Road Trip: The Sequel Begins

It's time for the last lap of the trip. Heather and Chloe are now back in Vancouver getting acclimated to life at home. Somewhat ironically, both of them will shortly be leaving Vancouver for separate mini-trips (Heather to join me in Winnipeg, Chloe going with Aunts, Uncles, and cousins to Wyoming). I think we are all keenly aware that for the past year the longest we have been in one place is 10 days (Bali and Sydney) and that we all will have itchy feet.

While they re-connect with friends and family in Vancouver (and hopefully find a place for us to live since we sold our home prior to the trip), I am back on the road with my sister Kathy as copilot/navigator and my dog Jessy as the precious cargo.

Kathy and her family have done a wonderful job looking after Jessy while we were gone. I admit I did have visions of Jessy flipping me the dog equivalent of the "bird" as payback for being left behind a year ago. Thankfully Kathy was keen to come along for the ride for a couple of weeks so I was pretty sure Jessy would get into the car when it was time to leave Truro and not give me too much crap.

Kathy with Jessy (the white dog) and Taylor (the other dog)

One of the interesting things of coming back is rediscovering all the stuff that was left behind. It's kind of like Christmas. Aside from our car and our dog we also left our camping gear and even our ipad behind in Truro. After reclaiming the car and the ipad from my 16 year old nephew Zach (I had to dig the ipad out of his not very clean nor orderly room), it was time to pack up and hit the road.

Zach with the CRV

The initial leg of the trip was to head south to visit my sister Karen and her husband Craig in Newport Rhode Island. Newport was where we hid out a year ago when Hurricane Irene showed up. Thankfully this visit has had the luxury of way better weather and gave us a great opportunity to explore the island. Sadly for us, one of the things we realized from the 1,200km trip here was that the AC in my SUV seems to be toast and a quick trip to the car doctor informed us there was no quick fix.

So now after a couple of days of fine dining (pork tenderloin last night and....wait for it....LOBSTER tonight), yachting, exploration (we saw the rich 'hood and all the fancy mansions today) and Olympic watching (what will happen to commercial voiceovers when Morgan Freeman is no longer with us?) it is time to move on.

Me in front of the mansion used in the opening sequence of "True Lies"

My sisters Kathy and Karen chilling out

Captain Craig showing us how a pro steers a yacht

The next two days will have us on the highway to Chicago, where we will stop for deep dish pizza, outlet malls, and a trip to Wrigley Field to tick one more item off the bucket list.