I scored 13 out of 20... not too bad!

Had to do my airport pickup last night, so no blogging took place... Judy, Kristina, and Gwenny are back safe from their Edmonton trip. Did not get home till around midnight or so... so it was a long one. A great time was had by all!

I was reading CNN's iPad App the other day, and they posted their top 20 places to go out and visit in the great U. S. of A. I took a look through and thought I would see how I scored! 13! Not bad. How many have you hit?

In no paticular order they are:

#1.

Yellowstone National Park... looks like an amazing spot, have not made it yet!

#2

The City of Washington. We were there for 4 days this spring and it was simply amazing! Go!

#3

San Francisco! We spent 3 days here, and another amazing City to visit! Fisherman's Wharf was great, as well as the Bridge of course!

#4

The Big Apple! Our Son, Shawn worked here for quite a while, and I went down to visit him. What a spot! Visited Ground Zero, Time Square... Madison Square Gardens for a Hockey Game! You have to visit the Big Apple at least once!

#5

The great City of San Diego, and the great beaches at La Jolla. This was one of my favourites to visit! We stayed here a while, and enjoyed it all. The beaches are just as they describe, or even better! A must see!

#6

Yosemite National Park looms large as a great place to visit, but we have not made it yet.

#7

Honoluu in Hawaii... fantastic beaches here as well, and lots to do and see. We were here on a cruise and really enjoyed it! Another must go to!

#8

Disney World Resorts in Orlando, Florida. We have been there the past couple years now, compliments of Judy's brother Garry, and his Wife, Shelly. We have had a blast here both years, and plan on going again this November!

#9

The U.S. Virgin Islands. We have visited these Islands on a couple cruise and put this on your must see list while you are making it up! You can buy cheap gold here... or you could at one time!

#10

 

Alaska... many people visit here on Cruises... we have not made it... too cold for me!

#11

Cape Cod. You would think living near the East Coast we would have visited Cape Cod... but not yet!

#12

 

The Windy City...(Chicago) Shawn worked here for a while on a Medical Rotation, so we went to visit. What a spot... World Class City with everything to see and do. Great Aquarium that we visited. Took in a hockey game here as well.

#13

Jackson Hole in Wyoming. Great views and wildlife... have not made it here!

#14

 

We have been to the Grand Canyon quite a few times, and it never gets old! When you are there... be careful, there are no guard rails and it is a long way down! Must See!!!

#15

Charleston, South Carolina. We spent a few days here on our way home this spring and were amazed! Worth the trip, tons of American History here! Lots to see and do.

#16

What can you say about Sin City! We have made it to Vegas a number of times, and have lived to tell about it... well, some things had to "stay in Vegas!", but you get the drift. It never stops! We stayed at an RV Park with the nicest Office of any Park we have ever stayed at.

#17

The Big Easy. We took the trip and enjoyed the French Quarter. We drove our motorcycles right downtown, and left them parked on the road! They were there when we returned! We were there a few years ago, and still could not get over the destruction left from the Huricane...

#18

Seattle is famous for it great seafood... I have not been able to try it yet, but would love to visit the Space Needle!

#19

Aspen is another one of those places you would visit to see the great sights... we have not made it yet!

#20

I feel I have left the best to last. MAUI... what a spot. We hit this Island for a day on a Cruise with John and Pat with us. We ended up renting two new Harley Davidson Motorcycles, and spent the day driving around the Island. I cannot describe the day other than amazing. You HAVE to go and visit Maui...

So, there you go. What a wish list. I thought I was doing pretty good to hit 13 of them. There is one place that we visited, that I was disappointed it did not make the top 20 list. Death Valley. I was totally impressed visiting here, and would go back in a minute!

Till tomorrow...

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Just a real scorcher today...

Must soon be time for Judy to come back home from Edmonton... I am hungry... I have no clothes left to wear, and the dishes are now piled up to the roof... yikes... Patra saw me eying up some of her cat food, and she started growling at me!

Good news is that I hear the big bird flies back to Toronto tomorrow evening! I will be there to welcome them back!

I did not do a whole lot today... took life easy, went for a ride on my Honda, it was perfect riding weather! Just got back from free desert in the Rec hall tonight, strawberry shortcake for Canada Day!

I have a guest photographer tonight, all the way from Edmonton... thanks Judy!

Reports are that Gwenny did a fantastic job as Flower Girl and Jason and Amy's Wedding! She was well practiced!

Kristina was in fine form as well... looks like a nice bright Church for the Wedding!

Gwenny got to stand with the Wedding Party! Glad it all went well for them!

They did manage some sight seeing... here they are at the West Edmonton Mall! Quite the car Gwenny has!

Looks to me Gwenny was so important at the Reception, that they gave her some paper work to do!

 

A kiss from the Bride!

Will be nice to have them all back home! Better go to work on those dishes...

Till tomorrow...

 

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Happy Canada Day Weekend...

July 1st is Canada Day, and our Park is filling up this afternoon with some great weather forcasted for the Weekend!

Spent life very east today... with such great weather this morning I just had to get out and wash down that new car. I got it dirty yesterday in the rain on the way home. Nice and clean now... oh ya, and maybe I did put 2 coats of Mother's Paste Wax on it today to make it slip through the air easier! Looks great now, but I promised you no more pictures, so you have to just believe me.

After the cleaning I used Armour All Leather Conditioner on the leather seats... worked just great! Loved it! Makes them look and feel brand new... oh wait.... it is brand new... sorry.

I did go out for a tour around Woodstock in it today, and I have a few thoughts and comments on the new vehicle. First impressions are lasting they say... we will see.

Yes, I had the sunroof open all day... right on!

I started driving cars when I was 16 years old... a lot of things have changed since then... I always had to use a key to open and start my car... it seems not any more!

Seemed pretty easy, insert key and turn...engine starts! Well, it is not that way any more...

This is a picture of my new key!

As you can see above... there is no real key, unless you hit the silver button top left and then you get...

 

THE KEY! But it is for emergency use only to open the door of the car if your FOB battery goes dead.

With the new system, all you do is have the FOB with you, get in the car... push start button and everying starts up, including the motor, and away you go. Hit the start button again to stop the motor when finished driving., Today, everytime I got in the car I wanted to stick that stupid key somewhere!!! I don't like it in my pants pocket, so I put the keys in the cup holder... problem is when you get out of the car... it beeps 3 times at you to tell you that you will soon lock your FOB in the car! Oh boy.... this will take a little getting used to. If I had my druthers... I would rather have a key hole!

Here are a couple features I do really like... Blue Tooth!

I paired my iPhone 5 to the Cruze, and now all is good. As soon as I get in the Phone is connected directly to the Car, so you can make or receive phone calls, hands free from the steering wheel. Big Bonus in Ontario now, as you go to jail almost for holding a phone in your hands! (Rightfully so... people still text and drive here...) A nice bonus to the blue tooth is that I can stream my 800 songs on the iPhone over the Pioneer Sound System in the Cruze...awesome! No wires! Don't even have to take the phone out of the pouch on my waste! My entire phone book also displays on the screen to find phone numbers...

That little round knob up on the front dash is the Car's alarm system... don't have a clue how to set it at this point... please don't come to try and steel the car until I get it working please!

Now check this out below... i was impressed! This car comes with GM Onstar, and I downloaded the Remote Link App on my iPhone.

As you can see, I can tell simply by looking at my phone, that I have 51 L. of gas in the tank...or 85% of the tank is full. I have 99% of my oil life left before I need an oil change. I have travelled all of 82 klms with the vehicle since I picked it up yesterday, and I am obtaining 9.4 ltrs. of gas to 100 klms. travelled! Awesome! There is more!

I can tell by looking at my iPhone, whether I locked my car when I left it or not! It tells me the status of the locking system! I can't tell you how many times I have left the car and could not remember if I locked the car or not! Go figure! No more. I was able to lock the car while sitting inside it this afternoon using my iPhone! Am I wired up or what??? Techno John! This App will also tell me where the car is! As if I am going to lose it! Oh ya, and for whatever reason, I can start the car using my iPhone from anywhere... again, not quite sure why, but there must be some reason to do it. For fun, I can also make the horn and lights flash from my phone... I guess to scare people... or find the car in a parking lot I guess! You can do all this, as the Cruze is hooked up to the internet through the Onstar. Whats next!

These are just a few thoughts and comments on the new wheels... some good, some maybe not so good, who knows...time will tell.

Till tomorrow...

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A quick turn of events...

After I got back from doing my exercises this morning, I received a call from our Salesman over at Ray Cullen Chevrolet in London, telling me that it had been determined that our new 2014 Cruze was not on the list of airbag problems. This was a new problem that grounded Cruze sales, in that the inflator module on the airbag had a bad switch which could ground out against the frame of the car, and cause the airbag not to inflate if it should be. Our Salesman told me that the White Cruze we had looked at (sans sunroof...) was on the suspect list, and cannot be delivered at this point.

They had our Cruze all gassed up and nice and clean by the time I got there this afternoon. That is John at the rear of the car, installing our licence plates on the new car, off the Jeep in the background.

After I got home, the car told me I only used about 4 1/2 ltrs. of fuel to cover the 60 + klms. so this maybe is a good sign! This is one of the big selling features we liked about this car... the good economy at the pumps, which are stuck at $1.42 a ltr. here! Ouch! The Jeep could barley start up on 4 1/2 ltrs. of gas!

Oh ya, I had that brand new sunroof open all the way home! Love it! (Thanks again, Judy...) Had to close it when I got home, as it rained hard for about 1/2 an hour...

Judy had a great day in Edmonton, and made me promise not to be out driving all around with the new car! You can see below there were only 5 klms. on the clock when I picked it up! It did have only 2, but they took it out to fill it up with gas for us, so that is OK in my books. Ray Cullen also gave us a nice $500.00 Petro Canada Gift Card, so that will go a long way at the pumps!

OK, so no more pictures of our new car... I promise!

Till tomorrow...

 

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What time do we have to get up????

At 4:30 this morning, our alarm clock was blasting out some tune on the radio... time to go! Kristina, Gwenny, and Judy had to be at Pearson International Airport, in Mississauga for a 9:00 a.m. West Jet Flight out to Edmonton leaving out of Terminal 3, which is the newest Terminal at Pearson.

After a quick breakfast and showers... we were in to pick up Kristina and Gwenny at 5:30! They were ready and the Honda Minivan was all set to go! Gwenny was all primed, running around yelling about going on the big airplane! She has been on a few flights now, so she sort of knew the drill.

Of course it is not Toronto, if it does not look like the picture above... it was not too bad though, as it took us just over 1 1/2 hours to make it to the Kiss and Fly! After I dropped them off and headed back west on the 401, the east bound lanes were totally clogged up at Milton, which would have added close to an hour on our trip! Good thing we did it early!

This afternoon I received text messages from Edmonton, telling me the flight went really well, Gwenny did just great, and they all had plans for Dinner tonight. They have a pretty busy agenda set up for the next few days, finishing with Amy and Jason's Wedding on Frinday Afternoon/Evening.

This picture above just off the press from Edmonton... looks like Gwenny was getting tuned into the West Jet sound system!

 

I did a bit of shopping and exercising when I got back to Woodstock. Sure takes a bite out of you when you get up at 4:30 in the morning!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Whooopppsssss....no car today!

Well, we were all set to head over to London this afternoon, to pick up our fancy new car, and it seems some of the gleam has come off the deal!

I received a phone call just before we were ready to head out to London with our Jeep, telling me that GM placed a "STOP DELIVERY NOTICE" on all Chevy Cruze's! WHAT???

Last night I remember watching the Toronto Evening News on CTV, and they were talking about Honda doing a recall of over 2.2 MILLION Cars for faulty airbags! Seems some of these airbags have decided to just blow up at any old time, and when they do, they totally disintegrate! This is not good. A whole bunch of the other Car Companies also made big number recalls, although GM was not mentioned. These airbags were all manufactured by a Company in Japan.

From what I was told today, GM does not know if the Cruze has any of these airbags on board or not! Hhhhmmmmmmm.....better figure this out soon, as the Cruze has 10 airbags in it!

So, we are left up in the air (or holding the bag sort of...lol) at this point, not knowing if we will be able to take delivery of our new car or not. Wonder if they are burning any midnight oil at GM tonight?

Judy, Kristina and Gwenny were all packing bags today, as they head out west to Edmonton tomorrow. The West Jet Flight leaves just before 9:00 a.m. so we will be leaving Woodstock at 5:30 tomorrow morning! I am the driver!

They are going to be attending a Wedding for one of Kristina's friends, Amy, who has been to visit us here in Ontario many times.

Here is a sneak preview of Gwenny in her fancy Flower Girl Dress, and Kristina has had her practicing throwing flower pedals from a basket, getting ready for the big day Friday!

Till tomorrow...

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