Thursday, October 30, 2008

We're in Countdown Mode

We've been creating our to-do list lately, to get ready for our trip into the sunny south. This time we'll probably bring some canned food items or products we like that we can't find where we're heading [and a few extra cans of Tim Horton's coffee - we ran short last year and had to be bailed out by our friend Art when he came for a visit from the Yukon :-)]. Of course we'll be checking the US Customs site to make sure we're only bringing acceptable products along.

If we had been in Ottawa this fall for sure we would have already started our trip south. The weather has been a lot worse there than what we've been experiencing here in Chilliwack, BC. I must say though, that last year the weather in Ottawa warmed up substantially after we had left for the US - about the middle of October. Next year we'll be leaving from Ottawa so will have to watch the weather closely.

Naturally we continue to spend just about every day with Adam and Leah and our two grandkids. It will be a sad time when we have to leave them behind. It will be nice, though when we head back to Ottawa for Christmas just a little over a month after arriving in Arizona. Family is important to us and it'll be great to see everyone back there.

We're still on target for departure on November 9th. That will make this week especially busy making sure everything is in order. Because we're not at our home base we don't have medical or dental appointments to take care of but we will have to make some appointments when we arrive back at Christmas and try to tee up any follow up for when we arrive back home in the Spring.

Forecast for Phoenix for the next two days is 91 degrees farenheit. Can't wait!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

We're still humming

The last two months have flown by so quickly! It has been a busy time for us and especially for our son and daughter-in-law. Their second son, Dylan, was born on October 11th. He weighed in at 7 pounds 0 ounces. We've spending most of our time with the family and helping out by looking after their son David. It has been fun to do that as we've been able to visit venues that we usually don't go to anymore: we visited the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, and made a trip to the Vancouver Zoo a few weeks ago. This is all fun stuff and we enjoyed it just as much as David. Plus it was quality time spent with our grandson.

We moved from one campground to another in Chilliwack as the previous campground didn't have 50 amp service and we had to manage our electrical usage too much. Also the site we were in was too treed and, while our internet connection was fine, our TV connection through the satellite wasn't able to find a connection. The new site, about 3 miles down the road has 50 amp and when we set up the satellite we had internet and TV right away! The campground is called Royalwood RV and Golf Resort and is affiliated with a golf course next door (bonus!).

The weather is starting to cool down here at nights and we've had either the heat pump or the propane furnace on quite often, especially during the evening. It also rains a lot here which also keeps the weather on the cool side. It is making us think more about the warm weather in the south that we'll be heading to shortly.

We have started planning our trip to Arizona. We expect to be leaving on November 9th and arriving in Apache Junction by the 15th. It looks like we'll be mostly travelling on I-5 until we get to Bakersfield, CA area when we'll move over to Hwy 99 which parallels I-5 and then head east on I-10 to Phoenix. We have an idea of where we'll be stopping, mostly following the route our friends Dave and Shirley took when they left last week from Vancouver Island. They are at the same Resort in Apache Junction as us. Next we have to figure out if there are some sites to see along the way in order to make the trip more interesting. I expect we'll search the web to see what might be worth doing. It's always fun to start planning the next trip and to be on the road again. It doesn't hurt that we're heading for progressively warmer weather as well:-)