The month-long house sit in Rose Bay provided an ideal base for exploring nearby towns and scenic routes, including Lunenburg and Mahone Bay. Highlights included celebrating Canada Day in Riverport, visiting Peggy's Cove and its memorial, enjoying activities at Kejimkujik National Park, and exploring Halifax.
Road Trip: The Scenic Kootenays
In April 2024, we traveled from Olympia, Washington, slowly meandering through the Kootenay region of British Columbia, including towns like Nakusp, Nelson, and Grand Forks. The journey included visits with friends, scenic campgrounds, bike rides, and a memorable family gathering.
Oliva: Our Costa Blanca paradise for six weeks
The Europe 2024 trip focused on a six-week house-sitting and puppy-sitting in Oliva, Spain. With a beautiful condo near the beach, we enjoyed a relaxed routine of cooking, swimming, and caring for a playful poodle named Wally. Family visits led to celebrations, day trips, and exploring local sights, including Alicante's castle.
2023 Mini Adventures
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... Continue Reading →
Lagos and the Western Algarve
Algarve is the region at the south end of Portugal. Its over 200 kilometres of coastline offer up sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, white hillside towns and historic fishing villages. With decent year-round weather (warmer and drier in winter than other parts of Portugal and not too hot even in the hottest month of August) and... Continue Reading →
The Long Road Back
Pennsylvania We crossed through Pennsylvania on our way north to Corning, New York (see New Jersey and New York), and then returned south to Pennsylvania to continue our journey west. Finally, we were immersed in autumn colours. Susquehanna River: Wyalusing Rocks Overlook We stayed one night at Ives Run campground in the Tioga-Hammond Lakes Recreation Area.... Continue Reading →
New Jersey and New York
We didn't want to leave Vermont since the forests had not yet reached their autumn colour peak, but we had booked a housesit in New Jersey, so leave we did. Once we got adjusted to leaving, we started looking forward to what was next. Our New Jersey housesit homeowner had suggested stopping at Storm King... Continue Reading →
Maine: The Coast and Acadia National Park
We spent about a week on Maine's beautiful coast and Acadia National Park and could have easily spent a lot more. There are so many nooks and crannies to poke about in, rocky shores to hike, places to explore by bicycle and beaches to hang out at. Ogunquit and Wells While camping in Wells for... Continue Reading →
Massachusetts: Cape Cod and Boston
Cape Cod Both of us have spent most of our lives on the West Coast of Canada and our only reference points for Cape Cod were as a frequent setting in books. I think that I had envisioned an idyllic and quaint village and was surprised to discover that Cape Cod is so much more... Continue Reading →
Ontario: Thunder Bay to Niagara-on-the-Lake
After an introduction to our Road Trip 2022 that said we would be driving from Vancouver across Canada, it doesn't seem right that the first location-specific post starts at about the 3,000-kilometre mark. For us, everything before then was quick family visits (Vancouver), business/medical appointments (Calgary) or ground that we'd covered before and we were... Continue Reading →
Road Trip 2022
We're back on a road adventure, this time with our sights set on the New England region of the USA for the fall colours. It's an area that we've never been to and a trip that we didn't want to do without a lot of available time given the thousands (and more thousands) of kilometres... Continue Reading →