Devall Travels

Vets in France! It seemed much easier for the FR16 trip.  The vets in Abbeville had a website and an email address.  I made an appointment by email and we turned up at the allotted time and it was all very easy. Even though the Dordogne region must be home to thousands upon thousands of ex-pat British, locating a veterinary surgery that can dose Reggie with the worming pill designed to kill the usual tapeworms and a few that Europe keeps to itself, is proving plus difficile. As they say over there. I put a note on Tripadvisor and also an email to the tourist board and the results seem to have led me to MC-Vet in Sarlat itself.  An email and we have a dialogue to book Reggie in there towards the end of the week we are there. Sarlat is only 7 miles from the campsite. There is a particular tapeworm that we don't have in the UK, and that they have in Europe that we need to kill before it comes over to us. So the rules are that the treatment needs to be administ...

Well that was easy.  Very easy in fact.  The final balance paid on the Dordogne week online on Eurocamp's website. Whether Reggie comes with us or not we are now paid up.  We had to pay for him as an extra to the normal rental so that they can clean the place. I'd expect that they would be efficient with their cleaning anyway and as they are "dog friendly" they would have certain units that would be let for dogs and others that were for humans only. Although having camped early and late season with Eurocamp and Canvas Holidays in the past, but in large frame tents rather than mobile homes, I have to say that the human visitors aren't all working to the same standards of cleanliness and decency as me.  Some of the damage to fabric of the tents looked to be ignorance rather than just accidental. I have ordered the Tesco vouchers to cover the cost of the Eurotunnel crossing.  As usual we'll have to pay cash for Reggie to have his passport checked. Bu...

Something that might affect future holidays/vacations is a change to the procedures at work. They have now decided that we can only have a maximum of three days consecutively outside school holidays. This is a huge restraint on a lot of us as we don't have kids.  Prices rocket in school holidays and of course, another downside is that everywhere you go will be full of other peoples kids. They have agreed that 2017 dates will be honoured as long as we have already booked them before they made the change to our contracts.  What of the trades unions?  They are powerless.

If only there was a way of moving posts easily from one blog to another, easily. Today I have found in another of my blogs some travel posts from back in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. After some messing about I managed to copy them into Devall Travels and they can be seen in the archive list. There are so many more that were on my old Geocities website that have been lost forever. Anyway, they are there should anyone want to view them.

It's way back in October when we signed away our lives for a week in the Dordogne. At that time we hadn't even thought about going to the US again!  Luckily, the Dordogne trip is in May. In the last entry for this trip I mentioned that we were having second thoughts about taking Reggie. He went through a period of not wanting to go out and becoming a refusenik on walks.  Whatever was causing that seems to have ended.   He was also seemingly uncomfortable in the car.  Fidgeting all the time and not settling down.  I have since changed the seat cover in the back and bought one that is more padded under him and that is also like a hammock, so under braking he can't fall off the seat into the foot well.  We have also bought him a new bed that fits on the seat.  He was okay on the FR16 trip, although that was far less travelling for him.  I am confident that he will be okay. I have begun route planning as well. The standard Google Maps...

So after a pretty exhaustive search for hotels in Florida for the second week of our stay, five nights in total, I decided to use up another timeshare week. It seems a waste but when you consider the exchange fee for that week is £169 and hotels are looking  more like £400 for the period, then it is worth it.  Plus we get to stay somewhere a little different. I looked at Lauderdale by the Sea, and then slightly further north at Pompano Beach.   In the end choosing the  Wyndham Sea Gardens resort. It is right on the beach off A1A between the Atlantic  and the Intracoastal Waterway . Looking  at the Weatherspark site to see what the average temperatures are, they look pretty good for us British . So another plus point for Florida.  And another thing sorted.

The second week is a little problem as it really is 5 nights only. I have been looking at hotels on the Gulf but the current prices are running at about $90 a night. When you total that we are looking at about $450. It's not a lot better on the Atlantic side either. I had thought about a trip up to Daytona and across to Cape Canaveral and that might still be on the cards. This year in Arizona we did the relax then tour system and it worked pretty well. Another week in the timeshare will be less than half of that. So. What to do? I have one overnight booked before the Orlando stay.  By the time we get there it will be time to eat and then go to bed as we will have had a long day.