Off to the beach

We've got some summer weather on the go here in Nova Scotia this weekend. Highs of around 28C (82F) with blue skies and sunshine. 

So yesterday, we took the grandkids to the beach!

I found another great option for travel medical and trip insurance

I've been a big proponent of Heymondo travel insurance for the last couple of years, but that company has recently changed their program so that the plan that we want isn't available to our age group. So I've been shopping around.

They make this stuff so complicated and time consuming to figure out. You have to read through all of the options and then the fine print to know what you're covered for and what you're not. I've spent a lot of time on this, and here's what I found...

Having fun with the grandkids

Took the grandkids to the park yesterday. While we love traveling, we also miss them and are happy to see them. Hopefully this winter they'll be able to visit us wherever we happen to be so that our time apart won't be so long. 

It had been ten months since we last saw them!

Made it to Nova Scotia

Well so far, we've been impressed with the punctuality of our flights. We've been on five different airplanes in the last ten days, and other than our Amsterdam to Montreal flight which was delayed by about an hour, the rest have all been pretty much right on time.

Even our connection flights through Toronto's Pearson Airport went really well yesterday. 

Made it to Ottawa

But we're not staying. 

Writing this at Ottawa airport as an overnight connection. We flew in from Calgary last night, arriving at just after midnight, and our connecting flight to Toronto leaves at 6:45am this morning. Then we have another connecting flight to Halifax later this morning.

Another beautiful drive through the Canadian Rocky Mountains

The boys were all up early, and we had decided to go out for breakfast before we left Jasper. We went back to the same restaurant we had dinner at on Saturday night. Dinner had been overall good, and the reviews said that breakfast was good as well.

Unfortunately, the breakfast was not the same experience. Very average, and our waitress wasn't very good. And at $21.50 CAD ($16.70 USD) for a very average coffee, bacon, eggs, home fries, and toast, it was definitely overpriced. 

3 Excellent Reasons to Have a Destination Event

Everyone enjoys events. Whether it is a birthday, wedding, a get-together of friends, or a company affair, events are celebrations and a chance to enjoy in the company of other guests. An event is even more unique and fun when held in a different location, away from the usual venues. A destination event is something most people look forward to with eager anticipation, an opportunity to experience something new, relax, and have fun.

Fun times in Jasper with the guys

Just to give you some background, I worked at a summer family camp when I was 16 years old in 1978. There was a group of about ten of us guys who worked at that same camp who got along really well, and we were close friends back in the day. 

We have kept in touch over the years, and have attended each others weddings and kept in touch through family events and children and sometimes divorce. 

Drive to Jasper with the guys.

I got on the road at 9'00am with the boys for the drive to Jasper. It's just over five hours from Calgary to Jasper taking the route through the mountains on the Icefields Parkway.

Absolutely spectacular scenery, and of course I love the mountains to begin with. Only one problem... I was doing the driving, so I wasn't taking pictures along the way, so don't have too many to share. 

An interesting stop in the town of Vulcan, Alberta

We had a great breakfast with Barry and Jeannie, then headed towards Calgary. There were three different routes we could have taken, and they were all about the same distance and time. However, one of the routes held a small attraction... at the town of Vulcan, Alberta.

Anybody who knows anything about the old Star Trek television series knows that one of the lead characters, Mr. Spock, was from the planet Vulcan. Well, the town of Vulcan, Alberta has capitalized on its name and made a small tourist attraction based on the tv series.

Back to Alberta

We had a nice three day visit to the park, and the perfect weather continued yesterday for our drive to Alberta. We were off to the town of Taber where friends Barry and Jeannie had moved to. They had been in our Mexico RV caravan tour in the winter of 2018-2019.

We got going about 11:00am for the three hour drive.

Just a few pics around the park

Just a nice relaxing day yesterday. It was gorgeous sunny hot weather. Temperature got up to about 34C (93F) but there is no humidity at all, and there was a nice breeze all day. We went and sat down by the waterfront in the afternoon, and it was hot, but not uncomfortable.

We also went out for a morning walk up above the park.

We finally found summer!

One thing you can pretty much count on is that early August in Saskatchewan is going to feel like summer! Yesterday was a high of about 30C (86F) but with very low humidity. It was just a beautiful shorts and t-shirt summer day! And today they are calling for more of the same, but a little bit warmer.

We went out for breakfast yesterday morning. The guy running the canteen here at the park makes a pretty good meal, and so we splurged on breakfast.

It's all a bit of a blur, but we're getting caught up now.

Some of you caught on that it didn't make sense that I had a bad toe injury and then proceeded to walk 10 kms or so around Amsterdam.

That's because I screwed up the timeline of events! We were pretty tired and I was rushing trying to get a blog post out to you before we got too far behind. And I inadvertently put a comment in the blog post about my toe injury the day before it actually happened! 

Amsterdam to Montreal

We didn't sleep very well on the houseboat. It was set up like a hostel, so there were too many people coming and going, and the doors to the rooms were noisy, so every time someone got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night you'd get woken up. And with all 8 rooms full, it seemed like there was someone getting up every twenty minutes throughout the night. 

Oh well, it was only one night. We could sleep on the plane.