Kathi and I made our first European tour in 2012. We drove our 2005 Roadster and accompanied Melvyn Rutter and others in the MSCC to the Le Mans classic and from there to Assen for the Holland club’s 40 anniversary gathering. We liked the experience but found that we preferred smaller groups and more flexibility. The Roadster was terrific but it was a “modern” car with all sorts of electronic stuff that, if something went wrong, I couldn’t fix.
We skipped a few years while I restored BENE, our 1967 DHC. And then in 2015 we set off again. This time traveling alone with a loose objective of getting from England to Italy. It was a defining experience. We met great people and made many new friends. After six weeks away it was time to get back home so, we left the car in Milan and made plans for a later return to complete the journey back to England. The next four years saw us repeating this pattern of shipping BENE to England, making an outbound journey, sometimes driving as far as Malta, leaving the car for a few months and then returning after a few months to drive north back to the UK.
So what could go wrong? Sure, we had a few break-downs over the years but we always managed to make repairs. Each of those episodes became a memorable experience. But then came 2019. Bene was in Sicily being cared for by our friends Lida and Giuseppe. Our plans to return to Sicily were delayed while I dealt with cancer treatment. I suppose that was the first thing that “went wrong” that year. While enduring/recovering from treatments I occupied myself by planning the trip to take Bene back to England. Months went by but finally we reunited with the car. There are fewer tourists in Italy in December. Ever the optimist I saw that as an advantage. “The Plan” was to leave Marzamemmi (Southeastern corner of Sicily; visit Malta and then ferry from Palermo to Sardinia ending up in Rome on Christmas week. We would leave the car at an airport carpark for a return trip in the spring. Aside from an alternator failure in Trapani everything went roughly to plan. BUT; and this is a big “but”; our Tuscan friends insisted we drive north and visit them before returning home. Instead of the airport carpark Bene was left in a private garage in Pescia and we returned to Rome via train for our flight.
We left Italy early in January 2020 having already booked a return flight for May. So what went wrong?
I am writing this in July 2023 after three years of Covid shutdowns, three flight cancelations, and two ship cancelations. Bene remained in Italy for over a year before an Italian friend of a friend trucked it to Rotterdam for container shipment home. Now finally we are ready to go. Leaving at 2am on June 27 we towed Bene to the Port of Newark and left it with the shipping company. It cleared customs and was ready to board a ship departing July 10. Then on July 6th, there was a major fire. Bene was not affected but ship schedules got shuffled. Kathi has an Apple Airtag on Bene so we know that it has been sitting outside in a parking lot for almost a month now.
Hopefully it will board a ship in a week or so (ship schedules are spongy) and arrive at Southampton UK on August 21; a few days before our flight arrives.
What more can possibly go wrong?