Right now I am sat on the front step of a burned out house in Minneapolis. Its 10pm and the mosquitos keep biting my fingers as I type as they are attracted by the light of the laptop. At the moment this is the only place we can get internet so I am hiding up here to give you the first of many TMC blog posts.
We started things off well in Folkestone. We had a small party for Dad's 60th at the Clifton Hotel in Folkestone who were more than hospitable even when it came to ordering more wine at about 3am! To be honest it was nice to let my hair down. The last two weeks I have been solidly working on getting this trip organised. Just getting local business' to deal with a UK buyer who doesn't have a US phone number has been almost imposible.
Monday morning reality hit. Slightly hazy and wondering why on earth we let Andrew order that last bottle of wine at 4am we came downstairs for a farewell fry up and some photo's with the Herald (Folkestone's local paper). Minutes later we were on our way to Heathrow. We had coffee at the airport with Cristina (my step Mum) and Liane (my girlfriend) - the long suffering respective others who have allowed this madness.
We arrived in Minneapolis, picked up the hire car and came to check out the build site. It couldn't be better, well maybe without 59 steps to climb down till you get to the river but once your down here its got a house boat, a platform to moor our boat too and plenty of space. Its all you need really. In-spite of this we had no camping gear so we had to find a motel.
Now I have stayed in some pretty bad places. Those who know me from my backpacking years will tell you of the rat and roach infested holes I have stayed in. This had a totally different quality to it. Carpets that had so much grime it them they had to texture of old pub carpet. From the Swan in Stockwell maybe. The smell of disinfectant just told you it used to smell of something else, but when your that tired you'll sleep anywhere and I was more than happy when I put my head down.
Tuesday morning. A whole day wasted to transport and flights we needed to get started. We showered and checked out of the worst motel in history and headed down to the river.
First thing we did was to pop into the lumber supplier who had been so helpful over the phone (Siwek Lumber). Unfortunately the order to pre drill all the holes in the hull structure had been forgotten which meant everything was going to run at least a day late. Don't get me wrong, these guys have given us everything half price (maybe less than) in support of the project and were by far the most helpful supplier I dealt with when I was in the UK, without them this would not be possible but to be immediately a day behind was a major blow. I waited around for the rest of the orders to be delivered and then we went shopping for camping suplies and a sim card so we could get the internet sorted out.
We camped in Dave's home made boathouse that night and spent out first night on the river.
Wednesday morning we got up shortly after dawn to get straight on with it. And it was fantastic weather for it too. We decided to start work on the walls which we at least had wood for and waited for the beams for the hull structure to arrive. At last at about 11am we got them. It took us until 5pm to get all the barrels on and the structure built. I hurt all over, and I think we both nearly fell in on two separate occasions but we got it built and my what a raft it is. Its a good strong structure and doesn't sit low in the water and we hope is that this will give us the speed we need to get us there on time. It needs some plastic over the barrels to give them a smooth edge and then we can put the floor on. By tomorrow night we should have a floor and cabin. Then all we need is a engine and we are on our way.
In the time I have written this I have sorted out the internet on the raft (is it wrong that we have our own WiFi before we have a floor???? Things are looking up, lest hope they stay that way!
Sorry for the delayed posting, more to follow.
Peter
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