We continued working on “Hasta La Vista” throughout the remainder of August, September and October. Our Tomos motorbike was off the boat and was our transport. Each day Mal would head off with a list of items to buy from marine and hardware shops and return to complete the jobs for the day. The work on the air-conditioning and the cushions for the dinette were completed. The washing machine was delivered and installed by Mal and I. We had the mattresses on the bunks recovered and continued our cleaning, polishing and repairing.
In September, we felt we needed a break as living on “Hasta La Vista” allowed us to work ten hours a day, seven days a week which we did. There was always a new job to tackle! We hired a car and drove over to the west coast of Florida, North, back to the East coast and south to Fort Lauderdale again. This trip lasted three days as we found there was not much to see except high risers and freeways but it was a nice break. In October, we joined an “Autumn Colours” coach tour. We flew to Boston and then travelled on an organised coach tour through seven states of New England. We really enjoyed our tour; there was an excellent tour guide and a lovely crowd on the coach, most our age. The coach travelled a couple of hours each day so we had a lot of time to explore cities, towns and fishing villages and saw some wonderful autumn views. At the end of the tour, Mal and I flew to New York and spent three days in Manhattan. Mal had already been there but I hadn’t. Our accommodation was in a boutique hotel just across from the northern end of Central Park. We walked some of the streets of Manhattan, Fifth Avenue and the shopping district, the Theatre District and the Financial District. We passed the site of 7/11. We went to the top floor (87th) of the Empire State Building and on a harbour cruise where we viewed the Statue of Liberty. We visited a native American display in the old Customs building and toured the building and generally saw as much of Manhattan as we possibly could in two and a half days. There was just too much to do in too little time.
