London - day one

Left cold snowy Calgary at 6pm local time - overnight arrived Heathrow 9:45am. Saw Northern lights over Baffin Island on the way. Stacking up with the dozens of other huge planes over London was wicked fun - big lazy circles in formation with a British Air 767 over the city with great views of the the Thames, London Eye, St. Paul's, the Millennium Dome and the Parliament. Probably one of the most thrilling rides we'll have!

Jill met us and we had a downright scary taxi van ride back to her place in Walthamstow. Settled in, and then rode the tube down to Green Park. Daffodils are up everywhere. We visited the Canadian War memorial (nice fountain with scattered bronze maple leaves), checked out Buckingham palace - apparently missed seeing Queen Liz leaving in her car by about 10 minutes. We hung around thinking she'd just popped out for some beer or a loaf, but she didn't return. No changing of the guard when she's not at home! Lazy sods...

Visited Trafalgar Square before heading home on the tube for pizza dinner. Both David and James sound asleep on the tube... Experienced the truth of travel with kids as someone really had to go to the bathroom on the increasingly fast walk back...

Thanks Becky for the ride to the airport and the cookies this long morning ago! Thanks Jill for taking such good care of us on our first of 155 days of travel! Hopefully our energy will increase as we overcome our jet-lag, and we will see many more sights in London over the next few days.

Will post pictures as soon as we figure out how...

Rob

Last few days of adventure planning

Thanks to Iris and Neil for the great going away party last Thursday. The theme wines were particularly excellent - espicailly Spain! Can't wait to get there to taste more! Thanks to everyone else who has been helping us to ready for this trip - Becky and Colin for doing their stuff, Sue and Steve for offering to feed us as we stop stocking the fridge, Bob for being our house manager, and the Men of Kensington for buying me a couple of beers at the pub last night.

We are leaving Calgary on Tuesday Feb 27th, flying to London. In early March, we will be in SW France - Carcassonne and area - then we will move on the Barcelona and Valencia. In early April we will be in Tuscany, and will make our way to Salerno and Pompei. We fly from Rome to the Greek island of Kos in mid-April, and will be sailing back to athens on a chartered Lagoon 440 cat with our pals Lynn Brett, Meagan and Kate. We'll then be touring southern Greece, and fly from Athens to Milan in early May. We then are heading North to Courmayeur and take the gondola to France, arrving in Chamonix. We will be in Paris May 15-22, and then in Normandy. We fly from Nantes to Dublin May 30th and will have three weeks to visit with Deirdre's many Aunts, Uncles and cousins. June 32rd we are flying to Aberdeen and will be touring northern Scotland, including the western islands of Jura and Iona. We hope to visit the Isle of Mann, and will head back to Wales and to London in late July. If all this goes according to plan, we will be at Heathrow for our return flight to Calgary on August 1st, just in time for some group camping in Kananaskis?

Those wishing to make contact during the trip can do so through comments on this blog, or by sending e-mail to keithadventure@hotmail.com

We'll keep you posted...

Balzac Billy

So, our favourite holiday has come and gone - Grounhog Day. It's not just about the Bill Murry movie, or the prediction of early/late spring. This is Alberta. There is no such thing as spring; just chinooks, dry heat, cold and sometimes snow at any thime during the year. Sometimes all on the same day. No, what I like is that there is in fact no groundhog in Balzac, Alberta, so a guy dresses up in a gopher suit and pretends to see his shadow or not. What a country we live in! After clearly predicting an end to winter, we are looking forward to -20 degreeweather and more snow. Which is ok, because of the need to do more skiing, especially traction-kiting, if possible.

I wish I had a gopher suit to ski in.

Trip plans continue. We have added Barcelon and Valencia to our destination list, are are pleased that Jill will likely be joining us in bothplaces, and maybe on the yacht in Greece too!

Snowy Day

The red car is back in action. Busted timing belt and needed a new water pump. May have another 250000km's left in her yet. So, not so blue as a couple of days ago but still a bit blue, thinking about Sheena. Went to see the Ecole King George assembly this afternoon to celebrate the outgoing 'virtue' of organization, and February's incoming virtue of "Love". Boy, there's a whole lotta love there...

Read a comment in the paper about blogs, that they're nerdy and self-indulgent, and can rank the death of the family cat on par with that of the Pope. I guess that may be missing the nerdy point about sharing a journal; we don't know the Pope. This is really for David's class when we go wandering.

Fresh snow means possible traction-kiting on the weekend, or maybe just a romp in the powder of the Rockies. Gotta go - RK

January Blues

January comes to an end and it has been a sad last couple of weeks. The death of our dear friend Sheena Lennox has left us feeling very hollow. David and Deirdre flew to Winnipeg for Sheena's memorial. On the way back from the airport in Calgary, our red car died. So many endings at the moment. This page has been created to help us communicate what's happening while we are away on the BIG ADVENTURE. Hard to get geared up for it as a result of recent events, but we'll get there.

We've been thinking about Captain Greg Sager a lot reently too. He has just sold his beautiful schooner, the Passing Cloud, and is a captain with no ship at the moment. He is planning a beautiful retirement in Europe (not unlike his hero Captain Haddock of Tintin fame) but in our minds he is always linked to the sea and his beautiful ship.

We hope to communicate through writing and pictures what's going on as we travel. We leave Calgary Feb. 27th and fly to London to see Jill. From there, we fly to Carcassonne in the South of France. We'll update events from there.

Meantime, we'll try to post some pictures and make this thing look nice. - Rob, Jan 29, 2007