We’re home! It’s been a fantastic three months living a most unique experience. It’s a good thing that we have been in snow for the last couple of weeks as it has helped us to adjust to ALL this snow in Ottawa. We have traveled a total of 14,500 km. We have been most fortunate for driving in good weather. With the exception of our brake fluid leak (Ben you were right! The eight tie wraps did the trick for the entire trip, thanks again for your help) and our rear-view mirror falling off, we have had no major problems. We both feel enriched from our experience traveling to Mexico shared with our new Westy family.

Here is what we have been up to in the last few weeks since our last post. We left Holtville, California and drove via Phoenix to Sedona, Arizona. Sedona is beautiful with all its red rock formations. We went on a jeep tour which was exciting and brought us “on the rocks”. http://www.pinkjeep.com/jeep-tours/sedona Once we left Sedona we were reacquainted with snow. LOL! We camped in the snow in Grand Canyon National Park. At sunrise we drove to the rim for breakfast and enjoyed the early morning views. This is our second visit to the Grand Canyon and we are still mesmerized by its beauty.

We then continued our journey toward the Colorado Rockies. It had always been our wish to return to Telluride (in the “Four Corners” area -Arizona/New Mexico, Colorado/Utah). The small mining town that we remembered from 1991 has boomed. Nonetheless we enjoyed a fantastic sunny day of skiing. Telluride – Town Elevation 8,750 feet, peak 11,890 ft. http://www.telluride.com Note: We broke our all time low temperature record – it was minus 14 degrees C in the van in the morning (we did check in a hotel for the second night). A pending snow storm chased us out to Grand Junction. Good move – 26” of snow fell in that area. We spent a week in Snowmass/Aspen with Paul’s brother Rob and his wife Wendy. Snowmass: peak elevation 12,500 – http://snowmass.com After seven nights in Snowmass we packed the van and all four of us drove to Vail for a couple of nights. We had a full day of skiing in Vail – peak elevation 11,578 – http://vail.snow.com/winter It’s a huge mountain. We considered skiing for another day but after skiing 8/10 days at high altitude we opted to stay ahead of another impeding storm and head for Denver. We drove on snow covered highways for the first time since the morning of December 1^st. The girls enjoyed a few hours of shopping. We then drove to the downtown area for dinner and strolled the 16^th street mall (we checked out the Coyote Ugly bar). This happened to be the week that many Denver restaurants offer a special menu, which is a complete menu for two for $52.80 (and ours included wine). The next day we dropped off Rob & Wendy at the Denver airport and continued our drive home, again trying to avoid two different winter storms.

We had a last night sleeping in the van at a Flying J in Des Moines, Iowa – it was a breeze as it was above 0 degrees C. We had a lovely visit in Kalamazoo, Michigan with cousin Glenn and his wife Jen and their two wonderful daughters Ebba and Berlin. We were lucky to take in one of Glenn’s hockey games (Kalamazoo K-Wings) – Ebba is quite the little fan! We crossed the border in Sarnia without difficulty and spent the night in Tottenham at Rob & Wendy’s. On our last leg of the drive, we stopped in Peterborough at Jerry & Sophie’s for a visit. It was great to see them and Duke again and we reminisced, planned and dreamed of our next travels. Ah La Manz!!

The following is a link for pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/PlanteTardif/February2008

I hope that you have enjoyed traveling with us. Thank you Jonathan for the opportunity to share our travels on this blog. We will continue to follow the blog with great envy from the comfort of our home. Cheers to Buses in Zamora!!

Adios amigos, Linda & Paul

Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by platar
Filed under: Linda Plante & Paul Tardif