A week before the flight back to New Jersey, the Patemans set up home in a shabby Travelodge near San Francisco Airport. Although our location, squeezed as it was between airport and interstate, did not provide the most picturesque (or quiet) base, it was cheap and convenient for the city (there was also a McDonalds next door...).

Staying in the motel allowed us to empty the G-dog of all our possessions and attempt to make our home of 5 months look (and smell) like a normal vehicle again. As you might imagine, during our time in the USA, we amassed a van full of gear. As it was not possible to carry it all to NZ, we packed a crate full of our most prized possessions (bicycles, tools and some camping gear) and bunged it on a ship to Australia. The rest of our stuff was either binned or donated to the local charity shop, depending on state of decay.

Within a couple of days of placing ad for Grayham on “Craig's list” (an internet based "for sale" site popular in the States) we received several responses. Two of the interested parties came to take a look at the G-Dog. The one who seemed most interested was a girl who wanted to buy the van for her dog-boarding business. Before doing anything else, she pulled open the side door and counted how many pooches she could cram in the back. The fact that she wasn't so fussed about the condition of the van's interior made us feel that we were onto a winner. Sure enough, she called us back to offer us $1700 cash (which was actually $25 more than we bought it for!) - needless to say, we bit her hand off.

We were very sad to see the back of the G-Dog. He had served us well for 12,000 miles. We couldn't even bring ourselves to remove the bumper stickers that told the story of our trip across the States.

Between chores, we did manage to squeeze in another day's sight-seeing in San Francisco, visiting Chinatown and the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Unfortunately though, we managed to choose one of San Francisco's damper days.

Our return to New Jersey to see Grandma and Grandpa for Thanksgiving was a welcome rest after the frantic week of de-vanning in San Francisco. While we were there, we realised that we hadn't actually been to the East coast on our so-called “coast-to-coast” voyage. To amend this wrong, we belatedly dipped our toes in the Atlantic on a day-trip the beautiful beach at Belmar, New Jersey.

On returning to San Francisco, we spent one last night in the manky Travelodge, before boarding the the 13 hour flight to Auckland the next evening. Never have we had such a pleasant flight - thank you Air New Zealand. The flight took us over not only the equator, but also the international date line, which caused us to lose the 5th December entirely. (Where did it go, I wonder? Probably to the same place that those weekly departmental seminars went, along with the hours after my second beer.) So door number 5 on our advent calendar will remain forever closed.

And so, on to the Antipodes, where we have already found that free wifi is scarce...!