Starting our 15th year with Slovenia... country #46.

It was 14 years ago today that we set off with our new to us motorhome Sherman. It was also 14 years ago today that we published our very first blog post as we hit the road. You can read that very first blog post here... https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2007/10/were-cookin-with-gas-now.html

We started writing this blog as a way for family and friends to know where we are and what we're doing. As time went on, it also became a valuable daily diary for us... we often look back at something to confirm a fact or a memory. We had no idea at the time that it would attract over 2,000 readers a day and that it would also contribute to our ability to continue traveling.

Lake Millstatt and the city of Villach, Austria

We took the narrow winding backroads from Gmund to Villach. So much more interesting than the autobahn. But yes, also so much more slower! We also did a detour around the north side of Lake Millstatt, and we're glad we did... such a scenic area.

We're not in a rush now, although we do want to continue south to warmer weather. We could take about 10 or 12 days to get through Slovenia if we wanted before our Schengen Visa time ran out, but we'll probably do it in about a week, and then we'll be in Croatia.

Austria is really a hiking paradise

We took a day off from driving on Tuesday, although we're going to have to get a move on simply to get to some warmer weather. Today, the forecast high here in Gmund is 8C (47F), although that's obviously below normal for this time of year because the long term forecast for next week shows highs of around 14C. (58F).

Oh, I have to mention how impressed we are with Max's heating system. The American manufacturers could learn a thing or two!

Hellbrunn Palace and the Trick Fountains, then drive to Gmund

We left the RV park in Salzburg by 8:00am. Used all the facilities so that Max has empty holding tanks and a full fresh water tank, and his batteries are fully charged. 

We still had one more attraction that we wanted to see that was included with our Salzburg tourist cards, and we had to make sure we gained admission before the cards expired at 10:40am. Hellbrunn Palace is located south of the city, so it was along our route heading south anyhow.

Playing tourist in Salzburg

There are a lot of touristy things to do in Salzburg, and of course many of them cost money. We had done most of the free stuff on Saturday, so on Sunday we did the paid stuff. The best way to take advantage of this is with the Salzburg Tourist Card. You can buy one for 24, 48, or 72 hours and it gives you admission and/or discounts to most of the areas attractions. 

We bought the 24 hour card (thanks Mom!) for €29 ($42 CAD, $34 USD) per adult.

Change of plans

Woke up yesterday morning and had to put the heat on. It's going to be the same thing for the next few mornings, I think. Winter is coming. 

One of the rigs parked near us is huge. You don't see them often, but you do see the occasional large motorhome here in Europe. It's not only the Americans who build large RVs. Anyhow, we were watching the owner yesterday morning, and at one point the entire rear panel of this big motorhome started sliding upwards.

Arrived in Austria! Country #45 for us...

We only had about a 20 minute drive to get to the RV park that we had chosen from which to base ourselves for exploring the city of Salzburg, Austria.

Located about 5 kms (3 miles) north of the city center, the Reisemobil Stellplatz Salzburg is really well thought out. You can tell it was designed by people who actually use motorhomes!

Today, we are off to Austria!

Thursday morning, we said goodbye to friends Glen and Steve. It was just a short visit, but they are headed for Turkey for three months, and they want to be able to cross the border on November 1st. We are also headed for Turkey, but we don't want to cross until January 1st, or thereabouts. 

So we hope to cross paths with them again in January in Turkey.

Exploring the alpine town of Bad Reichenhall, Germany

It rained much of Wednesday morning. After lunch, we drove the short distance down to the town of Bad Reichenhall, the rain had pretty much stopped. We found a busy free parking area where we were lucky to get a spot, but that's because it was only a short walk to the central area.

This whole area is a little on the touristy side, and it's easy to understand why. It turns out that Bad Reichenhall is a really pretty little town, and there's a lot to do around here. Including many beautiful hiking trails.

A lot can change in 64 years!

I've mentioned before that my father did two fairly long trips to Europe in the 1950's. The first in 1954, and the second in 1957. He was an avid photographer and took a lot of slide photos from those trips. Ruth has scanned them all and we have them on our laptops. 

Regular readers might remember that we have in the past made a game out of trying to match up some of those photos by trying to stand in exactly the same spot that my dad might have stood many years ago. 

Oktoberfest? Maybe next year...

We got on the road at around 9:00am. Not as far of a drive today... only 178 kms (110 miles) to get to the meeting point where friends Glen and Steve were waiting for us.

Our route would take us around the east side of Munich. What a shame to be this close to Munich in October and not go to Oktoberfest celebrations.

Almost at Austria

We did another 300 km (180 mile) drive yesterday. I know, that's not our normal style, but we are catching up to our friends Glen and Steve who are heading in the same direction as us, but they are ahead of our schedule. They have purposely slowed down a bit so that we can catch up. 

But yesterday, we took the back roads the whole way. Yes, it's slower going and probably uses a bit mre fuel. But it's so much more scenic and interesting.

Happy to be back on the road!

Saturday was a driving day with the goal of picking up our bicycles that had been stored at Frankfurt airport. We didn't get going until about 10:00am and we had to do about 300 kms (186 miles), which for us is a fairly long drive.

We took the main highway, which has a 130 km/h (81 mph) "suggested" speed limit on most sections. Of course Max isn't going anywhere near that speed. For the most part I had the cruise control set somewhere around 95 km/h (59 mph). 

Made it back to Europe and our motorhome Max!

Well, the last 24 hours or so are a bit of a blur. Let me see if I can back us up a bit and try and remember all the details...

It started off Thursday morning around 11:00am when our daughter Lindsey came to pick us up and take us to the Ottawa airport. She arrived right on time and I loaded the bikes into the back of her van.

We are off to Europe!

Not much time this morning because we are flying to Europe today! The next blog post will be coming to you from Germany.

We fly Ottawa to Toronto then Toronto to Frankfurt. From there, we take the train to the town of Dulmen where our motorhome Max is waiting for us.

Here's the plan for the next few days...

September Expenses - things are about to get much cheaper!

September was a little higher than expected. Mostly because of our plan to ship our bicycles and a few other things to Germany with us. But, we also did a lot more driving than we originally planned, and the fuel added up.

We spent a total of $3,338 CAD ($2,620 USD). Here's how it all broke down...

The next visit will be better

Just reflecting on the past few weeks as we prepare to head back to Europe tomorrow. 

We arrived in Ottawa in mid August right at the end of a heat wave, so our timing was pretty lucky in that regard. Overall, the weather has been decent. But as I've said before, September is the best time of year to visit Canada, in our opinion.

But we've been just too busy to enjoy it as much as we would have liked to.

Getting ready to head out

Only two more sleeps. We're busy getting ready to head out on Thursday late morning. 

We're not traveling as light this time around. The bikes are all boxed up and ready to go. And besides our normal carry on bags, this time we're actually bringing a larger suitcase with us as well that we will just ditch after we've emptied it upon arrival.

Best ribs ever.

Little bit of a late post today, but I didn't have much time this morning because we were told we had to be out by 10:00am.

Saturday turned out to be better than expected from a weather perspective. The guys weren't that ambitious but we managed to get three of us out for a short 5 km (3 mile) hike in Bon Echo Provincial Park. 

Good start to the weekend

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Ruth and drove two hours to a big chalet on Mazinaw Lake near Bon Echo Provinical Park to meet up with my friends for our annual guys weekend away.

Not the best weather though. It was actually chilly sitting out on the deck, and when it started spitting with rain it almost felt like it was going to snow!

Visit with the Newstate Nomads

After three different phone calls with Air Canada, we ended up getting our upcoming flights changed around enough to be able to bring the bicycles with us. The original booking was Ottawa to Montreal to Frankfurt to Dusseldorf. But part of the problem was the Ottawa to Montreal airplane was too small to accept the bikes in the holding bay. 

The other part of the problem was that we had a codeshare flight with Lufthansa on the Frankfurt to Dusseldorf leg and it was going to require confirmation from them that they would accept the bikes.

Changing some flights

Yesterday was the first day of fall. And you can sure tell winter is on it's way. The leaves are changing color, and the temperatures are cooling off. Here in the Ottawa area, you can go from summer to winter pretty quickly. There is still the possibility of some nice weather in October, but it's hit or miss. It's also common to get some snow flurries by the end of October. 

But we are out of here long before that possibility occurs. In fact, we fly out a week from today!

Toronto Zoo with the grandkids

My own grandmother lived in Toronto and I have fond memories of going to Toronto's Riverdale Zoo when I was a kid. In fact, it was walking distance from her house! But that zoo closed in 1974, and the animals were relocated to a bigger and better facility. Good thing too, because I remember the enclosure the black bears were in... just a concrete holding cell... it really wasn't very nice.

The "new" Toronto Zoo is so much better, but there are still some animals who just don't seem at home in their enclosure. 

Made it to Pickering

We arrived at Lindsey and Justin's fairly early, just before 11:00am Sunday to pick up the grandkids. Lindsey is a chef, and she treated us to her famous Eggs Benedict. Such a delicious food item, especially with everything made from scratch.

Even the eggs were from their own chickens!

Nice bike ride down to Manotick

As I've said before, September is the best time of year for weather in the Ottawa area. It's been perfect hiking and biking weather. And so we took off on the bikes down to the village of Manotick on the Rideau River.

The Rideau River is partly a 202 km (125 mile) man made canal system that runs from Ottawa to Kingston. It was built around 1830 in case the U.S. ever decided to invade Canada, but is now used by pleasure craft.

Just as happy in our motorhome

The house we're living in is a beautiful home on a beautiful property backing onto a forest. I haven't shown many photos out of respect to the homeowners. They may not want their stuff on display. But needless to say, most people in the world would be pretty happy to live here. 

And we feel fortunate that this opportunity came along. It's been a great stay for us. And looking after the cats has been no trouble at all... in fact they each have their own personality and they're enjoyable enough to have around.

Received an offer on the house

But it's a low ball bid, with a number of conditions, and it could be that nothing comes of it. All part of the negotiation process of course, but as it stands we won't be accepting it. We're not desperate to sell... but it would be nice to get the whole thing out of our hair. In fact, if it doesn't sell within the next two weeks, we'll be handing it over to a real estate agent anyhow, and then it really is essentially out of our hair. 

And given that I am away for pretty much six of the next thirteen days, I'm starting to lose confidence that it's going to be sold by then. 

International Driving Permit (IDP)

These permits have been around since 1949. Canada only signed on to the agreement in 1965, and some countries (Germany, for example) have never signed on.

We've done a lot of driving in foreign countries. Sometimes we have traveled without an IDP, and sometimes we have bit the bullet and obtained one prior to leaving Canada. I say "bit the bullet" because they are not free. And the odds of you actually needing it are quite slim. 

How we spent $40,000 on our credit card in the last year.

The credit card we use is called the Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite. The main reason we got this card is because it's one of the rare Canadian cards that has a 0% foreign transaction fee. And because we use it for a lot of foreign purchases, that's a big savings for us compared to most standard Canadian cards that charge 2.5% on foreign transactions. 

In fact, we saved about $800 over the last 12 months just because of that. 

The card also gives points, and they've been adding up!

An interesting turn of events

We notice that some of the trees are starting to change color, and there are a few more leaves each day falling onto our back patio where we are staying. Winter is on its way. 

But, it was still a beautiful day yesterday. So, taking advantage of that, we headed out for another bike ride to get some more sunshine, fresh air, and exercise.

Maybe something is in the works

We were back up at the house yesterday. Our son in law Justin agreed to patch the hole in the drywall for us, and they were picking up some dining room chairs that we had agreed to give them, so it killed two birds with one stone.

As we arrived, I saw that a guy was taking a photo of the "For Sale" sign so I went down and spoke to him.

Finally made it out for a nice hike

It was a beautiful day on Friday and so we made plans for just the two of us to go for a hike. There aren't a lot of great hikes around the Ottawa side of the river, but just across the river in the province of Quebec is Gatineau Park which has a lot of hiking trails. 

We chose the trail around Lac Philippe, a beautiful lake with several beaches. It's a really busy spot during July and August, but on a Friday in September there was hardly anybody around. 

20 Years ago today

Of course everybody remembers where they were 20 years ago today. 

We were both working... normal lives, with a house and two kids (15 and 13) and a dog and a cat. I was working as an appraiser at a Maaco Collision Repair Shop. Worst job I ever had! And Ruth was working at an office supply company. Where I was, the radio was always on the talk news station, so we heard the whole thing right from the beginning and the office staff listened to it all day.

Just thinking out loud...

Less than three weeks to go. We head back to Germany on September 30th. That's if they let us in. The one thing we were worried about when returning to Canada was if things change enough that they might not let us back into Europe. I see that the EU added a bunch more to their list of "high risk" countries. Fortunately Canada isn't among them yet, but a lot can change in three weeks.

Not that it matters to us right now, but I see that Germany has once again blocked Albania as a "high risk" country, yet Netherlands (right next door to Germany) still considers Albania to be a "safe" country. There is nothing stopping you from crossing the land border from Netherland into Germany. 

Funny story

It rained yesterday morning, but we did manage to get out for a late afternoon bike ride. I had a replacement credit card waiting for me at the Scotiabank in Osgoode. It's about a 45 minute ride one way, so we had to set a good pace because it was already 3pm and it closed at 4pm.

No problem, got there with time to spare, and picked up the new card. The old card was still okay, but it would no longer "tap".

It's a crazy world

Boy, it sure is a crazy world out there right now. Politics, religion, and now Covid. The three things you can't talk about because someone is sure to be offended. Can't we all just get along? It amazes me how closed minded many people are.

So while we're on the subject of Covid, the U.S. land border remains closed to Canadians. Despite the fact that the Canadian land border is open to Americans. And the Mexican land border has always been officially closed, but in reality it's totally open. You can't make this stuff up. Craziness.

Our route south

I ordered Max's new propane tanks yesterday and woke up to an email this morning saying they had been shipped and would arrive by Thursday at the latest. 

I had contacted our guy at the dealer so he knew to expect them. They treat us really well there. I asked if they had time to fill them and install them prior to our arrival, and he said worst case scenario they would certainly help me do it when we arrive, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them installed and ready to go.

Toronto Zoo tickets booked

I took a rare blogging day off yesterday! 

We were up at the house again. But we have to go up again tomorrow to put the trash out by the side of the road for Wednesday morning pickup. We thought we were almost finished, but we moved a big cabinet in the kitchen that had been sold to find a big hole in the wall behind the cabinet. More patching and painting. Going to have to do the whole wall. We're sure getting tired of doing that drive.

Still enjoying watching Blue Jays baseball. They're in a race for a wild card spot and they've won 4 in a row. It's going to be tough, but it could still happen. Would be nice, but either way we are enjoying it.

Max's propane problem, and granddaughter Sadie comes for a visit

I've been trying to work on the solution to our RV propane problem with our motorhome Max who is waiting for us over in Germany. What we want is tanks that can be refilled at a self serve style gas station type of propane pump that are common all over Europe. It's the cheapest and most convenient way of filling your propane.

But the problem is that I can't get anybody to install a system in Germany that is cost effective. 

So, there's another thing out of the way

We were back up at the house yesterday. We are almost done though... probably one more day to finish everything up, so we won't go up again until Sunday. I got both the back and the front entrance doors painted while Ruth's brother Colin had rented a heavy duty carpet cleaner at Home Depot and did the rug in the family room. It was in pretty nasty shape, and we considered actually changing it out but the end result using the cleaner was better than expected so I think we'll just leave it.

When selling a house it's always a big question mark as to how much painting and decorating to do, isn't it? Because many people will move to a new home and redecorate anyhow the way they want it.

You can't see everything

You may have noticed the header photos are showcasing our Africa trip during 2013-14. It occurred to me that we didn't have very good internet at times during that trip, and not as many photos got posted to this blog. Anyhow, we're not doing much that warrants a new header photo right now so I thought I would put some of the better ones up through this month.

We recently spent two months in Tanzania and never went on safari. We simply couldn't justify the ridiculous cost, especially right after we spent ridiculous amounts of money climbing Kilimanjaro. And actually, I don't regret not doing the safari thing.

September is the best time of year to be in Canada

In our opinion, September is definitely the best time of the year to visit any part of Canada. That's why we purposely try to plan our visits to Canada during this month.

In Canada, most of the kids go back to school the first week of September, so if you're out exploring things will be quieter. The mosquitoes and black flies that typically infest most of Canada during the other good weather months of May through August have pretty much died off by September. And September weather is usually exactly the way we like it... not too hot, and not too cold.

August Expenses

Not a bad month.

Considering we had pricey summertime flights from Germany back to Canada, and paid for an expensive 10 day car rental, our expenses were only slightly higher than we expected them to be.

We spent a total of $2,836 CAD ($2,255 USD) for the month. Here's how it all broke down...

Moving to another country

As most of you know, we haven't spent much time in Canada the last three years. Since we left in the fall of 2018, we have spent a total of about three months here. And the main reason we have come back at all is to visit family and friends. 

We actually have no intention of ever "living" here again. While we are currently nomads, and don't see ourselves settling down in the foreseeable future, it's impossible not to have a residence address somewhere because you need to for banking and tax purposes.