We are going to like it here!

Thursday was a day of rest, for the most part. We spent the morning planning, although we still didn't come up with a firm choice as to where we are going next. Not that we're in a huge rush to figure it out because we are here until next Wednesday.

I know, that's only five days away, but there are a LOT of empty accommodation options available. Normally the British would be starting to come to this area for a holiday. But Turkey is not on the quarantine exemption list for Britain, so although they are welcome to come here, they have to quarantine for 14 days when they return home. So not nearly as many will be coming.

Fethiye and the Amyntas Rock Tombs

We are just getting ourselves into a blog posting routine here in Turkey. I know that it feels to most of you like you missed a daily blog post along the way, but our activities take place 7 hours ahead of eastern time and this blog post actually gets us caught up. You haven't missed a thing! 

We will try to post during our morning here which means when those of you in North America wake up each morning, there will be a blog post waiting for you and you will be able to read Travel with Kevin and Ruth while drinking your morning coffee.

First impressions of Turkey

As I write this, we have been in Turkey (country #39 for us!) for a total of about 7 hours.

And our first impressions are that we are really going to like Turkey!

Let's back up a little bit to our overnight stay at London's Gatwick airport. We had booked a cheaper and better than expected room at the Premier Inn Hotel located right across the street from the airport terminal.

Made it to London, England... and another glitch...

Our flight from Ottawa to Toronto was uneventful. It was just a small two propeller turbo prop plane, and it was probably 80% full. It was a one hour flight.

Then we had a five hour wait for our Toronto to London flight. We arrived Toronto at 4:00pm, and our London flight was scheduled to depart at 9:00pm.

Big change of plans!

We were in Gravenhurst, Ontario (about 2 hours north of Toronto) yesterday visiting with our son and his girlfriend. Our daughter and the grandkids showed up as well! It was a great family send off for us!

However...

Just before lunch I got an email from our Airbnb host in Berlin. She said that Berlin has been declared a Covid hotspot and that we would have to quarantine for 5 days after we arrive in Berlin. Not only that, but we might have difficulty moving on to another spot in Germany depending on the rules of the German state that we would happen to be moving to. 

Road trip!

 We had a bunch of last minute stuff to do at Ruth's dad's house. You would think that after having been there for more than two months we would have been totally organized to leave, but we still found ourselves rushing around at the last minute.

We didn't leave the house until around 12:45pm, and then we still had to drop one last load of stuff off at the charity shop, and go to the bank and do some other running around.

Looking forward to a road trip!

Well, we are done at the house... for now. There is still a lot to be done, or at least a lot that could be done. But eventually it will be up to the people who buy the place. In the meantime, Ruth's brother Colin will take over where we left off and it will be up to him to get some more things done over the winter.

The plan is that we will return here for the last two weeks of May next year. We have the auction arranged for Saturday ,May 29th.

We had been hoping to visit England

Ruth's parents came to Canada from England back in the late 1950's so she still has relatives there and we like to visit every few years. But the last time we were in England was in July of 2012!

So we really were due for a visit, which is why we originally booked our upcoming flight to London. The price was cheap, and when we booked it back in June we figured that maybe they would have lifted the quarantine for arrivals from Canada by now. Of course that hasn't happened which is why we are now carrying on to Berlin.

Packing for our trip

We always travel light, but I think this time will be especially light! We each have a Chester carry on size bag, so we can only take so much with us in the first place. 

We will be bringing all of our Tilley travel clothes... including our fresh supply of Tilley socks and underwear. Ruth will also be bringing a pair of jeans, but I am sticking with my Tilley travel pants and a pair of Columbia hiking pants.

The start of our 14th year

Thirteen years ago yesterday, we closed the sale of our house and moved into the motorhome to embark on a different lifestyle. We have no regrets at all... we love our life!

And so begins the fourteenth year of Travel with Kevin and Ruth. And we think it's going to be a great year!

Weekend with granddaughter Sadie, and Berlin accommodation confirmed

Lots of fun having granddaughter Sadie (7) with us for the weekend. She's a really good kid to look after, and such a little sweetheart. Of course that is just the grandpa's opinion, so it might be a little biased!

We didn't do anything special though. The weather wasn't the best, and you can sure tell that winter is coming!

One week to go!

A week from today we fly to London, England. Not that we will be seeing any of London, but we have been there several times in the past. We will not be leaving the airport terminal, and will be connecting to Berlin, Germany after a long layover.

This week will go by quickly! 

Things are coming together and we are starting to get excited!

Yesterday, I had thought that we might wait a few more days to book accommodation in Germany. But I had a quick look through AirBnb and came across an inexpensive one that caught my interest. I sent the host a couple of questions, which she eventually answered, but by the time I went to book it, somebody else had already done so!

So, while there are lots of choices available in Berlin because tourism is down and the weather is quickly cooling off, the good ones still do go quickly. I figured I had better spend a bit more time looking for one that is suitable for us.

What's the plan?

Back in to Ottawa yesterday where we had a nice visit with my mother and older sister. Then it was off to pick up Ruth's dad and we brought him out for a drive. We also had some running around to do, including a stop to change some Mexican pesos into euros.

When we were preparing to leave Mexico last March, we thought we had our cash situation figured out so that we wouldn't have very much left over when we actually crossed the border. But because of Covid altered plans, we ended up staying in one spot the last ten days and that actually meant we didn't spend as much cash.

Day trip to the U.S. border, and final paperwork on the new motorhome

Yesterday evening we posted our expenses for the month of September. If you missed it, you can read it here...

https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2020/09/september-expenses.html

We picked up the grandkids yesterday and took them out for a field trip day. The weather was kind of iffy, but we brought raincoats. The destination? The border town of Brockville, Ontario (pop 21,000) ... the site of Canada's first railway tunnel.

September Expenses

Well, a pretty good month, all things considered.

We spent a total of $1,736 CAD ($1,304 USD) for the month. And once again, the amount reinforces the fact that we spend as much money staying in one place here in Canada as we do when we're traveling and seeing new sights virtually every day when we're traveling in a motorhome.

It's all just gambling

Insurance of any kind is simply gambling. You pay the premium (place your bet) that something bad will happen to you and your insurance will pay for it so you can collect your winnings.

The difference is of course that you really don't want to win!

We leave in less than two weeks!

Canadian income taxes are normally due at the end of April. But because of Covid, the Canadian government kept delaying the date at which you would be charged interest and/or penalties and eventually the date became September 30th. So I bit the bullet and paid them yesterday. It sure did look better in my account than in theirs!

I feel like we didn't get very good value for our money. They don't tend to spend it very wisely.

Beautiful fall colors

 After a late Friday night campfire with one too many shots of bourbon, we got up and after breakfast drove up to the ski resort village of Mont Tremblant.

We made our way to the Nez-de-l'indien trailhead to find the parking lot already full, but managed to find parking nearby. Not surprising about the number of people... it was a gorgeous day with the fall colors in full bloom.

Good start to the weekend

Just a few photos today. 

I got a 9:00am start to drive up to a friend's cottage. A bit of a drive from Galetta, and I had to go through the city of Ottawa and into the province of Quebec. And, I had to make a quick stop at his house to pick up something he had forgotten.

I will not be buying eyeglasses here in Canada

So, yesterday morning we drove into Ottawa again. We had an 11:45am get together with my mom and sister, and I figured that we would stop at an optician ahead of that. But when I looked them up, they don't open until 11:00am, and I figured that might not give us enough time.

So we met with my mom and sister and had a good visit, then went to the Hakim Optical store in the Carlingwood Shopping Center.

Broken glasses!

I was outside yesterday pressure washing the siding on the house. The beige colored siding hadn't been cleaned in probably 15 years, and it was starting to turn green in some areas. Of course a lot of the water comes splashing back at you at times, and my glasses were getting pretty wet.

I took them off to give them a wipe, and one of the arms broke right off!

Just an update...

We're having a stretch of really nice fall weather here in south eastern Ontario. It's supposed to continue on through the weekend, so that's good news for my annual get together with the guys. Maybe a chance of some rain on Sunday, but that's still a few days away.

In the meantime... we'll take it!

What a frustrating job that turned out to be!

Busy day yesterday as we went in to Ottawa again. 

When we had picked up grandson Cameron the other day, we stopped in at Lowes and bought some new drawer slides for the six large drawers in the kitchen here at Ruth's dad's house. The old ones were simply worn out. Rather than replace them with cheap ones, I made the decision to get the pricey nice ones that have that fancy "soft close" mechanism.

Wir sind Kevin und Ruth

We are Kevin and Ruth.. in German!

We have several regular readers here that have German backgrounds. And in fact, Ruth and I both have some German background, but it goes back a couple of generations and unfortunately the language was never passed down.

The property where we are staying

The property where we are staying has belonged to Ruth's father Tony since they bought it in 1966. 

So he lived here for over fifty years. Ruth was only four years old when they moved in, and she lived here until she left for Ottawa at age nineteen.

When I met Ruth in 1983, her parents were actually living in the house next door which they had also purchased, and they lived there while adding a major addition to this house. They moved back into this house when the addition was completed in 1985.