Happy New Year,

When we left in August, we had no idea where we would be for either Christmas or New Year’s. Turns out that we spent them in St. John’s but not at home. We rented out our house for the year so we didn’t have a house/home to come home to but of course, we were home the minute we landed. Our baggage didn’t arrive with us so it was quite funny when we met the baggage folks who asked, “Do you live here?”

I answered, “Yes.”

“What’s your address?” He queried.

“Hang on,” I said. “I have to look it up.”

“I thought you lived here.” He replied looking puzzled.

I said, “We’re just visiting right now, for about 10 days or so. Not sure how long we are staying.”

“So you’re visiting?” He asked with an upturn in his voice.

“It’s complicated,” I stated and left it at that.

Our bags arrived the next afternoon on Christmas Day and some very kind soul delivered them to us during the family festivities. It was lovely to catch up with family and friends and tell stories of our many travels this past fall. We left St. John’s on Aug. 15 and arrived back in the wee hours of December 25. I’d found an unprecedented one way airfare from Colombo, Sri Lanka to St. John’s that was as direct as direct could be with only 17 hours of travel that we couldn’t resist. As it turned out, 17 turned into 34 hours when the flight left Columbo late causing us to miss our connection from London and we got to have that great joy of overflying St. John’s to Toronto and flying back in the 3 hour lull interval between three storms (one in Toronto and two in St. John’s). It really was a holiday season miracle that we were with family on the 25th instead of being in London or Toronto. Marian and I spent New Year’s Eve with our dear friends, Deb and Wilma, and saw as many friends as we could between Christmas and New Year’s. We know we missed many of you and we’ll try to catch you on our next brief visit/home stay in early March.

Now as I type this, we are in New Brunswick following an equally well timed exit from the island of Newfoundland via ferry in-between storms. We are visiting Marian’s family and starting our next set of adventures we are calling “Ski-a-Rail.” We are crossing Canada using Via Rail for transportation and stopping to ski (both alpine and Nordic) along the way. Marian has never had to opportunity to cross Canada before and we’re both enchanted with travel via rail. We took long train rides in both Sweden and Thailand and that whetted our appetite for more. So we’ve planned a seven week ski trip trip from St. John’s to Vancouver during which we will travel mostly by rail, some by car, and some by ferry and we hope you’ll come along as we share our love for both skiing and exploring new places. As usual, I’ll be posting photos along the way via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and when time/Internet allows, I’ll try to write some blog pieces as well. We had our first ski of the New Year in Newfoundland and our second here today in New Brunswick. If you have any favourite ski destinations (both Nordic or alpine), please do share-we have longer visits planned for Quebec, Alberta and BC.

Wishing you all the best in 2018-may your year be filled with kindness, joy, compassion, and adventure (of whichever sort suits you).