Off to California

We fly out of Dulles International today at 4 pm, landing in LAX at about 6:45 PST. We will be in Oceanside for about 3 months then it is back to Ontario to do our obligatory 6 months and 1 day residency to maintain our health insurance. California here we come!!!

Blogging from Maryland

We drove down to my sister's house in Maryland today, expecting snow and ice and bad driving conditions, but not getting anything bad! It was a great drive. The roads were dry and there was no snow and ice! Got to the house but we could not get in because we could not find the key. After breaking in through the basement doors, a neighbour was most helpful and came over and the key was found where it had fallen off the lintel. We are now inside, supper (chicken from Walmart and whole wheat rolls) is eaten and I am now doing a load of washing. We fly out of Dulles on Friday afternoon and get into LAX that evening. We will be in Oceanside, San Diego county for about 3 months then we reverse the trip at the end of March and go home for the summer.

Virginia is doing a lot better and hopefully we will see her get most of her incredible strength and love of life back. She is going to live each day to the fullest.

Toronto

We are now in Toronto. The house we are in is an old Victorian Semi. It has been beautifully restored. We are cat sitting 2 cats. Don't know what their names are. We are just less than a kilometer from our son's house. He is away, sailing in Honduras (Roatan). Our daughter lives in the top 2 floors of his house. Greg's house is an old Edwardian Semi. This is perfect because we can  see our daughter and our grandkids every day yet not be on top of them.

Tomorrow we take the Seneca back to the dealership as we have discovered a leak in the front cab over compartment. Michael took the  large CRT TV out of the space and we will put an LCD in there as soon as we find the time to settle down and do things. I wonder if they will have a check for us, as they have sold our Regal.

We managed to set off the house alarm today. I was able to reassure the alarm company that we were legit, even the police came round and took Michael's information. Very quick response.

There is not nearly as much snow here as there was in London. For that we are very thankful.

I spoke to my American Mom today and she is feeling much better. My sister is still there. Her family arrive this evening and they will be there for Christmas. We will arrive there on New Years Eve. Our trip South will begin on December 28th, depending on the weather. We fly out of Dulles on December 31st.

We have decided to go down by car as it will work out much cheaper and quicker. I am a little sad that we won't be using the RV, but we do have to be practical.

Moving Day

Today we move from the house in London, Ontario where we have been cat sitting to a house in Toronto close to our daughter and family. We will be cat sitting there too!

We have some stuff to attend to before we head South for 3 months. We have a big decision to make. Do we take the RV down, staying at Truck stops on the way, or do we drive down in the car?

RV vs Car Prize Fight:

RV sleep at Truck Stops. Car sleep in motel ($$$).
RV 3 days. Car 2 days.
RV lots of Diesel ($$$) Car much less gas ($).
RV lots of space to carry stuff down. Car little space to carry anything.
RV can buy stuff in the US to bring back ($$$). Car $.

I think the car wins! Now to recalibrate my brain.

More news from California

It is not good. It seems that my dear American Mom may have bowel cancer. She is unable to eat anything and feels so weak and ill.  We have brought our travel date forward by a week and will fly out of Dulles on December 31st instead of the 7th.

I have arranged for someone to come in and see to the cat about every 3 days until Belinda comes home. We will still be driving down to Maryland and leaving the RV at Patricia's house. We still have to find somewhere to park the car for 3 months.

Changing the airplane tickets was very traumatic and now my credit card has an extra charge of about $1000 on it. Painful but necessary.