Khalifornianz – Page 3 – Jim and Marina are off on an adventure (or two)

Hail Britannia!

We arrived in London Monday afternoon and proceeded directly to the home of Ray and Ritta and their sons Riley 10 and Reid 6 (Ray is a childhood friend of Jim’s brother Jeff). We couldn’t have waved a magic wand and wound up in a more lovely and congenial home with nicer hosts. Located in Windsor, it is on “Crown lands” and the backyard is The Queen’s farm with a view across the fields to Windsor Castle, pretty incredible actually! Everywhere you look there is a picture postcard in the making, albeit through a drizzle of rain 🙂

Jim, Ray and Ritta in Windsor — Out for a tasty dinner of Indian food in old town Windsor our first night. From left: Jim, Ray and Ritta

Fagain Roofline — Roofline of the Fagain home

castle view — View of Windsor Castle from Ray and Ritta’s

We have been picking up the last bits we needed as well as sorting through the stuff Ritta so kindly ordered online and had shipped here for our arrival. Post to follow on the amount of “stuff” one thinks one might need for a 10,000 mile road trip… We’ve had to get more in the way of clothing and pull out jackets and things we didn’t think we’d need until Tajikistan and the Pamir mountains. Our plan was to wait until then to buy heavier clothes that were appropriate for the climate, but turns out we need long pants right here in Windsor.

windsor night — Windsor Castle at night from the Eton bridge.

I’ve had a fever and sore throat so Jim has been the energizer bunny getting things going. While at LAX waiting for our flight the two of us had a chance to sit down and talk about the trip. Something we never seem to have had time to do before we left, oddly enough. We talked about our hopes and expectations and fears. Well, I have fears, but Jim said that he did not think anything about this trip would be the least bit scary for him. That was before we went out for our first drive in our car; on the wrong side of the road. After driving to the village of Datchet yesterday morning (for a jet-lag breakfast at 6:00 a.m. and wondering why only one place in town is open…) Jim said it was the most anxious he has ever been behind the wheel of a car. This from a man with nerves of steel who drove the Baja 500! It is pretty nerve-wracking, you are constantly thinking you are about to be in a head-on collision. On top of that the car is a stick so the gear shift is in your left hand. I am not sure I will get up the nerve to drive in England. Even on these country roads these little cars zip around. Just as we are getting used to this wrong-side-of-the-road-thing we will be on the ferry to the continent and switching our brains back the other way.

Our neighbors wondering what we are up to at 5:00 a.m.

window — The collection of stables and outbuildings next door look as if they were in a fire some time ago. The brick is clear but all the wood looks charred…

Love this color combination…

green — The collection of stables and outbuildings next door look as if they were in a fire some time ago. The brick is clear but all the wood looks charred…

Love this color combination…

Do you have a flag?

Today’s the day!

Wow. It’s time to go, almost. Today we fly to London and the Home of Ray and Ritta Fagain. Ritta has been an amazing help. We discovered that buying things from British companies and having them shipped to her house with an american credit card billing address is impossible. We have an ice maker, sleeping bags, mosquito nets and other wonderful items waiting for us to load into our little panda thanks to Ritta’s help!

We will have a few days in London to finish our shipping (still need a tent) and then it’s off to Southampton for the pre-launch camping and then off to Dover to take the ferry. I am pretty excited about seeing someone I haven’t seen since second grade in Brussels! Maybe first grade even… We reconnected on Facebook after my dad died last year July 8th. Weird how today is the anniversary, but he would have loved this entire enterprise and completely understood the need to undertake it. After emailing everyone about the trip the response I heard the most was “you are your father’s daughter”. Fitting then that this journey starts today.

I didn’t really have much expectations for the planning of this trip. Well, I expected it to not be as paperwork intensive as it was… but aside from that I didn’t expect to be part of a community or group. As it turned out an enormous percentage of the ralliers are on Facebook and we have had a group page going where we all discuss all kinds of logistics and hope and excitement and everything and anything that’s going through our dodgy little minds. That has been wonderful. We even got on the phone with a former rallier (2011) who this year is launching with the rest of us (all formers are invited to launches) but he and his team are driving a Subaru outfitted like a Jack Purcell, hence Shoebaru, to Capetown Africa.

We have to go get our last immunization now, signing off from the US…

Things are heating up

Things are heating up… and winding down with our prep. We’ve ordered a tent and sleeping bags, mosquito net, etc. from a company in the UK and will have it shipped to Ritta’s house in Windsor. What a tremendous help she has been!

I am starting to read the lonely planet guide books in earnest and am learning some amazing things about Central Asia. For example, the arabs conquered the area in the 5th century and brought Islam. It was a center of learning and study. Abu Ali ibn-Sina (Latinised as Avicenna), 980-1037 was the greatest medic of the medieval world and laid the foundations of modern medicine. Al-Biruni, 973-1046 from Khorezm was the foremost astronomer of his age, estimating the distance to the moon to within 20 km! I mean, wow!!

If you think of how much you need to do when you go someplace like Paris or New York to make sure you see what you want to see… and you are dealing with a few square miles… you begin to get what 10,000 miles of sightseeing entails. And because who knows if we are ever going back (except the kids really want to go “next time”), I am trying to make sure we hit most of the main stuff and not regret having not seen one thing or another.

I am currently mapping out the art and architecture and am really excited. I had no idea the artistic heritage of Central Asia was so rich and varied. I am particularly excited about the chance to see very early Buddhist art. It’s interesting how all these different people and religions have swept through and are still in the area but it’s all pretty moderate now with no extreme intolerance. As one of the guidebooks said, most muslims are happy to raise a toast to the prophet Mohammed with a shot of vodka. That’s funny :-).

How can something so extraordinary be made up of all these mundane bits?

It’s hard to believe that in less than a month (gulp) we are taking off for the adventure of our lives. We got our shots this weekend, just squeaking under the wire… Had to get Hep A and B and Typhoid. We should get the Tick borne encephalitis vaccine but it’s not available here in the USA because those nasty little ticks aren’t here (thank God). So we might have to get that shot from the good old British public health system when we get there. We are going to pass on the recommended rabies (!) vaccine (don’t you need to get bit first anyway?). Right now it’s lists and lists and shopping online for stuff and trying to comparison shop and research and… lots of details. Jim and I LOVE details, Oh yeah, we eat those puppies for breakfast! Not.

Jim picked up a satellite GPS messenger thingy from Fry’s today. I think what that means is that you will be able to tell where we are (even if we can’t tell where we are). Maybe we will also be able to text from it? As of now we are not taking an iPhone. Or a laptop. Or an iPad. Freaky. But with connectivity being such an issue and with routine shakedowns by border guards… what’s the point? But we still have research to do. I am hoping to write along the way and longhand seems like a real pain to edit later… so that iPad might just hitch along somewhere in our little Panda!

Holy crap.

The reality of leaving is beginning to hit home. I am over the overwhelm, knowing full well we don’t need to pack everything under the sun. Our border crossings are known, we have our visas, we get our Letter of Invitation for Turkmenistan at the end of this month, vaccines this week… leaving the kids (all 7 of them plus the 5 little kiddos), family, very comfy mattress, Jura espresso machine (sob!).

The reality of really being in a tiny car in the 15,000 foot Pamir mountains. The reality of not speaking but two words of Russian. The reality of getting my period (I know, but for real). The reality of not being able to cook my own food my own way (I am turning into Bruno).

Then I think about waking up each day and looking into Jim’s eyes and knowing I am safe and sound. Being able to share all the glorious things we are going to see, with Jim, without interruptions. Wow. Doesn’t get any better than that.

Pimping our ride

We’ve decided to offer our very supportive friends and family the opportunity to put their face on our car. It will be super cool for Jim and I to see all our supporters with us out on the road. We hope lots of people take up the cause so that our car is covered in faces!

check out www.khalifornianz.com/sponsor and use the google cart there to order your sponsorship package!

Final car decisions

Here are Jim’s decisions on the car. The mechanic in England has been super-duper. He not only sourced the car for us but is also storing it and is doing the modifications. I wish the exchange rate was better with the British Pound though!

1) Yes – Sump Guard – £300 fitted

2) Yes – Full service £100

3) Yes – 2 x Steel Wheels (spares) 6x all weather tyres – £430 fitted

4) Thule Roof rack/cage with spotlights – £300 fitted

5) NO – Stereo

6) Yes – Spares Kit (filters, oil, fluids, bulbs, drive belt) – £100

7) NO – Upgraded suspension

Advice from a veteran

Today we talked to a rally veteran who lives in Virginia. Not very many Americans have done or are doing this trip even though it’s hugely international. He had so much great advice about what to pack and modifications to the car. Jim and I have been going back and forth on that. We don’t want to carry too much stuff unnecessarily and neither do we want to sit in Uzbekistan for a week waiting for car parts.

One of the things he mentioned packing is antibiotics. I hate taking antibiotics but I can see how that would be a really good idea. Another thing on the to-do list, get prescription. He also said that the greatest things about doing the rally in 2009 was all the awesome people he got to meet and consequently has remained friends with. This year he is going to the two launch parties and from there he and 6 other people in two cars are driving to Capetown. Is that nuts or what?!? Here’s his team: http://shoebaru.com/ It’s actually only 13,000 miles… I thought it would be longer.

Do you have a flag?

We are huge Eddie Izzard fans, and if you know his show “Dressed to Kill” you know the scene where the Brits land in India and say “Do you have a flag”? I crack up every time I think about it. So, of course, we had to have a flag! It’s going with us, and we will hoist it at every opportunity we have!