Whole Lotta Stuff

I just realized I haven't posted anything here since I had the flu back in January (VERY sick for almost two weeks), followed almost immediately by the packing up of our household.   Since then DH and I have said goodbye to lots and lots of people we love in Ontario, taken the dogs, and moved back to Austin, Texas.  We had to give up the cats, a topic which is almost too painful to even mention.  We're in temporary housing now, waiting to hear on an offer we've made on a house, and are busy reconnecting with people and a city that was very hard to leave in the first place, some fourteen years ago.

I was worried about the puppies and the heat, given their thick winter undercoats, but we've been extremely lucky to actually have Spring here this year.  Temperatures are hovering around 60F (16C), occasionally dipping down to freezing or soaring close to 90F (32C).  The guys have started blowing their winter coats, which is messy, but otherwise seem to be doing okay.  They (and we) participated in the Mighty Texas Dog Walk this past weekend, a charity event to benefit service dogs.  Next weekend, they're going to Snake Aversion Training, to keep them safe from rattlesnakes and copperheads.  Later they will participate in more training involving coral snakes and maybe cottonmouths.

The drive down was mostly a lot of fun, though finding truly pet-friendly hotels on-the-fly was sometimes challenging.  We took time out to visit the Wild Turkey distillery in Kentucky and walk barefoot (in February!) in Northern Texas.  Kai took an extreme dislike to a statue of Abe Lincoln in Cincinnati, and had to bark at it, a lot, every time he stepped outside of the hotel where we were staying.

DH and I, as I mentioned, are reconnecting with family and friends, exploring old haunts and new attractions, and enjoying the food WAY too much.  It's a bit disconcerting that Austin has literally doubled in size since we left, but we're adjusting to it.  We've spent the last month or so searching for a house.  We found one we absolutely loved, but apparently the owner didn't really want to sell, so our offer went ignored.  We've found another house we like almost as much, and should know by tomorrow whether our offer was accepted or not.

That's the last ten weeks or so in a nutshell.  I'll post pictures of the house if we get it, otherwise it's back to the drawing board.

Wish us luck!

Days 9 & 10

The last two days of our trip were fairly uneventful.  We drove the rest of the way through Maine, through a bit of New Hampshire and through Vermont, then into Eastern New York before driving back into Ontario.  We did a little shopping and took a few photos, but mostly we just wanted to get home.  I was starting to feel genuinely ill, and I was thoroughly sick of taking pictures--I'd taken over 1,000 in the last eight days!  (No telling how many DH took.)  I was wondering if I'd ever want to hold a camera again!

We took pictures of much gorgeous scenery:

Ran into some truly dismal weather (And that's saying something, considering the weather we'd already hit on this trip.):

And saw the tail end of a fall festival in Burlington, Vermont:

It was thoroughly enjoyable and thoroughly exhausting, and I'm  SO glad we did it!  We will definitely visit Newfoundland  next summer!


I expect our next big trip will in all likelihood be the move back to Texas.

The Rest of Day 8

After the tide chased us away from Hopewell Rocks, we continued our journey back.  Next stop was in the hometown of a friend of ours.  In the foreground you can see the town's famous covered bridge.

She gave us clear directions to where she grew up, but we got a little lost, so we're still not sure we got the right house!  Is this it, Angie?

 

If so, it now comes with a dog.  :)

We're fairly sure we got the correct high school, at least according to the locals, it's boarded up now, and it got to late for us to look for the new one.

 We drove into Maine late in the evening.  It was too dark to get a picture, but the Maine woods really ARE creepy at dusk.

We were so exhausted by then that we basically stopped at the first hotel we found.