Because my “Florida-to-Victoria” Blog is significantly past it’s due date I seriously considered skipping this final entry and moving directly to our new travel adventure. But, for some reason this “loose-end” void has got the better of me and I feel compelled to “sum-up” the Florida trip with at least a few words and some photos.
Our time in Florida was fascinating in a number of ways with alligators along the roads, endless pristine beaches, famous Key West, impressive Kennedy Space Centre (NASA), historical St. Augustine, and much more. The speedy return home from Florida was also filled with interesting and often breath-taking-beautiful sites along the way as we passed through the following states: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma,Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Some especially memorable locations included Montgomery and Selma, Alabama (Civil Rights Movement), BB King’s home town, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Route 66, Las Alamos, Mesa Verde National Park, Grand Canyon NP, Las Vegas, Zion and Bryce NP. All of this was pleasantly capped off by having a wonderful visit with Kristen, Erik & Everett in Portland before completing our long but very enjoyable trip home to Victoria.
Our Mercedes motorhome proved to be a fantastic platform that carried us about 18,000 Km in 3 months with very few issues. We’re now about to embark on a fall trip across Canada to Sydney Nova Scotia and back. We’re very excited about spending some time exploring our own country and hopefully our motorhome will perform as well as it did in the spring.

From Palm Springs we zipped through Phoenix (we tried to contact you Oslynn) and then landed in Tucson, Arizona. We were quite impressed with Tucson and all the tourist things it has to offer in the area. The old Tucson movie “studio” (outside of Tucson) is the location where dozens of great Westerns were made over the years and it did make for a fun afternoon. The Tucson highlight for us however was a visit to the massive “Pima Air & Space Museum” which also included a trip through an aircraft “Bone-Yard” where 4000 decommissioned military aircraft sit proudly in the Sun awaiting their destiny with a crusher. During our visit we had the privilege of meeting a truly amazing man. Retired US Air Force Colonel Richard Bushong who became a B-17 pilot at 20 years of age and then flew 28 missions over Europe during WWII. He ended his combat career flying F-4 Jet fighters in Vietnam and then became a test pilot where he flew aircraft from 0 speed (helicopter) to Mach 2.1. At 94 years of age, he now volunteers every Thursday afternoon at the Museum’s B-17 hanger display where he truly is considered a local celebrity and hero. We spent over an hour with this very entertaining gentleman listening to some of his incredible stories and enjoying his company. He has written a memoir of his service years called “My Wars” and yes… he did sign my copy. Another very interesting visit was a trip to the only remaining Titan II ICBM missile Silo in existence. The other 53 were destroyed around 1982 as part of President Reagan’s nuclear modernisation program. But, Silo No. 571-7 (1 of 18 outside of Tucson) was kept as a Museum. Touring through this incredible and thought-provoking structure (that included a simulated launch) made me realise I should have been much more frightened than I was as a young boy in the early 60’s when we practiced hiding under our desks when the community “air-raid” sirens sounded. Exploring this one small component of the much larger nightmare scenario helps drive home the freakish concepts of “Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)”, Nuclear Apocalypse and Nuclear winter in a very chilling way. Unbelievably this many years later and international leaders are once again talking about the use of strategic nuclear weapons… makes me fearful, and sad.
From Tucson we drove to Tombstone for a look at the place where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday had their famous shoot-out at the OK Corral. On our way to El Paso, Texas we passed the location in “Skeleton Canyon” where Geronimo surrendered in 1886 thus ending the Apache Wars in the South West. San Antonio turned out to be a pleasant surprise with its impressive downtown river walk and of course, the famous Alamo. A nice drive to Corpus Christi and our first look at the Gulf of Mexico. Driving East along the outer coast past magnificent beaches we could hardly believe the number of oil refineries dotting the coastline and casting there dark shadows on the sand. No question about it, oil is big business in Texas. We were also surprised to see thousands of beach homes and buildings built on tall stilts for protection against storms and high water. Not my idea of a solid foundation, Through Galveston and on to Louisiana where we discovered that “road-kill” now includes small Alligators that unfortunately and unknowingly wander onto the road from their safe swampy ditches. We’ve just pulled into exciting New Orleans and now we’re looking forward to sampling more Cajun goodies and exploring the jazzy French Quarter.

After leaving Portland we drove to historic Astoria on the North West Oregon Coast and visited the interesting Fort Stevens State Park (Thanks for the travel tip Steve). This fort was first established during the American Civil War and was in constant use until after WWII. It was the only location on the West Coast to be fired on by the Japanese. No casualties, but after the war, that didn’t stop the submarine captain from presenting the local community with his “family sword” as a token of his regrettable action.
As expected, the entire West Coast was amazing and beautiful with endless rugged beaches. The Redwoods were spectacular and yes Brad, Brian and John, we did stop for a fantastic lumber camp cooked meal at “The Samoa Cook House” in Eureka, California. Truly the best restaurant experience in the entire North West. As we drove along the coast we could hardly believe the number of rain related mud-slide repairs we encountered. In fact just south of Crescent City we were turned around for the night because of a big mud slide event that happened about 10 seconds ahead of us on the narrow winding highway, this according to a road-crew flag-man that was working very close by.
It was a quick drive through the Napa Valley and San Francisco but we slowed down somewhat and spent some time in the Monterey / Carmel area. We checked out “Pebble Beach” golf course for you Cam and we may even have a souvenir for you. We tried to continue our drive southward along HW1 but were turned back about 20 Km south of Carmel due to a bridge being washed out and as a result we had to switch over to HW101 thus making our way inland to LA. Warm sunshine and perfect surfing beaches is the name of the game in this part of the world and lots of people take full advantage of both. The rowing regatta on Mission Bay in San Diego made me think of you Kristen and our trip down with the Victoria City Rowing Club for the same mega regatta when you were in High School.
We’re in lovely Palm Springs now where the daytime temperatures are in the 30+ degree range, the sunsets are spectacular, and the evenings are perfect. The RV park we’re in is within walking distance of downtown and thou the RV park is a bit dated, it’s got a great “laid-back” feel to it and the people are friendly. In fact, the only reason we found a space here at “Happy Traveler RV Park” was because on the morning we arrived about 20 “SnowBirds” “bugged-out” for their spring migration northward. We’ve been pleasantly surprised with the Palm Springs area and very impressed with the surrounding desert landscapes. A days excursion through Joshua Tree National Park was a highlight and provided us with plenty of proof that deserts can be bursting with life and colour too. A note to Cam, Bert, Keith and all our golfing friends… dozens of amazing looking golf courses all throughout this area with apparently only one issue, no golfers on them. Just saying… If “playing-through” is a priority, come quick and golf Palm Springs.

With a desire to continue our motorhome travels in Europe we surprise ourselves by opting for a travel North America plan instead. This was a difficult decision considering how much we love touring in history rich Europe with its amazing “points of interest” and great camping infrastructure. The travel America plan involved making a substantial expenditure in a touring appropriate motorhome. This costly action would only make economic sense by utilizing it over a number of years and somewhat restricting our travel to mainly the US and Canada for some time. We decided to purchased a 2016 Winnebago ERA 70 on a Mercedes Diesel Sprinter Chassis. The fuel economy on this unit is excellent but more importantly it’s “drive-ability” and parking “access-ability” are outstanding by motorhome standards. Both very Important if you’re planning on driving high mileage and visiting populated areas. Furthermore, with full amenities, six-foot three headroom and king sized bed, it’s a relatively “live-able” unit as well.
After a few alterations and much preparation, we hit the road on March 10th settling in with Kristen, Erik and Everett in Portland for a while before we strike out Southward towards the Palm Springs, California area via the West Coast 101. From there we’ll head Eastward and play it by ear with plans to be back in Victoria sometime in June to take full advantage of our own West Coast summer.
Despite our excitement about venturing forth to travel and explore our own beautiful continent, our dream of a return camping trip to Europe will never fade and we’ll continue to work on that plan as we drive along the back highways of Canada and the USA.
From time to time we’ll post a progress report to keep those that are interested, informed.

A speedy motorway drive eastward from the Italian Riviera brought us to one of our favourite 2014 campgrounds just a short water-bus ride away from St. Marks square in Venice. Lucky for us the streets of Venice were seasonably above water and when you see the massively impressive water control system that’s being constructed (over many years) it should soon remain that way permanently. We could not believe how crowded with tourists Venice was considering it was only the middle of May. Unfortunately a few important venues and campgrounds throughout this trip were, in our opinion, relatively overcrowded for this early time of year. The reason for this could have something to do with school holidays. It seems as if somehow we unknowingly coordinated our travel calendar perfectly with many school districts spring breaks from mid March to the end of May. It all started in southern England where the schools let out in extra early spring and as we drove north hoping to outrun the junior invasion we just kept pace with the more northern districts later dismissal bells. We mistakenly thought that we could escape all this by returning to Europe but instead we ran into a similar situation as we drove southward. It seems that many districts in Europe stagger their semester school terms and therefore we were extremely surprised to discover so many enthusiastic camping families on the road. In addition to the school spring holidays some areas of Europe seem to enjoy a large number of holiday weekends as well and therefore we found ourselves in retirement travel stress mode at times. It’s interesting that we didn’t run into this phenomena in 2014, I guess location and timing is everything. Despite these somewhat busy conditions we continued to enjoy our motorhoming lifestyle and really had very few negative issues of any kind.
Driving north through the Italian Alps we were surprised at how much the area resembled Bavaria in looks, atmosphere and the personality of the local people. There truly is a striking difference between northern and southern Italy even though the distance separating them is not that great. The Black Forest in Germany is one of our favourite places and driving through this majestic region is like stepping into the pages of a fairy tale book. I’ve decided that my “bucket list” now includes a motorcycle ride through the Black Forest. We continued our drive north along the “Romantic Road” which passes through some amazingly beautiful German towns like Nordlingen, Dinkelsbuhl and Rothenburg (our favourite). We had a nice stop in Heidelberg before striking out along the mighty Rhine river passed all those castles and vineyards on our way to another favourite camping spot just outside of Cologne. In 2014 we regrettably missed seeing Gent in Belgium and so this time around we made sure to save time for a good visit to this often overlooked little gem of a city. As expected it did not disappoint us with its historic and bustling old town centre. Gent’s nice mixture of canals, castles and cathedrals made for a very interesting strolling experience but with the addition of a few open markets and well-appointed chocolate shops, we had a really good day.
Back in Holland we were once again treated like royalty by our new Dutch relatives. Thank you to Anneke, Els, Aad, Hedy, Kees, Jen and Nynke for such a wonderful time and visit. We’re already looking forward to the day that we can reciprocate your kindness in Canada.
As we pack our bags and ready ourselves for our flight home we can hardly believe that four months has passed by since we started this eleven thousand kilometre trek across Britain and Europe. We have had a fantastic time exploring many new lands in our comfortable little motorhome, we’ve seen countless amazing sights and met numerous wonderful people. But I must say that we’re now really looking forward to returning home and spending some quality time with our two magnificent new grandsons, Everett and Benson.

Our strategic Normandy landing via Calais was a complete success, but for some strange reason, driving on the “proper” side of the road now seemed surprisingly wrong. As we drove along the countryside we were reminded of how beautiful this part of France is with its rolling green hills, beautiful cliffs and sandy beaches. We manoeuvred our way through Rouen heading towards Paris and stopped long enough to get a good impression of just how fantastic this old city is with its vast and well-preserved tudor style buildings. After watching some impressive boat racing on the river, we left thinking Rouen does not get the full traveler attention it deserves. Paris is amazing! We didn’t do a single touristy venue kind of activity this time, we just leisurely strolled through the beautiful parks, magnificent boulevards and along the Seine river for days. The sidewalk cafe’s, interesting people, unique shops and fantastic architecture are seemingly endless and we again walked for miles and miles just soaking it all in. After spending a total of over five short weeks (both trips combined) exploring Paris, we’ve decided that this is our most desirable big city of all. Heading south we stopped in Lyon which also turned out to be a very pleasant surprise with its old Roman ruins overlooking the Rhone river and beautiful ancient city below.
Moving south through the lush green wine district of Burgundy there was no shortage of vineyards, little towns and old castles sprinkled throughout the hills to admire. We stopped overnight in Avignon, a favourite spot from our last trip, and once again paid homage to the famous little bridge that leads into the equally famous walled city. From Avignon we made our way to the French Riviera and arrived in Cannes just in time for the opening of the Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately we just missed meeting George Clooney and Julia Roberts and we’re convinced it had everything to do with the policemen who refused to allow us to drive our motorhome along the waterfront and past the grand “red carpet” festivities. Oh well, possibly we’ll have another chance some day to meet them at the Victoria Film Festival. Onward from Nice through a high altitude breathtaking coastal drive to Monaco where we took a wrong turn and almost found ourselves trapped forever on a tiny hillside street between two rows of old and very tall buildings. Thank you to all those patient Monacon drivers for avoiding excessive use of their Vespa and “little-car” horns. Margot is still recovering. Venice is our next big destination and then northward towards Amsterdam we go as the last days of this trip are quickly ticking by. Signing off with a Happy belated Mothers Day to all our favourite Mum’s out there (especially our new ones) and an early Happy Fathers Day to all you Dads as well.

On our way to Wales we stopped in at Blackpool for a quick look at the festive and famous beachside pier area. This is where the tall “Eiffel-like” Blackpool Tower plays a role in ringing in the British New Year similarly to the dropping of the ball in Times Square.
Unfortunately we celebrated our introduction to Wales with two nasty bouts of 24 hour flu. Luckily Margot was mostly recovered from hers by the time I went down and in both cases we were lucky to find nice campgrounds to mend in. Other than our challenging flu experience, Wales was wonderful. This northern region is not only filled with picturesque rocky outcroppings populated with countless grazing sheep, it’s also filled with a rich and rugged history as well. Castles are everywhere and these fortifications were definitely designed for battle and not show. We were especially impressed with Caernarfon Castle where the Prince of Wales has traditionally been crowned since Edward II.
On our way out of Wales we stopped at an amazing World Heritage site that truly impressed us. The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct was built to transport canal boats across the wide and deep Llangollen gorge. It took 10 years to build this structure and when finished it was considered an engineering marvel of its time… and still is today. This area was a major Chemical production zone and moving volatile chemicals by land was too rough and dangerous so this smooth water based “high level” extension to the Llangollen canal system was the answer. Today the only dangerous goods transported across this aqueduct are tourists. We chose to walk rather than ride over it and it really was a weird sensation to be walking along this catwalk in the sky with a boat quietly sliding past apparently floating in air. We could have easily spent much more time exploring this beautiful part of the world if the clock was not ticking by so quickly.
We drove onward to Stone (this area is world-renowned for its production of fine bone china) and stopped in at the “Dunoon” ceramics company where we were treated like royalty. We were escorted into their showroom by Jane, one of the company artists, and here we met Peter a co-owner of the company. Peter took us on a personal tour of his large and impressive production facility, we were so impressed that he would make this amount of time available just for us. The two lovely ladies in the front office were wonderful ambassadors for Dunoon and they even donated a couple of Christmas collector plates to add to our collection. Needless to say we we’re as impressed with the people at Dunoon as we are with the fun, practical and quality ceramic products they produce.
In Nottingham we stopped at the oldest pub in Britain (1189) the “Olde Trip to Jerusalem” just before touching base with Robin Hood a short walk up the hill and below the castle walls. A quick stop at the fantastic Burghley House (Palace) a short distance south of Nottingham had us “wowing” to ourselves. Can’t imagine what it would be like to call a place like this home. Interestingly, the present Lord of this amazing residence lives and runs a successful business in Vancouver but still maintains his connections and duties to the old British homestead. We had a great day strolling around Cambridge and the more we explored the more impressed with the place we became. Visited the “Eagle’ pub that Watson & Crick frequented and talked over their ideas on DNA structure. Down the street is the building where Steven Hawkins received his masters degree. Like layers of an onion, the more you peel away, the more interesting the town becomes. Also Cambridge has a very vibrant downtown area and overall I have to say that it has the edge over Oxford for us.
It was nice to have an extra couple of days in London. This time around we got a chance to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and tour the inside of Westminster Abby. We ended our awesome travels in England by driving South to the “White Cliffs of Dover” and spending a final night in Canterbury, the same place we started our British Invasion.
Onward to Paris and beyond.

We camped within walking distance of the best preserved part of Hadrian’s Wall and wasted no time checking out this impressive military line of defence. If you feel up-to-it, you can walk the entire length of this 117 km coast-to-coast stone wall that was built by the Romans along their northern most frontier to help control the barbarians beyond. Only a few kilometres away we visited the significant Roman ruins of Fort Vindolanda that archaeologists are still excavating and will be for many years to come. When seeing all of this infrastructure so far away from Rome, one can’t help being in complete awe of the power and might of this ancient empire.
We crossed the border into Scotland and spent our first night near Lockerbie in a great campground that was located within the grounds of a small castle. What a wonderful introduction to Scotland. We drove on into Edinburgh city and had a great time checking out its famous castle on the hill and then exploring the historic city below. Margot managed to find a local “Scottish Knitwear Designer” with beautiful handmade custom apparel and so we significantly helped Bill Baber reach his month’s end income target. On to St Andrews where we were pleasantly surprised to find that there is a great deal to this historic town besides it’s world-famous golf course. We actually managed to get time on the Old Course and played 18 exciting holes… unfortunately the 18 holes were limited to the putting practice greens only. Margot got real lucky and won the game (actually, I was trying to be nice to her… and the sun was in my eyes). I’m sure I’ll never hear the end of this game. After this fun but stressful game we visited “Jiggers” legendary pub at the end of the 17 hole to mellow-out and somehow got mixed up in a wedding stag with a large and friendly group of guys having fun and celebrating to the max. The old downtown is small but impressive and the great University in St Andrew is where Kate & Will first met and dated. The Castle and huge cathedral ruins were cool as well. From St. Andrews we drove through Dundee to visit the oldest working Scotch Distillery in Scotland. The Famous Grouse Distillery has been producing fine Scotch whiskey since 1775. The small distillery is filled with character and we had a great tour and tasting. Stirling was next in line and we were impressed with this little city. We discovered that this area is truly the heart of Scotland. From the top of the impressive memorial tower to William Wallace you can see his battlefield below (Braveheart), the castle across the valley, and the battlefield of Robert the Bruce in the distance. On through Glasgow and down the coast to the wonderful Culzean Castle. We stayed a short distance away at Turnberry and had a chance to check out the famous golf course with hotel that Donald Trump has purchased and is spending a fortune on fixing-up. It will be opening this summer and it will definitely be first class. On our way out of Scotland we stopped to pay tribute to Robert Burns at his birthplace near Ayr where they have an impressive museum and park in his honour. We were sorry to leave this friendly Scotland behind.
For a number of reasons we’ve decided to forgo Ireland and save that beautiful country for another adventure (sorry Terry) so now we’re quickly heading south and starting to plan our re-entry into Europe.

We’ve covered a substantial amount of ground since Lands End. Heading northward through mid England we’ve stumbled across many very interesting places between the “big-name” tourist destinations. Unfortunately trying to describe all these great “little” finds would require blogging in the extreme so you’ll just have to wait until we get home and on request (or not), we’ll yak “on-and-on” about them for as long as you can stand it. Having said all that, there is one place that does deserve a special mention. Ironbridge Gorge is where the Industrial Revolution was kick started and the impressive 1779 Iron bridge spanning the gorge was its catalyst. Engineers from around the world came to marvel at this wonderful new structure and then went home with new ideas on how to create things with this brand-new super material. Interestingly, 237 years ago they were still trying to figure out how to work with steel and cast iron so they opted to build this bridge using popular woodworking joinery methods and under closer examination you’ll see common techniques such as dovetail and pinned mortise & tenon joints throughout. As for other major tourist centres, we’ve done our best to touch base with as many as possible including Bath, Bristol, Wells, Stratford-upon-Avon, Chester, Manchester, Liverpool and York and I think we did a fairly good job of covering the highlights of each. I will admit however that a big highlight for us was our Beatles “mania day” in Liverpool where we visited the Cavern Club, took a National Trust special tour of Paul and John’s childhood homes, waved hello to Strawberry Fields and walked the circle at Penny Lane, what a fun day. By-the-way, the downtown waterfront area of Liverpool deserves a big shout-out as a great place to wander, shop or just hang-out.
Unfortunately we don’t have the time to cover everything so as we move about we’re sometimes forced to make difficult decisions as to what we see and what we add to our wish list. On top of that wish list will be Cambridge, Norwich and Nottingham. Scotland is now close at hand and we’re looking forward to eating Haggis to the sweet and mellow sound of the bag pipes. Wish you could join us!

After wrapping up London with an honorary stride across Abbey Road we headed West for Henley-on-Thames. Strolling around this international rowing Mecca reminded us of Kristen’s exciting rowing days and it didn’t take long before we found ourselves in a state of “Crew” nostalgia. Nearby is Oxford and once again we couldn’t help but think of the kids when we visited Christ Church College and walked through the grand eating hall from the Harry Potter movie. Moving on, Stonehenge was more impressive than we thought it would be and Salisbury Cathedral (which houses one of four remaining Magna Carta originals) was up there as well. Plymouth was a pleasant surprise. The Mayflower Steps in Plymouth’s old harbour is mostly famous for being the departure point of the Pilgrims in 1620 but this is also the harbour where Drake, Cook, Raleigh, Darwin and many other world explorers set sail from as well. As you can imagine, not much to see or do at Lands End but the drive through beautiful Cornwall made this drive out worthwhile.
We plan on passing through the Bath area and then moving quickly north toward Scotland. The days may be getting longer but they’re still slipping on by very quickly and we’re starting to get a bit nervous about running out of time to do everything we planned. Travel can be sooo stressful:-)
Wishing everyone a very Happy Easter!