Author: Johanna

Our adventure in Florida continues as we go down the west coast along the gulf of Mexico. We spent a week in Palm Harbor, a little town just north of Tampa. We stayed in an  airbnb which was the top floor of a beautiful old house belonging to  a lovely couple called Mary and Dave and their two rescue dogs Java and Nemo. We were their very first guests so poor Mary was extremely nervous, but we reassured her that her home was lovely and one of the nicest airbnbs we’d stayed at. Read more →

We crossed the Louisiana state border on Wednesday morning. Louisiana became a French colony in 1682 when explorer Robert de La Salle sailed down the Mississippi River and claimed much of the interior of North America for France. He called this land the Louisiana Territory after King Louis XIV. At that time the current state of Louisiana was just a small part of a much larger territory. In 1803, the United States purchased Louisiana from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase.  Read more →

 

Our drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe took us along another scenic route known as the turquoise trail.  We stopped for a coffee and hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) in the pretty little village of Madrid. It used to be an old mining village but now houses craft stores, cafes and restaurants. We got to Santa Fe in time for lunch which we had in a kid friendly Mexican restaurant. Read more →

This week was another busy week on the road.

Our first destination was Capitol Reef National Park which we crossed in one day. We went on two short hikes; the first took us to a  narrow canyon. The rocks on each side were very high. It was incredibly beautiful but also made me feel quite claustrophobic!  The second led to a natural bridge: Hickmann bridge. Read more →

We arrived in Yellowstone NP after a 6 hour drive from Salt Lake City. We knew the weather would be cold, so we had bought extra clothes for us and the kids. We were planning to stay for four days plus a fifth day in Grand Teton NP. We checked in at Madison campground the last one still open this late in the season. The lady at the office told us that we were brave sleeping in a tent and when we looked around most people were in RV’s or trailers! Read more →

We left LA on Monday morning on a 3 hour drive to San Diego. On the way we stopped at San Juan Capistrano another mission founded in 1776. It is beautifully restored and has lovely gardens.

On arriving in San Diego we stopped to go to the beach in the upmarket neighbourhood of La Jolla. We walked down some steps onto La Jolla cove, a small beach with a large sea lion and seal population. Read more →

We spent two weeks in the San Francisco bay area. Our apartment was in a neighbourhood called Kensington just next to Berkeley, half way between downtown SanFrancisco and Christophe’s family in Walnut Creek and Concord. Accomodation is fairly pricey in the Bay area, so we had quite a small apartment compared to the previous places we’ve stayed in, but the neighbourhood was very nice and quiet. Read more →

Our first stop in California was in the town of Eureka. It lies on the coast 170 km from the Oregon border. Unfortunately the thick mist we encountered all along the road was still present and made it pretty chilly. We put up our tent and wrapped up well for the night.

The next day, to try and escape the mist, we decided to head away from the coast and try our luck inland.
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Our second week in Seattle started with a 3 day trip around the Olympic peninsula that didn’t quite go as planned. We left Seattle on Monday morning and caught the ferry to the town of Bremerton on the other side of the estuary. We then headed onto the US101 which loops all the way around the peninsula. Our plan was to drive to Neah Bay close to the most north west point of continental USA, go to the beaches and spend the night there. Read more →

Our first week in the USA has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. We arrived in Seattle on a beautiful but slightly choppy boatride from Victoria. We passed through immigration and were given authorisation for a six month stay in the USA. We have so much luggage that we had to get two cabs from the boat terminal to were we are staying! Read more →

Hello!

We are back to tell you about the last ten days of our stay in Vancouver.

Louise went to a music day camp for two hours every day over 5 days. It was a much smaller group than the cookery, with only 6 kids. They had a nice teacher called Siobhan (it’s pronounced “shuh-von”) who played the guitar. Read more →

Hello all!

We left Calgary on Monday morning headed for Banff national park an hour and a half to the west. It took some time getting everything into the car and unfortunately we had to leave some things behind as we just couldn’t fit them in!

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We left Ottawa on Sunday and drove 4 hours to a campground in Algonquin provincial park. The scenery in the park is just amazing with endless forests and lakes. When driving through we were lucky enough to see two moose by the side of the road.
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Hello all!
We are already two weeks into our trip! How time flies!!
This second week has been great and so much better than the last. The main reason is that the sun has come out and we’ve had almost a whole week of lovely weather and really fun days! Read more →