General – The Destinators

Quebec City, partie 4

On a rendu visite à mes cousins Suzanne et Normand deux fois en 2023. Dans des articles de blog précédents, on a raconté comment nous nous sommes rencontrés et retrouvés. Ces visites étaient si agréables que nous avons décidé de remettre ça : même lieu de rendez-vous, même restaurant avec terrasse, mêmes pizzas, partager. Suzanne et moi avons ri à la fin du déjeuner en réalisant que nous avions toutes les deux mangé la bonne stuff, laissant la croûte ! On doit être de la même famille ! Ce qui n’était pas pareil, c’était notre niveau de français, à Doug et moi. Suzanne et Normand ont tous deux remarqué nos progrès en trois ans, des remarques qu’on a parfaitement comprises et auxquelles on a répondu avec toute gratitude. On était rayonnants de fierté ! Un grand merci à tous les membres de notre club de français MRV !

English version follows, or click here.

So long, Nova Scotia

We’re so glad we had the chance to come back and visit the rest of Nova Scotia. It’s a relatively small province with a lot to offer. We got to know more about the Fundy side where in addition to experiencing the unique natural phenomena related to the world’s greatest tides, we observed and learned about the agriculture – farms, vineyards and orchards – as well as food processing, manufacturing and craft beers. The Atlantic side of Nova Scotia, most favored by early European settlers seeking colonization and fish, has a number of historical remains and reconstructions, battle sites related to this period and the long tradition of fishing, seafood processing, marine shipping and craft beers. And tourism. Nova Scotia does tourism well.

Garden refresh

We were positively gleeful, back in 2024, when the power company informed us they would take down 4 large trees in front of our house that were interfering with their power lines. We had been thinking about hiring someone to do that since the trees were old, overgrown, misshapen, not healthy looking, hanging over the roof on our 2nd-floor bedroom and rubbing against the siding in our kitchen. They also created a dark, damp corner in our house.

Maybe once they’re gone we could do some landscaping and turn the now open space into a garden bed…

We’re off like a rocket!

We’re at a point in our travels where we want to fill in some blank spots on our map. This year, we’re aiming to capture a bunch of of e-push pins in the Maritimes and Quebec. So, here we are already in Lubec, ME (the subject of a future post) where we can throw a rock into New Brunswick!

Our departure was unusual for this trip. Doug’s 50th college reunion (already in the past, another future post) dictated a fixed departure date. A month before departure day, we had one distraction/interruption after another – hiccups in our planned upgrades to the RV electrical system (future post), delays in a landscaping update for the house/yard (future post), toe surgery and dental extraction for Sue (no future post!), meeting with a new ophthalmologist and a new set of eye drops for Doug (same). That left us barely enough time to pack, and none at all to write up this intro post before leaving…

Fortunately, in our 12th year of doing these trips we know pretty much what we need. We loaded everything into the RV, shut the doors and headed east. We’ll re-sort our way through the packing when we have a chance…

Home

This time we made it! Yes, we finally got to visit the south west! And yes, we really enjoyed it. This, combined with our travel experience from last year’s trip, gave us the confidence to… linger a bit on the way back. After visiting friends and family between LA and San Diego, we took a couple of days off by ourselves in Huntington Beach to just soak up a bit more SoCal vibe and savor some quiet time on the coast before turning around and starting the return trek across the country. It would start to snow at home in less than a month.

So Long, SoCal

We’ve wanted to visit the Pacific Coast in southern California for a long time. It took us a couple of tries, and we finally did it. Yay!

Malibu, CA (and Everywhere, USA)

This blog’s primary purpose is to be a journal of our travels. We aim to be light and occasionally irreverent, although from time to time, we sneak in a somber and reflective post. That we may at the same time inform or entertain our loyal readers (or a random stranger on some obscure google quest) has been a welcome bonus.

This will be probably be one of the posts that is a little more serious, a little less irreverent. The post outlines some of our thoughts about politics and the current state of our country. If you choose to read it, please read all the way to the end – it’s not very long. And there are pictures!

Repositioning – via Las Vegas

Much of our past travels have involved going places on back roads, avoiding highways and interstates. We just like poking around different places. However, there are occasions when we just need a repositioning – to get ourselves somewhere to then do some major poking around. Like, if we wanted to visit Alaska using only back roads then by the time we got there we’d have no time left to do much before we had to turn around and head back home. We were in a similar situation with Southern California. So we’re visiting friends and making stops along the way as always, however we’ve been jumping on the Interstates in between.

Something a little different… deux

Last year, we planned something a little different, and it went, well, the way plans often go. Planning to explore the Southwest US in the fall, we reached LA in time to learn my mom needed surgery for her broken hip – in Florida! The last 2/3rds of our trip were replaced by an about-face and a coast-to-coast dash across the South. Everything worked out in the end and it was a fine trip. And certainly a little different…

This year’s trip planning was easy – let’s go back and finish last year’s plan! So, is this still something different? Or more of the same?

Home

Well, it wasn’t the trip we’d planned – exploring the Southwest – and we saw enough to know we want to go back there to catch the people, national parks and other cool places we missed. Although we’d visited much of the Southeast before, we did manage to see a few new places and enjoy new experiences, as well as help out my mom. We learned that if necessary, we could get across the country quickly. And we confirmed that the concept of traveling in the fall with a careful reentry into New England after the first snows was not only doable, but adds a different kind of beauty and fun with just a few adaptations of the usual RV logistics.