On the road again. Canada!

To celebrate 50 years together (including 50 motorcycling years), we’re planning to complete our original 2020 plan to finish our Round-The-World trip through Canada back to Florida.

Covid-19 placed our 2020 plans on the back burner along with everyone else’s life and travel plans.

Now that Canada is open again for tourists, we shipped our bike through Haulbikes.com from Florida to Portland, Oregon in early May. Depending on the location, they can pickup and deliver your bike from and to a residential address. However, the residence needs to be accessible by an 80-foot+ truck. In cases where they can’t navigate residential streets, they arrange to meet at a nearby location. In our case, we took delivery of the bike at a nearby truck stop in Portland.

Bike delivered 24 days after after pickup

This trip seems a little weird because:

• We don’t have to apply for any visas.
• We don’t need special immunizations.
• We probably won’t need to bring medications such as Loperamide (diarrhea) or Ciprofloxacin (bacteria infections)
• We only have two border crossings scheduled.
• We don’t have to bring any special electrical adapters. 
• We shouldn’t have to limit our drinking water to bottled water.  
• The currency is dollars even though it’s a Canadian dollar. 
• There’s no ocean separating us from returning to Florida. 
• We’re confident everyone we meet will speak English (or maybe French) 
• We’re confident the chances of encountering corrupt police are fairly low.
• Roadblocks due to landslides (rainy season) should be rare.

During the earlier part of the route, we may have some challenges with lodging and fuel availability to and from the Yukon territory.

Below is our planned route.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

Our main goal (apart from making it back home in one piece) is to attend the August 12th-14th Horizons Unlimited Travelers Meeting in Newfoundland, Canada.

We’d love to see friends and family during the trip as we head east across Canada and then down the east coast to Florida. Specific dates may not be known until we get closer so we’ll have to play it by ear.

We departed Vancouver, Washington this morning for Ocean Shores (approx 180 miles). Taking it easy for the first few days until we get our “bike legs” back. Timing for weather was just right as recent rainfall in the Portland area has set records. We only encountered a slight drizzle on our ride today and blue skies welcomed us to the Pacific Coast at Ocean Shores.

Packing up the night before and test ride for the grand-kids.

Our send-off committee.

Coffee stop in South Bend. we must have looked cold and weary as the shop owner treated us to our coffee! Thanks!

Tomorrow we head North along the coast to Port Angeles for the ferry over to Victoria, Canada. Over the next 10 days we’ll work our way up through Victoria Island to catch the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert.