Uncategorized

We had a great drive to Gananoque yesterday, light traffic being a Sunday, and made it to the KOA 1000 campground just in time to set up and have a visit from our dear friend and colleague from BMO, DH. We had a really nice time catching up on life and business. DH spoiled us by bringing us some local goodies which we already started to enjoy last night, and we will continue to enjoy in the days ahead.

We then got a visit from JL/LP, other dear friends and former colleagues from BMO. DH was still here at the time and it was cool to look around the 5 of us and see greater than 20 years of the creation and evolution of the FP program as we all had a hand in it.

Dinner with JL/LP was BBQ hamburgers and salads topped off with a wonderful homemade apple and cranberry crumble and some Madagascar vanilla gelato from their family cafe in downtown Gananoque.

Tomorrow we are going to the cafe for lunch and we can’t wait to try all their gelato flavours! Stay tuned for pictures of tomorrows adventure as we are out of practice and forgot to take pictures today.

Barb & I are off to Quebec on Sunday for a couple of weeks. It’s going to be a great opportunity to see old BMO friends/colleagues and family members.

We are going to head to Montreal then south east after that venturing into some small townships with GREAT cheese! Who doesn’t like a trip that has Quebec cheese……..can you say squeaky…..

We will post along the way and keep you all updated. Our U.S leg will start Nov 12th (a little later than what we wanted) where will will begin our journey through the Detroit area and getting down south as fast as we can to avoid bad weather.

It’s been 5 months since we last ventured out together so we are are really looking forward to the trip!

Barb & I had the opportunity to get together with longtime friends AS, CS, KS, JL. We had a wonderful day in AS/KS new backyard which included a fire pit seating area, a pool, and an incredible cooking station that lacked for nothing. We were spoiled with great company, food and wine. Thank you !!!

Well it has been a while since we have posted. We are still doing our own things. Barb is enjoying the summer with JL and her kids as well as the grand baby! Lot’s of social events and gardening/landscaping a back yard that already looks spectacular. I volunteered at another festival, did a lot of bike riding (until my biking partner wrecked his knee) and am off to play pickle ball this afternoon.

Barb & I continue to work for Dr Amy and will be taking this on the road with us. It is nice to keep your brain and skill sets fresh in retirement!

Here are some pics of some biking trips. It never ceases to amaze me what is in our own back yards…….These pics were all within a few KM of my sister’s place, which is where I have been hanging my hat until the RV reappears in Canada.

The festival was for Highland Creek, which my sister is President so of course had to lend a helping hand. Was a great event and we raised a lot of money for the community. Apparently 5,000 people showed up!

I also went to a book launch. My dear friend Janine Rogan wrote a book during Covid called the Pink Tax. It is a great book outlining some real challenges women face when building their own wealth. In fact I thought it relevant enough that I purchased a book for all 5 of my nieces. This particular launch was here in Toronto a block or two from where I used to live in Liberty Village. Was great to walk through my old neighbourhood to the gallery for the event. I miss LV……..

What else has been happening?? Well not too much. Safiya still getting into places maybe she shouldn’t (good thing she was spotted before the boxes got thrown out). And Winston, well he is an old dog with a few tricks up his paw…….my sister does not like him on the furniture……which is precisely where he went after a bath when no one was paying attention. At least he was clean!

Then of course there is surfing the net and seeing a couple of extraordinary pics of places to go and incredible pictures taken at precisely the right moment. The first pic is a bridge in E China. How cool is this!

Next up on our joint travels?? September is shaping up for a Canadian tour of Eastern Canada! Stay tuned folks, is shaping up to be another excellent adventure!

Volunteer of course!!

I spent the day with my sister at a Police function to raise awareness of all the Police services in her area of the GTA. It was a great day speaking to the different officers and their roles in the community. My favourites? The Canine Unit of course, and the Drone Unit (I don’t think they call it that, but it really is just that).

There were also Aboriginal activities, dancers, community booths, and all branches of service were there. Paramedics, Recruitment, Canine, Fire, Rescue, Court Officers, Conflict Officers, and more.

Cool and Ah Ha moments – the police have their own gas station in their parking lot (which makes sense, but still cool) AND apparently even the fire dept. Need directional help when backing up the rig to make tricky turns! It’s not just us somewhat rookie RVrs!

Here are some pics of the day.

What else have we been up to? Well Barb has been busy with her granddaughter, who is super cute! And making her backyard even more spectacular planting & gardening. I am over at my sisters in Scarborough taking advantage of all the bike trails in the neighbourhood and along the waterfront. The weather has been spectacular so like they say “you have to make hay when the sun shines”. We hope you are all getting out and enjoying the summer.

For those of our friends and family on both coasts, we have been following the fires and are glad to see things are being held & contained. We are also grateful that so many firefighters from around the world came to help out our fellow Canadians.

Update on the Motorhome: Still in Buffalo waiting on some items that are covered under warranty. We hope to get it back soon as we miss it! Funny how you can get so attached to something, but we LOVE our RV!

Will keep you up to date on our summer adventures and potential Canadian travel before heading back south in November.

You would think that being home since the 15th of April we would have had a lot of time to update our final post on our blog. Guess not, seeing as how it is May 2! So here goes catching you all up finishing the first U.S tour of 2022/2023.

We decided to stay at a couple of Harvest Hosts on the way home, and Barb once again found the best two around for sure. They were both farms, one larger than the other. They both had multi generational retired owners with children/grandchildren either living in the same home or very close by. Both men were incredibly fit for their age. Both were well off, with the second being very well off. Most important……they were all wonderful, kind, considerate people.

While travelling back north and to these final two locations for the final two nights, we did see an interesting sight day 1, as well as had a great stop mid day, on day 2.

The first interesting sighting was the remains of some buildings after a tornado had moved through across the highway. Not sure when this happened as we were trailing behind a series of tornadoes on the way home, but looks like they had started to clean things up.

The next day we stopped at Blake’s. Not Blake Shelton, wouldn’t THAT have been a great story! But Blake’s a local orchard farmer that had a cider tasting room, two restaurants, fresh donuts, fresh baked apple cinnamon bread, lots of fresh pies (we brought a strawberry/rhubarb pie along with a apple cinnamon loaf), lots of jams, salsas and gifts. Quite lovely really. We decided to order some take out and chose chicken wings and sautéed Brussel sprouts. While we were waiting we decided to start with chicken cordon blue egg rolls. They were OK, but we both decided that regular egg rolls were better. We also decided to walk around while we were waiting for our take out. We thought why not try some cider, so off we went to the Cider house. It looked open and in we went. Interesting as we stepped in, a few people turned from the bar and stared, then a few more, then everyone turned to stare. Weird……..so I said “I know we look good”, to which the bar tender said, we are closed for a private event. OK there were a couple of guys who thought this was funny, but maybe put up a sign to say closed for private event???? Sheesh

Here are some pics of the restaurant/bar and our spring rolls

Wings came home with us and we had a delightful last night in the U.S. Our final task before crossing the border the next day was to get JL a large bottle of Vodka. Not sure if any of you have crossed the border into Canada around the Niagra area, but there is NO sign for duty free…….anywhere! When we got to the border crossing, Barb asked the guard where the duty free was as we hadn’t seen any signs, to which she replied “ ya…..there is no sign, you have to take the exit that says last exit in the U.S”, good grief. Soooo JL didn’t get his huge bottle of Vodka, but a promise that next year we would “do better!”

So now back in Canada, quickly getting back into the routine of life not on the road. There is still a lot to see/do and we are both looking forward to hitting the road down south once more in the fall. Will there be some summer travels…………..maybe so please check in once in a while and see what, if anything, we are up to.

Thanks for following!! Barb/Lori

Barb took a look at what we could do leaving Nashville making our way home and found a GEM of a spot! This Park houses the largest underground cave structure on earth. Intermittent exploration has been going on for over 4,000 years, the full extent of this water formed labyrinth are unknown. Mammoth Cave’s over 420 miles of mapped tunnels making it over twice as long as any known cave. Geologists believe there are another 600 miles to discover yet. Prehistoric peoples explored 10 or more miles of Mammoth Cave 4,000 years ago. Archeological evidence shows that these early cavers collected crystals and other salts in the cave. Cave exploration ceased 2,000 years ago, not to resume until the cave was rediscovered in 1798.

The vast cave system holds one of the world’s most diverse cave ecosystems. About 130 forms of life can be found in Mammoth Cave. Life in the cave is not separate from the rest of the park’s natural communities. It is an extension of the larger biological whole whose diversity and abundance are preserved here.

It was warm so we did the self guided tour as we had to leave the animals in the RV and couldn’t be gone long. Here are the two of us going into one of many entrances to the cave system.

Inside the cave structure the caverns were huge. There are many tours you can take where you have to cave dive or spelunking is required to get through the passageways. We were NOT in those caves.

One interesting spot in this part of the cave was a war memorial. Not a clear shot, but you get the gist.

Above ground the park itself is stunning and there are 33 miles of Green River you can kayak and over 60 miles of hiking trails throughout.

This is definitely on the list to come back to. Stay a few days and really explore the caves and the park.

What a night to go! We had a few firsts. 1. Meghan Patrick from Bowmanville Ontario made her debut in “the circle”. 2. Carly Pearce performed her 100th show. 3. The second half of the evening was filmed and we were part of the live audience and Bobby Bones was the host!

We had a great time seeing all the stars perform, and while some of the music wasn’t to our taste, a lot was. Here was the lineup and a couple of pics from the audience.

I took a few photos of the show as well, which is hard to do with an older iPhone.

It was great having done the backstage tour earlier in the week, seeing the dressing rooms that these performers were getting ready in, and then seeing all the live performances. A MUST do if you are ever in Nashville.

The Grand Ole Opry backstage tour was excellent! In fact we were so inspired we have booked ourselves for Tuesday nights concert!! We had no idea that it was such a HUGE deal to be invited to not just play, but to be asked to join. We started out with a movie hosted by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. It was very moving and inspiring. The tour it self backstage was awesome as we were able to see all the dressing rooms and stage equipment. Also interesting, no matter who you are, you have to show ID when entering in the dressing room staging area. Apparently there have been folks impersonating “Dolly” so they had to implement some checks to make sure they had the right Dolly!

They also have mail boxes at the Grand Ole Opry, so if you want to send a letter to one of your favourite stars, you can. When the stars show up, they check their mail box before going into their dressing room. Here are some shots starting with the entrance, the lobby, backstage, dressing rooms which each have different themes, and onstage. The Circle of wood was brought over from the original Opry house, the Ryman when they decided to build a new location. Very cool.

Next stop, the Ryman Auditoriam. The Ryman started out as a Church and started bringing talent in to perform. Over the years, any and all music genres played at the Ryman. Hee Haw was also filmed here throughout its whole time on T.V. A lot of history in this location, so we were happy to hear that when the Ryman was going to get torn down the stars stepped in and made sure the Mother Church of Country Music stayed alive and continued as hollowed ground.

Two great venues for seeing your favourite star and both worth the time to visit.

We decided to go on a tour with Tommy. Tommy’s tours came highly recommended if you wanted a laugh. The tour itself was a little bit of Nashville and a whole lot of the rich and famous homes. There are a lot of them. I will start with some pics of Tommy and the inside of a Hotel that used to be the train station. The lobby was incredible.

Once we took a little tour of this gem, we were off to Music Row. This is often mistaken for Broadway where all the live bands/bars are. Music Row is actually all the music studio’s where the artists write/perform/jam with others.

Then off to see some huge homes. We took lots of photos but the homes were so far back we couldn’t get a lot of them in a good shot. Saw the area where Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman live. Also Taylor Swift’s homes…yes one for her cats and the other for her. Also Minnie Pearl, Martina McBride, who apparently drives around in her red little car waving at everybody.

Evening was a nice dinner with friends we met just outside of Hilton Head S Carolina months ago. It was cool that they ended up at our campground for one night and were able to get together with us.

Tomorrow is the Grand Ole Opry tour and a tour of the Ryman auditorium.