Friday 11 July 2014

Day 343 May 31 and beyond-The Wrap up of the 17 month odyssey

May 31st 2014 .........

Well to wrap up the blog on our travels, we made it safely to our home in Sudbury, Ontario on June 1st, unpacked and returned the u-haul.

Now we start the exciting part of selling our house, starting new job(s), and buying a house in Toronto.

In summary of our trip(s), we drove over 10,000 kms driving west via the northern United States to Alberta and British Columbia to ski and hike in Feb. and March of 2013, returning via Canada to Sudbury and Sarnia,  and we then flew 17,000 kms to Santiago, Chile via Peru, the Amazon, and hiked the Inca Trail to Macch Picchu with our good friends the Patrick's followed by sailing over 5000 nautical miles which is about 10,000 kms. During the 17 month practice retirement we took off and landed 17 times in airplanes which also included a trip out to Newfoundland August 2013 to visit Kevin while Jazzebelle was getting outfitted with new canvas.  We lived on the boat for 11.5 consecutive months sleeping elsewhere only during our 9 nights while in Newfoundland and our 3 night trip driving to the Annapolis Boat show as we did not make it there by boat.

We spent the recent month of June preparing our house for the real estate market and shopping for a new home in Toronto.

It has been wonderful seeing friends and family, as well as attending our son Ross's graduation from University, (although he is returning for a masters and his 5th year of running eligibility so not done yet)!  We had a lovely reunion with Julie's family at Ross's season opener where he performed a personal best in the 1500m race.  Mom, niece Alicia, and brother Dan made the journey to Guelph which was wonderful.  Hard to believe it has been almost a year since we saw everyone.

Thanks to all our supporters and followers who encouraged the writing of this blog as it will be a wonderful keepsake of our adventures.

Cheers
Julie and Dawson

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Day 342, Friday, May 30th

Day 342, Friday, May 30th - return to Canada

It is time to put the blog to bed.  After 16 months of non stop travelling we are heading "home".  We have worked very diligently to get the boat ready for sale.

We wake up in a normal bed as we stayed the night at Brad and Laura's in Crownsville near Annapolis. We are all loaded and ready to go, with 1 stop needed at the boat and a final good bye to Jazzebelle.

Packed for home
Boy this uhaul points well.  We can go in whatever direction we want which is a treat, and not worry about anchors dragging or storms.  We set out by 8:00 for the 10 hour drive to Port Credit.  Julie contacts Diana and Paul to see if we can crash at their place overnight as we want to catch Ross's season opener in Guelph the following evening.

The drive north is uneventful.  Roads are good, traffic is light, and the speed is incredible. We can't believe that what took us months to accomplish by boat we will do in 10 hours.  Originally we crossed the border at Fort Erie to Buffalo by boat September 7th 2013 and got to Annapolis about October 23rd, and now in 10 hours we will travel from Annapolis and go over the river we navigated on our way south.  Wow, a lot of effort to get that boat south.

As we cross over to Canada there is a feeling of excitement being back in our homeland.  There is nothing like Canada, snow, bugs and all!

We make it to "Noel Hotel" by early evening and have a visit with Diana, and Paul and their dogs Alice and Toby of course.

Cheers
Julie and Dawson