I should have posted this update last week but was lazy, anyway Maggie and I went to Cancun Mexico for xmas, it was the first time we’ve been away from Brandon for such a long time, in forever and it was really nice. Our hotel, despite having beach club in its name was not near the beach but the location still wasn’t bad next to a lot of small businesses and restaurants. We mainly relaxed but we did also do two full day excursions which was fun.
We saw some of the Mayan ruins, did some snorkeling, spent time at beautiful Mexico beaches and got to enjoy 28C+ humidity everyday lol. I really do hate that sticky feeling, good thing our hotel room’s AC had a dehumidify option, not just cooling.
Only eventful thing that occurred was when we were snorkelling, there were a few other boats doing the same thing and well I happened to swim to the wrong boat lol. Didn’t help all the guides wore the same coloured clothing and that our group had the same colour life jackets, it can be very disorienting in the water especially with people telling you to follow them. I was lucky I had flippers on, if I didn’t I don’t know if I would have made it back to my boat as I was exhausted already lol.
Man I really love Mexican food, lol nothing was too spicey for me and while tasteful a lot of stuff is super cheap too! A really great trip with Maggie, hehe we went away this year somewhere nicer to celebrate our wedding anniversary a bit early, on the 3rd we’ll be married for 20 years! Wow how time flies, I really am lucky and have the best partner in her.
Here’s to 2024 and I can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store for us. 🙂
So last week we headed down to Myrtle Beach for a quick impromptu vacation. I didn’t really want to go but Maggie was jonsing for some nice weather so whatever. On the way down we hit a huge snowstorm and because we were going south, I didn’t bring a snow brush with me which ended up being a big mistake. The first and only thing I bought on the trip was a snow brush from somewhere in Pennsylvania. The snow came down so hard I had to pull off at the first opportunity and we stayed at another hotel for the night. The next morning we continued down to Myrtle Beach and get there for dinner. We’ve been there before and did a lot of touristy stuff so this time it was more low key, Maggie did some shopping, we spent some time on the beach of course and I booked a boat tour looking for alligators. Unfortunately we didn’t see any, combination of early in the year for them and that they’re really hard to spot.
The nicest thing about being in Myrtle beach was walking around in 20+C weather and it revitalized Maggie at least. It was a short trip, we came back on the weekend and in the last photo, I parked in a spot far away, there are plenty of other spots but this guy and his big truck needs to park right next to me. I guess at least he’s in the lines…
Short and relaxing, that’s what the doctor ordered and it makes me wonder maybe I should retire and just enjoy life now. 😉
Went to Myrtle Beach last week and got back today in the afternoon. It was nice to be in 20+ weather for a few days and to watch Brandon play in the ocean (which was freezing cold) anyway we’re back safe and sound and I’ll post updates tomorrow or later in the week with pictures. 🙂
So a week late but wanted to do a post about our whirlwind tour of Atlantic Canada. This time we visited 3 cities, Fredericton, St. John & Halifax and we had a great time. First the environment is much nicer than Southern Ontario, rolling hills, forests and large parks available within a short driving distance, if you like nature they have lots of it out East. Unfortunately for us it rained 4 of the 6 days we were there, at times quite heavily but we made the best of it.
We first drove to Fredericton to spend for one night then to Halifax where we walked around the city and saw some of the local sights.
Brandon loves the water and that’s pretty much the theme around the vacation, water and activities that we did on it lol…
The next day we went whale watching with Mariner Cruises, it’s on Brier Island and that was quite a drive but so worth it. Had to take two ferries but the hump back whales put on a show and they swam right next to the boat!
There were a total of 4 hump backs that we saw and at times they got so close that I couldn’t even take photos anymore. Due to the salty air, I didn’t switch lenses so 100mm was the shortest focal length I had.
Here’s some slow motion 4K video I took with the Canon EOS R5, this was going on for a good 5 minutes before I started to take the video too! What amazing creatures and I’d totally do it again, the staff was friendly, boat clean and it was just an overall great experience.
The next morning we visited Peggy’s Cove, it’s iconic and it was scheduled to rain hard starting around 12 so we made the best of it.
I took these two drone videos (I checked with the tourist office first) and it gives you a sense of scale and how large the rocks are.
It was pretty darn windy but the DJI Mini 2 handled the wind like a champ and had no problems staying steady. I actually came back at night when it wasn’t raining but there’s absolutely no lighting and with it damp I didn’t get much farther than the board walk.
The next day it rained most of the day letting up in the late afternoon and we walked the boardwalk at downtown Halifax.
The air just smells fresher, yeah I’m leading up to something. 😉
Maggie wanted to learn how to surf so we took the opportunity for them to learn. I was tempted to go too but frankly I want to take photos of the family more so while they were having their fun I did my thing. 🙂
It’s definitely harder than it looks, Maggie is more athletic than I am and she had trouble standing up. Brandon was lazy and just laid on the board but he had fun so that’s all that mattered.
We loved it so much that we started to look at houses in the area. We drove by a few in Halifax, drove back to Fredericton to look at some and to St. John as well. Real estate out there isn’t crazy like it is here in Toronto and doing some quick math, we think that if we sold just our principle residence in Toronto we could buy a very nice house out there (paid off), buy another investment property in Ontario to generate income, buy a vacation property in Florida and both of us could retire immediately! Man that’s mighty tempting, not something we’ll do on a whim but yeah it got us thinking about our options.
The median income out there is quite low, even if I didn’t retire I could make Toronto money while living in a cheaper place so that’s also very enticing… We’ll think about it long and hard, I told Maggie we should rent an Airbnb for a month, work from there and see how it is. May do that next summer but all in all we must have seen like 12-15 houses so yes we’re seriously considering it.
We ended the trip with Brandon going for a swim in one of the local rivers, that kid loves the water and yeah why not let him do one last swim right…
It was a great trip, we had so much fun and are seriously considering moving out there and exploring our financial options. When I was younger, I never thought I’d be able to retire but now here I am with an option to retire if I wanted it bad enough. I guess we’ll see what the future brings. 🙂
So the reason why there was no posts for 10 days was because we were in Orlando Florida enjoying the warm weather. 🙂 As a side bar, I love my Toyota Prius I drove 4,400km and spent less than $200 in gas! Yes granted gas prices in the US are lower but man getting 600+km per $20 fill up was amazing. While the temps were mid 20s, unfortunately it rained almost everyday we were down there which kind of dampened things. Still we visited Disney’s Magical Kingdom, Sea World and even did a gator tour as well as me sneaking off to take some fun photography shots.
As we were enjoying the sights and sounds, all I could think of was just how damn lucky I am to have Maggie & Brandon yeah I do feel pretty damn fortunate with how my life turned out. Even though the weather was lousy at times it was still awesome and relaxing. There are so many things to do in Orlando and with the Toyota so damn efficient, I think we’ll definitely make another trip there in the future.
I took a few artistic pics but will post those at a later time.
So the last 9 days the family and I were down South in Orlando and it was great, how I miss the 25c weather already… Anyway lots of updates, that’ll come shortly as I have a ton of photos to edit. 🙂
So from the August long weekend and all of last week, we were away on a road trip out to the Maritimes and it was absolutely awesome. We’re doing a lot of road trips recently because it’s just so darn cheap to drive the Toyota Prius around, all in all we travelled 5,200 km and spent ~$220 on gas. I only averaged 4.7L/100km (50 mpg) because driving along the Appalachian mountains was bad for gas consumption but still it was a lot of fun. We didn’t spend any time in New Brunswick except one night in Fredericton but stayed two nights in Charlottetown PEI and the rest of the time in Cape Breton Nova Scotia.
PEI is very pretty with rolling hills and man is life laid back in the mainly rural province. Even in the capital things seemed to move by a bit slower and we found it rather relaxing. Nova Scotia was much of the same but prettier, so darn scenic and we did a lot of outdoor activities. Did a hike, a couple of boat tours to see the birds & whales and just mingled around. On a side note, everything closes at 9pm so I hope you’re not a night owl or it’ll be pretty boring lol.
I told Maggie, PEI is probably a good place to hold up during a zombie apocalypse since if you destroy the main bridge, there’s no other way to get to the island but by boat. While we were in Cape Breton NS, we did two boat tours, one with the Bird Island Boat Tours where we photographed most of the birds and I’m particularly proud of the bald eagle flying pictures. I saw it flying and had about 2 seconds to capture things and well it turned out pretty well. Even Brandon had a great time taking photos, Maggie was a sourpuss and decided not to join, too bad because it was great.
We also went with Oshan Whale Watch and there I was a bit more disappointed. I understand finding whales can be difficult but the boat developed problems just after we spotted the animals and had to return home. While I did enjoy myself, the lack of seeing whales after we did find them was a downer and I think it would have been better if we didn’t see them altogether. I understand that animals might not work on our schedule but the fact that there were problems with the boat was a bit unacceptable and we weren’t offered a make good. If we go back to Nova Scotia (and I’d like to), I’ll go with someone else instead.
We also drove the Cabot Trail and my god was it beautiful! Those are the pics with the mountains and the scenery was stunning. We stopped off many times to take photos and to check out the small tourist outposts for fun activities, all in all if you’re going plan on a good 5-8 hours and have a full tank of gas too. Gas stations are sparse, I have no problem with my Toyota Prius but if I were driving a normal car I would be sweating a bit especially since the gas stations do close up early too!
It was an amazing trip and while I was behind the wheel the whole time, I feel really rested and relaxed. It was good to get back to work but man I’ll have memories for a lifetime. 🙂
So late last week Maggie proposed that we take Monday & Tuesday off and go somewhere warm so we drove to Richmond Virginia. Why there, no particular reason other than it was warm and the city didn’t disappoint with temperatures hitting 24c! It seemed we passed a magical line, just 2 hours north and it was near 0 so we got a pretty good deal. 🙂 We did a lot of things but I’m tired so I’m going to be lazy and post the pictures that we took, first here are mine…
Maggie and I enjoy going on road trip so we were happy that Brandon doesn’t mind too. That and the Toyota Prius is just so damn efficient, just over 2,400km driven and it cost $80 in gas! Not sure if the other Prius owner parked next to me on purpose but thought it was funny. We drove to Norfolk because we wanted to see the US Navy ships but for some reason the ticketing office didn’t have power and that wasn’t scheduled to be fixed till Tuesday what the hell… Instead we went to the zoo and we had a lot of fun, I might hate regular pandas but that red panda is pretty freaking cute.
Later we visited G-Force Karts, Brandon well I don’t think he’ll be the next Lewis Hamilton and crashed hard into the tire barrier on the second turn but I’m proud that he tried it at least. They also had a Nerf battle zone and we battled quite a bit which he loved. We play at home but it’s just nice to play in a different venue, I just need to teach him to be more aggressive.
Maggie took a bunch of pictures while we were on the road but her composition isn’t the best but here are the ones I thought were good.
I love the Peak Designs camera clip as you can see in a few of the other photos it works so well. We played a bit of Pokemon while we were down there, Brandon likes it and it’s always fun to share good times with the boy. I’ll admit I was wary of going but am glad I did, this is time we’ll never get back and Brandon is so much fun to be with. 🙂
So our trip to Myrtle Beach was totally on a whim, Maggie asked if I wanted to go and I said sure. We decided to drive, the Toyota Prius is great on gas so why not right & we went down knowing the weather was going to suck, the forecast said rain was coming and it looked like it rained on the entire East coast of North America. The drive was ~14-15 hours, I probably could have done it on one go but decided to split both going and coming into two days so I could reset.
While on the road, Maggie shot a bunch of pictures with the Canon SL2 and while most didn’t turn out too well a few did. We also noticed that gas is about 40-50% cheaper than in Canada, that and Americans really love to drive trucks & SUVs! We made it a game on some parts of the drive to count the number of cars vs the larger vehicles and I’m not exaggerating when I say there’s probably 6-7 SUVs/trucks for every car we saw. Makes me wonder what is going to happen to all these large vehicles when gas prices go up because well you know there’s a finite supply of fossil fuels.
The interstate is super boring but the side roads & local highways are a lot of fun, we drove through so many small towns and some parts of rural America really looks like a post apocalyptic world with run down homes, buildings & vehicles.
We stayed at the Monterey Bay hotel in Myrtle Beach and while the building was old the unit itself was not bad. We had a view the ocean and even had a small kitchen to use if we wanted to cook something. Before continuing with the story let me post some pictures that Maggie & Brandon took first.
Oh before we hit up the hotel, we did visit the Angel Oak tree a bit farther south and man it’s amazing and a bit spooky, if there were such thing as a monster tree, that’d be it! It was really foggy during the nights & mornings so it was fun to walk around the beach at that time. We did some shopping at some of the local malls, went to Wonder Works (like the science center but more fun), an alligator zoo and finally did some go karting.
Here are some of the pics that I snapped.
The one picture where Maggie & Brandon stood by the ocean was taken from our room with my 70-200 & the Canon 2x extender. I didn’t do too many artsy photos as I was busy having a good time with the family but I did try to snap a few. I liked the pictures of the gulls and of the spoke on the Ferris wheel. Probably enjoyed the go karting the most and I’m so happy that Brandon could drive one, none of the tracks around Toronto will allow someone his age to drive alone unfortunately. He was also clearly faster than the other boy but wasn’t allowed to pass unfortunately.
We spent a total of 2 1/2 days in Myrtle Beach, came home early as heavy rain was forecasted for the day we had left so Maggie and I decided to come home instead. It was a good plan as it allowed us to unwind today in preparation for work tomorrow but all in all we had a wonderful time. Both the wife and I enjoyed the drive and Brandon didn’t seem to mind which was great.
LOL last picture shows that over 3,600km, I averaged 4.6 l / 100 km (51 mpg) and when I totaled up the fuel costs, it was less than $100 US. The Toyota Prius ain’t a sexy or fast car but it’s the perfect car for a road trip and I can’t wait for the next one.
So it’s been mainly Maggie rocking the Canon Rebel SL2 but today Brandon wanted to use it and he had a lot of fun taking photos, did I convert him into enjoying this hobby too? God if so it’s going to be expensive but here are some of the shots he took.
Haha for the picture where I’m holding the camera, I’m posing but the others especially the ceiling fan was pretty good.
In the last picture Brandon was not posing, I was just able to capture the moment. I told him later not to hold the camera right against his eye, we’ll see if he really does like it maybe I will get him something though cheaper than the Canon 6D MKII & Rebel SL2 lol.
