1 month in; a quick overview of the last month in the USA and Canada

Hello! And greetings from a truck stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It has been just over a month since we left the UK aboard the Queen Mary 2, travelled across the Atlantic ocean and arrived in New York City.

Blimey what a month it has been. After the cruise, we arranged to spend a few days in New Jersey, near the port we were collecting the van from. This turned out to be a few extra days due to a delay re shipping but we made the most of it nonetheless. We enjoyed some really good weather, spent a lot of time in Lincoln Park which was very local to us and also spent 1 day in Manhattan. It was weird seeing the dogs in the heart of NYC… it finally hit home how insane/bizarre/huge this part of our trip was. Watching Pepe look at Lady Liberty from the window of an Uber was a very weird feeling. Nonetheless, our day in Manhattan was good fun, we spent several hours in Central Park doing bird watching (becoming a bird person was not on my 2025 bucket list but it is a happy conclusion regardless) and spotting other wildlife too including Turtles!! This was exciting for us.

Finally the day came that we were able to collect the van and we were DELIGHTED to find that it hadn’t been tampered with or robbed during it’s journey across the Atlantic as this was highlighted to us as a very real possibility. Once Ayman picked up the van, he collected myself and the dogs and then we headed for our first destination which was in Connecticut. We had only planned to stay for the one night, which unfortunately turned into 7 because the bloody van caught fire!!!! (disclaimer; a very small fire). Luckily, there was very minimal damage and we managed to secure it enough to drive to a Mercedes garage who changed a part for us. Our stay in Connecticut was really lovely with the absolute nicest host, Mary and Victor. They took the best care of us whilst we were in distress on their farm as well as giving us a discount for our longer stay, letting us use all the facilities and even driving Ayman to the supermarket. They let us stay in a beautiful cabin and enjoyed seeing their horses everyday! One small success under our belts, we headed to our next destination; a lovely campsite in Littleton Massachusetts.

FURTHER VAN DRAMA CONTINUES….

To cut a very long winded and frankly depressing story short, we found a fault with our LPG (cooking gas) tank, a leak in our water tank and a fault with our fuel pump. Once again, we had originally planned to stay in Littleton for 2 days which turned into 9. We met a lovely Mechanic called Jesus (we have said all the puns, trust me) and after a while we were fixed up and ready to go. The van has been a fairly continuous nightmare as well as a blessing for allowing us to do this adventure, so we had a difficult conversation about whether or not we should/would/could continue. This was pretty heart-breaking for me, because this is my dream and I would be crushed if we couldn’t do this because we have a crappy van. In the end, we decided that we would fix anything mechanical but anything else we would do temporary and easy fixes or just leave it. We would try and keep going for as long as we could until it became too expensive to continue and we are going to reassess how things are in mid-July. We tried to make the best of our time in Littleton and we did end up having a good time there.

CUT TO NOW(ish),

Once we left Littleton, we then ventured to East Boothbay in Maine which was gorgeous! A typical new England town, boats, harbour, lobster rolls and happy people in the sun. We had a really great couple of days there and even enjoyed the drive out of the area with all the lovely scenery. From Maine, we did a 7 hour drive to Canada and have spent the last week in Nova Scotia! It has been a real dream, especially because we’ve been reunited with our besties, Matt and Ross after 11 months apart. They went on their travels in July 2024 and the plan was always to reunite in Canada and we got lucky meeting in Nova Scotia as our plans aligned.

Nova Scotia is BEAUTIFUL. So far we have stayed in Fundy National Park, an expansive area of woodland, marshes, wildlife, hiking trails and more. It has been so beautiful and tonic for the soul. We moved on the Raven Head Wilderness area where we went to the Joggins Fossil Cliffs/Joggins Fossil Institute who were kind enough to let us stay overnight. The area is known for its dinosaur and woolly mammoth fossils. The cliffs themselves are around 350 million years old! On the evening we stayed, we watched the most beautiful sunset and had the whole place to ourselves before spending several hours the next morning beach combing. The dogs had the BEST time running around the beach, sniffing everything and chasing the waves and were absolutely exhausted come the end of it! After this we spent 2 nights in Kejimkujik National Park and visited Ovens Natural Park, Peggy's Cove and are heading to do the Cabot trail over the next few days.

It's been so lovely to share this with our friends and see some sights that have been on the bucket list for years. It’s been really busy, sometimes stressful and definitely exhausting at times but it has definitely been worth it. After the Cabot Trail we are going to be making our way out of Nova Scotia and across to Ottawa, where we are staying in an Air BnB with my mum! She will be reunited with all her children once more. We will think again towards mid-July about our journey and the safety/expense of the van and where we go from there. We want to continue this adventure as long as possible and will do so as long as it makes sense for our family, but we aren’t sure if this will continue to be viable. For now though, we are doing okay, enjoying ourselves and living the best lives we can. It’s hard to feel blue when the views are this good 😊

Thanks for reading! Have a great day whatever you find yourself doing 😊

C x