September is a volatile month in the deep south of America.
The water is warm and the air is torridly humid. These conditions are perfect
for tropical depressions and hurricanes so we stayed a few more days in New
Orleans as we closely watched Hurricane Irene’s progress. As we drove down the
Florida pan handle we skimmed past Irene and could see the intense weather that
was just off the coast. There were a few waves from the hurricane but they
weren’t that good so we didn’t bother chasing surf. We got down to Miami and
posted up in our cheap hotel so that we could get to work on one thing, sell
the van. Money was starting to get low so we had to lay low, and to be honest
there isn’t that much to do in Miami except party at over priced bars. The
beach is always a cheap experience though. Miami Beach is about the bling.
Everyone is so manicured and come here to show off and look cool. There is a
lot of hot people here but there is more silicon here than in Silicon Valley,
if you know what I mean! Lamborghini’s,
Porches’, Ferrari’s etc abound and not many Astro Van buyers. We had a few
people interested in the van but no solid leads and it became obvious that we
were going to struggle to sell it down here amongst the hotels and the
tourists. We then booked a hotel out in the suburbs and the tactic worked
immediately. We were getting asked a lot more about the van and we finally had
a few people come and test drive it. Selling a Canadian car in America was the
nightmare of bureaucracy and red tape that you would imagine. With EPA, DMV,
registrations, imperial to metric blah, blah, blah. Long story short, the car
was OK to sell in America but it took a lot to make sure that it was. The
American economy is really struggling with high unemployment and this was evident
in how much people were willing to spend. It came down to 2 potential buyers,
and when one dropped out we were left with an elderly couple who wanted to
spend a lot less than we had asked but I managed to lift their offer to a
reasonable level and we sold the van. After
4 visits to their bank we managed to cash the cheque. We even managed to get
one more surf trip in before we sold it. We drove up the coast to meet another
hurricane swell up in Fort Pierce. The waves were small and crowded but it was
good to get wet.
It was a bit of a stressful nightmare to sell the van but we
were glad, and sad to see the van drive away after traveling over 20 000km in it. We had so many good times in that
thing and we took it to places that it probably shouldn’t have gone but it
never failed us. We can’t thank Ray and Elvia enough for contributing to our
cause. You helped make our dreams come true.
So now we are back in Miami Beach, catching buses like the
commoners. We went out and celebrated last night in a few bars and cruised the
strip! Still going to lay low cause we have Europe next and you know what that
means- $$$$! See you on the other side of the Atlantic.