More travel planning done

We're going to be on six different airplanes during the month of October. Possibly even seven.

A week from today, we fly from Ottawa to Halifax, Nova Scotia to spend 11 days with our daughter and her family.

How was Ruth's Weekend?

So someone on our Facebook group was wondering how I filled up my weekend. So today you will get a rare post from me (Ruth).

I enjoyed a quiet afternoon and night by myself on Thursday and then on Friday afternoon my sister Lesley and her friend Lynn arrived to spend the weekend with me. They drove up from Hamilton, Ontario.

End of another great weekend

Saturday was another nice day, although with a few high clouds we didn't have quite as much sunshine. Still, it was certainly a nice enough day for a hike in nearby Bon Echo Provincial Park.

There is a figure 8 loop we wanted to do, with the lower part of the loop being about 3.5 kms and if we included the upper part of the loop the total would be 7.5 kms.

The perfect time to be in this part of the world...

Had some fun yesterday playing with the camera in our new phone. Bottom line is, I am thrilled. So much versatility in such a small package. 

As forecast, it was a gorgeous fall day. Other than the fact that I had a self inflicted minor hangover (all better today though!), it was perfect! And it looks like that is going to continue for the next week or so. 

Absolutely perfect!

Yesterday, I left Ruth by herself and drove two hours west to the shore of Mazinaw Lake, just south of Bon Echo Provincial Park.

My guys weekend away this year is a long weekend. We all decided that two nights wasn't long enough, so we added on a Thursday.

"When are you going to settle down?"

This is one of the questions we get on a regular basis.

When we started out, we were only 45 years old. We didn't have a lot of money, and we had a two year plan. Worst case scenario, we had to go back to work. But two years came and went and we didn't want to go back to a "normal" life.

Country list update

I posted a list here a few years ago, but I want to keep it more current so that it's easier for me to go back to and update. 

There are 193 countries in the United Nations. And there are another bunch of countries that are not recognized by other countries as being countries. That brings the total up to 215.

The camera on our new phone

I'm pretty impressed!

We bought a new smartphone... a very expensive one. The main reason we bought it is because we want to travel with as little as possible. It's just so much easier that way. So I wanted to ditch our big camera. And I figured that if I'm going to travel with a phone anyhow, then why not get a phone that has a really good camera in it. 

Back in Ottawa

Sunday morning, we said goodbye to Alex, CJ, and Lucy the dog at around 11:00am and did the long drive back to Manotick (Ottawa). It was pouring rain for the first two hours or so of the drive.

We took the route that goes through Algonquin Provincial Park. Would have liked to have stopped for a hike, but with the mandatory $21 daily pass to stop at a trailhead, it's just not worth it.

A beautiful day in cottage country

We woke up to an absolutely beautiful fall day here in "cottage country".

They call this part of Ontario "cottage country" because it's located about an hour and a half north of Toronto and since about the 1950's, the more affluent would build a weekend getaway in this area. It used to be a pretty quiet area, but of course it's getting more and more built up over the years, and lakefront property is now ridiculously expensive.