Should We Stay or Should We Go - Our Travel Journal

In July we were fortunate to be able to spend 5 days with some old friends from our time living in Barbados.  Pete and Heather are Australian.  We both had young families back then and developed a lovely friendship.  We had a lot in common, from our young boys to similar cultures and our shared affiliation with the Salvation Army, where they were pastors at the time. We cherished the time we spent with them during those years and we were thrilled when they decided to take a big trip across Canada, including Toronto (and us) in their itinerary. We began our visit with a BBQ at home.  They were eager reconnect with our sons, who have changed quite a bit in the last 25 years.  They also wanted to see my mom (my dad passed away a couple of years ago) since they got to know my parents well during the winters when my folks came to visit us in Barbados. It felt like no time had passed at all.  We slipped right back into the relaxed, easy friendship we had in those...

In the Spring of 2023, I told John that I wanted to get myself an E-bike.  He always loved going out for rides and was always asking me to come along, but I just didn't have the stamina to keep up with him, or to go very far. My bike sat in the garage, lonely and unused. John wasn't interested in getting one for himself but he knew it would be a good way to get me back into riding.  Neither of us knew much about e-bikes.  In the little research we did, I knew that I just wanted a bike with a battery that would allow me to go far.  I also knew that I wanted a throttle that I could use when my legs got tired and I could just coast along. Without much investigation, we started checking out bikes at Costco.  In Canada, they sell a brand called EBGO.  It had what I was looking for  We knew that we would be able to return it if it didn't preform as expected and it was on sale (always a good thing, right?) So, we ordered it online for home delivery and it arr...

We have been trying to book a trip for a couple of years now.  After our kids graduate University or College, we take a family trip.  Our youngest son graduated during COVID and since then we've been trying to book his grad trip.  A lot has happened since, including his marriage.  Since his wife is American he is in the process of obtaining his Green Card.  It's taking longer than expected, so what was supposed to be his grad trip is now a trip for the rest of us as they are still unable to join due to the ongoing immigration process. John, our two older sons and I, are still going to take a big trip this Fall.  In trying to plan, somewhat last minute, our options became more limited.  We began looking at different possibilities, and, in the end, we are so excited with what we've been  able to arrange. Our itinerary is as follows: October 23 we fly to Munich October 24- 27 we will explore Munich.  One of these days we plan on taking a train f...

I was bitten by the travel bug several years ago.  We had done a fair bit of beach vacationing in the Caribbean and Florida (though I don't really consider Florida as true travel), but it wasn't until our trip to Italy that I became truly hooked on exploring this great big world.  When I look back over the last 35 years I can see how my desire to see the world has evolved into what it is today. In our twenties, when we were newly married, money was tight.  We both had new jobs and it wasn't easy to get time off at the same time.  Our vacations consisted of staying on after conferences and eploring the surrounding area. Of course, these conferences were either in Canada or in the United States but they allowed a cash-strapped young couple to begin venturing out and exploring different places.  In 1994, John was given the opportunity to work abroad for what would eventually become 5 years.  We packed up our two small boys (who were 4 and 2 at the time), packe...

We've just returned from a wonderful week in Newfoundland. We've been twice before and it's is one of my favorite places. I plan to write a more extensive blog post about our travels there last year but our purpose for visiting this year was simply to spend time with our friends, Roger and Val. We met Roger and Val in 2022 while we were both in Punta Cana escaping the Canadian winter.  We started talking one day while sitting by the pool and instantly connected. We've really enjoyed getting to know them better over the past two years and find that, while we have a lot in common, the friendship is easy and relaxed.

On January 4th, 2020, a couple of weeks after retiring, we took off for a two-month trip to celebrate our retirement.  This was to be our first winter away from the harsh Canadian winter.  We travelled to New York City where we boarded a 20-day cruise that would take us through the Panama Canal and end in San Francisco. While it wasn't our first time sailing through the canal, it was our first time visiting some of the countries that we stopped in.  The weather was perfect, the company was great, and our 20 days onboard the Norwegian Gem was amazing. We arrived in San Francisco on January 24th where we started to hear some rumblings about a virus that was starting to circulate in Asia. We rented a car for two weeks and took our time driving from San Francisco to San Diego.  We had  done this drive once before - taking only two or three days to do it, so this time we wanted to make sure we weren't rushed.  We wanted to be able to stop in places along the way...

  Over the several years prior to us retiring we had many discussions about what we wanted our retirement to look like.  The one thing we both knew for certain was that we wanted to do a lot of travelling and see what we could before we would be forced to stay put.  We had thrown around the idea of getting out of the cold Canadian winter and head for a different temperate climate each year.  The plan was to try different locations each year. I (John) was sure that I wanted to retire early and so the economic plan was to put away as much as we could over the years to support our dreams for retirement.  When I was able to opt in to an early retirement programme that would allow me to retire at 58 I spend many evenings running the numbers.  Everything checked out, and at the end of December, 2019 I took the GO Train home from my job in Toronto for the last time.

   I've been taking little one second videos of our life now for the last three years. This is our video of our summer. It has been a very busy summer, one of medical issues with different family members, playing tour guide with friends from Australia, and trying to enjoy some downtime at our little getaway spot - our trailer. The summer has flown by, but it was great being able to enjoy time with friends and family. Bring on the Fall!