Calgary to Spokane, WA - Last big day... almost there - Day 36

Before we headed out of Calgary, we had one stop to make... the house where Adam was a baby. We had the address from his Mom loaded into the GPS, and off we went. It wasn't too hard to find, and I was impressed to see a "history plaque" in front of the house. (I have kind of an obsession with them, and usually photograph them (so I can remember the details) before I even read them. Which is what I did this time. And then I read it.

The first paragraph contained the usual stuff about this being a Heritage House that was over 100 years old... blah blah blah. But the second paragraph was all about these two architects who bought and renovated the house in the late 70s or early 80s "in keeping with their young, affluent, urban lifestyle." The architects in question? James Jones and Sarah Garrett Jones (Yes, that's right, the history plaque was all about Adam's parents! I was so jealous! So of course we took a bunch of photos (the house is beautiful, with cedar shingles all over the outside, a cute porch... sort of my dream house, really). Then, fancy coffees in hand, we turned the car towards the Crowsnest Pass.

We'd had some trepidation about taking a route that went through the mountains for such a long time, but we needn't have been. I'm sure the Pass is no fun during the winter, but it's probably still better than the Coquihalla. At this time of year, it's a dream - it's really almost all a natural mountain pass, with quite a bit of room at the edge of the highway before you see any cliffs or anything, and there seem to be hardly any places where they actually had to blast away bits of mountain.

It was a delightful drive, and we made excellent time, which combined with the fact that we gained another hour as we entered Idaho, meant that we had time to stop for a snack in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, and still got to Spokane in time for a slightly late dinner. We checked into our hotel and then sought out one of the Spokane restaurants that have been featured on one of our favourite tv shows, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." The place was called Waddell's - named after Rube Waddell, a southpaw (or as his detractors called him in reference to his heavy drinking) "sousepaw" pitcher in the early days of professional baseball in the US. I don't know what other connection he had to Spokane or anything related to the restaurant business, but he does seem like the kind of guy you'd want to party with, so that's probably enough! (example fact: in the off season, he wrestled alligators.)

The food was amazing. Adam had some pretty impressive mac and cheese with sausage, and their signature cilantro coleslaw, and I had what was essentially a beef dip, but with lamb. OMFG it was delicious! Of course, it was also a near-ludicrous amount of food, so we gently drove ourselves home to the hotel, trying not to go over too many bumps, and watched some television while moaning quietly on the kingsize bed.

Edmonton to Calgary - Family and Floating(?) - Day 35

We got up and rolling just in time to say goodbye to George and Logan (Logan was on his way to his mom's, and then George had a bunch of errands to run) and head over to Mom and Dad's for a delicious pancake breakfast.

Because we weren't trying to cover too much ground (Calgary's only a 3 hour drive, you see), we had plenty of time to visit before leaving mid-afternoon. We stopped on the way out of town for "lupper" at Montana's Grill (which was huge and delicious). The drive was pleasant - the rain that was in the forecast never materialized, so it was sunny and beautiful the whole way.

We got a little worried because our Air B&B host wasn't home when we arrived, (turns out we didn't get a message she sent us) but she got home soon after, and let us in to her very cute home. (It was pretty similar to our old Millwoods house, actually - and Adam and I stayed in the equivalent of my old bedroom (upstairs, first door on the right)!

Our host, Treeka, runs a business out of her home called One Love Float - basically, (we asked) it's kind of a sensory deprivation while lying in a shallow tub of warm water with a ton of epsom salts in it (so you float). It actually sounded like a lot of things that I like... floating, warm baths, quiet... I'm sure I could deal with the dark, and since there's not enough room in the tank to turn over, the worst that can happen if you fall asleep is waking up with some salt water in your eyes. We didn't try it, though - seeing the setup involved (a pretty much total remodel of the basement (and garage) into a spa), I don't think I wanted to know how much a session cost!

We had hoped to meet up with an old friend (Mike Craig) in Calgary for a drink or something, but it turns out his new inlaws are in town visiting, so he couldn't make it, so we just hung out at our temporary home.

We reviewed our route for tomorrow (across via the Crowsnest Pass, down into Idaho, and across to Spokane - scheduled to take about 8 hours), and went to bed.

Edmonton Family (and friends) day - Day 34

We had a fantastic sleep at George's house and then tried out his amazingly awesome shower (rain showerhead, oh yes!) and then went for a visit with Mom and Dad. Since Dad's car had just (finally, after about a gazillion years and over 350000km) given up the ghost, we introduced him to the magic of craigslist to look for a new one. We had breakfast and went to the farmers' market that happens just outside of their condo building (and Adam got some delicious Indian food for lunch). After a bit more visiting, Adam and I went to the Fringe.

Growing up in Edmonton, the Fringe Theatre Festival was an incredible summer highlight. And it was a great thing to be able to show Adam. We saw a guy on a 12' unicycle juggle knives and chainsaws, we ate fringe food (including, of course, green onion cakes for me!), and I tried a delicious Big Rock beer I've never had before (Purple Gas, a wheat beer flavoured with saskatoon berries and agave nectar... MMMMMMmmm!)

We also connected with my 2 favourite "Liz"es, my awesome college friend Liz Allison (Jorde) who was stage managing at least one show and was on the Fringe Jury so she was incredibly busy, but we were able to track her down at the Varscona Theatre before her call for the show, and my cousin Liz King (who just surprised us all with an email last week that she'd married her wonderful man Tony (the two of them came to our wedding last year)). Liz and Tony and his two younger kids had just been to the gym at Kinsmen Sports centre, and came out to meet us and blow all that healthy sportiness on Fringe food for dinner!

We wandered over to the Yardbird Suite (Edmonton's premiere jazz club- Adam sang the song "Yardbird Suite" as we walked up and I admit shamefacedly that I didn't recognize it.) and checked out the Big Miller statue (in Big Miller Park) and looked at the street marker for Tommy Banks Way (the jazz pianist turned Canadian senator - the street on which the jazz club sits has been renamed in his honour), and then went back to St Albert across the Walterdale bridge - probably the last time we will drive over that version of the bridge, as it's being replaced by a swanky new bridge which should be operational next summer. (And I will go out of my way to avoid the old bridge in the winter, because it has regularly tried to either kill me or my car.)

We got back to George's and sat down with George and Logan to watch the second of the new Spider Man movies on his GIGANAMOUS tv (a projector that converts the whole wall of his basement into a screen). I was glad that I was a bit braced for the ending, having been well versed in Spidey history by my ex, Roy (aka the comic book guy) or else I would have been much more upset.

Tomorrow, some more quality time with my parents, and then south to Calgary for the beginning of the end of this adventure.

Saskatoon to Edmonton - Alberta in August, how novel! - Day 33

After a little more visiting (and a dip in Uncle George's awesome pool), we hit the road for Edmonton. The highway is significantly better than I remembered it (I guess 10 or more years can do that, huh?) and the weather, while not great for the pool (occasional sunbeams through the clouds; the water was lovely and warm but it was not super-pleasant to have to get back out) was terrific to drive in... neither too hot nor too cold and no blinding sunlight through the windshield.

I was able to point out the Vermillion college where I went to Artstrek drama camp in highschool, but we didn't actually stop until Lloydminster, the city on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. We spent a good few minutes jumping back and forth over the border line, which is paved into the sidewalk, took some pictures, and then headed into the Alberta side of town, where (probably due to the single sales tax) had better restaurants in it, and had a lateish lunch. (As I believe I mentioned before, we call it "lupper.")

Then we carried on to Vegreville. After an initial hesitation, we took the old highway into town to see the World's Biggest Pysanka (Ukrainian Easter Egg). The new highway bypasses it, but I remember seeing it so many summers on our way to Saskatchewan that we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Another highlight was driving past Elk Island National Park, where we saw a whole herd of buffalo out grazing near the highway. There were more of them in one place than I think I've ever seen!

We got into Edmonton before 7pm, and drove through to Mom and Dad's place in St Albert. We had a nice visit before my brother George and his son Logan arrived for dinner. We ate and then followed the boys back to their place, where we had a great long visit with George before bed. More adventures tomorrow!

Clearwater Lake, Rosetown, and Saskatoon - Nostalgia Overload! - Day 32

Today, after a bit of a sleep-in, some delicious breakfast (compliments of Anne) and some more visiting, we hit the road at around 11. We drove up Highway 4 towards Kyle, SK (where we stopped at the Co-op for a few picnic groceries before heading to Clearwater Lake and my family's cabin. This cabin originally sat at Crystal Lake in the 1930s (it belonged to my great grandfather) before the lake dried up, and they just moved the cabin to Clearwater, where it's been ever since.

The provincial road towards the lake was torn up for about the first km. We felt pretty lucky to be in prairie flat land so that we could see that it was only bad for that first little bit, and then it was fine. Otherwise we would have had to be a lot braver to head down that way. When we arrived at the park (the lake is in a Regional Park) the booth was closed, so we had to go to the office to pay our daily rate for the park, which we did, and then walked down to Main Beach for a look around (the water level here, too, was very high, making for an even smaller "Main Beach" than can be explained by the fact that everything is bigger in your memories from childhood... after that, we drove around the lake to the cabin.

When we found it (after going the wrong direction only once!) I looked at the cabin for the first time in easily 25 years (it has been kept in excellent repair by my uncle George and family), and was a bit overcome with nostalgia and memories of family summers of the past. We let ourselves in and the waves of stories and memories just kept coming! I really spent some amazing times there, and the fact that almost everything is exactly as I remembered it just made me imagine that at any moment, one of my cousins would come around the corner (and we'd all be kids again, waiting for Grandpa to come back from his secret trip to the store to bring us the candy our moms said we couldn't have so close to dinnertime). It was actually a little overwhelming and I got a little maudlin - good thing Adam knows he married kind of a drama queen!

We ate our picnic lunch (sandwiches on delicious buns we bought at a cute little cafe in Wolseley SK where we had lunch on the way to Swift Current, and potato salad) and hung out a little while before closing the cabin back up again and heading North towards Rosetown and Saskatoon!

When we got to Rosetown, we drove up Main Street to where my Grannie Pinckney used to live. The house is still there, and looks very much the same, except that some trees have been removed, and several houses have also been removed to make way for a giant Co-op store that has moved in as the house's new neighbor. The house itself looked almost exactly the way I remember it (at least from the outside) and again, I was transported to summers and Christmases as a child when we would come to Grannie and Grandpa's to visit, and play games in the "porch room," or look in all the built in cabinets in the basement for treasures.

From Rosetown, off we went to Saskatoon. We made good time, and arrived at George and Maida's in time for a visit out by the pool (I was very tempted to dive in, but decided to hope for better swimming weather tomorrow) and some fantastic meat pies and salad for dinner.

After dinner, George drove us around past our old house, the Bessborough Hotel, the Mendel Art Gallery, the gazebo in the park where I remember dancing on the grass while Dad played with the Bridge City Dixieland Band, and the neighborhood where Mom and Dad lived when I was born (although the actual house has been torn down and replaced. It was so thoughtful of them and I loved it (and Adam was a very good sport)!

We stayed up talking and telling stories and getting caught up (and Maida and George getting to know Adam) until about 11 or so, and then went to our room to (write blogs) relax and get ready to sleep.

Wish me luck for a sunny morning by the pool, and then it's off to Edmonton!

Brandon, MB to Swift Current, SK - Family fun! - Day 31

We were a tiny bit disappointed with the breakfast offerings at our Brandon hotel - although I suppose when you wait until the last 15 minutes of the 4.5 hour free breakfast window, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that it's a bit picked over! I had some cereal but all Adam got was a little piece of danish. But we packed up the car again (we had a chance to tidy up the whole car and reorganise since it was such a short drive into Brandon. (Adam always feels a little bit bad when he just relaxes while I do laundry and repack the bags, but I keep trying to explain to him that it makes me feel good to have everything clean and tidy and consolidated!

It was the kind of day that is proving to be kind of standard in our western trip - quite rainy in the morning, but clears up and gets quite sunny and lovely by the time we reach our destination. We drove from Brandon on the TransCanada highway - it was remarkable how high all the water still was after the flooding they'd had earlier in the year - there was a fairly long stretch of the highway between Brandon and Virden MB that had obviously been completely submerged for awhile and the ditches were still full of water until we parted ways with the Assiniboine River just west of Virden.

Of course as soon as we crossed into Saskatchewan, we had to put on the CD of the Muppet Movie we found in the collection that Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud loaned us, just to hear the line in "Movin' Right Along" about "send someone to fetch us, we're in Saskatchewan!"

We skirted around the edge of Regina and Moose Jaw - and I was imagining Randy Apostle Celebrations/Jubilations Moose Jaw jokes the whole way! I told Adam about going to Temple Gardens Spa with Mom, but we didn't take the waters ourselves this time.

What with the time change, (since Saskatchewan wants nothing to do with this Daylight Saving nonsense) we arrived at my cousin Anne (Pinckney) Ailsby's house in Swift Current a little after 4, instead of 5, as we had expected. Anne and her two boys, Simon (3ish) and Marcus (3-4months) were there, and Anne was making delicious ribs to take out to the men out working on the farm for dinner. I got to cuddle with the baby while Adam tried to get Simon's attention (with moderate success), and then we got to eat our share of the fantastic dinner while Anne and the boys went to deliver the food. (And, apparently, Simon got to drive the combine a little - in other news from Simon, the combine is red).

Not too long after Anne got back, (and fed Simon a snack and put him to bed) she heard that it had started raining on the farm, so Robin would be back fairly early. We all stayed up awhile chatting, and then Robin and the sleeping Marcus went up to bed. Adam hung in there a little longer, and then went downstairs so Anne and I could have some awesome, gossipy, girly fun! (We even texted Elda to tell her we wished she had been there!)

Finally, it got late and we all went to bed. What a great visit!

Winnipeg to Brandon - And another funky, funny motel - Day 30

We got up (thus allowing Mike to come down from the bedroom - sometimes we feel a little self conscious about our odd musician schedule, but he was a very good sport). We had another little visit, said our thank you and goodbyes and then went out to have breakfast and do a little sightseeing.

We drove into downtown on Portage Avenue, so the first "sight" to see was the famous Portage and Main intersection, where the "crosswalks" are now tunnels dug under the street, since it gets so cold and windy there that people actually froze to death.  "Portage and Main, 50 below," indeed!

I had planned to go first to the Forks Market and get breakfast, but I missed the turnoff, which drove us past the "restaurant with the $1,000,000 bathroom" - they built a bridge across the river, put a restaurant on it, and it cost a million dollars to plumb it. (That's the verb for plumbing, right?) and right into Old St Boniface (Winnipeg's French Quarter).

We found a cute cafe for breakfast - Adam is still singing the praises of the rye bread there, and then back to  the famous Cathedral. All the times I went to Winnipeg to work, I intended to go to St Boniface Cathedral, but never actually did. So this time, I was determined to check it out. I was very glad I did. St Boniface Cathedral had been around for a long time in various incarnations, but when the fourth version caught fire and was largely destroyed in 1968, they built a new, modern cathedral inside the ruins of the old one. It's really beautiful. There is (of course) an attached cemetery, and it includes a plaque memorializing the hundreds of people that are buried there without any stones or other memorials. Apparently there are over 6000 people buried there - and nowhere near that amount of space or number of gravestones. We also saw Louis Riel's grave and the controversial Louis Riel Sculpture that used to stand (in a concrete tube so it couldn't be seen from the front doors) in front of the legislative buildings.

Then we went back across the bridge (and caught the turnoff) to the Forks Market. I showed Adam the high water mark of the 1998 flood (the one I was in Winnipeg for) and we found a star bowl and went partway across the bridge where you can actually see the "forks" of the river (Red and Assiniboine). It was awesome!

We walked from there to the train station (where I actually took the train back to Edmonton from Winnipeg at least once) and looked at the renovated main area - I had remembered a slightly more intricate decor, but they've done a beautiful job of the restoration.

Back to the car, and we drove past the Legislative Buildings (planned to stop, but couldn't find parking - oops!) and then down Osborne Street through Osborne Village (the Commercial Drive or Whyte Ave of Winnipeg) and I was able to point out the bar where I had the most delicious dessert martini of my life (the chocolate martini with Godiva liqueur and a Hershey's kiss as garnish). Then, onto the highway.

We decided to take it pretty easy and only go as far as Brandon, where we arrived at around 4:30pm, just in time for a delicious "lupper" (I intend to bring in this term, like "brunch" for a meal sort of between lunch and supper.) at The Docks on Princess in downtown Brandon. This restaurant/pub has a mission to give us the "taste of Manitoba," serving locally sourced food. I had a pulled pork sandwich made with locally farmed pork and a delicious pretzel bun made by a Brandon bakery, and Adam had a beer braised beef sandwich and a beer from the "Farmery" in Neepawa MB (birthplace of Canadian author Margaret Laurence) where they describe the beer as "grown" instead of "brewed" - they grow all of the ingredients for the beer at the "farmery" and Adam said it was delicious! (I opted for one of my favourite non-local beers, Kronenbourg Blanc, which they'd just started carrying - I was even able to tell our server about the pretty blue bottle it comes in if you don't get it on tap).

We had hesitated over all our usual hotel booking websites, since the motels/hotels in our price range hadn't gotten very good reviews, and a search of the area suggested that there were several small motels that didn't have an online presence, so we decided to take our chances. Which turned out to be a great idea, since we found a nice, updated motel that was inexpensive, had some free wifi (although not consistent enough to post this!) and gave us a chance to do laundry and relax for the night.

Bemidji to Winnipeg - Blasts from the past - Day 29

Today we got up, had some breakfast in the hotel and then went across the parking lot to Tires Plus for a new set of tires and another oil change. Gotta love the customer service around here! The guy got us in and out in less than an hour and the price was great! And the car is so quiet now!

We went west to Grand Forks (the border town with North Dakota), then pretty much straight north along the North Dakota state line to the Canadian border. Again, we were probably the most exciting thing in the border guard's entire week!

Almost instantly after we got over the border, Adam observed (and I had to agree) that it looked a bit like the landscape had been ironed. And I was reminded of how strange it seemed (especially to a girl from a province that's always had oil) that the highways and streets are made of concrete rather than asphalt.

It took us until a little after 5 to get all the way across town to my friend Mike's (we hit some heavy rain on the highway and some pretty heavy traffic through town) where we are staying tonight. He has an adorable house that he's done a complete remodel on - just in time to get an offer he couldn't refuse to go back to Edmonton to work. We waited for his wife Kristen to come home, and then went out for a nice dinner on a patio (the rain had cleared and it had gotten quite warm and sunny).

We stopped for a couple of drinks at the CanadInn (where Celebrations is) with Gail, one of my best friends from the old days. It was so great to see her - I wish we could've made contact with a few others, but most of them have kids and we did get in later than I'd intended.

Tomorrow we'll do a little bit of sightseeing around Winnipeg - a few of the things I've always enjoyed, and possibly one or two sights that somehow I never got around to seeing, before we head on our way.

Brevort, Michigan to Bemidji, Minnesota - The first city on the Mississippi - Day 28

We came through 2.5 states today, so unsurprisingly there was a LOT of driving. Unlike our last marathon drive day, we didn't try to fit in a major tourist attraction (or 3) in the middle of it! (See day 6)

Anyway, we checked out of the motel in the morning (there was an industrial size ice machine at the end of our hall, and the hotel owner told Adam to "Load 'er on up - we've got lots of ice!" (which given the fact that some hotels specifically forbid using their ice machine to fill up coolers, was particularly nice)) and loaded up the car.

We went back into "downtown Brevort" to a cafe for breakfast, which was totally serviceable and only about $5, before hitting the road west again. A good note for anyone travelling through the Upper Peninsula - unless it's the weekend at the height of summer, you probably don't need a reservation. Just drive along - there are cute, classic motels with Adirondack/Muskoka chairs out front to enjoy the sunshine about every 45 seconds on average. Some of the oldest, "cabin style" ones are indeed closed and looking kind of decrepit, but there's always another one coming up.

We drove through some beautiful country - the Hiawatha National Forest first, then we followed the southern shore of Lake Superior for awhile, and drove through the Porcupine Mountains State Park (it's so cute how they think those are mountains....)

Also of interest in the Michigan leg of the journey - for the first time (in my personal history at least), we WON the license plate game! Now granted, we lucked out on the first or second day by actually seeing a Hawaiian plate on the mainland, but we had begun to despair of ever finding a West Virginia plate without actually going there. And there it was! Apparently West Virginians only ever leave West Virginia to go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We also got a confirmed Delaware plate (I'd seen a variation that only has "Del." on it but we finally saw a standard one). All 50 states, plus DC, 10 provinces, and 3 territories! Quite a victory! (and all it took was driving cross country one-and-a-half times!)

We crossed from Michigan to Wisconsin at a town called Ironwood, and drove through Wisconsin for a couple of hours - and another beautiful peek at Lake Superior - and then crossed into Minnesota (in a torrential rain that Adam did an awesome job of piloting us through) at Duluth-Superior, as we were leaving Duluth, a highway that must have been closed was reopened - Google maps binged and said that there was a new route available that would save us an hour. Would we like to accept? Why, yes, yes we would!

So with the combination of the "saved" hour and the "gained" hour (we got back into the Central Time Zone in Wisconsin) we arrived in Bemidji at about 8:45pm local time.

The coolest thing about Bemidji is that it sits on the Southwest shore of Lake Bemidji, which is the northernmost lake feeding into the Mississippi River, and is therefore referred to as "the first city on the Mississippi." We drove across the Mississippi River for (at least) the second time on this trip. But this time, a person (granted, a person with a much better throwing arm than me) could probably throw a ball across the river. Adam was pretty thrilled.

We checked into the hotel (a Super 8 tonight that beats the pants off the last one we stayed in (remember Indiana?)) and then across the street to Applebee's for dinner (which was delicious and HUGE).

Tomorrow we're going to get another oil change for Elantra (and hopefully a new set of tires - we decided to hold off until we really needed to replace them, but they're looking pretty alarmingly bald now) at the Walmart that is in the same lot as the Applebee's, and then striking out (mostly) north, through Grand Forks, ND to an informal Celebrations reunion in Winnipeg!

Sarnia ON to Brevort, MI – Life among the Yoopers, or, What is a Pastie? - Day 27

We got up this morning, loaded up the car and headed for the border, across the Bluewater Bridge. I was a bit concerned that we would have a long border wait at one of the busiest crossings, but I needn’t have worried – there were lots of lanes open and we only waited a few minutes. It was also entertaining to see the border guard try to remain detached as we answered his questions and you could tell he really wanted to hear some stories about our adventures –

“And where are you going now?” 

“Well, we’re cutting under the Great Lakes before heading back up to Winnipeg, but we’re going to go through the upper peninsula.” 

“… (secretly wishing he could ask us to take him with us)… Well, drive safe.”

Another beautiful drive – it sort of “misted really hard” for awhile – you needed to use the windshield wipers, but the “drops” were really tiny, and sounded more like bugs hitting the windshield than raindrops… even a new kind of rain for Vancouver-y me!

We also did make our big Walmart stop – strangely, the hardest thing to find (which is shocking to me, at back-to-school season) was a decent backpack. And I know I got the old one at a Walmart. So we wound up getting a new suitcase instead- it should be useable as a carryon (at least on big planes) and it has those funky 360° wheels – I’ve wanted one for awhile. So now we’ve pretty much replaced everything we actually need – and a few things we don’t. In an interesting turn of events, I’m noticing a (both intentional and unintentional) preference for black and hot pink as theme colours for my purchases this summer. No particular judgement, just an observation.

I will admit, I didn’t believe Adam when he told me that the people up here call themselves Yoopers. It sounds way too Dr. Seuss to be real. But it’s true! It comes from the letter “U” (upper) and the letter “P” (peninsula). So Yoopers it is. I’ve seen it on more than one sign.

The other things we consistently saw on signs throughout this part of the world were ads for “the best pasties on the upper peninsula” (in a somewhat unlikely turn of events, every restaurant, café and store we’ve come across has “the best pasties on the upper peninsula” – Adam has considered consulting the math and statistics departments of local universities to help explain this phenomenon). Of course, the first thing we imagined was an extremely healthy cabin country burlesque community. But in fact, what they were referring to are pronounced “past-eez” and are basically meat pies (the one we tried was like beef stew) without the pie shape. Sort of an early precursor to “Hot Pockets.” We each had one for dinner at a cute restaurant in the next town that had an absolutely breathtaking view of Lake Michigan. There were hummingbirds hovering around feeders on the patio, and the tables were all stocked with some simple board games, a set of binoculars and at least one guide to local birds.

I don’t think that “pasties” will become my new favourite food (I still prefer my pies to have sweet things in them) but it was very good and I’m glad I tried something new.

Our motel this evening is called the Chapel Hill Hotel (not surprisingly, since across the street/highway, on a slight rise, is a quaint Lutheran church) and while it is charming as heck and has the plushest hotel towels I’ve felt in a long while, it does not have anything so crazily new-fangled as an internet connection. So I’m typing this into Word and will post it tomorrow, from another strangely named town, two states over.

Fortunately, one of the (about 5) TV stations we get up here is showing “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” tonight. Woohoo!

Etobicoke to Sarnia – Now with Peacocks! - Day 26

Our residence room being less awesome than the night before (although I’m splitting hairs… they were both nice – if we’d been travelling in the other direction, we might not have even noticed the difference. Adam even said he had a better sleep on the bed at Humber), you might think that we would have been up and at ‘em bright and early. We’d even wanted to go check out a little beach-type area before we headed out. But not so much. We got up at the last possible moment, and had to get moving if we were going to make our “lunch date” with Linda, Shannon, and the boys (Leeson and Ellis). Shannon had told us that she had to get to a doctor’s appointment later in the afternoon, so the timing was really pretty tight.

We plugged her address into the GPS and were on our way. It was a pleasant drive – they live on a beautiful acreage in Schomberg, ON (which is about an hour north of Toronto, and about a 45 minute drive from where we were staying – probably due to the fact that we weren’t driving through traffic really at all.

We got to Shannon’s in good time and were met by her and Linda, as well as two adorable dervishes who were thrilled to show us their bikes (and how fast they could ride around the circular (racetrack) driveway) and the pond beside the house, and their swingset, and their new construction truck toys and especially their new “big brother” red bunkbeds. (Shannon is expecting another baby any day now – in a particularly charming moment she admitted that “we were without power for four days this winter… which led to this” (pointing to her belly).

One of the most awesome and bizarre parts of her beautiful property is the fact that it is populated by a flock (?) of wild peacocks. Yes, peacocks. They’d mostly moulted off their big tail feathers, but they were everywhere, wandering around the yard. No one really knows how they came to be there either, but there they are! It was kind of surreal, and absolutely delightful. Shannon also told us that a couple of days before she’d seen a turtle 18” across sunning itself on the dock at the pond. Gorgeous!

We had a delicious lunch, featuring some fantastic wheat-free dishes (they’re following what Shannon describes as a “crazy diet” – for someone from Vancouver, it didn’t really seem all that strange) like a zucchini lasagna with pine nut paste instead of ricotta and some bread made from almond flour. It was great!

The boys are adorable and it was so nice to see all of them!

After lunch, we were on the road again, avoiding the toll portion of the highway by cutting across through Orangeville (where my cousin John and his wife Sheryl had their wedding) -  we picked up a few things at the Walmart but decided to wait until we got back across the border to finish restocking ourselves (after the loss of our bag).

Then we carried on to Sarnia, which is just across the Bluewater Bridge from Michigan. (It’s called that because the water there is ridiculously blue.) We found a hotel (we had to go a little bit out of the main part of town, as it seems there’s some kind of sport tournament going on this weekend) and then headed back into downtown, where we found a cute restaurant/pub where Adam had a nice local beer and I had a martini. We were hoping for another delicious charcuterie platter or something, but this restaurant didn’t seem to have very much in the way of appetizers, so we had a hotel room picnic when we got back.

We decided once and for all that the nominal added time to our drive through the US this time by taking the route through the upper peninsula of Michigan was more than outweighed by the scenery and the fact that we wouldn’t have to go back through Indiana. So we booked hotels for the next few nights, set our route, and started getting in touch with people in Winnipeg and stops further west, to let them know when we will likely arrive.

Tomorrow, back to Americaland!

Ottawa to (metro) Toronto - Wherein Julia Gets to Drive Like a Crazy Big Smoke Girl! - Day 25

Our first adventure of the day came when I woke up early to do some laundry (the thief got all our remaining clean clothes) since reception didn't have any laundry cards last night. I went downstairs, loaded up the laundry, put some money on the card, and set it to wash. It is important to remember, for this story to work, that I put all of Adam's pants in the laundry - he was still dozing in his pjs.

At about the end of the wash cycle, I went back downstairs... to find that the washer with my laundry in it, still washing, was the only machine left hooked up inside the room. There were workmen hauling all the laundry machines out, to be replaced by new high tech ones, that wouldn't actually be hooked up until school started.

So keep in mind that all of my husband's pants  are now clean, but soaking wet. I have a problem. I went to reception and they told me "Oh, yeah, you have to go to Staunton." (which is what? and where is it? and what am I to do there?) Turns out that Staunton is the (fairly ghetto) next dormitory over, where there is one washer and one drier on each floor. So I carried all the wet clothes next door, found another laundry room, and put them in the drier. These machines were even older, so I wound up pulling out most of the clothes a few minutes before the end of the cycle (still a tiny bit damp) because we didn't have enough time to run them again, and I wanted to make sure at least our clothes for that day were dry.

Clothes clean (if not completely dry), checked out of the rez, (we got permission to leave the car in the parkade while we looked around) we went downtown.

It is unfortunate that we hadn't been able to make contact with my cousin John, who lives with his wife and 2 boys in Ottawa, but it turns out they were out of town... this is what happens when other people have busy lives, and we can't give any notice, since we don't exactly know when we'll be anywhere in particular!

So it was great to be able to make plans to see my cousin Shannon and Aunt Linda, who live north of Toronto.

We also tried to make plans with Amanda, a great friend from Vancouver (and best friend to my awesome sister) but she was too busy with work to make the scheduling work.

All of these arrangements were being made over another delicious breakfast at a "Cora's" before we did some power-touristing in Ottawa. We saw the statue of Oscar Peterson by the National Center for the Arts, (where they play jazz over the speakers all the time and you can sit on the piano bench next to Oscar!) the war memorials, (the one for the Korean war was extra cool - there's a statue, and in front of it is an arrow that is part of the pavement, that points the direction to the cemetery for Canadian soldiers in Korea, where an identical sculpture looks back at this one). The WWI sculpture is much bigger and more detailed, but I was particularly moved by this one.

We saw the Parliament buildings, the Supreme Court, and any number of buildings and museums that look like castles, and the most impressive sculpture of Queen Elizabeth I've ever seen! Not to mention about a hundred other sculptures.

On our way back to the car, we were able to see the locks working in Rideau Canal, before stopping at Rideau Center so that I could replace some of my makeup.

Then we got back to the car, loaded up, and got on the road. I drove.

Let me tell you some things about my experience of driving on the 401. I'm sure it's very different at rush hour, when nothing's moving. And I can't imagine trying to do it without a) GPS and b) Adam, to periodically look ahead in the GPS so that I know what lane I will need to be in (in time to do something about it). The drivers were consistently fast and agressive, but not competitive. That is to say, they'd leave exactly enough room for someone to get a lane over, but if you hesitate for a second or fail to drive consistently 20 km/h faster than the posted limit, you will be lost (or at the very least, miss your exit).

I actually found it pretty exhilarating, and Adam was very glad that it was my turn to drive.

We stayed at the dorms for Humber College Lakeshore (a jazz school - not that there were too many music students there at this time of year) in Etobicoke (the very western edge of Toronto proper). The photos looked very much like our Ottawa residence, but in reality it was a little more downmarket, although it was still a double room "suite" with much the same layout - just not as nice finishes.

It was also the only dorm we've stayed in without wifi. They were willing to sell us ethernet cables (we did, in fact, buy one, but it was kind of a nuisance to be tethered). It seemed very low tech. Crazy luddite jazz musicians.

I was feeling a little bit bad that we weren't having much luck finding family and friends who had time to hang out with us, and that we were too far out to want to brave the expressway to get back into Toronto to experience some nightlife, so Adam offered to take me out if I could find something. We found a place called "Biermarkt" in Etobicoke, and went there for a drink.

The place has about 30 beers on tap, and another 120 in bottles - about which the server/bartenders are very knowledgeable - and they also had really delicious soft pretzels and a fantastic charcuterie platter, including house made candied bacon. (Candied. Bacon. Need I say more?)

We had a lovely "date," went back to the residence, and got a good nights' sleep. Playing with 3 and 5 year olds in the morning!

Montreal, QC to Ottawa, ON - No More Drama, please, from now on! - Day 24

We checked out of the hotel in the morning and brought the car into the middle of downtown, (centreville) where we parked at a meter and got on one of the Gray Line Bus tours. I love these, and Adam doesn’t usually bother with them. But he loves me and on we got.

 It was pouring rain most of the tour, so we sat inside the double decker bus instead of on top. It was a bit leaky and the grouchy woman at the front wouldn’t open her window, so it also got pretty foggy. The tour guide, though, turned out to be another classical bassist, and he made some slight alterations to the tour itinerary to show Adam some cool music related places. We also saw some great architecture and were excited to get back, plug the meter, have some lunch, and then go out and do some more sightseeing. All we hoped was that our car hadn’t been ticketed.

 Well, we hadn’t gotten a ticket. We had gotten burgled. Someone smashed out the back passenger side window and grabbed our backpack. From one of the busiest areas of town, early afternoon, on a Tuesday.

Obviously, this was a low point. We’d spent a lot of money on the tour and I was really looking forward to having a bit more time to explore, even in the rain. There wasn’t much in the backpack really – the rest of our clean clothes (which wasn’t really all that much) our toiletries, bathing suits, and (for some inexplicable reason, it was the first time I’d ever put it in the backpack) my e-book. But it put a pall on the trip, and of course there was no option to do anything else in Montreal before we got the window repaired.

 Which, (more drama) we didn’t seem to be able to get done in Montreal. While I waited in the car for Adam to pick us up some sandwiches at Dunne’s, I called a place that had gotten good google reviews, but clearly it has changed hands or something because when we got there, it looked like a skeezy chop-shop and the proprietor didn’t want to do the window anyway. So we decided to cut our losses, I called the Apple Auto Glass in Ottawa and told them to order the glass, we’d be there in a couple hours.

 So there we were, cruisin’ down the highway, 3 windows down and one in pieces on the floor of the car, making fun of the thief for leaving all the good stuff and taking a bunch of half used makeup and a couple pairs of underwear… it really could have been a lot worse.

We arrived in Ottawa, where the Apple Auto Glass People stayed open late to fix the window and clean out the car, then checked in at the University of Ottawa residence – which was pretty swanky! Two bedroom suite, thank you, with an attached shower room and kitchenette – it was pretty awesome, really. (With secured parking!)

 And walking distance from downtown. Once we got settled, we took a walk downtown, stopping at Byward Market – the main market was closed but all the surrounding pubs were open – for a pint and some delicious poutine and a smoked salmon sandwich with their signature seafood chowder. Then we picked up some essentials at Rexall Drugs, before we headed back to the residence.

 I feel pretty good about how we handled this bit of bad luck, but I feel bad that Montreal left such a bad impression on us. We were both looking forward to it – I wanted to brush off my French, see a city with so much history, and share it with Adam. And we didn’t get that at all. Well, next time, we won’t come with a car.

 Putting it behind us, and the rest of our adventure will be better!

Fredericton to Montreal - Travel Day - Day 23

We’d arrived late (missed it by that much) for check in at the University, so the first order of business was to find the actual registration desk and make sure they had all the appropriate information. We packed up the car and went into downtown for breakfast and coffee and a look around. Once again, we were struck by the fact that New Brunswick is the only truly bilingual province. It seemed as though almost everyone spoke both languages fluently and without any particular accent that gave away which was their first and which their second language.

 I, in turn, had fun being able to translate for Adam. It’s so rare that I know something that he doesn’t, I milked it for all it was worth!

 We had breakfast at Cora’s – a franchise breakfast/lunch place that exists mostly in Eastern Canada, as far as I know… Adam says there used to be one in Vancouver, but I’ve never seen it, and believe me, if I had, I would be there all the time! I had French toast made from, essentially, a sliced cinnamon bun, covered in a pile of fruit and with English cream on top. Adam had a “crepeomelet” – literally an omelette wrapped in a crepe and then covered in hollandaise. The Uberbreakfast, really!

After breakfast we wandered around a little bit, checking out the old garrison for a little history, the legislative buildings, and another lighthouse to add to our collection, but we were aware that we had a long drive to get to Montreal (about 8 hours) so we got back into the car and were on our way.

 The drive was pretty uneventful – we followed our new road rules: when in doubt, buy more ice, and always pick up some unsweetened iced tea when you can find it… I guess it might be getting married to an American, but I’m really developing a taste for unsweetened iced tea, and one of the companies that makes it is starting to bring in the unsweetened version in Canadian markets. It’s sort of the “official non-alcoholic beverage” of the trip (man, I should have brought them in as sponsors)!

 When we arrived in Montreal, we didn’t have too hard a time finding our hotel, although it (in fact, the whole block was made up of similar hotels) had seen much better days. It was fine, though, and after checking in we took a nice walk down the street to a student pub and had a drink, then back to the hotel to bed.

Truro to Fredericton via PEI - Red Sand Beaches and Picture Postcard Views - Day 22

We got up Monday morning and did the necessary paperwork for our room (and thanked the couple again, profusely, for making arrangements for us outside their normal hours) and got a great diner recommendation for breakfast. She also tipped us off that while there is a fairly significant charge either for the ferry or to cross the Confederation Bridge between PEI and the mainland, you only get charged for the return trip, so you might as well take the ferry over and the bridge back - 2 different views, and you do the less expensive one second!

So, after a very solid diner breakfast, we turned the Elantra towards the ferry terminal. It turned out that it was an unexpectedly busy day, so we wound up having to wait for the next ferry - which was ok, we had another coffee, planned out our route, and walked up and down the rows of cars trying to find Delaware and West Virginia to complete our set. (No luck)

The ferry to PEI had a decent cafeteria, soft serve icecream, and live music. It was awesome. And you could actually see yourself coming nearer to the red earth and green EVERYTHING ELSE that people write books about (Particularly LM Montgomery!)

You know, the best way to describe PEI is that if you just point your camera in any direction at anytime in (as far as I can gather) any part of the province, you'll have a postcard worthy picture. We drove through rolling hills of cornfields, potatoes, blueberries and just generally bucolic meadows and old Victorian style farmhouses and barns as far as the eye can see.

Then, we arrived in Charlottetown, the "Cradle of Confederation" and it happens that this summer they're celebrating 150 years since they hosted the set of meetings that eventually led to confederation (which PEI then didn't join until they'd pretty much bankrupted themselves building a railroad, several years later).

Charlottetown, too, was extremely pretty, even if you didn't count all the slightly self-consciously cute Anne of Green Gables stuff (which was not hard to find - although the part of the island most closely associated with Anne is on the North Coast and we were opposite.  Upon arriving in town, we took a quick detour to the Gahan Brewery (PEI Brewing) - we arrived just as a brewery tour began, so we joined in! It was fun, and the beer was very good - I just had one of the Blueberry Ales not too long ago, actually! Then we had a bit of a wander around, and found (among other things) a tasting room for a local distillery, tried some delicious rum and whiskey, and stopped at a Timothy's (the upscale version of Tim Horton's that makes really nice sandwiches and fancy coffees) for lunch before we wended our way towards the bridge.

Sadly, we had several more hours of driving to do to get to Fredericton, so we weren't able to visit Summerside, where apparently my Grannie and Dad (when he was a baby) waited for my Grandpa to return from overseas in WWII. But I would go back to PEI in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity! The next time, we would plan to do the same thing we did in Hawaii, and circumnavigate the island in a week or so, staying at hotels/b&bs along the way. It would be a great holiday... Man, that province is SO pretty!

The drive to Fredericton was pretty relaxed - we had a bit of an adventure finding our dorm (we stayed at the historic Lady Beaverbrook Residence at UNB Fredericton (which is, incidentally, the oldest English language university in Canada).

Our room was probably 3 times the size of our room at Memorial University - I think I could probably survive a school term in that room with a stranger without killing either one of us. And the "lounge" area looked like the smoking room of an old men's club (which I guess it was, except that the men were young) - dark wood, big leather furniture, portraits... tres posh.

I didn't want to go exploring too much, (actually that's not true. I totally wanted to, I just thought Adam would worry about me!) but according to some info photos and captions in the dorm, it was built in 1928 and looks like something out of Hogwarts. I swear!  There's a weather vane in the shape of a beaver, and a bell tower that apparently plays "The Jones Boys" at noon and 6, and apparently there's a (now empty and non functional) swimming pool in the basement that was once the largest indoor pool in New Brunswick.

(Still regretting not poking around enough to find the old pool...)

Had a good sleep - tomorrow's a long driving day!

St John's, NL to Truro, NS - Walking, Well-Wishes and Waiting........... - Day 21

Our last day in Newfoundland dawned cloudy but warm, and I checked our email for information about this hike we'd talked about with the newlyweds. I should have known better, with this extremely sporty family.... The hike they'd decided on was rated as "difficult" and was 3-5 hours long. (They did eventually downgrade to a 3-4 hour "moderate" hike, but by then we'd decided we were going to The Rooms instead.)

So "The Rooms" is one of those clever names. In Newfoundland, the temporary structures used for cleaning and curing the catch of cod were called "fishing rooms" and the architecture and name reference this.

The museum sits on the former location of  Fort Townshend, the equivalent to the Halifax Citadel - on the highest hill, star-shaped, etc - the garrison was withdrawn in 1871, after which the fort decayed and was eventually buried. Apparently (although we didn't see it) there are some remains of the fort viewable in situ in the basement of The Rooms.

There were several amazing exhibits in the museum section of the place, tracing the history of the land and its settlers from the Inuit to the Vikings, through the English, French and Irish to the present day. There were comparison photos of Irish people's faces with the faces of people with the same last names in Newfoundland, and some of the similarities were astonishing!

We also looked through historical exhibits about Newfoundland's time as its own dominion (it was the last province to join Canada, (not til 1949) so there were examples of Newfoundland stamps and currency), both politically and as regards their contributions to the 1st and 2nd World Wars.

The archives weren't open when we went, but it's not as though we had anything in particular we wanted to see. In the Art Gallery, we were particularly struck by "Pointed North," an exhibition of Rockwell Kent's work, particularly focussing on his time spent visiting Newfoundland. It was really great.

After that, we went back downtown, got a few more photos in the sunshine, saw a couple street performers, and then went to "The Ship" - another hidden "lane" pub to meet up with the hikers before getting on our way to the airport.

It was a nice visit, and Sarah came through with a big bag of cds (we'd discovered early on that the auxiliary plug-in for my car stereo wasn't working on the right side, and we hadn't brought nearly enough cds for that to be the situation) for us to play on the way back west, but we wished we could have stayed a little longer (and, in light of later events, we really could have). We said our goodbyes, hugged everyone, and got in a cab to the University to get our bags, and then to the airport.

One of the first things the nice boy at the Air Canada counter asked us was whether we'd heard about "the delay." Well, no, we hadn't. Nobody called or emailed or anything. So it turned out our flight had been delayed by 4 hours "due to fog in the morning that set everything back" (although apparently in an unrelated event, a woman scaled a barbed wire fence and ran out onto the tarmac in Halifax that morning, to try to stop a plane (which she believed, erroneously, to have her partner aboard) from taking off - drama, drama, drama.

We were already cutting it tight to get to our hotel before the owners closed the office and went to bed, so that 4 hour delay might have meant that we didn't have anywhere to sleep at all. Air Canada didn't care, and didn't offer to do anything at all. Remind me of this day when I think about booking another Air Canada flight when there is any other option at all, including the bus for multiple days.

Fortunately, the lovely couple at the Tidal Bore Inn (yes, another one, although we were either not there or fast asleep when the tide came in or went out) were willing to just put our key in the mailbox and let us sign the paperwork in the morning.

The time actually went pretty quickly - we had some food at the airport restaurant and then I worked on trying to catch up on this blog until they finally called the flight.

We arrived without incident in Halifax, collected the car, drove to our quaint-as-hell motel in Truro, I had a bath and we crashed hard!

St John's Continued - Yet MORE Weather and Walking and Washing and Incongruous Mexican Food - Day 20

We awoke on Saturday feeling that the world was our... well, lobster, maybe. I don't like oysters much. The whole day stretched before us with nary a committment!The sun was shining, the birds were singing, I realized that I'd left my jacket at the hall the night before in time to interrupt the decorator's tear-down crew to let us in and grab it - everything was coming up Joneses!  The only downside was that since it was Saturday, nothing was open at the University Centre. No coffee to be had at all. We'd been planning on breakfast downtown, but the inability to even score coffee flummoxed us a little bit. Mostly undeterred, we caught a bus into downtown and returned to Yellowbelly for breakfast where Adam had a delicious Eggs Benedict with the sweetest ham I've ever gotten to have a bite of, and I had a lobster hash that was decadent in ways I usually associate only with chocolate.

We also discovered (by reading the blurb on the menu) that it is one of the oldest pubs in St John's - and the building, rebuilt after the fire of 1846 and was one of the few mercantile buildings to survive the fire of 1894 (they do seem to have bad luck with fires in this town- it's why in a town that was actually founded in the 1600s, everything looks late-Victorian!) and that the term Yellowbellies refers to an Irish faction from county Wexford, who tied yellow sashes around their waists in a hurling match against the Cornish champions. When they won, the King was heard to say "Well done, Yellowbellies!"

After breakfast, we started wandering around downtown, and the weather decided to stop cooperating. First it was spitting a little rain (no problem, we can take it, we're from Vancouver) and we kept looking around - taking lots of pictures as the rain got heavier and heavier... we'd been informed that the newly married couple were meeting up with family and friends at a park to play frisbee - Kathleen has certainly been a great influence on Benton/Tim's sportiness! - but as the rain got worse (and so did our moods) we were less and less inclined to try to figure out where this alleged park was.

Finally, we ducked into The Duke of Duckworth (a pub off Duckworth street, in one of those "lanes" formed by stairs up from Water to Duckworth) for a pint and to get out of the rain, which by this time was pelting down like crazy - we wouldn't have been at all surprised to see a parade of animals coming 2 by 2 towards an ark of some kind.

Apparently that was the magic charm we needed, because by the time we'd had a pint and had decided on a "rainy day in St John's" activity (The Rooms Museum, archives, art gallery and restaurant that was a reasonable walk from where we were and on the bus route back to the University- more about that later) the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. We realised that we wouldn't really be able to get our money's worth out of the Rooms before they closed, but now that the sun was out, we figured that instead of just walking up to Bonaventure Avenue (where the bus stops across from The Rooms) we would instead walk all the way back to the University (which, it turns out, is a beautiful walk (in the sunshine) along Bonaventure, and only takes about a half hour.

We also were able to ascertain that the park where this Frisbee game was meant to have been taking place was only about another 2 minutes past the University, and that there was a little shopping centre right across from it, where we could buy a few things that we'd gotten rid of to get on the plane - sunscreen, shaving cream, that kind of stuff, as well as some laundry detergent, since all our clothes were by this time, in need of laundering.

So we went back to the University, changed into dry clothes, and went over to the park, where the frisbee mayhem was wrapping up. Tim/Benton and Kathleen invited us out for a hike the next day, which we thought might be fun, (more about that later too!) and we made plans to at least meet up for a pint before we went to the airport. Then we parted ways and headed over to the shopping centre.

There was a Shoppers, a few gift shops (where I found some great ideas for Elda's birthday present) several fast food/pizza places (after all, it's just around the corner from campus), a pretty skeezy pub, and, strangely, a mexican restaurant called Quintana's. We were hungry for some dinner, so we decided to give it a try.... at least it would be a funny story, right?

Well, it was a funny story. But not the kind we thought. Instead, it was the funny story about one of the best mexican meals we've ever had, hidden away in a weird little strip mall in St Johns, Newfoundland. The Habanero Burrito that Adam had was so spicy it almost broke even him, and yet it was apparently so delicious that he ate the whole thing, sweating all the way. I had the "Mexican Flag" - a cheese enchilada with red sauce, a beef enchilada with green sauce and a chicken flauta with delicious creamy sauce topped with raisins and almonds. It was amazing!

Stuffed full of delicious food, we stopped in at the gas station, and realized that in Newfoundland, you can get beer at gas stations (we were wondering about why we hadn't seen a liquor store so close to campus, when drinking age is only 19!) - so we got some, went back to our room, watched a movie and did our laundry at the residence, just like college students!

St John's Continued - More Weather, Wedding and Wonders! - Day 19

Friday dawned overcast, but not actually raining, and we got the official word that the ceremony was going ahead near the top of Signal Hill, at the Queen's Battery barracks, a quintessential sight to see in St John's. Signal Hill, with it's panoramic views of St John's, the harbour, and the ocean, has been fortified since the mid-17th century. The final battle of the Seven Years' War in North America was the Battle of Signal Hill in 1762, in which the French ceded St John's to the British (no, I didn't just know that... totally cribbed it from Wikipedia).


Our first order of business, though, was to prepare for the Rollaway rehearsal/soundcheck at R. Gushue Hall, where the reception was going to be. This was when we actually realized how close we were to the site. We had some breakfast, printed some more copies of charts (very handy that we now knew where to go to get some printing tone - the little store at the Student Union building) and went to the hall. The band (the real band, whose instruments (and horn section and drummer) we were borrowing) were setting up, but we got a great, quickie rehearsal in before Benton (Tim) had to go get ready to get married. We went for some lunch with the gang at a funky little coffee shop called Fixed on Duckworth (one of the major streets in downtown St John's that's parallel to the water). The town is unbelievably cute - dozens of late Victorian rowhouses painted vibrant colours and when they tell you to walk "up" a street they really mean it! There are several areas where there are just staircases (and pretty steep ones at that) in a "lane" that runs between Water Street and Duckworth (or George, for a few blocks that has become the nightclub strip). Seth and Aviva dropped us back off at the University and we got ready for the ceremony.

The fog had already started coming in as we got in a cab (didn't want to make the gang drive another round trip) to go to Signal Hill at about 3:30. (The ceremony was due to start at 4:30) Fortunately, I was able to get a few photos before everything was enveloped in a thick, cold, wet fog. By the time the processional started, you couldn't see past the edge of the cliffside and it looked as if the wedding party was emerging from a cloud - it was actually pretty magical. But very cold and damp and salty.

The ceremony itself was beautiful, everyone played and sang wonderfully, and the uncles who did readings were really very good (in particular, Rick Hill (Benton's uncle from Oklahoma) is a fantastic storyteller who read a lovely and funny poem. And the rain managed to hold off (more or less) until we were done. Then everybody was putting instruments away and folding up chairs and going back down the hill to head back into town. Adam said that while the rental bass was extremely difficult to play and playing with cold, wet, salty fingers was a recipe for 3 layers of blisters one on top of the other, he was extremely glad that he wasn't playing his own bass up there on the bluffs, in rain, and saltspray, and cold, and fog and wind that tried to turn the bass into a sail.

We all piled into Seth and Aviva's rental car (2 in front, 3 in back and 2 in the hatchback with the accordion and ukulele and incidental percussion.)

Back at Memorial University, we had a little time to kill before the reception began, so we went back to our room so I could change my shoes and Adam could put on a dry shirt, and then we wandered around a bit before returning for champagne and a few appies upstairs at Gushue. The wedding party arrived and after a fast-moving receiving line we went downstairs to the main reception area, which was decorated beautifully. There was some really nice wine at dinner (salad, either cod or chicken, and creme brulee for dessert) and the speeches were heartfelt and sweet. After dinner, the main bar opened and the music began. The band that they hired was fantastic, and the Rollaway mini-set went over like gangbusters (not surprisingly) - we left a little before the party was truly winding down, but we were pretty tired and looking forward to having some time to ourselves to explore on Saturday.

Halifax, NS to St John's, NL - Waking and Winging and Weather - Day 18

The first moment that our grand adventure got almost too adventurous occurred on day 18. We stayed in a really nice hotel near the Halifax airport (the very nearest one, which turned out to be extremely fortunate). I fought through a fairly complicated signup for internet process at the hotel in order to check-in online for our flight (which also turned out to be a lucky chance), and we reorganized our "going to Newfoundland" clothes and toiletries into a couple of small bags (again, such a happy coincidence) before we hit the hay for a "nap," setting an alarm for 4:45 am (since we wanted to be at the airport by 5:45 at the latest for our 6:50am flight).

We woke up at 6. Or maybe even a minute or two after. Commence panicking. Adam went downstairs to stow the cooler in the car (we were parking it at the hotel for the weekend) and spoke to the front desk, who calmly told him that the shuttle was on its way back from the airport and would be back to run us over in a few minutes, and they were only 2-3 minutes from the hotel. Meanwhile, I was throwing everything in sight into our bags.

We got everything downstairs and, still in quite a state. We got in the shuttle and to the desk. (It's now probably 6:20ish. The Air Canada employee first started saying that she'd have to rebook us. But then she looked again at her screen, and said "Oh, were you already checked in?" (Yes) "And you're not checking any bags?" (Well, we were planning to, but I guess we don't have to) "Okay, take your boarding passes and hurry, you just might make it!"

So off we went to security. And of course, since we were planning on checking bags, there were a ton of liquids and gels. We threw as much as we could in those little bags, and the rest we were all: "No problem, throw it away. Yep, get rid of it." We got through at about 6:40 and briskly walked to our gate, and onto the plane, just as they did the final boarding call and actually paged someone else. We weren't even the last ones!

But the flight drama wasn't over yet. After several minutes of circling, the pilot came on to tell us that it was extremely foggy in St John's, and if it didn't clear up some in the next 15 minutes, we'd have to turn around and go back to Halifax. (Keep in mind, this was only about an 80 minute flight, so there had only been one tiny cup of coffee and no food at all.) They did land, however - in less than 100 feet visibility. The fog was incredible! (At this juncture, Adam would like to add the technical terminology: The ceiling was about 6-10 inches, and the landing was IFR+)

We got into St John's around 10, and had a little time to kill in the student union building before it was time to get ready for our music rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. We stowed our bags at the "student residence check in," and went for breakfast at the "University Centre" (aka the aforementioned student union building). We then made sure we had printed copies of the ceremony music (a Paul Simon song for during the register signing and an alternate key version of Benton's "Getting There" for the recessional. I knew there was also going to be a hymn that I would be singing (sort of section leading) that Kathleen wrote the setting for, but I didn't have the sheet music for that yet.

Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud and her friends Seth and Aviva from New York kindly agreed to pick us up at the University and take us to the rehearsal at Kathleen's parents' house (which was beautiful). It was, however, a little funny for me to be trying to give driving directions (given that I didn't even know where I was, much less how to get there...) but eventually we got it together.

At the rehearsal, I learned that not only was there a hymn, but there would also be a sung "blessing" in lieu of grace at the reception. And they didn't have enough altos, so I got drafted for a little sightreading. It was challenging, but fun, singing with some of Kathleen's Yale friends and her highschool choir director leading.

... The theme for the day seemed to be that whenever Benton and/or Kathleen are in charge of a project, there tends to be what Adam referred to as "Scope Creep"... you know, at first it's just going to be a simple ceremony with some music, and then they decide that there ought to be horns serenading the arrival of everyone, and a bouzouki and violin playing the family in, and an accordion and guitar (and violin and drum) playing for the Bride's processional, and a small choir to lead the hymn, and as long as you have the choir you might as well have them sing in the Paul Simon song during the registry signing, along with a full band and 2 lead singers, and then of course the band will have to play the recessional, when the cannon goes off. Creep of Scope. Scope Creep.

Anyway,  the rehearsal went well and sounded great, and only one delegate from each ensemble actually attended the Wedding Rehearsal, whilst the rest of us went back to our hotels/dormitories to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.

It was finally late enough that we could collect our belongings and check in. It turns out that our dorm was not only nearby the reception site, it was actually the very closest possible building to the reception hall. Which was pretty awesome. It was also the most dormy dorm I've ever been in - the washroom/shower room down the hall and single beds with mattresses possibly made of heavy duty styrofoam and a pillow made of probably 2 other pillowcases inside a pillowcase. But it had lots of places to charge up all our devices and was dirt cheap, so YAY!

The rehearsal dinner was at the Quidi Vidi Brewery - who make some awesome beers, my favourite of which was Iceberg, a lager made from 25000 year old iceberg water. Very yummy, and although we had it on tap that night, it also comes in blue bottles, like Kronenbourg Blanc. Which made me like it even more.

There was a huge program, with speeches and songs (we, of course, played "My Baby Just Cares For Me" to great response) and a "Screeching In" (making honourary Newfoundlanders of all of us "Come From Aways"). I've heard of this ceremony before, and it was fun to do with everybody. Apparently you're supposed to wear a Sou'wester hat (the yellow rain hat thingy) but there were far too many of us for that. But we did the other 3 parts:
1. Drink Like a Newfoundlander:
      -drink a shot of Screech (Newfoundland dark rum) (so far, so good)
2. Talk Like a Newfoundlander:
      -Question: Is ye an honourary Newfoundlander?
      -Answer: Indeed I is, me old cock, and long may yer big jib draw! (well, points for effort, right?)
3. Kiss a Cod
       - (I would like to be able to tell you that was a euphemism. It wasn't.)

Then we all got certificates proclaiming us to be honourary Newfoundlanders, and the "kitchen party" (Newfie for jam session) was well begun!

It was really great, and we all got to play and sing a bunch more (Benton proved his Canadian mettle by learning and performing all the verses to Barrett's Privateers) - mettle, yes, geography possibly not so much, but it's Maritime, at least!

After the party, we (Adam, Sarah, Seth, Aviva and I) went for some late snacks at Yellowbelly, where we were met by Adam Tryczynski, who had just arrived into town. We did the best we could at a 2nd generation Screeching In, just so he didn't feel left out.

Back to the dorm for a reasonably good sleep considering there was no AC - somebody's getting married in the morning (well, actually the late afternoon, but you get my point)!

Moncton NB to Halifax, NS - A foggy day in [Halifax] town - Day 17

This morning we checked out of the gorgeous Residence Inn in Moncton and were “on the road again” to Halifax. It was pretty cloudy in Moncton and I remember saying that it was nice that we seemed (apart from one incredible storm that made the windshield wipers more or less a fashion accessory on the way to Moncton) to drive out of the rotten weather into nice weather this whole trip! (actually, we did drive out of the crazy storm, even, and managed to stay ahead of it the rest of the way, so the rule still stands) And it did seem to be a beautiful sunny day when we arrived at the hotel we are staying at as I write this. (The Halifax airport is about a half hour outside of the city, so we got there before actually arriving in Halifax proper) We were a bit early, but our room was ready so we checked in and put our bags inside before carrying on to town.

We noticed the encroaching fog as soon as we crossed the Angus L
MacDonald Bridge into Halifax from Dartmouth – it was difficult to see the top of the bridge, and virtually impossible to see the end from where we started. But we seemed to be driving away from it when we arrived at the Halifax Citadel, so we slathered Adam up in sunscreen and headed in for our first Canadian history lesson!

Ok. So the Halifax Citadel (Fort George, after George II) was established in 1749, but the version we saw has been restored to the Victorian period (around 1850) and re-enactors of the 78^th Highlanders’ Regiment of Foot and Pipe Band are there demonstrating gun and canon firing and the pipe band marches and plays. We suspect that we didn’t actually get the “a” team today (it being a Wednesday and all, but still… it was loud and pretty cool!)

The first fort was built in 1749, and marked the beginning of Father Le Loutre’s war against Acadian militia and the Mi’kmaq Indians, and continued to be important during the French and Indian wars.

The most interesting thing I learned about this fortification was that Nova Scotia was actually the 14^th British Colony. (You know, how the US started as the 13 colonies?) So the second fort was built in 1776 to make sure that Nova Scotia remained in British hands. During the American Revolution, American privateers devastated the maritime economy by raiding villages around the province, although none actually attacked the garrison (and a good thing too, because they’d have pretty much got their butts kicked, based on the maze-like fortifications, lined with guns.)

The third fortress was built (they levelled and lowered the top of the hill to allow a larger fortress) during the French Revolutionary Wars, and remained during the War of 1812, and the Fourth was built during the Victorian Era.  It has never actually been attacked.

I wondered, after wandering around the park for an hour or so through the labyrinthine outer barricades, what their protocol was for making sure that no one gets locked in there at night time. It seems like a pretty huge task – I’m sure without Adam’s good sense of direction, I’d still be there right now!

After we’d had enough of a history lesson, we went into the rest of the town, the fog hot on our trail. We were struck by the similarities to Boston – from the architecture to the town’s layout. Even the “Burying Ground” in the center of town was pretty similar – just that there were fewer famous revolutionaries and their families there!

We went for a pint at “Your Father’s Moustache” – a pub directly above another pub (the “Rock Bottom Bar”) If you go by the photos on the way up the stairs, they have some kind of ongoing “best moustache” contest going on. The guy who managed to grow and style a moustache into the wings of a biplane was my personal favourite!

By the time we made it down to the waterfront, the fog had really come in, and we weren’t really able to see anything past the piers. But we did see a really funny large scale sculpture in which it appears that a lamppost has gotten drunk and fallen down.

The last stop before returning to the hotel was the official Halifax Donair. We opted for the place who claims to have invented the Donair, King of Donairs. For those unaware of the donair phenomenon, it’s pretty much equivalent to a Gyro, doner kebab or shawarma – mysterious spiced meat made into a dense loaf and cut off an upright rotisserie. It is placed in a pita with onions and tomatoes. The difference, as far as I can tell, is the sauce. Even places in Western Canada that offer “Halifax donairs” seem to use something really close to tzatziki for the sauce. But a true Halifax donair uses a sweet sauce that substitutes sweetened condensed milk for the yogourt or sour cream of tzatziki. This creates a really different taste combination with the spiced meat, and I really liked it. Adam seemed to me to be less sold, although he admitted the wisdom of inventing this kind of street food in a college town (where the legal drinking age is 19). Also, it’s unbelievably messy. I was very glad we’d invested in Wet Ones!

Back to the hotel and relaxing before our ridiculously early flight tomorrow, and staying in a residence at Memorial University in St. John’s! We’re going to let someone else do the driving for a few days!

PS - sorry I've been remiss in updating the photos... they're ready to go, just haven't had enough time. Probably will have some time free this weekend to get caught up!

Moncton NB and our 1st Anniversary – Day 16

Today started with my favourite activity when I used to spend a lot of time living in hotels: We woke up just in time for the end of the fancy “free breakfast buffet,” ate breakfast, went back to the room and straight back to bed! (Especially useful skill when you’ve just moved into yet another new time zone… Atlantic time now – just a half-hour left to go when we get to NFLD!

Once we got up for real, we started enjoying our first anniversary in New Brunswick. In a hypothetical way, I had been aware of the fact that New Brunswick is the only province that is actively bilingual, but I hadn’t really known what that meant before today. We really heard about 50/50 French and English being spoken, and I was reminded of my time working at Chez Michel’s, spending a great deal of time listening to people asking me questions in French and answering them in English. I imagine that in Quebec, I’ll have to try to answer in French too, but in NB, they don’t mind.

We walked through downtown (where we suspect that at some point – about mid-19^th century – there was a major church construction-off. The French Catholics won.) and under the “subway” (a bridge that is just slightly too low for the average semitrailer to go under it. From the look of the bridge, many of the semis don’t realize that until too late).

After that, we went through a much more unfashionable area of Moncton (but still not too bad) and arrived at Jones Lake – a manmade lake that puts every other manmade lake I’ve ever seen to shame.



 Adam was a bit off-put by the local geese that had dibs on the path by the lake, but once I discovered that it was really just an issue of the geese wanting to make sure we’d taken sufficient pictures of them, it was ok. I suspect that they have a bit of a turf war going on with the local (very friendly) ducks.

We stopped for a light lunch at a cool pub on the way back to the hotel, and tried to go into a restored Vaudeville Theatre, but they had a drama camp going on – we picked up a pamphlet on the theatre though.

Then I left Adam at the hotel to put the finishing touches on my anniversary present, and I went to the local mall, with plans to meet back at the Tidal Bore Park. All went according to plan, and we met up just in time to see the tide come in and make the river rise hugely and flow backwards. It was a crazy “man, that nature can sure do some weird stuff” time.

We went back to the hotel and drank our anniversary champagne and opened our presents. I got Adam a notepad with some photos from our wedding, and a bunch more wedding photos made into fridge magnets (and he wondered why I knew a great website to make photo fridge magnets when he wanted to make some last week!)  I was glad that he was still happy with that when he gave me a handmade music box that plays the theme he wrote for me to walk down the aisle at the wedding. I, personally, think he totally won this gift exchange.

Then we went for dinner at the Keg, which is the restaurant attached to this hotel. Being New Brunswick, this Keg gets daily fresh lobster, so I got a surf and turf feature, and Adam had a Bacon wrapped filet. Our server, Stewart, was charming in 2 languages, and dinner was amazing, after which we went back to the hotel, watched a movie, and I wrote all this.

Tomorrow, we point the car towards Halifax, and then the next day we fly to Newfoundland – this really is an amazing adventure!