Our Health and Health Care

We don't talk very much about our health or health care. That's because this blog is about our travels, it's not about politics or religion or current events. And health care (especially in the U.S.) is a very political topic. We definitely have our opinions about all of these things, but we've learned that people in general are very polarized when it comes to these topics and some people aren't able to grasp that if we disagree on something we can still be friends!

But our health and health care is related to our travels in some ways.

Kevin, ready for the War of 1812!

The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent. Thomas Jefferson, Aug 4, 1812.

Apparently not.

The Traveler IQ Challenge

Came across a fun game yesterday that will test your geography and travel knowledge.

A screen showing a map appears. Different place names and famous attractions come up near the top of the screen and you have to place your cursor and click where on the map you think that place is. You are scored based on how close to the actual location that you clicked. But there is a time factor as well and you get bonus points if you click fast!

Planning for New York City

A week and a half from now, we arrive in New York City. The Big Apple! And so we're doing some planning. We're going to be there for four nights. We arrive November 2nd at Newark Airport in New Jersey and we depart November 6th from JFK Airport in Queens.

We were in New York City in October of 2000. Eleven months before the twin towers came down.

Great views at Blomidon Provincial Park

We dropped Cameron off at daycare yesterday morning, and then went for a hike at Blomidon Provincial Park. (GPS 45.25702, -64.351691). The park is closed for the season, but you can still leave your car at the lower day use area and go for a walk on the beach or the trails. We chose the trails, as we were due for some exercise and the trails are steep in places.

Noggins Farm Corn Maze. Amazing!

We had never been to a corn maze before this, and we're glad we chose one of the best around as our first attempt. We didn't realize that it's actually an educational game...you have to find various information stands in the maze and fill out a form to find hidden words.

Lots of fun for young and old. Besides the corn maze, there's also a special haunted house feature done by the local Red Cross as well as a rope maze, duck races, washer toss game, puzzle mazes, and the barnyard adventure area.

Fossil Hunting at Blue Beach, Nova Scotia

Yesterday, we went for a walk at Blue Beach, Nova Scotia. The rocks on this beach have produced some of the oldest fossils found in the world, dating back 350 million years ago!

Blue Beach is located on the northern shore of Nova Scotia, in between the towns of Windsor and Wolfville. It's also situated on part of the Bay of Fundy where the highest tides in the world take place.

Fun being grandparents!

A few raindrops yesterday, but not enough to stop us from going out and getting some fresh air. We looked up a hike to a waterfall, but when we got to the trail we found that parts of it were not suited to having small children with us, so we never made it to the falls!

Walk around Gaspereau Valley, Nova Scotia

Beautiful fall day yesterday, with the temperature reaching 22C (73F). That's pretty warm for a mid October day in this part of the world! Ruth and daughter Lindsey took grandson Cameron to daycare in the morning, and I went for a fast paced 5 km (3 mile) walk.

This is a nice area.

Nova Scotia does have some pretty scenery, that's for sure. We've been here quite a few times now, twice exploring with the motorhome, and a couple of times visiting by car and airplane.

Our daughter and her family live near the town of Wolfville at the far east end of Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, a diverse agricultural area along the Bay of Fundy with a wide range of products from fruit trees to corn to milk and chicken production.

Arrived in Nova Scotia!

We are now at our daughter Lindsey's place near Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada. But we better get you all caught up on our activities of the last few of days and how we arrived here!

Let's go back to Saturday after we were finished our two night stay exploring downtown Ottawa.

Ottawa Marriott Hotel

The Ottawa Marriott Hotel has a distinctive design that stands out in the skyline of Ottawa, Canada's capital city. Built in 1972, the rooftop has a huge revolving room that spins at a rate of one revolution every two hours. It is the 8th tallest building in the National Capital Region.

It's a large hotel with 486 guestrooms and all the amenities a downtown hotel should offer.

Ottawa Haunted Walking Tours

Friday evening, we went for a walk in downtown Ottawa.

A haunted walk!

Lady Dive Amphibus Tour - Ottawa

Okay, so this was different!

We've seen these amphibious bus/boat tours in several cities and always thought it would be a neat thing to do. And doing it in Ottawa would be especially neat because some of the views from the Ottawa River are really worthwhile.

Playing tourist in Ottawa, Canada's Capital City

Ottawa is sometimes overlooked because of it's location in between Toronto and Montreal. But it's a really pretty city and well worth a visit so we thought we would wander around the downtown area yesterday and take some photos to show you.

Bungee Jumping Ottawa

This is one of those things that messes with your senses. I don't quite know how to explain it. A part of your brain is filling your system with adrenaline and making you excited about the thrill of bouncing through the air on a ride that is far better than anything you'll find at the county fair.

However another part of your brain is screaming "don't do it!".

Bungee Jumping Today!

By the way, this was Ruth's idea. So when she is standing on the edge hesitating to jump, I shall remind her of that.

You only live once, right? Or more correctly, you only die once! You actually live every single day. Which is what you're supposed to do anyhow. So we're making the most of it, and when the opportunity arose to plunge off a 200 ft high platform attached to a giant rubber band, we signed up.

Yet another new camera!

Well I hope we finally have our camera problems solved. We're going to have a LOT of photos to show you over the next few months with our upcoming travel to Nova Scotia, and New York City, and then of course Southern Africa!

Who won a trip to Australia? (Part 2)

If you missed yesterday's post you're going to want to read it first...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2013/10/who-won-trip-to-australia.html

And so today, we continue Denise's trip to Australia. Love your photos Denise!

Who won a trip to Australia?

Many of our regular readers will remember last year when we entered a contest to win a trip to Australia. Due to a lot of effort from our readers, we came in first in our category. But that was not enough to lock in the win.

Coincidentally, the person who won that contest has become a reader of this blog and we asked her to tell us about her trip. Hey, if we couldn't go, at least we can tell you about the person who did.

And so, we introduce you to Denise Perrier who wrote about her 10 week Australia adventure for us. She also supplied some of her beautiful photographs from that trip!

The cheque is in the mail!

I guess these Amex adjusters work on weekends. Had an email from the girl yesterday saying that my claim has been processed and closed and the cheque (check) is in the mail!

Oddly, they don't even want the camera back. This becomes a bit of a bonus for us because we now have a spare battery to bring with us to Africa.

More proof that we are not 25 anymore!

We sure did party like it though.

Late blog post today due to the longer age related recovery period after a night like that...

Good News!

So, it looks like Amex is coming through with the coverage on the camera. So, we learned something new about the benefits of some credit cards. And because this was our first claim and it was for under $500, they were able to process it with less documentation than is normally required. Still waiting to hear back from my last email, but it looks like they simply send us a cheque for the amount of the claim. I don't even think they want the old camera back, which could be a bonus because we will now have a spare battery!

Next week, we'll go back to Future Shop (owned by Best Buy here in Canada) and see if they will match the same price they gave me on the original camera.

We don't seem to have any luck with cameras!

I mentioned last Saturday that when we were out on a hike with friends John and Diane, I dropped our new Nikon P520 camera.

Of course, it landed on a rock.

The Balanced Rocks of Remic Rapids

This is kind of cool, and exactly the type of thing we love to see when we're exploring an area.

Our hometown is Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. Because we grew up here, and we know the city very well, we wanted to find some things to do that we've never seen or done before.

September Expenses

Well, we had a planned budget of $1,300 for the month of September, and we blew it!

Just kidding, but we did exceed our plan a little bit. Total expenses came in at $1,446.

Trip down to Ottawa

We're going to be doing this drive quite a few times between now and October 15th when we leave for Nova Scotia. We're staying at Ruth's father's house in the village of Galetta, which is about a 45 minute drive from the center of the city of Ottawa, Canada's capital.

We made it!

Despite the fact that we haven't lived here for six years and we'll probably never live here again, we still consider Ottawa our hometown. So arriving back here for the first time in almost a year is pretty exciting for us and we've been looking forward to seeing the family and friends that we have in the area.

We left here October 22nd of last year.

Elliot Lake, Ontario

Elliot Lake is an interesting town. Or at least it has an interesting history.

In the early fifties, a huge ore body of uranium was discovered in this area. So the city was designed as a planned community for the mining industry, and by the late 1950's there were 25,000 people living here.

Fastest Border Crossing Ever!

Yesterday morning, our friends Bill and Bonnie were getting up early to go get their solar installation done on their motorhome. They had a three hour drive to the appointment, so they woke us up as they were ready to go. It was only 5:40am, but we decided to stay up and get an early start.

A drive around Amish country

Bill and Bonnie took us for a drive to see the sights around the area. There is a large Amish population in this area and of course it's interesting to see this culture a little more up close. Sorry we don't have many pictures, but we didn't want to seem intrusive.

What a great day...

First, we had to get the drive over with. We tried to get an early start, and it was about 8:30am by the time we left Marquette.

Beautiful day in Marquette, Michigan!

When I had been doing some research about the places we were planning on stopping along this road trip, one of the things I found was that Marquette, Michigan was voted #1 on CNNMoney's list of the top 25 places to retire in the United States.

We went exploring yesterday, on a beautiful blue sky day, and we found out that Marquette (pop 22,000) is a nice little town!

Duluth, Minnesota to Marquette, Michigan

Hit the road yesterday morning around 8:30am. We were trying to make it to Marquette by 2:00pm, having planned a hike with our couchsurfing host Joy when we got there.

Had no problems making it out of Duluth on a Sunday morning. Hardly any traffic at all.

Toxic Tuesday

Toxic Tuesday? Well let me tell you a story about our first attempt to visit Duluth, Minnesota.

Back at the end of June 1992, Ruth and I took our young children (6 and 4 at the time) on a road trip from Ottawa to Fort Frances, Ontario. We took the American route through Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

And we never did make it to Duluth.

Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox

We tried to leave Grand Forks fairly early, but it was still around 9:30am by the time we got on the road. Said goodbye to our couchsurfing host Jasmine, and got on our way.

Back in the U.S.A.!

We were up early yesterday morning, and on the road before 9:00am. We were only 20 kms (12 miles) from the border crossing, so it wasn't long before we pulled over at the inspection and customs building.

This border crossing is one of a series of old and underutilized road crossings between the U.S. and Canada in the Saskatchewan and Manitoba area.

Excuse me...are you Kevin and Ruth?

This has to be one of the strangest questions that we have heard in our travels. It's when someone actually recognizes us because of this blog. It's only happened to us three or four times over the years, but it's so totally strange when it does.

And yesterday we had it happen again!

That was a long drive!

But we totally enjoyed it. I know, an 800 km (500 mile) drive is not the way we usually like to travel. We love road trips, but usually a long day for us is 200 kms (120 miles)!

We were up at 6:00am Tuesday morning, and driving out of the parking lot at the campground at 7:20am.

We're the only ones here.

Everybody is gone now. The campground is empty. The store, restaurant, and registration are all closed up.

It's just us and the squirrels.

Heigh ho, heigh ho,

it's off to our last day of work we go!

We've been waiting for this day since May the 1st!

Strange places to visit

We like to find strange, different, and quirky things to see and do in our travels. Even if it means going out of our way or being slightly uncomfortable, we think that to experience these things is to live. Here are some of the strangest things we've seen and done...