As my daughter was finishing her year of study in San Luis Obispo she wanted us to fly our to join her. She had started her holiday on the last day of term, 16th June, and embarked on a road trip north through California, Oregon and Washington with two of her friends from University of Birmingham who had been studying in Chicago. From Seattle they flew Chicago and after a few days there with her friends they returned to the UK and she flew to Ontario for a week with a Canadian friend she had met while the Canadian had been on a student exchange in Birmingham.

By the Summer of 1987 I had been married for a year and my husband had been seriously ill, but now he seemed recovered and fit. When his sister and brother-in-law invited us to join them on their tour of North America we jumped at the chance. It would be nice to "get back to normal" after all the worry and stress. The plan was that we would fly out to meet them on Vancouver and then, after a week in Canada, we would cross the border and travel down through the Western States of the USA and fly back from Los Angeles.

Much of the trip through the US would be similar to that I had made three years before, but this time Andy would be with me. We would be young and alive and enjoying the world.

I can't remember now who decided we should travel to the USA. I was 26 years old and working for a software house. Although based in Cheshire I spent a large part of my time away from home and in 1983 I was living just out side Ipswich, Suffolk. It was a place called Bucklesham and we had the great fortune to have rented a rather nice, large house opposite the county showground and (unfortunately) next door to the golf club. I say unfortunately because the golf course took all the water and the mains supply was so poor that in the height of the Summer we frequently had no running water in the afternoon and evening.