March 2011 - May 2011 Italy and Germany

---

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2011 Italy and Germany Photo Album
Some are also shown in our weekly blogs.

---

This two month trip (56 days to be exact) featured rental apartments as we wanted to stay in 3 main places to get a feel for what it is like to live there. Our three main places were Rome (21 days), Munich (10 days) and Berlin (19 days).  We flew from Calgary to Rome via Toronto to get there and Frankfurt direct to Calgary to get back. All our apartments were rented through VRBO and all worked out great.

We elected to travel exclusively by train while in Europe. We bought a Eurail pass which gave us 7 travel days in 3 countries over a two month period which was perfect for us. We had 4 specific travel days to get us to our main target cities so we had 3 days to use for day trips (i.e. we could get somewhere and back in the same day, thereby only using one day on the pass). For those we chose other cities which were about 2 hours or so train ride away (usually on first class high speed trains) to give us around 6 hours for destination sight seeing etc without leaving too early or returning too late. Our choices were Salzburg (from Munich), Hannover (from Berlin) and Dresden (from Berlin).

Here is a basic map of our travels within Europe.

Our weekly blogs are listed below. They are linked to each other so start at week 1 then step through each week or jump to a specific week in this list...

Week 1 Calgary to Rome Italy
Week 2 Rome
Week 3, 4 and 5 Rome to Florence to Munich Germany
Week 6 Munich to Berlin
Week 7 Berlin
Week 8 Berlin
Week 9 Berlin to Frankfurt and back to Calgary

Sept 2010 - Nov 2010 San Francisco Road Trip

---

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2010 San Francisco Photo Album
Some are also shown in our weekly blogs.

---

The goals for this trip were to discover the eastern side of Oregon and north east California on our way to San Francisco where Kris attended a week long couture sewing course. After the course we went north to Fort Bragg for a week then back to San Francisco where we rented a house for a month. Leaving San Francisco we went south to Santa Cruz for a week before heading north up the coast, inland to Portland for a week of rain, Spokane for 3 days of snow and very cold weather before hitting a break in the weather and making it back home to Calgary.

Our overall general route is shown here...

Our weekly blogs are listed below. They are linked to each other so start at week 1 then step through each week or jump to a specific week in this list...

Week 1 Calgary to Walla Walla Washington
Week 2 Walla Walla to Oroville California
Week 3 Oroville to San Francisco California
Week 4 San Francisco California
Week 5 Fort Bragg California
Week 6-9 San Francisco California
Week 10 Santa Cruz California
Week 11 Santa Cruz to Coos Bay Oregon
Week 12 Coos Bay to Portland Oregon
Week 13 Portland to Calgary Alberta

April 2010 - July 2010 Western US Road Trip

---

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2010 Western US Photo Album
Some are also shown in our weekly blogs.

---

Our inaugural retirement trip was a loop south from Calgary to Texas, west through New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada to Southern California, north along the California, Oregon and Washington coasts to Vancouver Island and finally east through the interior of BC back to Calgary.

Our general itinerary is shown here. This generalized map depicts more interstate freeways than we actually traveled. Weekly blogs have more detailed maps...

Our weekly blogs are listed below. They are linked to each other so start at week 1 then step through each week or jump to a specific week in this list...

Week 1 Calgary to Cheyenne Wyoming
Week 2 Cheyenne to Amarillo Texas
Week 3 Amarillo to Arlington Texas
Week 4 Arlington to San Antonio Texas
Week 5 San Antonio to Columbus Texas
Week 6 Columbus to Albuquerque New Mexico
Week 7 Albuquerque to Phoenix Arizona
Week 8 Phoenix to San Diego California
Week 9 San Diego to Valencia California
Week 10 Valencia to Santa Cruz California
Week 11 Santa Cruz to Fort Bragg California
Week 12 Fort Bragg to Tillamook Oregon
Week 13 Tillamook to Comox BC
Week 14 Comox to Calgary Alberta

Home for a break

We've been home, from Europe, for a couple of weeks now. Starting to get antsy about going off in our wee trailer again.

While we were away we left our trailer with the Trillium folks, in Calgary, for a few enhancements and some maintenance. We picked up the trailer last week and on the weekend we went out and did some cleanup and got the trailer ready to go.

Now just taking care of a few personal things before thinking about heading out.

Enhancements:

• Changed external power cord to a "plug in on the outside of the trailer". It was the kind that was pushed into the storage space and pulled out when we wanted to plug into a campground service post. Using that storage space for the power cable meant we couldn't really use it for anything else. Now we can use that space and just have to find somewhere else to store the external power cord. It nicely fits in the bin on the front of the trailer.
• Added an external cable connection. On our first two trips, when we had a cable connection at the campground, we had to run a long cable around the trailer and in through the door if we wanted to watch tv inside. This way, we have an internal connection and just have to run a much shorter cable from the outside connection to the campground cable connection.
• Had our double bed foam mattress shortened by a couple of inches. The original size was a very tight fit, in the trailer space, which made it a bit awkward when putting on sheets etc and lifting the mattress to get at the storage bins underneath. We figured we wouldn't be bothered by the mattress being a bit shorter. It now fits nicely and is relatively much easier to lift etc etc. Did a test lay down on it and it will be fine.

Maintenance:

• Outside door trim/rubber seal all replaced and upgraded to try to prevent the kind of water infiltration we had in Portland last fall.
• Wheels re-greased etc.
• Cabinet door catches replaced (a few had broken... they are the cheapy plastic ones which we might consider replacing at some time).
• Rubber trim around fibreglass edges on cabinets had shrunk in some places. All these replaced.