On 12. September, we left Bonaire for the continuation of the world trip that we started in Amsterdam in January 2009. In April we took a flight home from Newark to enjoy doing nothing for a few months. Unfortunately, we received a message from Continental Airlines that they had cancelled our direct flight to Newark on 13. September and that we had been rebooked on a flight via Houston that would leave one day earlier . It took us eleven hours to reach Newark instead of four and we also had an extra day in a hotel because we could not pick up our rental RV before Monday. On Sunday, it was found that our laptop had been infected by viruses and as a result of that mishap we spent the whole Monday at a specialist who formatted the hard disk and lost all of the data. Fortunately, Jan had a backup copy of the most important files but we could not retrieve the e-mail addresses. Luckily Peter had an old file of which we retrieved 90% of the addresses and with the help of Pat & Ren & Lorraine we have found another five percent. After we had picked up the recreational vehicle, we started at eight o’clock in the evening from Newark, New Jersey to Newburgh NY. The RV is more than 30 feet in length, has two slide outs and a bedroom with a queen size bed and is equipped with a flat screen TV and microwave. Room enough for the two of us!With the help of the GPS that we had purchased, we drove the busy roads near New York into
the direction of Newburgh, where we arrived at 10 p.m. Our ultimate goal is to enjoy the autumn colors in New England and therefore we proceeded up North. 
After taking petrol, we unfortunately touched a little pole with the right back cornor of the RV. What we expected to be a small scratch, appeared to be a considerable damage! The back Panel had been partly torn off from the side as can been seen on the photograph. After a phone call to roadside assistance, we were asked to return to Newark, where the damage had been repaired temporarely within two hours. So after two days we were back at the starting point and as it had become four p.m. we decided to move into the direction of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania where we arrived after sunset. The evenings and nights are cool so we tried to switch on the heating system. That was our third setback because neither the airco nor heating was operational. We called for assistance, but found out that there wasn’t a repair shop in the neighborhood. The next morning we found out that all the misery was not over yet , while we were having breakfast the battery of the engine exploded with a huge bang! We had a replacement within a few hours so we could continue our trip without further delay.El Monte permitted us to buy a heater and after a stop in Franklin, NY, we arrived on Saturday afternoon in Lake Placid, New York in the Adirondack Mountains. Lake Placid is known by the Winter Olympics that were held in 1980 and when Eric Heiden took all gold medals and left the Dutch speed skaters empty handed. The Adirondacks are situated in a park the size of the Netherlands and used to be inhabited by the Algonquian and Mohawk Indians. In the language
of the Mohawks Adirondack means " they eat trees" because in times of famine the Algonquians ate the bark of the trees. We liked the campsite and because the weather was clear and warm, we decided to stay a for few days. We have walked some trails and discovered a fall that we named “The End of Our Misery”! This report has been made at the picnic table while sitting in the sun. We expect the heating to be repaired in Bar Harbor in Maine, but it would not be a disaster to use the electrical heater until the end of the trip. We have made two world trips without a single problem, so we could expect something to go wrong. So far we have survived this week with a smile but hope that everything will be going as expected from now on.
