European Vacation

I’ve been reading bits and pieces of my suddenly found travel diary from 1975 when I went to Europe with a couple of friends, Karen and Alvena.  For a little while, I will give some of the details of this trip.  I know I wrote an abbreviated version of this trip earlier, but now I can give a bit more of the details.

We left here May 31st and I made my first entry in the diary on June 1st after spending several hours on planes.  It looks like just 2 planes, but the first one (CP Air) stopped in both Toronto and Ottawa before we reached Montreal and changed over to a KLM flight to take us to Amsterdam.

The three of us ended up seated in different areas.  I sat next to Brian, who was a supervisor for KLM.  He had quite a bit to drink and bought one or two for me also.  I wouldn’t have had any drinks otherwise, and probably wouldn’t have had to use the barf bag if I hadn’t had those ones.

We arrived in Amsterdam around 7am and took a bus from the airport to town.  Karen had a cousin living in Amsterdam, so he told us which bus to take and where to get off in order to find our hotel.  The hotel was a 4 story building with a narrow winding staircase and our room was on the 3rd floor.

We were exhausted after losing a bunch of hours on the flight, but decided to wander around the area instead of going to bed and sleeping our first day away.

We went to Karen’s cousin’s place for dinner that night and met his family.  I can’t remember what we ate and didn’t write that in my diary.

I had pre-booked and paid for a rental car and tent a few weeks before we left, but soon discovered that I had forgotten to pack the papers and had no idea where we were supposed to pick the car up.  I knew we were supposed to pick it up tomorrow and that the place was fairly close to our hotel, which was part of the reason we had picked this hotel.

That was something to worry about tomorrow though and we fell into bed exhausted by 8:30 pm.

Amsterdam Hotel

November 11, 2011 (11/11/11)

Today is Remembrance Day.

We enjoy an amazing life today because of  the sacrifices of so many people over the years who fought for us and our country.  On this day we take time out of our lives to remember and to thank them and to thank all those who currently are still fighting to keep us free.

This mass remembrance is typically done at the 11th hour of the 11thday day of the 11th month and with this year being 2011, we have another 11th.  Lest we forget.

When I was young (yes, a long time ago), this day was not a holiday. In school, we would all meet in the gym for a short service - stopping at 11am for a moment of silence. If the day fell on a weekend, we would also stop for a moment of silence wherever we were - whether it was in a store shopping or in a swimming pool swimming. The stores would announce the time over the speaker system and everyone would stop where they were for a minute. I remember being in the pool at the old YWCA in downtown Winnipeg one Remembrance Day and hearing the whistle blow at 1 minute to 11, which gave us time to get out of the water and sit on the edge for our minute of silence. Now the day is a holiday here, with no businesses opening until 1:00 pm.

Pictures courtesy of Web Creations with Jumpy.

Birds and Water

Today’s walk with Chester was after my exercise class at the Y followed by a big breakfast at the Red Top Restaurant – a Saturday tradition.     I didn’t check the temperature when we left, but it was 9C when we got back and I have no idea how long it took for this walk.  I’m going to have to map it out to see how far we go on nice days.  I have pictures of the water and pictures of birds, along with another beaver cut tree.  This tree is close to where the other one is and looks like i is freshly cut – maybe the other one was too.  I hope I get to see the beaver one day and I wonder where he is building his home.  There is no way he could even consider building a dam on the Red  River.

Beaver Cut Tree Apr 23

Big Tree Apr 23

bird April 23

bird April 23

Canada Goose April 23

Mallard Duck Apr 23

Mallard Duck Apr 23

Weekends are when I get a chance to get things done around the house – or sometimes I just spend my day watching the cams at Africam    I spent most of yesterday (Good Friday) watching the cams – so today I am getting outside and doing some raking in the yard.  The weather is gorgeous and the temperature has risen to 14C  in just the few minutes that I’ve been sitting here getting this ready to post.  I didn’t even turn the cams on while sitting here because I know myself well enough to know that the raking would go undone.  My other option was to head out to Lockport and see if I can get pelican pictures again.  It was a few years ago that I got some great pictures there, but lost the originals when my computer crashed with the pictures not saved.    I do have pictures on my blog though from that day – its just that they are re-sized.  I am hoping that next weekend has more than one nice day so I can use one for a pelican day.  If you are interested in seeing those pictures you can search for pelican day or pelicans.  I am going to post this without getting the link 

Have a great day – I’m heading out to rake now.

St Patrick’s Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone.  On this day everyone as some Irish in them – maybe just Irish whiskey – or maybe some of your ancestors (or maybe both).

I am so happy to see the snow melting – it just can’t go soon enough for me this year.  It has gone down a lot – but there is still lots to go, especially where it was piled up by plows or shovels.   I am guessing that there is about 12-15 inches of it left where nothing was added other than what came down, unless it drifted higher.

Here is my yard today.  Hard to tell the depth of the snow without some ground showing, but there is a bit of the sidewalk showing in front of the gate to the right.  Chester is on his well worn and hard packed trail.

Yard March 17th

Yesterday I took a picture of the Red River on our walk.  The river is still covered in ice, but they have removed the warm up shack for the skating rink and closed the river trail.  This morning was foggy.

Red River March 16th

This morning  while typing this, I am watching 3 Cape Buffalo lounge in the water at Elephant Plains on Africam.

Cape Buffalo at EP

The Best Road Trip

Most if the trips I have taken have been road trips – but I guess the best one was the longest one.  The question from word press today was:

Describe the best road trip you’ve ever taken.

Bonus: If you’re feeling all glass half empty, the worst road trip. Or describe a road trip you’d like to take and why you want to take it.

So – digging way back into the memory bank, I’m going back to when I was 18 or 19, I believe – so about 41 years ago.  After high school, I started working at Canadian Indemnity.  After the first year, I had saved $1,000.00 and bought my first car – a 1966 Volkswagen beetle.  After the 2nd year, I had saved another $1,000.00 and quit the job to tour the country.  I packed up a suitcase and loaded up the VW and away I went.

I headed west (well, a little north west).  The first stop was in Saskatoon, where I spent the night with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin.  Then I headed to Calgary, where I spent a couple of nights before going to Banff where I would meet up with some friends.  For some reason, I then headed back to Calgary to have the car serviced before heading further into the mountains – I have no idea why I didn’t do that before heading to Banff – but I do remember driving back to Calgary and then back to Banff for one more night.

The next stop I remember is  Vancouver, where I met up with one of my friend’s aunts.  This was actually the way my parent’s kept track of the first couple of weeks of my trip – by having me visit friends and relatives.    They reported back that I was alive and well.  I was also sending postcards every once in awhile.  I went over to Vancouver Island for a couple of days and from there headed south across the border.  From then on there were no more relatives or friends to check in with and I was on my own.

Other than a trip or 2 to Fargo, North Dakota and to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and the Kenora area in Ontario, I had never been outside the Province of Manitoba in my entire life – so I had already covered way more distance than ever in the first two weeks of this trip – but there was more to come.  There was no GPS or computers to help with navigation – just some maps from CAA to guide me.   I remember getting off the highways and following the back roads to get some wonderful scenery along the way.

I drove through Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado.  I remember that I loved Wyoming.  Yellowstone Park is there and I spent a whole day exploring it.  I remember seeing Old Faithful send the geyser of water way up into the air and I remember someone having a pet skunk on a leash there.  It snowed the night before I entered the park, which I didn’t expect in September – and I don’t think I had a snow brush with me – but I survived. 

I can not remember where it was, but I think it was in the western part of the U.S. somewhere – that I met a couple of men.  I remember driving up to my motel room at the same time as these men and they each had a room on either side of my room.  We talked a couple of minutes as I went into my room and they went into theirs.  They were both hunters and they had dogs with them and I admired their dogs.  Shortly after, they knocked on my door and asked if I would go out to dinner with them.  They both had daughters about my age and they seemed very nice (after all they had dogs), so I went with them.   They treated me to a wonderful dinner and I enjoyed their company.  I was eating at mostly fast food restaurants on my own, so it was actually a real treat to have a good meal.

After Colorado, I headed into New Mexico and I remember having car problems there.  The car wouldn’t start after I stopped to get gas after arriving in Albuquerque – no, I think it was the shocks that needed replacing there – it was Memphis, Tennessee where the starter started giving me problems at a gas station.  Anyway, I got new shocks on the car in Albuquerque – I can’t remember why, but I must have stopped there to get the oil changed or something and when they were looking underneath, they saw how bad the shocks were.

I think Texas was next and the main thing I remember there was Galveston.  The beaches were amazing and I tried my hand at surfing.  I don’t think I did great at it, but I had fun. 

From there I started to head north east and I remember going through Mississippi, so I must have driven through Louisiana to get there.   In Mississippi I remember the cotton fields lining both sides of the road and old shacks in the middle of the fields.  People were living in these shacks – or at least sitting on the porches as I drove by.

Then it was Memphis where I could not start the car after getting gas.  It was a service station so they got it going for me and said they fixed it.  But the next day when I stopped for lunch, it would not start again.  I was in a small town, and luckily there was a VW dealership – but unfortunately it was the weekend and the service department was closed until Monday.  So I had CAA (AAA in the US)  tow my car there and I checked into a motel for the weekend.  I had to have a new starter put in there and did not have any further problem with that.

Again, there are parts of the trip that I don’t remember much, but Bowling Green Ohio is a place where I stayed and I remember crossing the border back into Canada at Detroit.  It was early October by then.  I remember going to Niagara Falls on the Canadian side and spent a night or two there.  I was in that area, but can’t remember where when the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday came along.  It was at that point that I began to feel a little homesick, thinking of the wonderful dinner that I would have had at home.

So – I began the drive west towards home.  I stopped in Thunder Bay to visit one of my co-workers who had moved there to open up a branch of Canadian Indemnity.  She invited me to spend the night and cooked a wonderful dinner for us.  Then I headed home.   The whole trip had taken 6 or 7 weeks and I saw more of my own country and the United  States than I ever though possible.

The travel urge has never left me  – but finances prevent me from doing the traveling that I so love to do.

Just to finish the rest of the questions off – the worst road trip would have been the last time I went camping with my parents.  It rained the whole time and after a couple of days, we packed everything up wet and returned home early.  After that they began renting cabins and then bought a cabin.

And the road trip I would love to take would involve flying to Africa (of course) and driving there for several weeks or months.  I don’t have to explain that one much more    since I might have mentioned it once or twice before.

My picture of the day has nothing to do with any trip, but I saw this skier out in the middle of the Red River when Chester and I took our walk today.

Skier Feb 20

Most of the morning here it was -25C with a windchill of -35C, but by noon when we walked it was -21C with a windchill of -31C.  Now, at 3pm, it is -19C, but the windchill is still -31C.

Previous Trip of a Lifetime

Now for my previous trip of a lifetime, two friends (Alvina and Karen) and myself flew from Winnipeg to Amsterdam, where we picked up a rented car with a tent, sleeping bags and air mattresses. We spent the first couple of nights in an old hotel right on one of the canals, and found out on the 2^nd day that right behind our hotel was a small red light district. While eating in a restaurant behind the hotel, we watched a woman sitting in a window with a red light outside her door. As a man entered, the red light was turned off and the curtain was closed. About 15 minutes later, the man would come out, the light would go on and the curtain would re-open with her sitting there again.

After a couple of days, we had adjusted to the time difference and were ready to hit the road. So we loaded up our rental car and away we went. Over the next 6 weeks, we traveled through Germany, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, Lichtenstein, Italy and Greece. We ended up back in Holland, in Rotterdam, where Alvina caught a flight home to get back to work and Karen and I waited for our ship to take us home.

Some of the highlights of the trip include the first time we put our tent up in a campground. I had previously camped with my parents as a child – but other than pounding a peg in under their direction, I really had nothing to do with getting the tent up and the other girls had never even camped before. It took us about 2 hours to get that tent up – but it was not entirely our fault. The tent wasn’t new and some of the pegs and poles were missing. We adapted and got much quicker over the next few weeks. We did not spend every night camping, but more than ½ in the first few weeks. Later on, we got lazier and spent more nights in bed and breakfast facilities. We got a little tired of the cold showers at the campgrounds.

In a campground in Denmark, we met 3 Frenchmen who spent some time with us. They cooked a 4 course meal for us at their tent and took us out to a nightclub. Communicating was difficult because they didn’t know much English and we didn’t know much French. I knew more French than Karen and Alvina because they both went to school in small towns where French was not mandatory and out of the 3 guys, Andre (my date) knew more English than the other guys – so we did most of the translating for the group.

One campground in Spain had a bar in a cave, and flamenco dancing went on all night. I discovered paella and sangria while in Spain We went to a bullfight in Spain. The plan had been to go to one in Portugal, since we heard that the bulls were not killed there – but once we got to Lisbon we discovered that there was a revolution going on at the time. We spent the one night and then headed back to Spain and went to a fight there.

Often our lunches consisted of a loaf of bread with cheese and a bottle of wine – wine cost less than water. If we were driving, we would find a place to pull over and have our picnic.

I remember driving up a mountain in Switzerland and seeing an awful lot of snow up at the top. After coming down the other side of the mountain, we then drove through it by way of a tunnel. It was a very long tunnel! I loved driving in Switzerland. The country is so beautiful and you could see houses all the way up the mountains. We stayed in a very picturesque campground one night too.

In Austria, we went to see the Lipizzaner stallions being trained at the Spanish Riding School.

In Italy, we stopped in Pisa and walked up the leaning tower. It was somewhere in Italy that we had to leave the car in a garage to take a ship (the Aphrodite) over to Greece. The car did not have insurance to drive through the countries between Italy and Greece. We had fun on the ship, including a midnight tour of the engine room one night with one of the engineers.

Our hotel room in Athens had a view of the Acropolis. I regret that we did not go to any of the islands. If we had stayed on the Aphrodite, we could have covered many of them – but then we would have missed Athens. We caught the same ship on the way back to Italy after our stay there.

The trip back home to Canada by ship was a pretty rough ride. The tables in the dining room often had ridges up to keep the plates from falling off. We took the northern route and saw quite a few icebergs and some whales as well.

All this happened about 35 years ago and some of the memories of the details are sketchy. I did write a trip diary – but have no idea where it is after all these years. I did take pictures, but did not have a great camera (no zoom and no digital – I think it was a 110 or something like that).

So for our picture of the day, I have one of the lions that were at Tembe on Africam this morning.

Lion at TE

Can’t forget the weather here today – it is -7C this morning and is going up to -1C by this evening.  Have a great day everyone!

Dream Vacation

My dream vacation, as most of you know is to get to Africa – South Africa to narrow it down a bit. Now, if I’m going to make it that far from home, it just wouldn’t make sense to not go to Australia and New Zealand as well. So, I will bundle it all into one trip. Also, since this is my dream vacation, I really should cover more than just South Africa – this is a large continent and there is much to be seen. I am going to need several months for this, obviously.

So, I will start off in Australia, where I will spend 3 weeks touring the countryside. The cities are not my interest – it is the wide open spaces and the wild critters – birds, mammals, reptiles. Then I would spend a week in New Zealand before heading over to South Africa.

I would need at least 4 weeks in South Africa, spending time in several of the places that I have come to know and love through the cams on Africam and the people I have met on Africam. I would be going on game drives and bush walks daily and I hope to meet a few of the people I know who may be in the area.

Many of the areas in Africa are just names to me and I will have to research where to go after I leave South Africa. I would love to see African Grey Parrots flying free, so I would assume that the Congo would be the place to see that. Also seeing gorillas and chimpanzees would be on my list.  I was once close to Egypt and did not cross the Mediterranean Sea to get there, so I really should go north enough to see the sights there too.

I might have to take a full year to cover all of Africa, now that I’m thinking of it.  I might need just a bit more money than originally thought.

Tomorrow I will have to fill you in on my past once in a lifetime vacation.

Jackals at Nkorho are the picture of the day today.  The grass had just been cut and the jackals were finding hunting was much easier than normal this morning.

Jackals at NK

By the way – today’s weather was wonderful.  It as +3C when I got home from work.  The snow is melting. 

January 3rd

New Years Resolutions!!!  Don’t you just love them?

The answer for me is NO!  I work in a fitness facility and what better new years resolution could there be other than to get fit?  I know that most of the people who came in today or phoned today will not get fit.  Many of them will pay the money to join up and never come back again, until they decide to cancel the membership next month because they don’t have time to use the facility.  Some will exercise hard for a few days and be so sore that they will stop coming and also end up canceling next month.  Many will decide after a couple of days that it is much too busy there and just stop coming until they see the next month’s charge on their credit card and they will come by to cancel also.  Some of these people won’t actually cancel for several months because they fully intend to exercise tomorrow, but eventually they too will realize that the payments keep coming out whether they use their membership or not.

All day today the phone kept ringing and people kept coming in – they came in groups and they came on their own, but usually ended up in a line of people  – all wanting either information, to try it out for the day or to just get their membership.  Some of the existing members came to work out today – but most will disappear for January because they have been through this before.  The entire facility is almost wall to wall people and it is very difficult to get your turn on a treadmill, elliptical or weight machines.  They know that by the end of January it will have started to slow down again and by mid February, things will be back to normal.  Out of the hundreds who will start their membership in January, there may be 5% who will actually follow through and stay with the program.

Tomorrow should be better because many people will be back at work after having today off in lieu of New Years Day.

Maybe next year I should take all of January off work.  I know – I could spend the month in Africa!!!

The weather this morning was a chilly -26C, but luckily there was little or no wind in the morning.  Right now it is -18 C, but with a wind it feels like -28.  It is only supposed to go down to -22C tonight, so that is much better.

I am sure glad I have the cams at Africam to watch to relax and unwind.  Last night we had a hippo in the Nkorho waterhole for a few hours.  He had a wonderful snooze 

 

Hippo at NK

Hippo at NK

 

Hippo at NK

Thats all for today.  I’ll see you again tomorrow.

August 15th

Here we are in the midst of yet another rainy weekend in the summer.   It is quite cool outside also with 13C being the temperature at 1pm – so we know it isn’t going to get much (if any) warmer for the day.

The last few days have been pretty busy.  Thursday was a vacation day and since my sister and her entire family were in the area, with 3 cottages rented about an hour north of the city, I went up to visit with them for the day.  My daughter and her boyfriend also spent the day there and my Mom was staying there as well.  We had some fun, ate lots of food and (of course) took some pictures.

the kids playing lawn darts

This is all my nieces’ kids playing lawn darts beside their grandparent’s cottage.   I took way too many pictures to put up here, so please feel free to check out the rest of them on my facebook page.

Then, on Friday (which was supposed to be my weekend), I had to go to a training session with all the other full time sales & services staff from all the branches at the Y here.  We had the session at Camp Y, which is a new camp about an hour outside of the city.  It is actually an old camp and the Y is working hard to get it up to standard for year round use.  Right now, it is being used by the day camps for the outings and there is lots to do.  We were supposed to get an opportunity to use the swimming pool, high-ropes course, climbing wall and zip line – but the rain ruined that, so we just had our training.  It was fun and we got to meet some of the other staff from the other branches, who we often talk to on the phone.  It will be nice to be able to put a face to the name now.    I did get a day off work to replace my Friday – which is why I am at home now.  I didn’t have my early Sunday shift to work this week.

Dakota is still plugging along.  I don’t think the Cartrophen Vet injections did anything to help her out with her arthritis.  It may be that she is a bit less in pain – it is hard to tell.  She still gets her same walks at her speed and the walks are the same speed as they were before the injections.  She still wants to go further – but does not object when I go out with Chester now.  I have learned that if I let her go further, she will have quite a bit of problems in the evening with her legs collapsing on her.  It does take her a few minutes at any time after she has been sleeping, to get those legs moving correctly under her.

Chester, on the other hand has no end to his energy.  His motto is “Lets GO” so he and I have quite a long walk along the Red River on most days.  There has been absolutely nothing to take pictures of though.

I am so excited!  My tool shed is fixed.  I have had problems over the years of the tool shed being broken into – just because it was so easy to break into it.  The doors to the shed opened up onto the parking spot in the back lane and the doors were only locked by a chain and padlock.  Many times I wondered if it was possible to lift the shed up and move it around so that the doors are on the inside of the yard, but thought that would be a huge and very expensive job, so I did not follow through with it.  It is a big wooden shed and this year, it suddenly occurred to me that a solution would be to just block the old doors off and build a new door inside the yard.  I found someone to do it and I now have a real door, instead of the flimsy doors from before and it is inside my yard with a deadbolt lock on it.  I will have to pick up some paint to paint the whole shed and make it look as new as the door and I will have to get some sidewalk blocks down in front of the new door.  I plan on doing both if it ever stops raining on a day when I don’t have to work.

Africam continues to take a lot of my time as the critters continue to visit the waterholes. One night we even had a leopard climb a tree – right in front of us. The Baboons and the Hadeda Ibis were sure unhappy about that! You can see the video that Morris made for us at Leopards. The zoomie did a great job of following him up and down the tree.

Today on Africam, we have seen Cape Buffalo, Zebras, Hadeda Ibis, Cape Turtle Doves, Reedbuck, Grey Go Away Bird, Water Monitor, Impalas, Waterbuck, Nyalas, Elephants, Wildebeests and more. Take a look at today’s pictures here.

Vacation 2010

On June 20th my friend Connie and I left for our vacation to Calgary, Banff, Jasper and Edmonton.

We drove the trans canada highway and were hoping the the flooding from the day before had receded and the highway would be open at the Alberta/Saskatchewan border.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen as our 14 hour drive to Calgary ended up taking 17 hours.  Of course we did have a couple (or 3 or 4) stops at Tim Hortens along the way.  Connie drinks coffee all day long, but one of the stops also included lunch.

We spent the first 2 nights at a fine establishment in Calgary – my sister Sharon and her husband John look after many family and friend travelers who pass by and they extended their usual hospitality to Connie and I.

The weather was great for most of the days, so we were out and about as much as possible, while still leaving time for facebook and Africam.

Sharon and her daughter Cheryl at computer

John and grandson Colby

John & Sharon's daughter Heather with her dog

Sydney

Colby and Sydney are both Heather’s children.

We left Calgary on Monday morning and headed for Banff, where we had a room reservation at the Y Hotel.   Apparently this building used to be the old hospital there.

Between the breathtaking scenery of the mountains and the wildlife we saw, I have way too many pictures to post here.  I will put a few though and then give you the link to the rest of the pictures on my facebook page.

Baby Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn Sheep

Grzzley Bear

Deer

Elk

Double Rainbow in Jasper

Jasper and Me

Bald Eagle

Lake Louise

These pictures have all been downsized, so you can look at the full-sized pictures plus a whole lot more on my facebook page.

The following link will let you see the pictures, whether you have a facebook account or not.

You won’t be able to make comments on the photos unless you are listed as a friend of mine on facebook, but you can always come back here to let me know what you think.

My Facebook Pictures.

Mountains

Banff from Mountain