163 – Returning our Earthroamer to Denver – still held up in Customs

Saturday 4 October 2008

In August 2008, we shipped our Earthroamer from Sydney to Los Angeles.  It travelled on a flat platform inside the hull of a ship which sailed via Singapore to Los Angeles.  We heard that it had arrived at the end of September, so on the 4^th October we flew with Qantas to Los Angeles.  We had arranged for the shipping agent to have our vehicle unloaded at a truck transport yard after it had passed through US Customs.  Sadly this was not to be, our vehicle was still held up in US Customs when we arrived in Los Angeles.  We didn’t receive the vehicle for another five days, after many phone calls backwards and forwards with a vehicle import agency (one that we would never recommend). Unfortunately, the manager named Caroline was not very experienced or very bright and we think if we had just left it up to her we would still be waiting for the vehicle!!!!!

Eventually after four days, we managed to find out the name and phone number of the actual Canadian Carnet paperwork and organised the vehicle to be imported back into the United States, from whence it had come, using their usual American import paperwork – very simple, but it took one more day before we saw our vehicle!!

In the meantime we hired a car and drove north for a few days.

After we had arrived in Los Angeles at around 7.00am, we received the phone message to tell us our vehicle was still held up at Customs.  We hired a car at the airport and drove north up to Santa Barbara where we visited Paul Hogan at his new home.  It was raining and we enjoyed a cup of tea and a chat with Paul in his kitchen.  After an hour or so we headed off and continued up the coast on Highway 101. It stopped raining and the sun came out so we stopped at the grape/winery area of Los Alamos and had some lunch.  We continued up the coast and passed many vineyards and some areas where they grew vegetables.

We stopped at Pismo Beach and walked along the waterfront, out onto the long jetty.   There were a number of people surfing the small waves beside the jetty and it was rather windy and cool.

It was only early afternoon however we were feeling tired so we decided to stay the night. We drove through the main village up to a motel on the cliff called Shelter Cove Lodge. There were many pelicans and other sea birds flying past the motel windows that looked out on the rugged rocky coast.

Click here for the next entry – We visit Peggy Fossett in Carmel.

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