Goodbye London! We took the Underground to Heathrow Airport, then flew to Montreal. From there, we picked up a rental car and drove through a snowstorm to our Airbnb in Ottawa. I was raised in the Ottawa/Montreal area, so am very familiar with snow and cold. Dan, born and raised California fella, was a total trooper as he learned the fine arts of shoveling, ice scraping, warming up cars etc.
It was such a joy to spend Christmas with my Mom and to see family. I’ll never take it for granted, especially the part where I don’t have to cook Christmas dinner and get to enjoy a beautifully decorated residence, including an enormous Christmas diorama in the main hall of my mom’s senior residence.
We had to make a hasty exit from Ottawa as they predicted a big ice storm coming through, and we needed to hoof it back to Montreal for our flight. We left a day early from Ottawa, picked up a hotel and raced ahead of the storm. Worked out well, as the next day the world was a skating rink. We had to wait on the tarmac for an hour for the plane to get de-iced, but all worked out well and Maura picked us up at SFO (well Dan’s backpack didn’t make it) and dropped us off at home in Santa Cruz. But that homecoming only lasted 24 hours before the next adventure…
