Home Sweet Home

We arrived home late last night after some shopping outside of Seattle. The end has come to an awesome and unforgettable trip.

We hope you have enjoyed following our 'great Canadian journey'. It's sad for us to end our travels but as Nicholas said, "We'll never forget the memories."

Thanks to all of you who sent us your comments and thoughts ... glad to know we weren't alone!

Here is our last provincial "Welcome sign" of our trip!

Here are seven interesting facts from our trip ...

- gas was always cheaper in the rest Canada than in BC (in fact, it was less than a dollar in all of the other 9 provinces with Ottawa having the lowest at 85 cents!)

- number of stops at McDonalds: 0

- number of stops for fuel: 33

- number of s'mores eaten: 34

- total kilometres driven: 15,368 km

- number of trailer tires replaced: 2

- number of amazing memories for Jacqueline and Nicholas: infinite

Heading home

We've continued our journey home through the U.S. and we're making very good time on the 4-lane highways. We've stopped at Mt. Rushmore here and you can see the four Millard faces just below the four president's faces. We managed to arrive when the extremely large Sturgis Motorbike Rally was taking place and we have never seen so many leather-clad bikers in our lives!

After that we made our way to Little Big Horn where the Sioux Indians and Custer's Cavalry had an unfortunate meeting. It was a good history lesson for all of us.

We managed to complete a large jigsaw puzzle of Canada in honour of our travel across Canada. Here we are after putting in the last piece!

Tonight we arrive home (but not after a little shopping in Seattle)!

If you build it, Ken will come

We are returning home through the United States mainly because it is much faster and to catch a glimpse of a few interesting sights of our neighbours to the south.  You may have watched the movie Field of Dreams from 1989 and saw Shoeless Joe Jackson appear from an Iowa cornfield. It's one of Ken's favourite movies and the whole family recently watched it a few months ago. Since, we were very close to the farm and cornfield used for this film, we thought we would drop by and see if any ballplayer ghosts would appear. It's a modest little set-up with the family owners opening up their yard and ball field to visitors for free ... but everyone's welcome to buy something at the souvenir shop. It was an enjoyable bit of Americana.

To cool off after a long day on the highway past hundreds of cornfields (we don't know what they could do with so much corn) we went for a dip in the campground's pool.  Tomorrow it's Mount Rushmore!

Drenched in Niagara and up high in Toronto

We've been so busy having fun we haven't kept up our blog!  On Wednesday we arrived in Niagara Falls and the kids were in awe of the water rushing over the edge.  This massive natural force is truly incredible even with the many outrageous tourist traps surrounding it.  But as you can see in the photo, we may have succumbed to one of those gimmicks. All we know is we had one of the most exciting rides of our lives riding this jet boat up and down the class 5 rapids and around the whirlpool down from the falls. There are actually about 48 people in the boat but most of them are covered with water.  You can just make out Jacqueline second from the back on the far right. This second shot was taken with our waterproof camera shortly after one of the 'big ones' hit us. Needless to say, we got soaked but it was worth it!

Yesterday, we have saved the biggest Canadian city for the last stop on our Canadian tour.  As proud western Canadians, we have to admit we gave Toronto four thumbs up after exploring a good portion of the city.  We were able to go to the top of the CN Tower for a phenomenal view.  We checked out the downtown on a rickshaw 

pulled by a fit university student and went to the Hockey Hall of Fame where we hugged the Stanley Cup.  Chinatown and Kensington market were quite interesting so we stayed and had dinner at the little Hungary Thai restaurant.  

In the evening, we took in the sights and sounds at the heart of the city in Dundas square on a Friday night.  The closest thing to compare it to is Times Square in NY since the massive billboards and megatron bigscreens filled all sides of the square. There was ample street entertainment and we loved it all.  The Caribbean festival, Caribana, was starting out so there was a distinct Caribbean flavour in the city.  To close off the day, we settled in for some dessert at the 99 Wayne Gretzky restaurant.  It was quite a visit!  Now, we're off to Detroit.

Had fun in Halifax and a blast in Boston

We have travelled quite a ways since our last entry.  Our journey back on the Newfoundland ferry was 4 hours late leaving but we managed to have a good voyage overnight. We traveled to Halifax and spent Monday morning in there. Once again our tour was aboard an amphibious bus - called the Harbour Hopper in Halifax.  Our guide was awesome. Here you can see Rose and Jacqueline on the harbour in front of the Acadia that survived both world wars and the infamous Halifax explosion. Interestingly, it was built by the same company that built the Titanic.

Next, we went to Lunenburg where the Bluenose II is moored.  Nicholas is in front of this sailing schooner that was famous for its speed at the turn of the century.  Lunenburg is a neat town with an incredibly high percentage of old homes and buildings that have been well maintained. Right after Lunenburg, we raced to Yarmouth to catch 'The Cat' ferry to Bar Harbor, Maine.  This was quite a 3 hour ride on the aluminum fast cat!

Since we are returning to Vancouver, mainly through the states, we decided at the last minute to check out Boston last night.  We were so close we went for it.  There's nothing like driving a truck and trailer through downtown Boston at rush hour!  Bostonians are very friendly and helpful ... as long as they're not driving a car.  The Red Sox were playing the Oakland A's but the only tickets left were $160 Green Monster seats so we bought a t-shirt instead. Rose and Jacqueline are seen here in front of the legendary Fenway Park.  We also checked out the Beacon Hill and Quincy Market downtown where we had ice cream for dinner.  Today, we're going to go to Niagara Falls.

Life on the rock is beautiful

Friday was an unforgettable day for our whole family here in Newfoundland. We drove out to the community of New Perlican on Trinity Bay so Nicholas could play with his classmate and friend Dawson from Burnaby who is spending the summer at his grandparents' place.  This was truly a remarkable experience twice over because of the chance to witness the beauty of the coastal community and the welcoming hospitality of Dawson's family. Needless to say, Nicholas and Dawson enjoyed the afternoon fishing, riding their bikes, and using the quad to explore.

Dawson's grandparents, Max & Lorraine, with Dawson's mom, Leslie-Ann, welcomed us into their home and treated us to a tour of the town.

We were able to see the harbour and spot icebergs in the distance. Ken was even able to watch whales feeding from on top of the hill. Our afternoon was topped off with a fresh crab feast. Thank you, Max and Lorraine. Next time we'd love to stay longer!

We returned to St. John's for a fantastic visit and dinner out with Simon and Deirdre. We walked around the old streets of downtown and learned about some of the history of the buildings and architecture. Twenty years later, it was great catching up with Simon who we got to know in youth parliament.  Today, we're going to see the Geo Centre and the military tattoo on Signal Hill before catching the ferry back to the mainland.

We made it to Newfoundland!

After 23 days and 8,000 kilometres, we have reached the other end of our gorgeous country! Our truck rolled off the ferry at 1:15 pm after 14 hours of crossing the Atlantic. We actually had a very good sleep on the ferry and the 'cruise' was quite enjoyable. Here's our last 'Welcome sign' photo on our checklist.

One of the first things we did was enjoy some fresh cod at Ches's, one of the finest fish and chips restaurants in St. John's. And it was delicious. Then we went way up to the top of Signal Hill for our official St. John's photo.

St. John's is an old city and some of the old homes have a lot of character ... and colour!  The streets can be steep and narrow in some areas and make for some interesting navigation.

And to finish off, we had an excellent time in Louisbourg, Nova Scotia yesterday.  Being at the restored French fortress was like going back in time to 1744 complete with an 18th century lunch. We ate period food and ate with one spoon.  Here you can see Jacqueline and Nicholas with one of the French guards ... oddly, he wasn't too suspicious of our English accents!