Should We Stay or Should We Go

Our day started out in the rain. Not exactly what I was hoping for when we were about to spend the day driving through the Canadian Rockies. We were heading from Canmore to Jasper, taking the Icefields Parkway through some of the most spectacular scenery in the Rockies. I had been looking forward to this drive, but as we headed out in the rain, I was beginning to wonder if the mountains were going to cooperate. Driving through the Rockies in the rain can mean very little visibility. Instead of towering mountains and dramatic views, we ended up looking at a whole lot of grey.

Our Alberta adventure started with a pretty uneventful trip to the airport. Normally I fly in and out of Toronto Pearson International Airport, but for this trip we were flying out of the much smaller regional airport about an hour away. We got there in plenty of time, only to find out that our flight was delayed by about 40 minutes. Honestly, we didn’t really care. We were together, talking about the trip, catching up on each other’s news and having some dinner. We had five days ahead of us, so what was another 40 minutes? The flight itself was a good one. Free Wi-Fi - gotta love that! I was able to watch the whole Blue Jays game, and they won. Yay! It seemed like a pretty good way to start the trip. By the time we landed, it was 11:30 p.m. Alberta time - 1:30 a.m. for us Toronto girls. One of the ladies in our group had flown ahead of us, so she had already picked up the rental car and was waiting at the curb when we came out of the airport. We were all tired when we reached our ...

  Today I’m off to Alberta. I’m heading out with three friends for a quick little trip to celebrate our friend Michele’s 70th birthday. Four women, five days in the Rockies, and, undoubtedly, lots of laughs along the way. The road between Banff and Jasper is spectacular. Even though I’ve made the trip before, I never get tired of seeing the Canadian Rockies.  I’m usually up for doing some hiking and exploring off the beaten track. However, this time around it will be a little more laid back. I know we’ll be taking longer lunches, doing some shopping and enjoying some scenic drives. Hopefully, we’ll also get lucky and see some bears and moose along the way. Even though it will be a shorter trip, I’m looking forward to sharing one of the most beautiful places on Earth with good friends. I hope to find to to blog along the way, so stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll have some stories, photos and maybe a little Alberta adventure to share with you while we’re there. Alberta, here we c...

I recently read an article about something called the 12 good years , and I've been thinking about it ever since. I had never heard the term before. The basic idea is that once we reach 60, we may have about twelve years when we are still healthy and active enough to do many of the things we enjoy doing. Travel, walk, hike, explore, climb stairs, carry our luggage, and generally get out there and do things without our bodies getting in the way too much. Twelve years. Twelve years! From 60!  When I first read that, I thought, that’s not very long at all . And then, of course, I did the math.  I’m soon turning 65. At the time we retired at the end of 2019, I thought we had lots of time ahead of us. We had plans. We were going to travel, explore and finally have the freedom to do some of the things we'd talked about doing while we were still working. Then a few months later, COVID happened. Needless to say, those first couple of years of retirement didn't exactly go ac...

  There’s a place in Southern Ontario, less than an hour’s drive from Toronto, where you can feel like you’ve suddenly landed somewhere else. The landscape is so unusual that it’s hard to believe you’re still in Ontario, let alone Canada. The Cheltenham Badlands are a series of rolling red hills and deep gullies surrounded by the green countryside of Caledon. We have visited many times over the years, and even though we know what we’re going to see, I still find myself stopping to take it all in. We’ve visited by car, but we’ve also arrived by bicycle a couple of times while riding the Caledon Trailway, and taking a short detour off the trail. I really like approaching the Badlands that way. You’re cycling through the quiet countryside, and then suddenly this strange red landscape appears. It’s quite a contrast. What Exactly Are the Cheltenham Badlands? The story of the Badlands goes back a very long way. More than 450 million years ago, this area was covered by an ancient sea...

  Where did the summer go? This is the last unofficial week of summer. The kids go back to school next Tuesday. Where did the time go? I had so many plans for this summer, and somehow a lot of them just seemed to evaporate. We spent very little time at the trailer. In fact, I’ve only been down to the beach once all summer, which seems almost impossible. We did a little bike riding, but certainly not as much as we usually do. I’ve been trying to figure out what took up all the time. Then I started adding it all up. I was away for almost a week crafting with friends, which was definitely time well spent. But a big part of the summer was taken up with getting my mother moved into her new assisted living home and helping her get settled. And when I say “getting settled,” I mean everything that comes along with a move. There was cleaning out her old apartment, appointments with her old doctor and her new doctor, getting her TV and phone set up, taking her shopping multiple times, taking...