A little catching up

So after my amazing multiple post day at LAX, I've taken over a month off.  Snow is predicted for our current location at any given moment, so we've settled ourselves for a day inside activities including blog updating. 

For anyone who missed it, we went home for a few weeks mistakenly under the impression that it would be a relaxing holiday from our holiday, we'd sort out our photos and finally share more than five, rest, catch up with friends and family etc.  Here's what really happened, not necessarily in order of occurance:  Ate way too much good food, drank too often/much, got looked after by our parents (love you all), watched some good friends get married, visited work (feel free to hurt me, but I realised I really do miss the office), discovered a lot of our friends are pregnant (yikes), celebrated our nephew's first birthday, caught up with not as many friends as we'd hoped and, perhaps most impressively, avoided jet lag on the flight there.  

On returning to Boston, we discovered that autumn had come and gone (apparently the leaf colour wasn't good this year so we didn't miss too much) and winter had arrived.  On our first night back in Gil, we put a second thermometer outside to verify the first's allegation that it was -5 degree Celsius.  This was further verified when Gil's water hose froze over a short time later.  Armed with this information and a lack of suitably warm clothing, we started our southward journey and after a few days visiting with my aunt and uncle, Gil was back on the road again and New York bound.  Okay, so maybe New York isn't exactly the first place that springs to mind in association with southward bound journeys, but there are some places you must visit whilst in the US.   

Apologies to my vegetarian friends

In New Brunswick, Brad and I went out for lunch.  At lunch I met Lobster #1:

(for the record the bib was not actually used other than as a prop for this photo)

Several days later in Prince Edward Island, I was feeling a bit blue, Brad decided an introduction to Lobster #2 might cheer me up (he was right): 

In Maine, I concluded another introduction was essential:

 

My relationship with Lobster #3 is a little uncomfortable - I saw him live and not so orange, before collecting him 30 minutes later cooked and neatly bagged, then nursed him tenderly in my lap until we arrived at our sleeping spot for the night, and dinner was served.

There is a distinct possibility that I have a lobster addiction. I've always been a crayfish fan (just ask my mum) but lobsters are tastier.  Did I mention, there's just something I find EXCEPTIONALLY rewarding and enjoyable about having to work to get my food out of it's casing. Brad is contemplating sleeping in a locked sleeping bag from now on...

Sadly we're homeward bound, so if you see me trembling, vomiting, or exhibiting other drug withdrawal type symptoms in the next few weeks don't worry, it's just the lobster.

And a final note, in case you've ever wondered lobster will not cure the common cold, trust me,  I tried it with Lobster #3.

Some days it might help if I was a man...

It has been proven that any travel based research I conduct must be done under the strictest supervision - in my last attempt at travel coordinator, I found a fantastic campground just outside of Montreal, Brad "peer reviewed" my work and noticed "for men only" prominently located on the website ... which I had perused for at least five minutes and concluded was perfect for a night.  However, Brad is either extremely forgetful, or very forgiving and left preparing for our time in Nova Scotia up to me on the basis I spent a year on exchange there during school, so knew all about it.  Ahem.  I did successfully manage to arrange visits and social activities with friends and families I'd stayed with and warmth with which we were welcomed made us feel special and a bit like we'd "come home"

We'd like say thanks (in no particular order) to Maryann, Paul, Carolyn, Dave, Dave, Rosalyn, Patrick, Larry and Lucille for your heart warming hospitality, conversation, yummy home cooked dinners and covering up my shortcomings with sightseeing help. Also to Crystal who makes extremely delicious and beautiful cupcakes (check out http://gateauxrose.blogspot.com/) for drinks and laughs and a sugary treat.  You all made our time in truly Nova Scotia special, and we hope to see you all again.  Apologies too, to anyone whose ear I talked off - after five months of mostly just Brad for conversation I probably got a bit excited! 

For the record, we did visit some of Nova Scotia's stunning coastal areas (so perhaps I'm not a complete failure).

***

To my amazement, three of four pets from when I was here last were still about, since our departure sadly, Tucker the Bedlington Terrier has passed on - I know he'll be missed, he was one special dog. 

My husband needs to read Anne of Green Gables. Or would that be weird?

For anyone who doesn't know I grew up without television.  No this wasn't some alternative child raising technique of my parents, we simply lived in the middle of nowhere and didn't have television reception.  At least that's what my parents told us.  Now that I think about it, maybe this was an alternate parenting method and my life up to 13 was a lie....

In any case this meant, amongst other things, I read books.  A lot of books.  Including L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables.  I must confess at this point I have only read Anne of Green Gables and none of Montgomery's other books (though I'd probably quite like them), despite the full set of Anne books being in my childhood home.  I will also confess these books belonged to my older sister and I have a sneaking suspicion she was keen to keep my grubby little hands away from them.

So when we visited Prince Edward Island, a visit to the Green Gables Heritage site was a must for me.  The house and grounds were the inspiration for the books, though having visited them, I find it even harder to believe, Anne was never a real person. 


A few examples of our conversations that morning.

Brad:  Why are we walking through this forest?

Me:  They're the Haunted Woods!

... a short time later

Brad:  Where are we walking now?

Me:  We're walking down Lover's Lane.

Brad:  Why?

I felt any explanation would be futile.  There are other similar historic sites on PEI, but I don't think Brad would have coped.  

I'd now like to talk about our visit to the Castle Air Museum in California.  I admit I was a little bored, but believe I successfully showed (pretend) interest as Brad read aloud from the guide about various planes.  I also diligently took photos of him in a selection of poses with various planes.

(there are 20 other photos just like this one)

There have also been visits to two dinosaur museums (though Brad claims I enjoyed these ... more than he did).  Oh and did I mention the Googleplex?

This entry is dedicated to Susannah, for this:

(By the way, Susannah writes a very entertaining blog Three Key Points)

Je ne comprends pas?

Brad has decided to learn French ... from our GPS.  For two reasons, I can only see this ending badly 

1. he'll only ever learn street names; and 
2. the GPS has quite possibly the worst French pronunciation ever.  Montreal is pronounced as three distinct words Mon, Tree, All, with the emphasis on Tree. Um, ok.  On the topic of the GPS, after missing several turns Brad confessed he's started tuning the GPS out.  

I talk at least as much as the GPS, but probably about less important things....

Parts of Montreal that might be interesting to read about (at least in our opinion)

• Dinner with Claude, a former colleague (boss actually) of Brad's - good company, Creole food and a few bottles of wine.  Brad got to talk boffin, something he's hardly had opportunity for in 4 months.  I got to learn a lot more about what Brad actually does, I'm not being sarcastic, the boffining actually interesting.
• 
  A bike ride along Lachine Canal which didn't end in me crashing spectacularly.  Ok, on one occasion I did try to get on the bike, and ended up on the ground on the opposite side, but it doesn't count as I was stationary at the time, and I only got one normal size bruise.
  

  

  
  
• Friday night with Aisling and Matt - great company, lots of laughs, beer and gin (not together of course), more good food, an Aising tour, a Kid Koala book launch, more beer and gin, all finished off with a yummy late night supper and Brad attempting a nap in a strangers lap on the train trip home.  
• Breakfast crepes at John Talon market with Aisling and Matt, and the acquisition of beautiful organic and/or locally grown produce (Mum and Dad, I've found the second place winner in the tastiest tomato competition).
• The commencement of bagel testing.  To give you some background, apparently you're either a New York bagel person or a Montreal bagel person and in Montreal, it's either St. Viateur or Fairmount bagels.  We therefore needed to try both.  On experience St. Viateur won, the bagel we shared was still warm from the oven, but Fairmount was the overall winner. Brad, who only eats bagels as a last resort (ie when the bread goes mouldy) has been lamenting that we ate them all ever since.  We shall report on this again when testing resumes in New York.

Despite being in a big city, where we didn't even speak the language (my almost forgotten high school French does NOT count), we felt far less lost in Montreal than we had in Chicago and left feeling like we'd done the city justice, and maybe even wanted to move here.

From Montreal it was on to Quebec city, where we had perfect sightseeing weather for our one day there,  then Riviere-du-Loup in time to see the sun set.

By the time we left Quebec and Brad had perfected one French phrase 'Parlez-vous anglais?', well almost, he's still taking more notice of the GPS's pronounciation, so it comes out as 'parlez-vous engli?' But on nearly all occasions, it has been met with a response of "Yes, of course".

Crosscountry(ies) Road Tripping Part V

Two of our sisters have expressed disappointment in us for not inviting the drowning campers of our last update inside. I'd like to point out I suggested this and Brad said no for the following reasons:

a) Inviting wet people into Gil would negate his dry interior

b) It was midnight

c) We were in our PJs

d) You shouldn't talk to strangers, especially at midnight in your PJs

* * *

After an uncomplicated border crossing we were back in Canada again and of course checked out Niagara Falls from their side too.

The Canadians definitely got the better view when dividing the place up. 

From here we made our way to Toronto, via the Niagara Escarpment & Twenty Valley wine growing district and stocked up Gil's wine cellar (cough, under table).

In Toronto, Brad left the headlights on again, then set a personal best for restarting Gil by himself. Brad: 2, AAA: 2 (I think he may have been purposely trying to level the score). After a few days wandering around Toronto, we continued our way beside the St. Lawrence River via some beautiful old towns, and so many stunning old houses I was ready to move into (Brad say's no, so fear not if you are expecting me back in the office next year). 

In Bloomfield we had a frozen confection for lunch again, this time at Slicker's Ice cream which boasts true to life flavours, such as apple pie – three actual home made apple pies are mixed into the ice cream. Slightly further down the road we stopped for afternoon tea in Picton, at a gourmet hot dog shop, Buddha Dog. I'm not sure about you, but I don't normally associate Buddha and hot dogs, but whatever the reason they're on to a good thing with their miniature – so we got to try a selection – hot dogs. Very yummy indeed. The Picton County Fair was on the following day, so we spent a night in the beautiful Sandbanks Provincial Park (wish we'd had more time to spend here).

Whilst the fair was quite small, it featured all the required vegetable and "designer" poultry competitions.

Many of the chickens had been entered by one I'll-leave-his-last-name-out-for-privacy, who I estimate to be under 8 as he'd had to correct his name on some of the entry cards. I imagine his farm was quite empty that day – even his brand new baby guinea pigs were on display!

From Picton we headed on to Kingston, hired a little Hobie cat and sailed on Lake Ontario. Finally! The catamaran was no Catnap, with absolutely no risk of capsizing or going at any great pace – Brad even let me be captain for a while – but the water was delightfully warm and the weather perfect for sailing. It reminded us both how much we miss sailing and the close proximity of an algae free beach. If there weather gets above 25 degrees when we're home in a few weeks, you'll find us out with 'Catty' at Safety Beach.

This shall be the final instalment in the Crosscountry(ies) updates and you may now sigh with relief that updates may be a little more interesting going forward (at least that's what I'll keep telling myself), and far more timely (also what I keep telling myself). For the record, by the time I wrote this, we had actually made it all the way across the country, indeed, I wrote about Chicago whilst we were on the east coast of New Brunswick, which if you look at a map, are nowhere near each other. But there's a big world out there to see.....

Crosscountry(ies) Road Tripping Part IV

After Chicago we skipped our way along Lake Eerie, which is huge. It's still rather novel for us to look at a lake and not be able to see a hint of something on the other side. On numerous occasions we stopped at beaches in the hope of getting a bit of sailing in, and on each were met with signs advising us not to go into the water (or in one case, and I quote “avoid contact with surface scum”) due to unacceptable algae toxin levels. Um OK, that's not a sign I normally see when I go to the beach.

After one such disappointment, we drove on and stopped at a quiet camp ground in Ohio. Brad decided this was an excellent place for a spot of external Gil maintenance (something required some reattaching or sealing or something) and so commenced the task despite it being 35 degrees plus and about 99% humidity. Unfortunately it turned out to be a much bigger task/problem than first realised and required multiple trips to the hardware store (no sausage sizzle out the front, sad face), a few more nights in said camp ground and even assistance from me. Yes, even I can use a screwdriver. On the plus side Brad purchased a drill. The lack of a drill has served as an excuse for not making minor Gil enhancements on many an occasion, not anymore.

At about 11pm of our last night, our third extremely impressive thunderstorm of recent times struck. The lightening here is sheet (rather than the bolt variety we are used to at home) and one continuous flash after another lighting up the whole sky. Even without the thunder which makes Gil move, and me dive under the doona/quilt/duvet in fear (Brad made me admit that) sleep is impossible. The couple across from us were in a tent and out driving somewhere at the time the storm hit. In their absence their fly came off and several poles collapsed. We watched as on their return they moved everything to their car, literally drained water from their tent, dried it with towels and moved to higher ground. In the morning there was evidence of multiple mid-night abandonments and tents discarded in bins, like umbrellas after a wind storm.

The following morning we set on our way again, this time to Cleveland to see some houses where my Granny and Dad had lived. It was a pretty rough neighbourhood and we hadn't felt that unsafe since we were in Casper. After stopping to check out the Cleveland Browns stadium and the air show which was conveniently on, we continued on our way to Niagara Falls which was a surprise to me. One of the joys of Brad being chief travel co-ordinator is I sometimes I only find out where we are going when we get there.

Niagara Falls were suitably impressive. A surprise gust of wind meant we got wet, and as I was wearing my last clean pair of jeans meant I was forced to frequent a laundromat in my track pants (Brad made me admit that to that too). Yes dear readers, I did something I've never done before and wore trackies in public, I hope I can be forgiven.  There are no photos of this event, so here's one of Niagara Falls instead.