Change of plans

Woke up yesterday morning and had to put the heat on. It's going to be the same thing for the next few mornings, I think. Winter is coming. 

One of the rigs parked near us is huge. You don't see them often, but you do see the occasional large motorhome here in Europe. It's not only the Americans who build large RVs. Anyhow, we were watching the owner yesterday morning, and at one point the entire rear panel of this big motorhome started sliding upwards.

Arrived in Austria! Country #45 for us...

We only had about a 20 minute drive to get to the RV park that we had chosen from which to base ourselves for exploring the city of Salzburg, Austria.

Located about 5 kms (3 miles) north of the city center, the Reisemobil Stellplatz Salzburg is really well thought out. You can tell it was designed by people who actually use motorhomes!

Today, we are off to Austria!

Thursday morning, we said goodbye to friends Glen and Steve. It was just a short visit, but they are headed for Turkey for three months, and they want to be able to cross the border on November 1st. We are also headed for Turkey, but we don't want to cross until January 1st, or thereabouts. 

So we hope to cross paths with them again in January in Turkey.

Exploring the alpine town of Bad Reichenhall, Germany

It rained much of Wednesday morning. After lunch, we drove the short distance down to the town of Bad Reichenhall, the rain had pretty much stopped. We found a busy free parking area where we were lucky to get a spot, but that's because it was only a short walk to the central area.

This whole area is a little on the touristy side, and it's easy to understand why. It turns out that Bad Reichenhall is a really pretty little town, and there's a lot to do around here. Including many beautiful hiking trails.

A lot can change in 64 years!

I've mentioned before that my father did two fairly long trips to Europe in the 1950's. The first in 1954, and the second in 1957. He was an avid photographer and took a lot of slide photos from those trips. Ruth has scanned them all and we have them on our laptops. 

Regular readers might remember that we have in the past made a game out of trying to match up some of those photos by trying to stand in exactly the same spot that my dad might have stood many years ago. 

Oktoberfest? Maybe next year...

We got on the road at around 9:00am. Not as far of a drive today... only 178 kms (110 miles) to get to the meeting point where friends Glen and Steve were waiting for us.

Our route would take us around the east side of Munich. What a shame to be this close to Munich in October and not go to Oktoberfest celebrations.

Almost at Austria

We did another 300 km (180 mile) drive yesterday. I know, that's not our normal style, but we are catching up to our friends Glen and Steve who are heading in the same direction as us, but they are ahead of our schedule. They have purposely slowed down a bit so that we can catch up. 

But yesterday, we took the back roads the whole way. Yes, it's slower going and probably uses a bit mre fuel. But it's so much more scenic and interesting.

Happy to be back on the road!

Saturday was a driving day with the goal of picking up our bicycles that had been stored at Frankfurt airport. We didn't get going until about 10:00am and we had to do about 300 kms (186 miles), which for us is a fairly long drive.

We took the main highway, which has a 130 km/h (81 mph) "suggested" speed limit on most sections. Of course Max isn't going anywhere near that speed. For the most part I had the cruise control set somewhere around 95 km/h (59 mph). 

Made it back to Europe and our motorhome Max!

Well, the last 24 hours or so are a bit of a blur. Let me see if I can back us up a bit and try and remember all the details...

It started off Thursday morning around 11:00am when our daughter Lindsey came to pick us up and take us to the Ottawa airport. She arrived right on time and I loaded the bikes into the back of her van.

We are off to Europe!

Not much time this morning because we are flying to Europe today! The next blog post will be coming to you from Germany.

We fly Ottawa to Toronto then Toronto to Frankfurt. From there, we take the train to the town of Dulmen where our motorhome Max is waiting for us.

Here's the plan for the next few days...

September Expenses - things are about to get much cheaper!

September was a little higher than expected. Mostly because of our plan to ship our bicycles and a few other things to Germany with us. But, we also did a lot more driving than we originally planned, and the fuel added up.

We spent a total of $3,338 CAD ($2,620 USD). Here's how it all broke down...

The next visit will be better

Just reflecting on the past few weeks as we prepare to head back to Europe tomorrow. 

We arrived in Ottawa in mid August right at the end of a heat wave, so our timing was pretty lucky in that regard. Overall, the weather has been decent. But as I've said before, September is the best time of year to visit Canada, in our opinion.

But we've been just too busy to enjoy it as much as we would have liked to.

Getting ready to head out

Only two more sleeps. We're busy getting ready to head out on Thursday late morning. 

We're not traveling as light this time around. The bikes are all boxed up and ready to go. And besides our normal carry on bags, this time we're actually bringing a larger suitcase with us as well that we will just ditch after we've emptied it upon arrival.

Best ribs ever.

Little bit of a late post today, but I didn't have much time this morning because we were told we had to be out by 10:00am.

Saturday turned out to be better than expected from a weather perspective. The guys weren't that ambitious but we managed to get three of us out for a short 5 km (3 mile) hike in Bon Echo Provincial Park. 

Good start to the weekend

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Ruth and drove two hours to a big chalet on Mazinaw Lake near Bon Echo Provinical Park to meet up with my friends for our annual guys weekend away.

Not the best weather though. It was actually chilly sitting out on the deck, and when it started spitting with rain it almost felt like it was going to snow!