Should We Stay or Should We Go - Our Travel Journal

  Happy Canada Day! It’s July 1st, the day Canadians celebrate our beautiful country.  It’s also the beginning of a new Ultimate Blog Challenge month. For those unfamiliar with it, the challenge is simple: write and publish a blog post every day for the month. Thirty-one days, thirty-one posts. I've participated before with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I've made it all the way through, and other times life has had different plans. Either way, I always enjoy the challenge because it encourages me to write more consistently and finally tell some of the stories that have been sitting in my head waiting for their turn. This month my posts will be focused on a specific part of Canada. A couple of weeks ago, I returned from a two-week trip to Newfoundland with my two sisters and my cousin. It was a trip filled with laughter, long drives, incredible scenery, and enough stories to keep me writing for quite a while. So throughout July, I'll be sharing my thoughts and a...

Photo by Alicia Christin Gerald on Unsplash These are challenging times. For the past few years, my siblings and I have been on what feels like an assisted living merry-go-round with Mom. We tour residences. We talk finances. We start the intake process. We discuss what life might look like there. Then she changes her mind. "I'm not ready." And everything comes to a stop. This has happened several times since my dad passed away four years ago. The reality is that living alone has become increasingly difficult for her. There have been health issues, emergency room visits, struggles with eating properly, and a growing sense of loneliness. I also suspect she's dealing with some depression, although that's not something she talks about much. After the last time she backed out, my siblings and I decided to take assisted living off the table. We told Mom that we'd simply bring in services as she needed them—housekeeping, meals, and whatever else might help her stay ...

I had such a sweet little plan for an early Mother’s Day this year. The idea was simple - take my 90-year-old mom to a workshop at The Watering Can, along with my sister and sister-in-law, and spend a relaxed, creative afternoon together. It was meant to be a day that mom would enjoy with her daughters and we would all remember for a long time - plus we would all come home with a beautiful arrangement! If you’ve never been, The Watering Can feels like a bit of a hidden gem in Niagara. It’s a beautiful flower market, along with a greenhouse and cafe.  It's a whole experience. You can wander through tropical plants, pick up fresh flowers, grab something sweet to eat, and even take part in a workshop like the one we signed up for. It’s all set right in the heart of Southern Ontario's beautiful wine country, which makes it feel even more special. Unfortunately, the plan didn't pan out like I had envisioned.  My mom wasn’t feeling well a couple of days prior which required a hos...

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash Today is the final day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge , where we post every day for the month of April. So… how did I do? Not quite as well as I had hoped, but I showed up for 23 days—and I’m good with that. It was a busy month filled with appointments and other commitments, so I’m calling it a win. More importantly, I’m back to blogging again after falling out of a routine, and that feels really good. The goal now is to keep the momentum going—maybe not daily, but at least a couple of times a week. The next Ultimate Blog Challenge is in July, so if you’re a blogger, come join us. It’s a very supportive group. What’s Next What’s next for these two retired wanderers? (Because that’s what this blog is really about.) We’ll be home for the next month, and there’s plenty here that needs our attention. We have a trailer (or caravan, for my European readers) on a seasonal site, and we’ll be opening it up within the next week. I’m really looking forward t...

  As in regular life, when travelling things can go wrong - and at times - drastically wrong.  Recently, we had a travel day that challenged us - physically, mentally, and required us to dig deep to find extra patience. It was in January.  We were taking some back-to-back cruises - one of which left us with a day between the end of one cruise and the start of another.  As we were in Miami we thought we would rent a car and use that time to explore the upper Keys and the Everglades.  All went well until the next morning when it was time to drop off our rental car and head back to the port. What we didn’t know was there was a marathon that was happening in that area of Miami and was ending in a park right by the bridge leading over to the cruise ports. Challenge One Our first challenge came when we were trying to make our way back to the car rental centre. Many streets were closed for the marathon - and closures were happening in a very fluid manner. Streets were ...

Here’s a fun travel quiz for this lazy Sunday morning. Which Travel Style Matches My Personality? Which Travel Style Matches My Personality? See My Result I am an explorer. What about you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

One of my most favourite places I've been to was a beautiful little town in the Czech Republic. Our day in Český Krumlov felt like we were stepping onto the pages of a fairytale. It was a picture-perfect town complete with cobblestone streets, medieval buildings, a winding river, and a castle on a hill. After arriving in the port of Linz, Austria, (while on our river cruise) we boarded buses  and within  about 20 minutes we crossed the border into the Czech Republic. We travelled a little farther until we reached a magical little town on a bend of the  Vltava River - a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

  Today I'm sharing  a macro photo I took while walking in a moisture drenched forest.  One of my favourite things to do is to hike through a forest, taking in all the sights, smells, and sounds.

  Photo by Alex Azabache on Unsplash Life has a way of making us think that there will always be more time. More time to take the trip. More time to book the flight. More time to finally say, “this is the year we go.” And yet, somehow, “later” never quite arrives. I’ve seen it so many times -  and if I’m being honest, I’ve felt it too. We tell ourselves we’ll travel when things settle down. When work slows. When the house projects are done. When the timing is better, the money flows easier, or the calendar looks less full. There's always a reason to wait for a better time. Because just when one busy season ends, another one begins. Just when things feel manageable, something unexpected shows up. And before we know it, another year has passed - filled with good intentions, but very few stamped passports. The truth is, there will never be a perfect time to travel. Waiting is costing us more than taking the trip ever would. Travel doesn’t have to mean something extravaga...