Kicking Into High Gear

With the 4th party over, we're starting to really kick everything into gear.

Stuff in process/completed:

• International Drivers Permits yesterday - just a little booklet that basically translates your license into several different languages.
• International Camping Card - if you don't have one of these, the campground asks to keep your passport!
• RV Liability Insurance - Takes about 30-days to process. Many companies to select from - we're using Thum Insurance.
• Health Insurance - Takes about 30-days to process. Many companies to select from - we're using IMG.
• RV is booked to sail - Baltimore, MD to Bremerhaven, Germany. Many companies to select from, we're using Carex.

Stuff we still need to do:

• Sell the house (!)
• Get notarized copies of the RV title
• Renew RV tabs (can do 6-months in advance)
• Prepare the RV for the cross-country drive & shipping - in other words, Dan gets to drive in it for 4-days with no personal goods inside - the unit must be empty during the shipping process.
• Find a new hotel (now that we're picking up in Germany- need to change our plans a bit)
• Book the first campground
• Check into changing flights - we booked on a good airfare, but didn't make the RV shipping arrangements in time. Means we ship the RV to a different port - in this case, about 200 km away from Brussels. The devil is in the details.
• Plan what to pack; what to ship; what to buy there -- for future reference, any personal goods we wanted to ship should have been sent about 2 weeks ago. It takes about 5-8 days for your goods to be put on a ship once they arrive at a shipping company. From the West coast, it takes over 30-days to get to Europe. We've been advised to pack what we can in our luggage and use FedEx for the rest (this being a small move - we're talking several boxes at best - not a container load).