Planes, Ships, and Cars

We live in a beautiful place, in a nice community.

The climate is great once the weather starts to warm up. April is always grand. It's all good until near the end of October.

Then it gets cold. Not Canada cold. We very rarely get snow at all, or temperatures like the rest of the country. However, it certainly stops being comfortable, and it gets really, really wet. The sky is grey for days on end.

That's why Helen and I travel to warm places between the months of November and March.

I'd like to stay someplace warm for the whole time, but would miss my home greatly. For my wife, December is off the table so that we can be with family for the holidays. That means we can travel in late fall, and winter after New Years.

We usually find get away during either period, or both. Last winter, we got to LA for a couple of weeks, and to Arizona, and this fall we spent a couple of weeks in Hawaii, although that trip ended up mostly in October for assorted reasons.

I digress. Since retirement three years ago, we've been to LA a few times, and to Mesa Arizona twice, and Hawaii. We went to Florida and for a Caribbean cruise, and to Austria and Italy with another cruise in the Mediterranean.

All are clearly warm places, except perhaps for Austria and Italy, but compared to our home in November they were like summer. We did need light jackets, but were never cold, and often meltingly hot.

We have other European travels in mind, and some California, and even Singapore.

What we have during the cold, wet months is a record of lovely breaks. In that season, we've been away for over a third of the time. Doing this removes eliminates the feeling of a long haul of unpleasant weather. It also means that most of the time we're actually home, enjoying our house, and friends, and activities, and community. It does, however, feel like we're always about to take off, or that we've just gotten back, and sometimes it's both. I highly recommend it.

The funny thing is, we travel at the same kind of rate in the rest of the year, too. The difference is that we stick close to home. We visit friends and family in other cities, cruise out of Vancouver, and even go camping sometimes.

So big, warm-weather travels in the winter and late fall, and short-range trips sprinkled through the spring, summer, and early autumn.

A fine system.