WE'RE HOME

Well we're home. The time has gone far too fast. Ten and half months on the road. We traveled just under 45 thousand kilometres with out one problem with truck or trailer ( we thank the Lord for that). We had an unbelievable trip, we saw amazing things and met fantastic people. Thanks to all those people that we met that shared their lives and hospitality with our family. We know we have made life long friends all over Canada and the U.S.

Whats next:

Time to find a good job with a great company and find out where we will end up living.

San Francisco

Today we spent the day downtown in San Francisco. We started our day at Fishermans Wharf where we could see Alcatraz in the bay. We didn't go on a tour because the kids were a little too young. Instead we headed towards Nob Hill to catch the cable cars. We took the cable car to Chinatown and spent the rest of the day there. We went for Dim Sum which we hadn't had since Ottawa in July. It was yummy. The rest of the afternoon was spent checking out the interesting shops and then back to camp for a hot tub and swim. Tomorrow we are planning to see the Golden Gate Bridge and drive some of the Pacific Highway that we can't take the trailer on.

Huge sand dunes about 200ft. below sea level in Death Valley.

You just can't see the scale of this dam photo. Bottom center is a stair case.

A scorpion with a nasty sting.....smaller the claws more sting.

Hoover Dam / Death Valley

We were very happy to get away from the biting wind from the Grand Canyon. We stayed in Las Vegas for 4 nights. We enjoyed the pool and the warmer weather. On Friday we went to the Hoover Dam. It was incredible. If all the concrete from that dam was made into a sidewalk it would go around the world at the equator. What an amazing engineering feat. It was dizzying to look down from the top of the dam.
On Sunday afternoon we headed towards San Francisco. Unfortunately we went the long and difficult way. We decided to go through Death Valley not knowing that it was full of 9% grades that went on for miles, twisting and turning. We had to stop 3 times to let our smoking brakes cool off. We were joined by a couple from Calgary that had the same problem. The up side is we found 2 scorpions and a centipede.
We spent the night in Ridgecrest and had a long day today but we finally hit San Francisco after dark. We have come from dry, desolate,barren desert to lush, green fields and hills. We past acre after acre of almond trees in full bloom. California is so beautiful, green mountains, lush valleys full of produce but also lots of traffic and highways. Betsy worked overtime today and I can confidently say that she has made life on the road so much easier.