Sunday 10th April 2011
The Days Inn has served us well for the first night especially after we managed to commandeer two light bulbs to put in the lamps so that we could see, the previous occupant having seen the opportunity to acquire something for free. The couple in the adjacent room appeared to have a huge row during the early evening last night and she fled her room never to return but it all went quiet after that and Mark said that, having seen them together earlier, they were an ill suited couple anyway, she being of the brassy whore type and him shouting about her taking his money leads you to probably only one conclusion.
I had risen from my bed early today to get myself ready for a family Skype session but the appointed hour passed without hearing from home so my guess is that Gina hadn’t read my email from yesterday setting up a meeting online – disappointed of Maryland here.
Monday 11th April 2011
Fine day today but I must catch up on some unfinished work I left behind in the UK so the first couple of hours sees me slaving away at a hot laptop (more to be revealed further along our journey). I had enough of this by eleven so we decided to go for a walk for a bit of exercise except that we soon found out that there is no sidewalk and a walk along a busy highway is not recommended.
We gave this up as a bad job and decided to retrace our steps yesterday and drive to the nearby Trap Pond State Park in Delaware. We got going and air conditioning was needed to keep us cool in the rising heat of the day. The State Park was a huge disappointment - they wanted six dollars just to enter so we said stuff it and drove back to Salisbury and took a pleasant walk around their tourist information and visitor centre which had a nature reserve tacked on the side. We sat and watched the eagles soaring in the thermals and the small terrapins/turtles in the nearby creek.
Maryland in the Spring
When we were all natured out we headed back towards the hotel stopping at Walmart to get some kit for the bike – duct tape, WD40, sunscreen and the like. The rest of the day was spent finishing off my work which I finally fired off to Gareth, my business partner, just after midnight. ZZZZZZZZZZ
Tuesday 12th April 2011
The weather has changed dramatically this morning, still warm, but there is a storm brewing. The news has pictures and tales of huge tornadoes and giant hailstones but they are further out west in Iowa but the tail end is heading our way.
We load up the car and check out of the Days Inn that has been our home for the last 3 nights and we head north on Highway 13 until we reach the turning west along the 404 that eventually joins up with the 50 to take us back over the Bay Bridge. We soon pick up Highway 2, the Governor Ritchie Highway and find our way back to Pete’s Cycles where, true to their word, the Scala Q4 headsets had been delivered. We grab a quick coffee at Pete’s and leave before we are tempted to spend any more dollars on things we don’t really need.
As we leave Pete’s parking lot the first few spits of rain hit the windshield but the sky does not look too menacing. We make it OK to the airport and, after one false journey the wrong way down the 695 Baltimore Beltway, we make a U turn and get off the freeway at the right junction. We drive around the hotel district and eventually find our Red Roof Hotel and we were pleasantly surprised by a) how pleasant the reception staff were b) the fact that there was free wiFi when we thought that there was going to be none and c) the rooms were comfortable and above all cleaner than any so far (even the expensive ones) so top marks to the Red Roof at Baltimore Washington International Airport.
Having settled in we realised that we hadn’t eaten all day and it was getting close to 4.30pm so we headed for a nearby Afghan (yes, Afghan) restaurant chain Maiwand Kabob and had lamb & chicken on pitta – really scrummy. Back to the hotel and our Scala headsets were fully charged so we fitted them to our helmets, got them working and then paired them via Bluetooth to our Sat Navs – we are ready to roll ! Tomorrow is a whole new day.
The day has finally arrived when our boat sails into Baltimore but not so fast buddy .... there is still plenty of paperwork to get through before we can get them into our hot little hands.
First move of the day was to say goodbye to the Red Roof Inn and take our little car back to the airport rental returns. This was achieved without incident and we caught the free shuttle to the main terminal building and grabbed a $45 dollar taxi ride back to the Best Western in O’Donnell Street where we began our visit to Baltimore last week. We retrieve our bags that we left behind last week with the concierge. Bad news is that our room isn’t ready but good news is that when it is we have been upgraded to a suite with a sitting room and jacuzzi at no extra cost – bonus !
Bonus that was until we found a big double bed in place of our normal twin bed set up. Now we are good friends but....... Not to worry though, there is a pullout bed in the couch in the sitting room complete with its own TV set.
Hotel Suite
It is still only 11.30am so we set about ringing the shipping company to see what we have to do to get our bikes. Ha ! This is where the fun started. Jan at Wallenius Wilhelmsen (the shipper) tells us that before we can do anything we have to get customs clearance for our cargo, we then have to go to the terminal and pay the landing fees of $160.31, we then need an agent to escort us into (and out) of the port. She suggests using a shipping agent to do this for us and gives us the name of Toni (female) at Transworld Shipping. I ring Toni but Marjorie answers (Toni is away at the moment). Marjorie drops the bombshell that before she can get customs clearance we will need to give her our powers of attorney – this is getting all too complicated so I ask her if we should do the customs bit ourselves. She suggests that this is best and gives us the US Customs address at 40 Gay Street by the Inner Harbour and tells us that her office is just around the corner at 300 Water Street.
We get the free Best Western shuttle to the Inner Harbour driven an impatient Kevin who drops us off at Pier 5. luckily, we knew our way around from our previous visit last week and we were soon stood outside the impressive US Customs building.
Once inside we imparted our plight to the lady on the front desk who contacted a guy who came down to collect us and find out a bit more about what we were after. A few phone calls and he gave us the news that the department that deals with the type of customs clearance that we want has been moved from Gay Street to Baltimore BWI Airport. Now in case you don’t know, BWI airport is where we stayed yesterday and it is some 10 to 15 miles outside of Baltimore. We have no transport and taxi fares are around $50 one way including the obligatory tip. We put this to the customs officer saying that we didn’t have the time or monetary resource to keep going back and forth to the airport and he called in a superior, Officer Barnes.
Officer Barnes was, as he described himself, of the “old school” and he asked lots of questions and we answered as truthfully as we could and he finally got to understand what we were doing and why. He made a few calls and using what can only be described as a 100% dose of common sense approach he cleared the bikes for us and we got the much sought after stamp on our documentation. A grateful thanks was said to Officer Barnes and the other guy who helped and we left Gay Street and made for Marjorie’s Transworld Shipping office on Water Street.
Marjorie looked at our paperwork and said that we didn’t really need her help, all we needed was an escort agent to take us portside and she gave us the numbers of three possible. She also gave us a delivery order in case we needed one and she very kindly mad no charge for her time.
While waiting for the shuttle bus to take us back to our hotel I made a call to one of the escort agents listed and made contact with Ray. He agreed to pick us up from the airport and do the escort work for us tomorrow at a $40 per hour rate.
So hopefully by this time tomorrow we will have extracted our bikes from the Port and we will be ready for the off. WOOOO HOOOOO !!
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