It’s July, I better post this quickly
In February, we took a short trip to Europe to visit Andy, Brandi, and the kids. The original plan was to spend a few days in London and then off to their house which is 2 hours outside of London by rail. A few weeks before our departure, that plan changed and we were to go to France instead as they had a house-swap arrangement. So, we scrambled our plans to make it work – like who doesn’t want to visit Bordeaux??
The trip is all about that little guy
We took the red-eye flight out of Vancouver into Heathrow on Friday evening. Arrived in London at 2:30 in the afternoon. Once settled at the hotel, we decided to go exploring – a walk to Harrods seemed like a good idea. Guess what, it started to snow on our way there. The snow stopped and it was getting dark, we couldn’t quite orientate ourselves and so we hopped into a London cab to Harrods. We were hungry and decided to have something to eat.. all I can say is that that is the MOST expensive bowl of wonton soup we ever had! £90 later, still hungry. Caroline had a cupcake, £4 for a cupcake!! Jeff and Marcus had a savoury pastry at £3 each.
The next day we went exploring – checked out the major attractions and walked about 23kms that day! We were so tired – well, everyone except Jeff because he never seems to be tired.
On Monday we flew off to Bordeaux. We used Uber for the trip to Gatwick, it was only slightly more than public transit, so why not. Paying a slight premium to avoid dealing with the transit system and rush hour was a good idea. Our stay in Bordeaux was for 2 full days plus the half days on arrival and departure. Everyone had a backpack because I refused to pay for check-in luggage. The cost of checking in the luggage was more than the kid’s air ticket!
Being in France was really fun. We rented a Fiat in manual transmission and explored the french countryside. So romantic… no, wait, we have 2 jetlagged kids in the back seat. The Fiat was so under-powered – Jeff drove like he was driving a sports car, revving the engine all the time. He had to, it was so gutless and it took all it had just to go at 120km/h.
When we were back in London again, we went on a pre-arranged day trip to visit the English countryside. Stonehenge was on my list – because I’m a photographer and because I always enjoy seeing really really old stuff. We enjoyed Stonehenge and Bath, why worth the extra cost to have a private driver and guide.
On our last day in London, we did the obligatory tourist activity – watching the changing of the guards. You won’t find me doing that again…
After the whirlwind trip to Europe, we’re back home again. We’ll definitely be back to Europe again at some point in the future. Maybe by that time we’ll have a more favourable exchange rate.
We spent 2 nights in Wenatchee (apple capital of the world) at the Comfort Inn. It cost us $400 for the 2 night stay… in a Comfort Inn!!!!!
We got home safe and sound – the only issue was that front steps leading to our place disappeared under all the snow that had fallen while we were away… And that was our not so well planned adventure to end 2016. The End.
![Spahats Creek Falls, also called Spahats Falls, is a waterfall on Spahats Creek within Wells Gray Provincial Park of British Columbia, Canada. Common references place the falls at around 60 m (197 ft) tall, but taking into account the second tier, it is closer to 75–80 meters tall. Spahats Creek rises from snowmelt and springs at a pass between Raft Mountain and Trophy Mountain. It flows 15 km west before tumbling over Spahats Falls and entering the Clearwater River. Spahats is the First Nations term for bear and the stream was long known as Bear Creek. When the first accurate topographical map of the Clearwater Valley was published in 1953, it labelled the stream as “Bear Creek” and the falls as “Spahats (Bear) Creek Falls”. By the late 1960s, “Spahats” had become an accepted alternative due to the large number of Bear creeks in British Columbia and was officially adopted.[4] Spahats Falls owes its formation to deposits of volcanic rock in the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field. Starting about 300,000 years ago, numerous eruptions from Trophy Mountain poured into the Clearwater River Valley and filled it layer upon layer to a depth of over 300 m (980 ft).](http://35.203.143.166/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_0950-1024x1024.jpg)
We visited Gabriola Island to visit a friend. She took us around the island – having a local show us around is such a treat as she knows the good places to visit. We enjoyed the visit and learning more about the island and the people that live there.
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