DAY ONE: Friday September 8th, Gatwick to Boston, drive to Boxford

Up early (5am) to pack for a long 30-day trip after getting home late on Thursday following one leaving drink too many! Tardiness not helped by falling asleep on the train home and waking up at Oxted station – four stops down the line from East Croydon where I should have got off. I then had a 20-minute wait for a train back up, during which time my mother phoned and berated me for being late and drunk.
 
Very hard to know what to pack for such a long journey. Not sure what the weather will be like and I only have enough clothes – and a big enough suitcase – for two weeks. I have bought extra M&S boxer shorts and socks this week, however. Packing goes smoothly though, and I have time to check-in online for my Continental Airlines flight from London Gatwick to Newark Liberty International and then onwards to Boston Logan airports.
 
I leave my Addiscombe home around 7am and catch the tram to East Croydon station almost straight away. However, the train from there down to Gatwick has been cancelled and I have to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Still, I am at the airport by 8am, 2-1/2 hours before flight departure time. The check-in bag drop is smooth and although there is a long queue at security, I manage to push through and get airside by 8.40am.
 
Shopping time. I grab some CDs for the trip, just in case my new iPod transmitter plays up, as well as Bill Bryson’s ‘Lost Continent’ book for background, and a Moleskin pocketbook to scribble this journal in at WH Smith. Then I grab a juice and a croissant at Pret where I also phone my Mum to placate her – No hangover. Honest!
 
The Newark flight is called early and boarding goes smoothly. Onboard there is one of the campest cabin stewards ever – from San Francisco. Saying that he is very kind and efficient. Even so, two screaming babies all the way made sleeping off the non-hangover impossible. Movie choice is limited – I catch ‘Nacho Libre’ with Jack Black on the second cycle – so it’s lucky I have plenty of books.
 
We arrive in New Jersey around 30 minutes late at 1.40pm, after a slightly delayed departure taxiing around Gatwick, and I worry slightly about catching my 3.30pm connecting flight to Boston. But transfer is smooth through both immigration and customs – so glad I didn’t travel via New York’s JFK airport which is always mobbed – and I recheck my bag and grab the airtrain to Terminal A. I even have time for my first Sam Adams ale at the gate. From there, I call my old school friend Julian Troake – who I am staying with for a few days to prepare for my long drive - to let him know I have arrived in the good old US of A and that my departure on the internal flight is on time.
 
Arrival in Boston is swift after just a 38-minute flight, landing at around 4.45pm. However, like at Gatwick, there is a slight delay when taxiing, this time because Air Force Two, with vice-president Dick Cheney onboard has arrived at the same time. Once I have finally disembarked the plane and picked up my bag from the carousel, I realise that, unlike International Arrivals, there is nowhere for Julian to meet me. I wander outside of the terminal to a very busy car pick-up point and phone his wife Karen who can’t hear me very well amid all the honking horns and other airport noises, but she told me that Julian had left a while ago so should be there soon and took down my cell-phone number so he can call me. I wait at an information point back in the terminal after grabbing some water – it’s hot and humid outside – and five minutes later Julian arrives, looking flustered after a journey dogged by heavy traffic.
 
We return to the car park where he has left his Toyota, which was abandoned in a panic because he was late to meet me. Unfortunately this means that he failed to note on which level he had parked. It takes 20 minutes and three floors of wandering before it is spotted. Julian then drives me to the car rental centre so I can pick up my ride for the long journey ahead. There I negotiate an upgrade and pick up a blue Ford Mustang coupe (mileage 2,354). In this dream machine I follow Julian back up the Interstate to his hometown of Boxford, where we arrive around 7pm. That was just in time for his son Henry’s bedtime. After a brief meal prepared by Karen and a catch-up chat all of us are tired as well. So I am in bed in Boxford by 9.30pm, which is 2.30am in real time, so almost up for 24 hours. Car mileage at end of day: 2,385.

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