many hours we were still at the logistics centre, but the good thing was that the weather was really nice. And when we got hungry in the afternoon, Dave got us a nice lunch.
After that, back to work. Hopefully we could make it before sunset.
Finally we were good to go, but unfortunately we had to make our first km’s in the dark. But: all bikes are now ready to roll!
On our night out with Dave and his friend, they told us to go to church on sunday. To Lakewood church, an event to must visit. Lakewood church is in the former Houston Rockets basketball court and fits over 15.000 people. The show…ehh church service… is send on tv for a million public. The pastor is Joel Osteen and has sold millions of books. A good reason to give it a visit and to receive some blessings for our trip!
Check also these websites form our friend Dave. He helped us big time getting started here in Houston. He did a similar trip, so if you wanna know what we might encounter, check http://www.allthewaysouth.com/.
His next trip is on http://www.gsomething.com/cms/.
