Riviera Maya Mexico Oct 22-30

We came inches from booking an exotic jungle (eco) tour in Costa Rica a few weeks ago. For a variety of reasons we decided, instead, to do a Mexican sell-off vacation sans kids. Ended up at a nice resort in Mayan Riviera. First time for us for this location ... tough to argue with the 5 star all inclusive Modus operandi.

Montezuma has yet to take his revenge on us. I'd like to think this is because we decided to spend a day off the beaten track and away from the excesses of all you can eat and drink ... we visited the 'real' mexico including a mayan family in coba as well as the local ruins populated by mayans in the pre columbian era. We walked through jungle trails, swam in a cenote and ate at a 'real' mexican restaurant. Hola! We were able to see first hand how affluence is not a prerequisite to happiness, taste a home cooked fahita and witness first hand the easy smiles of kids careless and cared for.

Or maybe our good health had more to do with the bubble Signature tours kept us within, a finer armour than the best assault that Montazuma could assemble at his peak.

Bien mini Mexican moment
Bien vacation

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Sept. 1,2 Finally Home (almost)

After 14,000 kms without a single flat we are finally back from our Yukon (Yukon-wait-to-get-out-of-the-Honda) Odyssey. Labour Day weekend in Sarnia was amazing ... best time to be here with southwest wind and plenty of marine action in the river and out on the lake. Kicking around Canatara park this past weekend has thinking about renting at Derby lane and playing around on sailboats at SYC next summer ... come on down to my boat baby ... do I need a bigger boat? .... HMMMMMMMMM ... one month down ... twelve to go ... NB from NZ hopefully (next blog from new zealand)

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Aug 27, 28, 29 We all a wanna go ... back to On ....

We landed back in Ontario at Fort Frances and were welcomed warmly into the Maki home. Bert especially liked the after dinner Scotch nosing courtesy of Steve and his substantial collection of single malts. Mikaela came away (once again) with more clothes than she arrived with as well as some new rocker dance moves courtesy of a prolonged X box training session. Thanks Lori and Steve for a great visit in the Rainy River district. Halle ... I'll snap that picture of you yet ... just you wait!

Trip down the road to Thunderbay (half way from Atikokan) brought a new species to our critter count ... 3 Lynx including two kitchens strutting across the road in front of us ... too much traffic for a good picture ... no matter says Mikaela ... "I'll never forget that cute little guy peeking over the crest looking for mom."

Golf tomorrow I think.

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Aug 25 Prehistoric Canada -- Drumheller Alberta

We had to decide between highway 16 (a different highway than transcanada)east to Winnipeg and the QE2 south to Drumheller and dinosaur central for North America. Dude in the OPA! restaurant said Drumheller is like visiting moon (cool terrain) and I was sold. It helped that we found out Mitchell does not need to be back early to Toronto to register for high school.

Badlands turned out to be good ... descending into Drumheller was really cool. Royal Tyrell museum was filled to capacity but worth stopping under any circumstance. Excellent displays set to draw in audiences of all ages to a trip back in time to prehistoric Alberta ... a sea side tropical land bordering the Devonian Sea, with a cornucopia of large flesh eating dinosaur monsters battling it out for survival every day. Talk about the wild wild west ... makes to perils of the Chilikoot look like a walk in the park.

Leaving town we missed a turn and ended up staying down in the badlands for an extended tour on a brand new highway including a stop at Hoo Doos. Not "Hoo Dee" (Kara) but Hoo Doo (Alberta) ya think you are, mister big rock. Instruction here is that missing your turn off to the main hiway and staying on the back roads often turns out to be a good thing. Maybe we will all be forced to learn how to turn off "plot shortest time" or "plot shortest route" settings on the GPS technology that will surely be standard in every vehicle in the next few years.

Next is drive straight back to Ontario stopping at Medicine Hat (1); Winnipeg (1); Fort Frances (2); Thunderbay (2) ... maybe take interstate down to Port Huron / Sarnia for labour day.

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Aug 23, 24 Let's go Buff-a-lo

Thanks to Kelly (who knows these parts) we decided to take Alaska highway route down to Liard Hot Springs. Wow. What a drive. More proof that Yukon really is "larger than life" and B.C. really is "supernatural" ... we saw wild buffalo and caribou herds (small) moose, deer, hawks and gas at $1.40 per litre ... all unchartered territory for us. Spectacular scenery poking through the mist and fog and sun and cloud all the way into Alberta big sky country ... more $60K trucks than at the Dawson city mud run spectacular. Everything is fast in Alberta ... petal to the metal and 16 hours later we are in West Edmonton and touring the decidedly not natural west edmonton mall. M+M liked the indoor water park, Karen and I found a Starbucks and some fruit of the loom reinforcements for the long road ahead ... likely taking us tomorrow 3 hours south to the Canadian Badlands and Drumheller Alta. dinasour dig.

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Aug 19-20 Klondike fever

Drove with the Lanigan's straight north to Dawson City. Seeing a sign on turnoff for Ft. McPherson / Inuvik (Dempster highway) was a unique experience for me. All of Dawson is a National Historic site ... takes little imagination to see the characters of the Klondike days walking up the board walk ... whole town seemed to be in a good mood .... probably combination of weather (25C) ... time of year (discovery days long weekend) and spirits from the present and past.

Thanks again to local knowledge (Kelly) we were able to visit "Dredge No. 4" National Historic site and Dome mountain (pic showing whole town and two rivers) and gain a deeper understanding of why Dawson City is here ... the Klondike and Yukons rivers meet here and provide conduit to a place where the search for commerce sometimes ends at Bonanza but more often ends just up the Creek without a paddle.

And speaking of spirits ... not sure about the strength of the spirits that may have guided the traveller driving car in the pic ... inches from taking the fast route down a very large/steep slope to the river. Cabin is that of Robert Service ... google "cremation of sam mcgee" ...There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold ...

Thanks to Tan and Kelly for the wonderful Yukon holiday. Time to hit the ol dusty trail ... off to Liard Hot Springs and then east to west Edmonton mall.

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Aug. 13-18 Yukon GOLD!

We headed directly to Tagish for a few days at the "cabin". Apparently we brought the good weather we have enjoyed from day one with us ... Whitehorse summer started Aug 13 with temperatures in the 25-30 range. The river and lake were like glass for most of our stay. Water is also at a 200 year high this year, as evidenced by the pic of submerged Lanigan dock anchored in the river with 45 gallon drums. Fishing was good and tubing and skiing was even better. Our Tagish sojourn with it's sights (spectacular dusk skies lingering until midnight) and smells (sweet pure pine on the trail to the NWMP 1898 stampeder outpost) and sounds (local wolves doing there version of late night MSN messenger) scored a perfect Yukon gold with us. Tomorrow we are up early for excursion to Dawson city ... overnight camping with Tan and Kelly and Meg and Hobbie ... Jack is kickin' butt (soccer ball) in Calgary.

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ps click on submerged dock pic to spot my dream sailboat (in the Yukon of all places) ... Macgregor 26M with dodger and bimini

Aug 13 Yukon Lanigan'd

********************************** What a great way to travel! Even if our tender, Matanuska, was part of the Alaska hobo highway fleet. So what if you had to step over granola crunchers flaked out in their hi tech sleep gear on the deck. So what if our "state room" rattled at sail worse than my Mazda on a dirt road at 125 KPH. We had glorious clear weather for the continuous mountain slide show slipping past our recliners on the holodeck ... bald eagles and humpback whales abounded and the lightning storm was saved for just past dusk (11 pm) on day 1.

Arrived Skagway at 04:45 day 3 ... checked out White Pass rail and the wooden board walks of a closed shut town ... drove the short distance back to Canada and the Yukon and finally Laniganed in Whitehorse by 10:30. Tomorrow we are off to the cabin on Tagish then maybe Dawson city and the 'top of the world highway' for a few days this weekend for long weekend (it's a YUKON thing) Discovery Days activities.

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Aug 11 Inner Passage to Alaska

Kicked around Prince Rupert today ... mostly down at the docks watching the fishing boats come and go. Everyone seems to own a big water tug with a super duty four by to haul it out with. Scarfed down all our New Zealand apples 'cause we are going through US customs in an hour or so and these are the verboeten fruit of the day. Big yellow signs exclaiming MARSEC (marine security) LEVEL 1 seems to be disconnected from the quaint northern town.... visibly more prosperous than Prince George ... great history lesson today ... Northern BC museum of natural history is a "don't miss"... apparently people have been conducting commerce in the area since before the first Christmas :-)

Next stop Skagway, Alaska

Aug 9 Prince of a town

Took Al Roger's advice on route to Prince George ... Drove up # 5 past Clearwater and Valemount. Excellent road, no traffic and stunning vistas of the rockies including Canada's highest (Mt Robson). Next time I will be sure to budget an extra day or two to go white water rafting here. Highway skirts north Thompson and Fraser rivers all the way up. Fast moving water with plenty of it being white.

Stayed in Prince George and, having made such good time, I decided to drive out looking for supplies. Rough town. Twenty metres from the hotel a young native woman asked if I was "looking". I'm pretty sure that she was not referring to the local Walmart.

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Aug 8 Western Union

Our last day in Kelowna was more sun and relaxation plus a tour to the other side of the lake to see Al and Leanne's house ... the house that dodged the forest fire bullet the summer that BC burned (2003). It's tough to convey in a blog all that is the Kelowna lifestyle ... suffice it to say that Canada is a mighty big country and this space should make the top 3 on anyone's list of preferred place to live and live well. Our cherry on the top of a fantastic 3 days spent at Lakeview heights and the Playford house was a reunion meal with cousins Joy and Leanne Rogers who joined Marty and Al, Karen and myself and Mitchell and Mikaela...featuring salad with home grown vegetables and pinot noir from the winery a stone's throw from the deck. Tough to leave here ... but looking forward to our drive through the BC interior to Prince Rupert and our "cruise" through the inner passage to Skagway.

Aug 6,7 Slidin' down into Kelowna

We were determined this trip west not to miss out on Kelowna. Last time we did the circuit from Vancouver through the Rocky Mountain National Parks ... but missed out on this jewel in the desert ... home to peach and apricot orchards and 132 vineyards, mountain vistas and fresh water beaches. We pulled into cousin Joy and Marty's home up in the west bank and into what seemed like a 5 star resort ... enjoyed great food, conversation and, yes, great local wine for a 2 day respite from the road.

Karen's side of the family also gave warm welcome, just up the road in West Bank. Sitting on George and Teresa's deck, we enjoyed a lovely dinner with Kelowna in the background across the lake. The sweeping vista from most homes built into the west bank is awe inspiring .... calling into question why anyone with the choice would choose to live anywhere but the Okanagon valley of British Columbia

Aug 2nd Manitoba is

... Friendly. Everyone we passed down at The Forks national park said "Hi". The city bus driver stopped and waited for no other reason than to let me get the full video shot I was shooting of the Winnipeg city scape. Curiously, I've never seen that happen in Toronto.
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Rocky Mountain high Aug 4,5

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It's great to be in Banff.
Began our stay living like hobos in a refugee camp (all campgrounds full). Notice the birthday cake serving table (cooler) ... overflow area had great view but no services including no water and no picnic tables.Inauspicious location for Mitchell's birthday cake ... somehow not a big deal to the 14 year old Mitch ... birthday's on the road seem to be the norm for RMV.
Hiked Lake Louise today. Somehow I remember it as an easier jaunt. Major vertigo happening. All worth it just to enjoy the look on Mikaela's face staring out into the Rocky Mountain imensity from the tea house at Lake Agnes. Mitchell even left his new electronic toy alone for a few hours. Wonders abound.

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Lac des Mille Lacs August 1st

Yesterday's work was divided between preparing major pickerel fish fry (girls) and major lakeview cabin reconstruction effort (guys armed with duct tape). Today we drove to one hour by road and 40 minutes on the boat to Lac des Mille Lacs to restock freezer fish supply. We caught a dozen fish (pickerel, pike and bass) and kept the best for future fish fry feast. Tomorrow we try to escape the ONTARIO boundary and head west. O Canada here we come! No desktop to blog from for next week or so ... stay tuned.

July 31 ... No really ... it's a Great tent

We decided to simplify this trip ... leave the monster coleman trailer in the driveway ... stay in a combination of spare bedrooms (" I've always depended on the kindness of strangers") campgrounds and motels. Last week I saw a man about a tent. He was a nice old Dutch guy. He had lots of good stories. "The tent was never used." We met in a parking lot. I paid cash.

Set the tent up in Owen Sound and discovered the floor is not attached. I tried to convince Karen that it is a really really good tent ... that bugs sleep at night and racoons always knock before pushing themselves into what surely must be a dining tent. Bob (father in law) said that from a bear's view point, my tent looks like a chip bag. Thank God there are no bears in Canada ... especially in the Rockies and up in Alaska / Yukon. We'll be fine ... went to Home Depot Thunderbay today and cleared them out of duct tape.

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July 30 ... been drivin on out, my hands wet on the wheel

16 hours of drive / ferry ride / drive, drive, drive to Lord Tunderin Bay ... only thing that kept my from driving off the road was the incredible beauty of the north shore (Superior) route ... took lots of video ... couple of pics and ... ... 1,254,985 suicide bugs threw themselves in front of the van but I managed to stay on course with the help of Tim Hortons and "Radar Love" on repeat

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Back at Billy's Back yard fun compound -- Leith, ON

I went solo this year to reunion in Leith ON. Small crowd but SWEET tunes all night long... Jim hired live music on the deck and local Famer talent played a long acoustic set around the fire into the wee hours. P-E-R-F-E-C-T weather including a full moon to inspire those not normally inclined to sing their own round during a 20 minute(Graham) rendition of "I got the blues" .... best reunion yet (and I think that goes back to 1977) for live music and musical talent. I'm decidedly less enthusiastic about my new "lakeview cabin" tent that is intended to shelter us on our journey across country, in the mountain and all the way up in Yukon ... best I can say is that it looks really good once up under blue skies with no wind ... so I guess I counting on consistently good weather over the next 30 days. .... some body send me a pic or two from Billy's back yard so that I can make this entry a bit better.Up at 4 am tomorrow so that I can get to Tobermory by 6am ... check in time for the 7 oclock sailing to Manitoulin ... then 11 hours to Lord Tunderin Bay.

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last day today

Wound up a bunch of loose ends on my last day at work for 13 months today ... cleaning up and clearing out all the while feeling a great sense of unwinding the tension on the treadmill that has kept me running the last number of months. The day started with cake so decadent that I needed to rest in between bites, ramped up with one last teleconference to discuss heroic measures required today to feed the machine chewing on a large dose of silly seasoning, shifted to charades in the shade (team building excursion to centre island) and ended with a couple of Firkin pints with Craig and Claudia,Robert and Rayna, Dave and Joe Kendall. I found myself smiling for no good reason on this last Go train ride for a long while. Or maybe it was that image of Jag skulking around India interviewing for Mrs Goodbar and finding only empty wrappers.

Whoaah ... this is way too deep for me Deepa!

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