Welcome

Welcome to our blog.  I am new to the art of blogging but decided to try writing one mainly to keep a record of the trip that we have been planning for some time now and will be undertaking in just under a year's time.

As background, I am retiring from the Royal Air Force in October next year (2014) and my wife, Jill, and I are intending to move to France and run our successful holiday rentals business full time from there.  We have been running our business, Razay Holiday Cottages for 10 years now.  Check out our website to find out more: www.razay.com .

During the last 20 years as a "Parachute Jump Instructor" or PJI in the RAF I have spent a lot of time in the USA conducting parachute training or, more recently, parachute testing and evaluation.  I had promised Jill that at some stage we would have a holiday over there and at last the time has come! 

This is probably going to be our "Trip of a Lifetime" and is a little reward to ourselves after 26 years in the RAF.  We plan to take nearly 7 weeks in total - the first half to travel Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles on a Harley Davidson Softail Heritage Classic and the second half to travel the Pacific Coast Highway, LA to Seattle, Wa, in a Ford Mustang convertible.

The original plan was to travel a round trip from San Francisco via Seattle, Chicago, Route 66, LA and back to San Francisco all on the Harley.  We decided that this might be too much, so then we reduced this to Chicago to Seattle via Route 66 and the PCH, but even then nearly 7 weeks on a bike was going to be hard work, so we settled for Route 66 on the Harley (the only way to travel Route 66!) and the PCH by car.

So that's a bit of background.  As I said earlier, planning has been going on for some time now but I shall go in to more detail in future posts.  Thanks for reading.