As we gathered for breakfast on Day 10, many of the conversations were around the fact that this was the last time we would leave suitcases outside our rooms for loading onto the bus. Our last hotel is in St. John’s, the terminus of this great bus tour. Still almost 200 km to go. Bay Bulls boat trip When you leave Clarenville you start down the isthmus that joins the Avalon Peninsula to the rest of The Rock. Traffic is starting to build. Fortunately, we are soon back on the side roads towards Witless Bay and Bay Bulls. There we joined a couple of other bus tours on a fair-sized boat to visit the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. Most people (including Dianne and me) rushed to the upper deck where we hoped to get better viewing. ... read more

Labrador The 5:00am wakeup call to catch an early ferry made us feel right at home. Hurry up and wait. The trip to the ferry was uneventful and the ferry was very similar to BC Ferries Salish class ships. The first difference we noticed was that the ramps at our ferry terminals drop down to the ferry from the dock whereas the ferry here had ramps on both ends that dropped down onto the ferry dock. The interiors were slightly different, but ferries are ferries, and we had a nice crossing back to the Canadian mainland. Landing at Blanc-Sablon in La Belle Provence, we headed north to our first destination, the lighthouse at Point Amour. Yes, another lighthouse. It’s amazing how many there are, and they all have something unique to offer. This one is the ... read more

Well, it’s finally happening! We’re taking our first major trip since our last blogged adventure, the Hawaii Herniated Disk debacle. That one started with a 54 hour journey from snowy Victoria to sunny and warm Maui and ended with stops in a couple of emergency rooms. But I digress. We are heading out on another adventure to a distant island, this time Newfoundland (and Labrador). We begin with a reunion in Victoria of St. Andrew’s Elementary staff. Dianne was teacher, vice-principal and principal there for the 15 years before we moved to Chemainus in 2004. Should be fun! The trip passes through Toronto which isn’t a highlight given the recent problems at the airport. We are taking a red-eye from Victoria and this gets us into Deer Lake in the afternoon instead of the middle of ... read more

We were very happy that our trip hadn't been delayed any longer as on our first morning in Maui the resort put on a breakfast out on the main patio. Lots of fruit, cornbread, muffins, cinnamon buns and great fun. The resort manager is a native Hawaiian and he gave a great talk on reverence for the sea and some of the local customs. He also gave a great presentation on how to process a coconut into coconut milk. He also demonstrated how to turn the husks into rope by holding one end in his toes and braiding the strands. Fascinating. Because they go to Maui regularly, Barb and Bob have developed a series of regular walks. This made it very easy to see the sights of Napili. It's a beautiful area north of the resort ... read more

Okay, I know we have been home for almost three weeks and this latest (and last) blog entry is long overdue. We had many things waiting for our attention when we arrived, not to mention volunteer shifts at the library and local thrift store. Dale and Pat (Dianne’s brother and sister-in-law) arrived for a week of fun and games (and a chance to update some of my spreadsheets for scoring our card games). But now to the blog. Flight to Brussels Getting to Toulouse to catch the plane was fairly straightforward. The flight was RyanAir which went into Brussels Charleroi rather than the main Brussels airport. Mistake. The flight was what you would expect from RyanAir and the airport itself was OK. It was looking a little dark as we got ready to leave the plane. ... read more