Happy New Year!

The last couple of weeks have been rather busy. We flew into Toronto, rented a car and drove through the cold and snow to our daughter's in Oshawa. Not having a winter coat or winter footwear in Toronto- except somewhere in our storage locker- was a bit of a challenge. We had taken winter clothes to Montreal, originally planning to fly there first, but changed our minds. John had bought a heavy jacket in Edmonton, so he was fine. I, on the other hand, had to figure out layers. I finally bought a down vest to layer over or under various lighter jackets. We just wore heavy walking shoes. We had some running around to do and business to take care of in Toronto. Then just before Christmas, we drove to Montreal - through freezing rain, but the day before the big storm hit. Cold had not been much of a problem to this point, as the temperature had hovered not far below freezing.

In Montreal, between, visiting, taking John's Mum shopping and running errands, there was not much time for blogging. However, I did manage to get the blog finished, pictures chosen, cropped and colour-corrected, not by Christmas as I'd planned, but before New Years. However, since the writing was done in bits and pieces, while doing a number of other things, and checked by John periodically (sort of says John,mea culpa), we both missed some rather glaring- and embarassing- errors.

Corrections, then: Firstly, Murder She Wrote starred Angela Lansbury, who played Jessica Fletcher [thanks Gil and Judy, and Carol]; secondly, we saw many interesting Joshua trees in the desert around Barstow, and on the way to Las Vegas [thanks Les].

Joshua Trees on the road into Rainbow Basin

So a couple of lessons have been learned: plan trips back to the cold north, landing where your clothes are, and don't try to write a blog -or anything else- in the midst of doing a lot of other things. 

We have another week before we fly back to Las Vegas and Barstow, and continue our travels to San Diego. Run-Around-Sue will be all fixed, the new batteries will be longer-lasting, and the weather will be warmer!