Back to 'Normal' ... or maybe not!

Leaving Sydney Australia aboard the Oosterdam

It's hard to believe we've been back in Canada for almost a year.  After our overseas adventures, we cruised back to Vancouver from Sydney, Australia with Holland America.   It was 22 days - we had a total of 6 stops in New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and Hawaii - and a lot of sea time.  It was one way to beat a long air flight with the attendant jet lag!

We stayed home long enough to catch up with family and friends, show off our hometown to a couple of our AirBnb hosts from New Zealand who had decided to visit us here, and buy ourselves an RV.

Our kids welcomed us home with a BBQ on the Vancouver shoreline

Our friend Belinda from New Zealand admiring a hollow tree
in Lighthouse Park, West Vancouver

Home for the next few months - our trial run at a campsite
near Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island 

We spent a couple of months crossing Canada and another 6 months doing a circle tour of the United States - down the east coast, across the southern states, and back up the west coast and loved every minute of it.  It was such a treat visiting friends and family, meeting new friends, and seeing so many different landscapes - but the beaches are still our favourite!  It's a truly beautiful continent, as is every other one we have visited the past two years.  Unfortunately, cruise ships and RV parks are not wifi friendly for travellers, and so the blog suffered from neglect!

Not bad for Canada - Grand Beach in Manitoba.  

Kitty Hawk in North Carolina!  Very nice beach.

On our return, we decided we'd had enough of being nomadic for awhile, and so we have bought ourselves a beautiful home in a small village on Vancouver Island.  To say we love it here is an understatement.  The community is friendly, there are hiking trails and beaches galore, and while the town of Courtenay is close enough for shopping and conveniences, we are definitely out in the country.  The stars are visible at night, it's quiet, and the deer, elk, rabbits and birds are all regular visitors to our yard.  I may not feel quite so fond of them once they start eating out of my garden!

Glen admiring the view of Baynes Sound and Denman Island from
the sundeck of our new home.  Oh yeah, there's a hot tub too!

The railroad trail that goes up the east coast of
Vancouver Island is a few steps from our door.

This is definitely not the city life we left behind in Vancouver.  One thing we realized during our travels was that we really prefer rural places.  And the things we found we missed the most were our hobbies (well, the cappuccino machine too!)  So I've pulled out the knitting needles, the sewing machine, and the paints.   Glen has set up the woodworking tools in his workshop, and we've been busy getting back into creative mode.

I was always afraid of cabling.  I don't know why.
Turns out it's fun!  Yay for YouTube videos!

It's hard to get that curiosity about other places out of my mind though.  Travelling was one delicious adventure after another beautiful location after another fabulous friend(s) made.  Not to mention sunny warm places.  It's definitely been a challenging winter here on the west coast.  After two years of following the warm weather, we've spent a ridiculous amount of time shoveling snow and getting used to wearing parkas and woolies again.  So much for being in the banana belt of Canada.  Global warming is playing games with us weather-spoiled BCers.

And so the combination of missing the travel adventures, an upcoming 'significant' birthday for Glen, and that travel gift certificate I bought at a silent auction last fall has led us to one conclusion.  We are going to the Caribbean!

This won't be like our budget travels though.  We're going all fancy schmancy on this one.  Here's why.  For many years in business, my company worked with Dawn Donahue at Go Golf Events on many of her charity fundraisers.  When we returned from our RV travels, I decided to volunteer at her golf tournament that raises funds for an Autism charity.  There is always an online auction, a silent auction and a live auction at any Go Golf event, and lo and behold I had the winning bid on accommodations at any Elite Islands Resort in the Caribbean!  What a generous company - there were three of these gift certificates donated to one tournament!!!

I think I got to host the best hole on the golf course -
Wine, Cheese and Chocolate!

So week one, we'll be in Barbados at The Club Barbados and week two we'll be at The Verandah Resort and Spa in Antigua.  Dawn has worked her magic with her contact at Elite and arranged for a special birthday dinner for Glen while we're there (shhh, don't tell him!)  It will be kind of weird staying in a fancy resort and not having to worry about where to buy food for our next meal, or where we're going to stay next week.  But I think we'll manage.  Stay tuned!