Joel and I take the 707 Bus towards Hemel Hempstead where our contact and friend who helped look over our rally van after we shipped it to the UK. We get dropped off in a small quaint town, very quiet, and a lot of geese and ducks since its near a small river.
After a phone call and a few minutes later,gentleman comes pulling in with a white Beamer 5 Series wagon, and steps out with a full head of white hair man jump out of the car. I guess we were a dead give away since Joel told them on the phone look for two exhausted looking guys with large backpacks waiting around on a park bench.
Gary only a year older than Joel and I, is a relatively tall thin man with slight curl, blue eyes, and pinkish tan skin from working in the sun.
His features are obvious to the resemblance of his father who is the man with Gary (unfortunately I don’t remember his name), except that his father was of obviously lighter complexion meaning his tan made his skin rather reddish, pink, than brown.
We load up our gear and get ready to hop in, Joel goes in on the rear left passenger side, I naturally take the opposite when Gary tells me that he brought along his daughter. I can only see the small lower half of a body because of the glare on the window.
We get in and meet Gary’s daughter, Lauren, a shy but very well mannered young lady.
Gary, His Father, Daughter and Joel
Our reservations for the evening were for the Premier Inn Central Hemel Hemstead, NOT downtown. We find this out the hard way when they tell us the price would be pretty much the same, but there’s nothing we can do.
Something happened to the van when Gary picked it up at port. I guess a rear break cylinder was leaking break fluid, so Joel brought him another one.
Anyway we talk about our schedule for tomorrow, and Gary says we should give him a call the next morning. As much as we wanted to hang out in the evening and see the city, Joel and I were dead tired and I passed out around 9pm.
