Only a few days to go before departure

Here we are only a few days before leaving heading southbound. Most of our list of to-dos have been cleared and today we are going north of Newmarket to bring the motorhome back home. Then I have to trek out to the vehicle licensing office to get stickers for the motorhome, Lincoln Town Car, and two Spitfires. There goes another $300.00.

We can then start loading summer clothes and the food stock into the MH. I can also install the LED lighting that I have been working on the last few weeks. These will replace the units that I purchased on eBay last year that didn't work out. The light from those wasn't bright enough and the LEDs were failing rapidly. I am not sure it was due to heat or over-voltage. The new units are made from 3-watt LEDs and include a driver circuit that optimizes the current flow for consistent light output. I have two LED's mounted on a heat sync for each lamp. That should increase the light output and the heat sync should keep the LED's in a good operating range. I have even built a dimmer circuit for a couple of them. Works great too. I'll try to post a picture of the set-up later on.

On Sunday, we will start up the refrigerator and add some water to the tank. Monday morning will see us joining the traffic. Oh joy!

After all this lead-up, we still haven't decided on our final destination. We really want to enjoy the warmer weather and ocean activities in Mexico. Mike and Mavis from BC, who were our next-door neighbours in Lo de Marcos last season will be heading across the border into Mexico within the next few days. They will be reporting their observations and reviews of the campgrounds they stay at along the route down the west coast of Mexico. Based on their experiences, we will follow if all is well.

Getting ready to head south again

Here it is October 20th and we are getting set for another adventure southward. A few repairs/upgrades left outstanding from our return have been taken care of, most notably replacing the review camera and monitor that died, and replacing the spring base of the sofa bed (uncomfortable to sleep on). We have started to stock up on the food items we like to have on-board, like pancake mix, syrup, cereal, canned salmon, tuna, mmm butter, tonic water, etc., as these are unattainable in Mexico or not to our taste preferences.

We are planning a different route this year due to the reports Mexican violence along the northern border. The plan is to head to southern Arizona, do a little site-seeing, then maybe head south to Lo de Marcos. We will be monitoring reports of people traveling this route and make a final decision in mid November to stay in Arizona or make the run south. While Arizona has a couple of destinations on our bucket list, we really enjoyed Lo de Marcos and the beach and prefer to return there. We hope to get to the Grand Canyon  and Hoover Dam either on the way south or on the return, since we will be in the general area. We might even take in the Copper Canyon in Mexico too!

One report we viewed stated that they had no problems, and saw an increased presence of military and police patrols. However, they also found the campgrounds empty (mostly due to early in the season), with one campground where the entire front row (prime spots) had canceled their reservations.

We should be off and running on November 1st, heading to brother Don's in Indiana for a couple of days. The route south then takes us through Chicago, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, and Tucson. This segment is about 2200 miles. The segment to Lo de Marcos is another 1035 miles.

March 31st – Home again!

We spent last night on a WalMart parking lot in Grove City, PA just north of Pittsburgh.  Today we breezed through customs and were at our home in Thornhill by 3 pm.

Our journey has come to an end exactly 5 months after we set out.  We travelled 6,779 miles and met many wonderful people along the way!

Our first dinner home was celebrated with our children, their spouses and our new granddaughter Maxine!

Maxine and friends

Maxine and friend

March 25th to 29th - NASCAR Racing

Details and photos to be added

March 24 – Drive to Martinsville VA

We left about 7:54 am with the temperature only 5C.  As we drove through Georgia, we noticed numerous trees loaded with white flowers – wonder if they are pecan trees?  Today we covered 4 states:  Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and into Virginia.  The scenery was much like Ontario but the foliage was about a month in advance.  We stopped along the way to shop at Camping World, fill up with gas and propane as we will be boondocking for 5 days at the Speedway.  The weather when we arrived in Martinsville at 4:30 pm was a sunny 22C – yeah, into our shorts and t-shirts for a few hours!  We visited around, chatting with fellow Ontarians who are avid fans of NASCAR.  They attend all the eastern events!

March 22 – Atlanta GA

We left Elberta LA about 7:30 am yesterday as we knew we would cross from the Central Time Zone to the Eastern Time Zone when we crossed from Alabama into Georgia, thereby losing an hour. It took us roughly 7 hours to make the trip. As we drove further north in Georgia, we noticed very few trees with hanging Spanish moss on them. We were just settling into our campsite at Allatoona Landing Marine Resort when it started pouring rain and continued most of the night. The temperature dropped to 4C (40F) last night – thank goodness for our gas furnaces.

This morning was damp and drizzling rain but we didn’t care as we drove into Atlanta to spend the day at the Georgia Aquarium. It is classed as the largest aquarium in the world with 6.3 million gallons of water. It houses 4 whale sharks, 2 Manta Rays, and 100,000 other sharks, rays, large groupers, etc. It is truly worth the trip to visit it! One item off our bucket list!



A Manta Ray soars in the huge aquarium, up to 30' deep in spots.





A Giant Grouper stares back at us in the 100' tunnel under the aquarium.

Here is a video of a Giant Grouper.
File is about 670K.

Jelly fish float by this viewing window. They are really fascinating up close. They have blue lighting in this display to highlight their transparent bodies and tendrils.

The main viewing window is 61' long and 23' feet high. The big fish in the foreground are Giant Grouper. Yup, it's big...about 4 feet long.












Bev is looking at the Tropical Diver display, with many species of colourful fish. There is even a wave generator to simulate ocean conditions.








You can look here for more information:
Wikipedia Georgia Aquarium

Or look at the Georgia Aquarium website.


This video shows a feeding frenzy at the huge Ocean Voyager viewing window.

File is about 1.2M

Manta Ray doing a loop.
File is about 790K.

Whale Shark viewed in tunnel.

File is about 1M.

Feeding Whale Sharks   File is about 3M.

March 20th – visit to Fairhope AL

While at the medical clinic yesterday, the doctor recommended we drive scenic Hwy 98 along Mobile Bay to visit the Arts and Crafts event in Fairhope.  The downtown area was closed for this event featuring artists and craftsman from many states.  It was like “The One of a Kind Event” that occurs in Toronto twice per year except this was much bigger, all the exhibits were outdoors on the streets, the car parking was free and no entry fee!  We spent a couple of hours walking around the event, then headed out to tour more of the local countryside and drop into a local flea market.

When we returned to the campground, we met a couple from Winnipeg, Manitoba and a couple from Georgetown, Ontario so got together to swap stories of our travels.

Tomorrow we’ll be back on the road travelling to the Altanta GA area.