Merry Christmas...

With less than 200 days to go before we leave, we are faced with many "lasts" in our life.  As a pastor, Christmas Eve services have always been pretty special in my world.  Unfortunately, mother nature, along with some questionable, politically motivated choices, leaves my churches without and power or running water or heat this Christmas Eve.

Here in southwestern Ontario we were hit with a CRAZY ice storm last weekend.  trees were down and power was out in many places.  3 days later we discover that out in the country there is a noticeable shortage of HYDRO 1 trucks (the provincial utility).   It turns out, that most (or maybe all) of their assets were sent to Toronto (our closest MAJOR city) to get folks there re-connected, leaving thousands of rural customers with no heat or power or water for days... A sad way to run things...

At the end of the day, for the first time in more than twenty years, I will not be leading Christmas Eve services...

That said, I hope that everyone has an awesome Christmas time with friends and family and we can't wait for next Christmas when we have promised our great friends, Mike & Margaret in Cozumel, Mexico that we will be with them!

Our plan is to leave home on July 1st and make our way slowly down the eastern seaboard until the end of hurricane season next November 1st. The first weather window after the end of hurricane season will hopefully get us to Cuba where we will make our way east along their north cast before we head to Cozumel in time for the beginning of December.

Sometime after Christmas we will head toward the windward islands and hopefully end up in Grenada in time for the 2015 hurricane season...  Lets all hope things go as we plan...

Again, Merry Christmas to all!

200 Days to Go...

On the one hand 200 days seems like a really long time, on the other hand, it is really just around the corner... As soon as Christmas is over we will get serious about getting the house sold and the rest of our stuff sold, stored or packed for the boat....

the boat seems to be holding up really well in storage...  yesterday we checked the dLink camera and all looked well:

This year we are also looking forward to seeing our son and his wife and our granddaughter at Christmas..  Next year we hope our family will find the time and money to join us in Mexico.  We promised our friends who we have taught diving for for many years that we would spend Christmas 2014 in Cozumel, Mexico...

The Boat is Safe & Sound...

Last week Shelley and I went to Rochester to check on the boat and found everything just as we left it...  It is such good news to know that the folks that are storing it are keeping a good eye on things...  Even the cover which we weren't too sure of is still in place.  The most interesting thing is that we have left a DLink camera set up and running off the 12 volt house battery and the house batteries connected to the solar panels.  When we checked the voltage was a steady 13 volts!

The solar panels are doing a great job even with the camera drawing a little current 24 hours a day....

On our way down we passed this guy who was having a REALLY BAD DAY!

We are busy at home getting the house ready to sell in the new year...  We are also still busy selling and giving away SO MUCH!   I have to say that as difficult as it is, there is something very liberating about divesting ourselves of STUFF that we have been accumulating over our lifetime... I am becoming aware of just how much we have and how little we really need to be happy...  I am sure that will be some painful moments, but for now we are doing really well....

This month we bit the bullet and bought ourselves a Christmas present.  With the hopes of doing some writing as we travel, (after some pretty extensive research) we have purchased a NIKON D3200 digital SLR camera and 2 zoom lenses that will give us everything form 18mm to 300mm.  What an awesome piece of gear! When we submit a story for publication, we understand that photos need to be of the best possible quality, something you just can't get with a point & shoot camera...  In a previous life, I did some professional photography and am really happy using this great new technology...  I am pleasantly surprised that the cost of a decent SLR is roughly what it was 30 years ago when I was in the business...  I guess that really means the cost of this equipment is much less than it used to be.... Given the value of the dollar today vs 30 years ago...

More soon,

Kyle