2017 Trips

A bit of a delay in posting these... we have done a bit of traveling this year so far.  In February we went to Hawaii, beautiful but we discovered my travel buddy doesn't deal well with jetlag so in May we decided to stick with Florida.

The Hawaii trip started out with the standard stuff...Toronto FC on the plane...

Going through the standard safety announcements...

Watching the elephant trucks turn the plane green...

And a very long flight - actually two...

Hawaii was awesome as usual, what's not to like?  The weather is nice all year round.  They have awesome food and we even saw whales this time! (albeit from a distance)

As usual we said hi to the local wildlife, the local goats

The local whales - who were actually very far away.  Here is a bit of perspective...

and the local turtles that we always say hi to.

Of course we also had some good food, we found this place called the Fish House where you get whatever they catch that day.  We even saw them bring in some local Ahi.  Fresh tuna anyone?

They also have the biggest avocados i've ever seen.  I wish we could get these at home.

Then too soon it was time to go home,

In May we went to Florida and stayed at a hotel that had a pirate ship!

We saw a lot of local wildlife here too cormorants, turtles and even alligators!(this one was about 2 years old)

We really spent most of the time at the pool, and we will definitely go back because my travel buddy absolutely loved it.

So here to sign off is a gratuitous cannon shot.  Until next time.

Guest Blogger

Hi All

I haven't been traveling very much lately - we did go to Scotland and I had a very nice dessert but my travel has been a lot more subdued lately.  It's actually not as bad as I thought it would be, guess I'm getting old...which is why i have a new guest blogger. 

Everyone meet Horsie(Isn't he so nice and fluffy? I was fluffy once...):

Horsie has been running around the local area - first stop the Toronto Zoo!

The Pandas are super cute and kind of goofy. 

For those of you who haven't been to the Toronto Zoo the fall is a really nice time to go if you like to be the only people there, plus the fall colours are spectacular.

Isn't it a pretty tree?

And when the leaves fall - well who doesn't like playing with leaves?

November is also a good time to go and see the Royal Winter Fair.  Of course we are both partial to horses - well who isn't? - but they have other animals as well.

They also have really delicious food - breakfast poutine.  Tasty!

Of course it is now December, it's cold and the snow has started to pile up outside so it's time to get in the xmas spirit.  Have a great holiday and happy new year to everyone!

Grand Cayman

We're back!  Breakfast - the most important meal of the day - and even more important when you get stuck with a 2 hour flight delay for an 4 hour flight...

We are in Grand Cayman, or those of you who know it we are in the East End at the Wyndham Reef.

 

It's nice and quiet and you have the beach almost all to yourself (this is the view from our room - everyone gets an ocean view!)

We met some of the locals.   Here are some of the local starfish - not very chatty but boy can they move.  I always thought they were slow but these guys could motor.

 

 

There are chickens everywhere - these are just a few of them - and they apparently can't decide when dawn is because they crow at different times all day!

  

Of course there are cats, every island has lots of cats - cats and chickens, not sure why but that combination never seems to make sense to me.

 

These are the local frigate birds.  This restaurant called Tukka feeds them everyday between 5-5:30pm.  The birds, cats, chickens and tarpon all get in on the action - they start congregating around 4pm, as 5pm rolls around the birds start to get lower.  The cats must have insider knowledge as they showed up *just* as the food came out. 

The frigate birds look quite majestic when they are soaring above you...

 

...when they are practically on top of you frantically trying to get food it is quite a different feeling...

 



These are the stingrays of stingray city sandbar - though it was less of a city and more of a fast food outlet - they swim up to the boats as they come in to check out if you have food, if you do they are your best pals - when you run out they ditch you and try the next boat!

 

Anyway all this talk of food is making me hungry so time for happy hour!  All the best until next time.

 

 

Our Little Girl

Wookie we love you and we will miss you so much

Sorry for the long hiatus...turns out my new travel buddy needs some training.

The last trip started out well...

...and then went wrong very quickly.

So we tried again and took a road trip to Northern Ontario.

Had some food (this is a small!)

Visited the Dark Sky Reserve - which is what you would expect.  It's dark and you can actually see the sky - unfortunately there was also a large thunderstorm passing by so we didn't stay long (so no Perseid pics unfortunately).

And admired the view...

So we survived and decided to brave the 11 hours to Hawaii.  I highly recommend traveling on the labour day weekend as we had an entire row to ourselves

Of course we had to sample the local cuisine - Macadamia Nut Pie...

...and Kona Mud Pie (yes, not exactly a healthy trip)

We learned a bit about the culture - did you know Hawaii is actually pronounced Hava-ii?
Here I am making a Lei (and I got to pick some of the flowers myself)

We met a few of the local residents. 
We went swimming to see the local fish

We went to the beach to say hi to the local turtles

...and then we rushed around to catch up with some of the local dolphins.  Thankfully some of them wanted to say hi, because they move really fast!

Then we just kicked back to relax...

...and enjoyed the view.  Until next time!