请教专家：

I stopped to let the car cool off and to study the map. I had expected to be near my objective by now, but everything still seemed alien to me. I was only five when my father had taken me abroad, and that we eighteen years ago. When my mother had died after a tragic accident, he did not quickly recover from the shock and loneliness. Everything around him was full of her presence, continually reopening the wound. So he decided to emigrate. In the new country he became absorbed in making a new life for the two of us, so that he gradually ceased to grieve. He did not marry again and I was brought up without a woman's care; but I lacked for nothing, for he was both father and mother to me. He always meant to go back on day, but not to stay. His roots and mine bad become too firmly embedded in the new land. But he wanted to see the old folk again and to visit my mother's grave. He became mortally ill a few months before we had planned to go and, when he knew that he was dying, he made me promise to go on my own.

（1）a)一般过去时：I expected to be near my objective by now.  b)谓语过去时+不定式完成时：I expected to have been near my objective by now.

        a)和b)是否意思和原句一样，都可以表示“本来...（未曾实现的愿望）”？

（2）2个when从句都使用了过去完成时，是为了强调动作的完成吗？其实也可以使用一般过去时，也表示when从句动作先完成？

另外before we had planned 和 before we planned 一样的含义吧？