On Monday, we set out to explore the Petit-Champlain neighborhood. A quick description from the tourist office describes the neighborhood as having picturesque pedestrian streets (confirmed!) and as being the first permanent French settlement in North America, over 400 years ago. It’s a lively area to stroll around, day or…

There are no direct flights from Chicago to Quebec City this time of year, so we flew by way of Toronto. Here’s our maple-leafed air Canada wing over Lake Ontario as we approached for a landing. Love flying over the great lakes! And also thought we’d start off with a…

We tried out the new Guinness open gate bar in the Fulton market area. Our analysis was that it has a fun vibe, cool design and really good Guinness and food. It’s very table based though so felt more like a restaurant than pub, interesting that it was set up…

Ok the new place is here! We moved the blog to this new site. Hope you like it! On the familiar side, we visited the Indiana dunes national park recently. Really pretty fall colors and perfect temperatures!

There’s quite a bit to report on from August! We’ve already posted photos of Finland (first week of August) and the air and water show (weekend in mid-August), so now I’m going to go back to the second week of the month and go right through to Sept 1 for…

This weekend we had front row seats at the annual Chicago Air and Water Show, one of the biggest airshows in the world! Because Liam works at the big water purification plant by Navy Pier, all employees and their families are able to enter the facility to view the show…

Ronan’s home and holiday cottages are all on The Kvarken Archipelago, a world heritage site, that was formed as glaciers retreated in the last ice age, depositing rocks to form long thing “moraine” islands, and with the retreat of the glaciers, causing the land to rise, 9mm a year, to…

Day 2 in Vaasa was forecast to be rainy, so Ronan and Lena suggested we spend the day in Vaasa itself. But before we headed out, I managed to fit in a short swim in the part of the sea that stretches almost over to Ronan and Lena’s property. This…

The 4-hour train trip from Helsinki to Vaasa was a very comfortable with pleasant views of the Finnish countryside and forests. Along the way I picked up the shocking fact that Finland has 10 trees for every person on the planet. Great vacation spot for a Treekeeper! Here are some…