Our Next Vacation

I'm a lot excited for our upcoming vacation. And, I'm a bit nervous.

DW's and my last vacation was all about relaxing with friends. We spent a week at our favourite Mexican resort, in Akumal Bay, with our close friends Bee, Marc, Wendy, and Peter. We ate, we drank, we lounged, we snorkeled, we danced, and we repeated.

The most exertion we experienced was a walk along the beach to an area where there were a bunch of abandoned buildings—likely, condos or a small resort where the company ran out of money—and another trek all the way to Pueblo Akumal, on the other side of the highway from the beach part of the town and where the real citizens of the town live.

Our next vacation will be more adventure-driven. It will also be the first family vacation we've had since 2018, when DW and I took the kids to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Since then, with the exception of weekend trips to Toronto, DW and I haven't travelled with our daughters.

California, 2016. Our kids on the Pacific.

So this time, it'll be exciting to travel to a new destination with the four of us. None of us have been to this destination and we'll be learning new things together. It'll be the first time that we've flown together since 2016, when we travelled to Arizona. It'll also be the furthest we've all been from home, as a family, since we vacationed in Italy, in 2009.

But I'm also a bit nervous on this trip.

Our girls are no longer kids. As kids, they sort of fell under our protection at airports, and getting through security seemed simpler when we were seen as a family unit.

But the kids are now adults and will be treated as such. While everything should be fine, there's an uncertainty that uneases me. Especially since we'll be transferring flights in the U.S., whose government seems to have contempt for Canadians.

I hope the transfer is quick and uneventful.

The kids will also be flying home on their own; again, transferring flights in an American city. They are only spending the first week of vacation with DW and me, and so I'll be nervous until I hear that Kid 1 is back in Ottawa and Kid 2 will be in Toronto.

Another reason why I feel nervous for this trip is because over the winter months, I haven't had a lot of exercise, and I'm going to need to be in good shape for this trip. We expect to do a lot of hiking and climbing on this trip, similar to what DW and I did, one day, in the Douro Valley, in Portugal, when we climbed a small mountain in the heart of the port region.

Sure, I've shovelled a lot of snow in my driveway, but I've done little else. There was one day where I went for a hike in snowshoes, and actually ran for a bit while wearing them, and didn't keel over. But we'll be up in some mountains where the altitude can be an issue.

It's time to get back on my spin bike.

Overall, while there are a few issues that make me nervous about this trip, I'm very excited and can't wait to go. New sights, new people, new food. A whole, new experience.

I'm not ready to announce where we're going, and may not even divulge our location until we're there, or even until after we get back. Perhaps some of the clues in this post will give you an idea as to where we're going.

In the next seven weeks, until we fly out, I'll leave more clues. And perhaps, by the time we're ready to go, my fears will have subsided.

Stay tuned.