Posts for February, 2014

Today we just drove, with the intent/hope of getting to a camping ground within easy reach of Antwerp by the end of the day. At one point during the day the road crossed a 20 km section of the Netherlands, we joked with each other that if it is 2:00pm - it must be the Netherlands. At this rate we could drive across the whole of Europe in a coupLe of days and see nothing except motorways.

We spent yesterday preparing the truck for shipping. This mostly involved packing things away inside the vehicle out of sight and cleaning. We had been warned by the shipping agents ( Seabridge For Motorhomes) that Canadian customs will be fussy about dirt on the outside of the vehicle. So at Merex we had the outside thoroughly cleaned with steam and pressure washer but the drive since then (through the rain) had covered the vehicle with road dirt. So we both spent a few hours with broom and bucket cleaning said road dirt off.

Today we departed Antwerp and caught a train to Paris. There is not much to say about that, trains after all are pretty mundane. This one not so much though as it traveled the 300 km into Paris in 2 hours. Outside towns and cities I estimate is was traveling at well over 200 km/hr.

Now we have had 9 wonderful days of, living in, and seeing Paris. Most of those days were full as we wanted to cover all the highlights. However towards the end of our stay I developed a cold or something and so was a bit of a lead weight for the last couple of days. I dont intend to try and describe in any detail the things we saw. Paris is sufficiently well known that most readers will recognize the famous sights in the pictures below. Just let me say that I was impressed by Paris, it is truely a spectacular city. But that thought gets tarnished a bit when one contemplates the egos and megolamania of the men that caused all of the fabulous buildings to be built. Other than that I will let the images speak for us.

Today we flew back into the US, from Paris to Baltimore Washington Int airport. What can I say about that, plane travel is boring and tedious. Winter time in the US plane travel is also plagued by long delays, and we had our share of that today. We finally got to an airport hotel in Baltimore about 10:00pm tonight (4:00am Paris time). This is likely to be the last entry for a while. We hope to collect the truck in Halifax at the end of this week and then it will be business and chores for a good period before we head back to Europe. The kind of mundane stuff that does not warrant a website entry. There may be one more as our (or really the trucks) arrival in Halifax will signal the completion of an around the world journey. We and the truck were in Halifax on August, 20 2012.