We started 2023 on the third month of a wonderful trip through Portugal and Spain. We had found out in October 2022–days away from our flight to Portugal–that Ken needed a monthly eye treatment for 12 to 18 months beginning immediately. Not wanting to cancel our trip, we arranged the second treatment in Porto. Though it went well, we were unable to find a suitable and available specialist for our next location.

We surmised that this might become even more difficult when we had to leave the Schengen region by the beginning of February and travel to countries with unknown-to-us medical infrastructure. With the challenge of finding retinal specialists in various countries who were willing to do the treatment, the need for us to pay for each one out of pocket (Porto’s treatment cost 800 Euros), the uncertainty regarding the length of treatment and possible post-treatment complications, we took advantage of our lifestyle’s built-in flexibility and returned to Canada at the end of January.

Since each procedure only took a day or two of recovery time, we didn’t want to park ourselves in one place between treatments moping about not being able to travel. We decided, instead, to book housesits, where possible, in places we hadn’t lived before, or plan short trips away, so we could have multiple mini-adventures between appointments. To support this, Ken was able to set up referrals to two other specialists so he could receive his treatments in Calgary, Alberta (our official home), New Westminster, British Columbia (a Vancouver suburb), and Nanaimo, British Columbia (on Vancouver Island). Though we couldn’t book appointments ahead, as long as we could be near one of these offices at roughly one-month intervals, we were free to gad about as much as we wished. For the remaining 11 months of the year, we bounced around British Columbia, Alberta, Washington and Oregon states, boarded a short cruise, and even travelled to Mexico for a few weeks.

Housesitting

2023 was our biggest house-sitting year yet. We spent 224 nights over 12 sits taking care of 19 great pets and thoroughly exploring the surrounding neighbourhoods and communities.

The pets

The communities

Vancouver Island, British Columbia

Port Townsend, Washington

Vancouver, British Columbia

Road trips

We took a few road trips in Artie, spending time in Birch Bay and La Conner, Washington, and driving down the Oregon Coast. This tied in perfectly to our annual family gathering at Millersylvania State Park. (33 nights of free membership camping.) A couple of times while driving our car to or from sits we stopped for a few days in areas we would normally drive right through. Slowing down can really change your perspective about places and we had fun finding interesting and beautiful areas wherever we went.

Salmon Arm, British Columbia

Mission, British Columbia

Oliver, British Columbia

We’ve returned to Oliver to housesit five times. Besides the many great wineries in the area, and volunteering at the Festival of the Grape wine festival, we rode our bikes through the hillsides and along the International Hike and Bike Trail. The flowers in our housesit garden inspired a wee bit of photography.

Birch Bay, Washington

Oregon Coast

Family gathering in Millersylvania State Park, Washington

An annual spring event that got bumped to fall in 2023. It’s always uplifting to spend time with this wonderful multi-generational group.

Alaskan cruise and grandson time

Our grandson flew to Canada from the Netherlands and joined us in Vancouver for about 10 days. We took him on his first cruise, boarding the Holland America Volendaam in Vancouver for a week-long trip to Juneau and back. It was a perfect way for us to spend time together and have a lot of fun in a short time.

Puerto Vallarta getaway

Despite our many mini-adventures, we still wanted to travel a little farther afield. We had a three-week break in December between housesits so we booked a last-minute sale/points flight to Puerto Vallarta where we basked in the heat (or Ken basked and I sought shade) for almost three weeks before returning to Vancouver on Christmas Eve.

To top it all off

Living in and around Western Canada has allowed us more time to visit with family members who live in the Vancouver area. And we had the great fortune to bring the year to a close with our own family–son, daughter-in-law and grandson–who travelled from the Netherlands for the holidays. Our housesitting home-owner offered that family could stay with us, making it a very special time, indeed.