The rucksacks revealed...

Time for another planning update... this week marks the beginning of our 6 month countdown from December 1st! At the moment the plan for our first couple of weeks in America looks like this:

Wednesday 1st June - Saturday 4th June: New York City, staying with Steve Balet (a friend of the Baileys!) in his posh apartment. Should be a busy few days and a brilliant first stop!

Sunday 5th June: Catch a train (?) to Washington DC early morning, spend all day Sunday and Monday in the capital.

Tuesday 7th June - Afternoon flight to New Orleans. Two days of sunshine and sightseeing!

Friday 10th June - Early morning flight to Little Rock on the way to our first timeshare week, courtesy of Ray and Maria! We'll hire a car at the airport and drive to Horseshoe Bend in Arkansas for our week of relaxation!

Friday 17th June - Return the car to Little Rock and then......we haven't decided yet! What we do know is that we've got from the 17th until the 25th to get to Las Vegas for our second timeshare week, staying at the Hilton on the Strip! We've got a bit more planning to do to work out our route in between...

In other news, we've been rucksack shopping again and finally made our decisions, thanks to Dad offering us an early Christmas present! As predicted, Laura went for a pink pack - the 60L Lower Alpine Travel Trekker. This was her second choice, after we were told that the first one she had chosen wouldn't last for a year; in fact, according to the assistant, it would start to fall apart after a couple of months!! I've gone for a 60L Berghaus Jalan, which felt the most comfortable to carry after a long trying on session! That might change when it's full to bursting with enough gear to last me for a year, we'll see... Photos of our new purchases are up now, if you like that sort of thing!

Dave