Our first interesting stop in Italy was at the fortress town of Palmanova, a nine pointed star shaped fortress. While its larger design can only be seen from an aerial view, the huge fortifications and moats are pretty impressive from the ground. We arrived during the middle of a marathon, so after we walked into the centre of town, we mingled with the runners and walkers following the trails around the fortifications. Our next stop was a beach day at Bibione beach on the Mediterranean Sea. Riley got the chance to play in the sand with his cars and build sand castles. We all walked out to the end of the pier for lunch. We left in the early afternoon which allowed us to arrive in Venice early. We got one of the last parking spots ... read more

We left Munich early and arrived in Salzburg in the morning. We parked near Schloss Mirabell and made our own tour of the filming locations from the Sound of Music. Everywhere you go, you are reminded that this is Salzburg’s favourite movie. Film locations include the winged Pegasus statue, the grumpy gnomes, the Mozart bridge, the Felsenreitschule Riding School and Salzburg Marionette Theater. Of course, we visited them all over the course of the day. Riley really liked the playground at Mirabell Park that had a pyramid that reached over 40 feet with a big slide at the top. We crossed over the Salzach River into the old town and had lunch in a cozy outdoor courtyard. I moved the car to a parking lot located inside a mountain and went off to visit the Horse ... read more

Ann, Riley and I had a wonderful trip to Costa Rica in December 2015. We flew via Colarado with Riley on our laps as he is still under 2 years old. We arrived in San Jose and picked up our rental car from Economy. While it seemed like the most dodgy place and we had heard horror stories, everything worked out for us. And the roads were nowhere near as bad as people made out. The worst roads we talk were to the Rio Celeste and south of Montezuma. We skipped San Jose city and stayed in Alajuela before going to see the Poas Volcano (completely covered in cloud), La Paz Waterfall park (which was an awesome display of animals and natural waterfalls but a bit of a walk with Riley), and we ended up in ... read more

Dear Friends and Family, Ann, Riley and my penultimate adventure on our epic three month journey was to roam the entirety of the south island of New Zealand. We managed to get to lots of out of the way places on both the east and west coast. We began in Christchurch where we rented a car and drove around the city. The centre still looked like a disaster zone with the ruins of the cathedral and many condemned buildings, after the earthquake in 2012). We drove south to Lyttleton but all the ridge roads so we came back through the tunnel and headed as far east as we could go to God’s Head were the views were amazing. The next day we headed west past lots of small towns, then the summer town of Clearwater and ... read more