Well, almost, kinda. At least, I've been too busy relaxing and going to weddings and relaxing some more, getting over my big bout of grumpy that set in after being around too many people and travelling far too damn much.

Anyways.

We did make it home in one piece. Sure, we got a flat tire in Ontario and also got a leaking brake line in Ontario, but those were fixed easily enough. It almost made Trav tear his hair out, but whatever.

We made pretty good time on the return trip, crossing most of Canada in about nine days. Just driving, most of the time - the only place we really stopped was in Edmonton, as I wanted to see the West Edmonton Mall. It's pretty big. We played minigolf in one of the aisles. Won't talk about the score.

Red Lobster is tasty, even in the middle of land-lockedness. We ate at one in Manitoba - and apparently there are chains everywhere up until about Edmonton, before they stop. Why not BC, huh? I want more tasty coconut shrimp. :(

We also stopped briefly in Vegreville, AB, to see the world's largest pysanka. It's shiny, and apparently a few firsts in computing were accomplished while building it.

BC was not burning too much when we got back. We stayed the last night in Blue River, up near Prince George - covered in huge clouds of smoke, but we didn't see any actual fire. Bugs were still terrible. So much for smoke keeping them away.
The pine beetles, sadly, have spread further south than I've ever seen them. Here's hoping most of them died in fire and the winter's going to be cold.

So, all in all, the trip was kind of crazy, but we survived. I'll never, ever do anything like it again - and in fact, it's probably going to be years before I can be convinced to camp again, really. Trav still wants to finish off the north, eventually, but I have a feeling I'm going to skip out on that. Maybe one of these days I'll make it to Churchill. Maybe not. I've had too much of the bugs and the cold and the damp for the time being.

We did see a bunch of neat stuff, admittedly, but I dunno. Six months was far too long - long enough that all I can remember are the things that made me upset in one way or another, at the moment. Maybe eventually I'll just remember the cool stuff, but...

At least I have most of the month to recover before work starts.

[Written August 20th. Was lazy then, just outlined stuffs in point form. Still lazy, and thus will not flesh it out. Gets the point across, anywhoo.]

-did indeed get to newfoundland; boat was rather uncomfortable

-nl is like mini bc

-people are kinda nicer and have better accents to analyze

-trucked way across the corner to st john's

-drove through dildo

-spent a miserable night, went to a pub, had cod tongues, still didn't get cheered up

-went to signal hill, bought puffin plushie and screech tea

-no word on whether tea tastes like screech; haven't had courage to try it yet

-went to witless bay for puffin and whale cruise

-no whales, lots of puffins

-harder to watch than in nova scotia; boat rocks more

-didn't get to go to france; expensive

-motored some more up to l'anse aux meadows

-kinda in the middle of nowhere

-pretty enough, though, and viking stuff is neat

-more ferry

-labrador is full of stunty trees

-and biting insects. blanc sablon was awful for the ten minute we were outside

-stayed in cartwright for four days waiting for ferry to rest of labrador

-nice to rest, even if trav went half stir-crazy

-ferry again uncomfortable, full of stupid loud-laughing people and loud-crying children; going to strangle something

-rest of labrador not worth the four days; full of mud and trees and flies and not much else

-labrador city's a shithole full of nothing but miners; no hotel rooms at all

-had to camp on the side of a road in the truck, lest be eaten by bugs

-not impressed

-northern quebec full of stunty arbres and insectes

-drove 900 km twice; gravel roads suck

-tada, ontario. ontario is still big. bugs are still bad. it's still raining. nothing has changed!

-home plx

[Aug 3/4th!]

Whew, so I haven't blogged in a few days, eh? Half of that's 'cause I've been busy/lazy/curled up in a corner, and the other half 'cause I've had something of a writery block strike, and those are never fun. Not enough of my usual writing, I suppose, going on.

Oh well. We stayed with my granddad for a few days, checking out some of the things to see in the area, and even heading up to Shippagan to see an aquarium full of northern-type fishies. And seals - the seals were pretty cute. The rest of the fish, not being your colourful tropical aquarium types, were not so cute, but most of them were at least neat to look at. I don't think I'd ever seen an actual Atlantic cod before - nor an albino lobster, or a blue one. (We actually got to poke the blue one, heehee.)
Granddad seemed pretty happy to have us about, though (or at least happy for him, eheh), so at least I don't think we disrupted him too-too much. It was good to see him, too - hadn't since the last time I'd been back that way, at least eight or so years ago.

That all done with, we headed back down the coast towards the ex-ferry crossing to PEI - of course, now replaced with a big bridge. Trav had planned to stop in the middle of it so we could peer over the sides, it being walled up, but it turns out the truck is tall enough that we could see anywhoo, and didn't have to risk a fine. It's rather a long bridge, and takes about ten minutes to drive over it at a pretty good clip, but you are able to see most of the island in one shot from it.
We spent only a couple days on the island, but it is, of course, a pretty darned tiny place. Trav was rather surprised, actually, at how small it really was. Our first day, we crossed an entire half of the place, actually - we had to go see the Potato Museum in O'Leary, and coincidentally they had their annual Potato Blossom Festival going on at the same time. We were just in time to miss the parade, hehe. The museum was, of course, full of potatoes and tidbits about such, and I finally figured out a few things that had confused me about the veggibles - mentions of 'cutting sets', mostly, in another PEI-famed thing.
It being a food museum, I came away with another cookbook. Potato fudge, anyone?
The next day, we nudged up to the northern bit of the coast to go see Cavendish, home of most things Anne-related - of Green Gables, of course. We really only went to go take a peek at the house the book had styled Green Gables after, another one of the national historic sites. Trav wasn't interested in most of the stuff there, and couldn't really relate to it, having never read the books, but it was kinda neat for me, anywhoo. Also, it turns out raspberry cordial is really rather tasty, as are chocolate-covered potato chips. Who knew?
After that, we had more than enough time to jog down south to Charlottetown, whereupon we stampeded through the Cows Creamery, home of tasty ice cream and witty cow-related shirts. Also cheese, now, apparently - we got a tour about how their three lines of products were produced there, and of course followed it up with ice cream afterwards. Nom nom nom.
We also caught the Anne of Green Gables musical that night, in town - Trav had to have something of a crash-course in it, after all, so I figured the show would likely be able to spell out the basics. And it did, pretty much - most of the important events of the first book managed to make it in there. The gal playing Anne did a great job, too; quite perky and often rather funny, but not even she got the most applause at the end - that fell to the older gent playing Matthew, hehe.
The next day, all we had left to do was peek at the legislative buildings - which we did, rather quickly, since they were small - and head off. We did manage to get sidetracked by a song-and-dance street show, performed by a youth troupe, regarding the history of the island, though. It was pretty well-done, too.

The ferry ride over to Nova Scotia was rather uneventful, as has most of our visit to said province so far. We spent the first few days making our way 'round the southern peninsula, as we had a few stops to make along the way. The world's heaviest lion at the Aylesford zoo was the first - but alas, the lion died of old age in February, so all we could see of that was the memorial to the heaviest lion in the world. Sigh. We did see the rest of the zoo, though, and it was quite full of critters of all shapes and sizes.
Our next stop along the way was the world's smallest drawbridge in Sandford - and it was pretty darned small, only big enough for a single person to walk over, and strictly to let small fishing boats through. We also ended up seeing the Cape Forchu lighthouse in nearby Yarmouth, as we waited for an appointment for the truck's brakes to be fixed. It was a pretty grey day, unfortunately, so we couldn't really get too good of a look at the place, but we did prowl around in their museum, and had some tea and chowder and tasty bread pudding in the adjoining tearoom.
We continued to pop along the coastline 'til we hit Peggy's Cove, the rather famous eastern location of a lighthouse. Tourists from all over flock there to see - it's a rather picturesque place, all huge rocks and crashing waves around the cute little lighthouse, but sheesh. An hour in, and already we were sick of the damn tourists, crawling all along the single road into the place and making messes and causing disruptions. Poor folk who actually live there!
(What, hypocricy? There is none. Trav and I are professional tourists by now; we know how to see what there is to see without being asses about it.)
Halifax was the next big stop, for a couple of things - the famed Alexander Keiths brewery managed to be the first on the list. It was another guided tour headed off by actor-folk, on a journey back through time to the 1800whatevers, to see how beer was made back then. I imagine the machinery probably has been updated a little, but the process likely hasn't changed much. What everyone really came along for, of course, was the beer sampling (huzzah!) - except for the younger'uns in the crowd, perhaps. I was kinda surprised they let in youngfolk, but they had iced tea and such lined up for them instead. Still, we got to dip our tongues into their new stout, which we hadn't realized even existed (what we get for not being in a bar for four months), and of course the red and white and the classic pale ale. The stout wasn't actually too bad, although it was rather lighter than most I've had, even Guinness (although it was actually quite more tastier than Guinness, hah). The actorfolk even got us going in a singalong at one point - I do think Trav was a little surprised when I chimed in during the choruses of Barrett's Privateers ("Oh, I wish I was in Sherbrooke nooooow!" "...Where's Sherbrooke?" "Damned if I know! God damn them all, I was told-")
Day after that, we popped over to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic (it was full of boats and stuff about the Halifax explosion - I found their live macaw, Merlin, most interesting). They even had a somewhat large still-floating boat docked out back in the harbour as one of their 'artifacts'. We also stopped at the last of my pie stops, a little cafe outside the downtown core called the Heartwood. It had a whole menu of teas, of which I was rather pleased - and most of the stuff there was vegan, with a couple of options with cheese, hehe. Even the pie was completely vegan - so the crust came out a little interestingly; more crunchy than flaky. It was banana-coconut, though, and pretty tasty. I still wonder what they thickened it with; couldn't have used gelatin or cream, so...

After Halifax was done with, we headed further up north to Cape Breton island. The plan was to do a bit of sightseeing and perhaps pop in on the Grants, friends of Trav's family who happened to be out here visiting their folks/grandfolks. We ended up deciding to go see most of the Cabot trail before we headed over to Sydney - so drive we did. The trail is pretty interesting as it snakes through little fishing villages and such on the way north (even though we did get stuck going 4 km/h at one point, in the burning hot sun - drove into Cheticamp just as a parade was getting underway), but the real views are to be seen in the Highlands national park - rather pretty, twisty mountain roads, trees, cliffs, and oceans. We did eventually make it through, though, and made our way over to a cheerful fire-lit gathering. Kind of odd to see folks all the way across the country from where we're used to seeing them!

We headed out the next day with the full intention of hanging around the Newfoundland ferry terminal until a spot could be had for us; we knew they needed reservations usually, but even the Vancouver Island ferries that operate like that usually have spots that folk can line up for. And, perhaps, this normally might have been the case - but one of the ferries had caught fire not a couple days before, and was out of commission, and they had a backlog up the butt. The lady at the gate at first thought there would be a five day delay before we could get a boat, but she managed to secure us a spot for Wednesday - so suddenly, we found ourselves with a couple days to kill in Cape Breton. Whee!

We ended up finishing the little bit of the Trail that we didn't get to yesterday, stopping off at the Alexander Graham Bell national historic site. Triangles everywhere, dude - apparently he was a fan of tetrahedrons, and thus, the motif for the whole building got tri-pointed. Lots of neat stuff to see there, though - not just telephones, hehe. Planes and very fast boats, for example - and while I knew he was a teacher for the deaf, I never realized just how his teaching method was done. Trav and most of the people looking at the diagrams and 'visual speech' transcriptions weren't really comprehending it, I don't think - but to anyone with a bit of background in phonetics and linguistics (hi) it was rather fascinating.

Today, in our quest to kill time, we went to another historic site in the afternoon - this one the Marconi display, where the first full sentence in Morse was transmitted across the Atlantic. Smaller and not as neat as the Bell one, but still interesting enough.
The real fun bit was in the morning, though - I convinced Trav to get us some tickets to a boat tour. Not whale watching, oh no - bird-watching. Puffins, in fact.
(PUFFINS!)
...Among other things. We cruised out to two small islands off the coast of the Bras d'Or, more in the ocean than not, and the rocks and such surrounding them were nearly crowded with birds. Cormorants, mostly - both Great and Double-Crested (which were much more common). We also got a crash-course in identifying different types of gulls, and there were a number of bald eagles, perhaps forty or fifty that we saw, as well. (The cap'n was actually bemoaning the appearance of the eagles - turns out they chase away the real draw of the trip when they arrive in such huge numbers.) Grey seals also inhabited the islands, sunning themselves on larger rocks or flipping through the ocean. There were a couple of Great Blue Herons stalking about, and bank swallows dving around the cliffs. Sandpipers of a couple sorts also made appearances, along with... something I'm not sure of the name of, but it was fairly distinctive in looks.
Still, though, the greatest draws were out in the ocean - black guillmots flitting around, and of course, the puffins. (PUFFINS!)
Still as cute as they were in the tank, even in the wild, although they fly much more out thisaway and seeing them swim is much harder. There were lots, though, floating 'round and puffing themselves up, and the binoculars got something of a workout.
On the way back, we also saw a pod of white-sided dolphins playing 'round - or at least, we saw their fins breaching. Apparently they're quite the rare thing to see in that part of the sea.

Tomorrow we'll likely spend whiling away the day in a library or park, until our boat leaves - which could be in the evening as it's supposed to, or could be later, if they're still running off schedule. I guess we'll find out then.

[From Jul 23rd!]

Annnnd a few days later, we're past St George, and into the Miramichi region. Huzzah?

We spent a few days with my aunt Gloria and uncle Maynard, in which lots of good talk and trivia (mostly provided by Maynard) and food was had. Of course, this was after we saw the Chocolate Museum in St Stephen - ah, the tasty things they have! And trays of chocolates out for sampling as you wander through the info displays. Of course, we had to go out to the attached shop afterwards, and got a box or two along with some very tasty fruit gummies. Some were even sugar free~
Trav says that the mail-order pamphlet they gave us is a dangerous thing, so I have hope for more tasty things in the future. They can keep their damn chicken bones, though; I don't like cinnamon candies. (Apparently they're still hand-pulled, though - we got to see a video of them being made.)
We also managed to wander over to Saint John before stopping off to say hello in St George (so many saints!), and popped by the city market and King's Square. It was odd - so much of the city is still what I remember it as being, even though I haven't been there for a long time; eight years since my last visit, which was relatively short, and seventeen since I've actually lived there. I could almost navigate Trav by memory, rather than rely on the GPS thinger.
The market was full of stuff, as is usual for Saturdays, and we wandered through looking at the variety of east-coast-y things. Even picked up a jar of pickled fiddleheads, the fresh variety being out of season (and I think we forgot them in Aunt Gloria's fridge, now that I recall. Oops.) - they're a little odd in the pickle fashion, but I don't remember what a real one tastes like anyways, so maybe it was as good, who knows.
But eventually we wandered back out and across the foggy marshes (Saint John gets fog 60% of summer days, and although it usually goes away in the afternoon, that day was not one of them), just in time to go pick up some freshly boiled lobsters for dinner in St George. We had ourselves something of a feast, for a fraction of the price that we would have paid on the west coast - what runs for 25 or 30 bucks a pound, we got at 8. It was pretty tasty, and I got to remember how to de-shell one of the damn things. Prickly and spines everywhere!
Also, one lobster the size we got made two pretty darned thick sandwiches; Aunt Gloria made us up some to have for lunch the next day, and half was quite sufficient for me.

We pretty much based our travels out of there for the next few days, having some running around in Saint John and parts in between to do. On Sunday we stopped off to see the reversing falls at both times of the tide, and saw the New Brunswick museum in between. The Falls aren't really falls like, say, Niagara, but they are on an incline and apparently there is a shelf that would make them falls-like if it wasn't actually full of water all the time. What does happen is that during the high tide out in the Bay of Fundy, the amount of water flooding in causes the St John River to reverse course temporarily, resulting in some pretty fierce rapids and whirlpools. The whirlpools also come out into play at low tide, as well, when the river flows out into the bay normally. It's pretty nifty to see the water going one way and then the next a few hours later, though.
The museum, in downtown Saint John, focuses on a wee little bit of everything. The first floor is mostly focused on the types of industry in the province's past, with dioramas and pictures and artifacts (including a treadmill from the 1800s that would churn butter when Fido was placed onto it for a run). I even found Lantic sugar sacks, hehe. The second floor had more natural history things in it, including the requisite rocks and fossils, a display of some very large whale bones, and a little room devoted to the birds of the province (THERE WAS A STUFFED PUFFIN) - and a collection of someone's preserved birds, most of them tropical in nature (although I'm not sure the red-winged blackbirds were so exotic).
Thus, I got to see a male painted bunting in the flesh, even if it was dead. Oh well.
The third floor had works of art in, including a large gallery of paintings and another of tapestried chairs done by a local artist, which was kind of neat, although some fairly garish, hehe. Oranges and blues right next to each other make for a rather ugly chair. One of the paintings, too, was a large canvas striped with red and white lines, entitled "Retina Dance". ...It made 'em dance, alright, to look at it.

The next day, we ventured out to the Carleton Martello Tower, one of those things that lots of people are always driving by in the city but never really stop to look at. At least, I never had that I could remember, so we did. It's another of the national historic sites, a fortification built to protect the city during the War of 1812... Except the war was over by the time they finished it. Meh. It also got some use during the later 1800s and right into WW2 as well, so it wasn't totally in vain, and it makes a good picnicking spot as well. The little vistors centre they had there made for some good interactive infos-ing, and the tower itself was outfitted for different eras on each level, and you could climb from top to bottom. The entranceway was a little funny, though - I've never actually seen a normal-use entry door that even I have to duck through.
After that, we headed out to New River Beach, which I remember traipsing out to as a kid, to while away the afternoon. It was apparently one of the only sunny days the southern coast had seen in the summer, so it was a good day for it. We even got to fly our kite, and Trav got to 'swim' in the Atlantic - whereby swim means wade in up to his knees, feel his feet go numb, and wade back out again. I just dipped my feet in, as I've actually swam in the damn thing before - probably on that very beach, too. Just as chilly as expected.
We went over to my cousin Steven's place for a barbecue that evening, and lots of chatter. I even made a wild blueberry pie, that seemed to go over rather well - even if everyone was full fit to bursting by the time it was served, hehe.
The town also had a fireworks show that evening, to do with a local festival. It was actually pretty neat - I wasn't expecting near as much as what they had.
Our final day in the area was pretty lazy, although we did manage to traipse out to Quispamsis to go visit 'aunt' Ruth - one of my mother's good friends. Her house is full of animals, as usual, but pretty much the same as it's always been. Wayne and Shane, alas, we just missed - they were heading out to a fishing trip - but we stayed and chatted for a couple of hours or so. Nice to see folks I've not seen in ages.
Another barbecue over at my aunt's place later (this time with shishkebab and strawberry-rhubarb pie!), and we were stuffed and rested and ready to head out again.

We finally managed to make our way past Saint John, and headed further east to the Hopewell Cape, home of an attraction known as the Hopewell Rocks. The tides around the Bay of Fundy can be very dramatic (whereas 'dramatic' means 'changes up to 50 ft in six hours'), and the rocks are a good place to see it - the hike around the coastline at high tide reveals lots of little rocky outcroppings and good kayaking spots, but three hours later and you can walk on the beach below that was just covered by the waves. We arrived at the wrong time, alas, so just did the hike, but even just the change between from the time we started and when we finished was quite noticeable.
We camped up near Shediac for the evening, nearly drowned in the rain, and I got a half dozen more mosquito bites. I was not such a happy camper, so to speak.

This morning, though, we headed into Moncton, to see the 'famed' Magnetic Hill and the tidal bore there. The hill is really a rather odd attraction - there's a stretch of road in part of the town that looks like it goes downhill, but actually goes uphill, so tourists park their car in neutral down at the end of it, and marvel as their car appears to travel up the hill as it coasts backwards. It's really kinda neat to see once, hehe. There's a zoo and a waterpark and some other stuff there built around the hill, but we didn't bother with that - just the zoom 'up' the hill. XD
The tidal bore is another natural phenomenon, again driven by - you guessed it - the tides. At the edge of the city, there's a river that empties completely during low tide. At around noonish (at least today, but depending on the tides, of course), a quite noticeable wave suddenly swept up the riverbed - the tide rushing in, and carrying quite a bit of water with it. It was rather interesting to see it fighting its way uphill and just staying there, not receding. Apparently it used to be more dramatic, occasionally reaching huge heights and destroying things near the banks, but alas, a bridge put in farther upstream served to dam it, kind of, and the wave only reaches about two or three feet upwards now, moon cycles and all figuring in.

We made our way to my grandfather's place in Chatham for the evening, and chattered away with him for a bit. We'll probably stay around here for a day or two, and then it's off further north to Shippagan, and then turning around to head off to PEI, land of potatoes and Anne of Green Gables.
I'm not quite sure what Trav will think of the later, as apparently he's never read any of the books or really learned much about them at all, but... Well, I've read all eight in the series, so at least I should be able to fill him in.

See? I can make a blog more than once a week!

We did indeed get in to our first dip in Quebec at the Museum of Civilisation. The place, it turns out, is huge - we spent most of the day there, and still only saw about two thirds of the exhibits. Two I rather enjoyed, anyways - there was one on the Egyptian afterlife cult with lots of interesting artifacts, and even a couple of mummies. Much about the gods, too, which is always rather interesting. The other was about mythical beasties of all kinds, from sea to sky to land. Lots of mermaids, gryphons, and dragons in particular - which, of course, was muchly interesting. They had things of myth from not just the traditional European ones, too - good to see kappa, rocs, and tengu there, although I'm a little surprised they didn't have anything on kitsune or oni, what with the other Japanese things they had going on. Ah well.
There was another hall devoted to the history of Canada, which I think Trav enjoyed, and a part of the Queen's collection of stamps (I prefer Discworld's stamp story more than Britain's history, personally) and a postal museum, which was rather more interesting than I thought it would be. Also some halls on the indigenous peoples of Canada which we didn't get around to, but the both of us have seen lots of totem poles and such anyways, which one hall was almost entirely devoted to (being the Pacific Northwest bit, hehe).

After that, we said goodbye to Trav's grandfolk, and moved on to la belle provence, which was... interesting. I have taken about seven years of French instruction through my school career, but unfortunately, due to the varying provincial regulations of where I was, this meant I got the beginning 'colours, numbers, and basic items' lessons three different years, and never got much farther. I do, however, remember more of it than Travis, who is pretty much useless for anything more than counting to ten. Thus, navigating our way through campgrounds got a little fun. We did pick up a phrasebook and dictionary before we went, so I fetched out some sentences that would be handy, and we seemed to make it through okay, even with atrocious accent and misremembering.
Of course, mostly everyone we came across also spoke a bit of English, so that helped, too.
Montreal is another big city, although more like Vancouver than Toronto in flavour - just as busy, but somehow more liveable. We walked around downtown for an hour or two, kinda checking out the sights. A music festival (jazz, I think?) was getting ready to go, and of course, the Just for Laughs one was in full swing. Alas, tickets were expensive and we would've had to stay overnight in the city had we got them, so no go for that. Perhaps another time.
We headed on through to Quebec City after that, where we had a couple of stops to see. The first was one of my pie detours, to the Restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens - apparently hosted in one of the oldest buildings still standing in the old section of the city. A nifty little hole in the wall-ish type place (like most in the old town), it had quite the extensive - and at times expensive - menu. 67 dollars, for example, for wild caribou fillets a la carte. But we feasted off of their lunch menu, with some wine and beer (apparently the best stout Trav's had is the Boreale Noir) and buffalo meat pies accompanied by fruit compote and some tasty root veggie of some sort. Not sweet enough to be yam, but it was about the same colour. The pie was, like most of the treat things on their menu, maple-syrupy in nature, and it was quite tasty indeed. Not as sweet as you might think (thank goodness), but just enough to be rather decadent. Nom nom.
We also stopped to peek at the wall surrounding the old portion of the city, as well as the outside of the nearby citadel overlooking the Plains of Abraham. After we wandered off lunch, we hitched a ride across to the city across the St Lawrence on the ferry, and continued our journey eastwards.

We arrived in New Brunswick yesterday, and made it down as far as outside Fredericton - Kingsclear's where we stayed overnight. We managed to make two stops off the list on the way down, though; there was the world's longest covered bridge at Hartland (both drove and walked across it, just to say we could; I also bought a plush lobster at the nearby gift shop, heehee), and the world's largest axe in Nackawic. Turns out New Brunswick has a few 'world's largest' things about - Travis got a postcard that shows a few of them.
...I think we actually drove past the world's largest fiddle today.

We did make it into Fredericton itself today, and spent the morning going through the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Interesting things in there, including a few pieces by Dali, and a neat First Nations art exhibit that had a 150-year-old birchbark canoe that apparently has been sitting around in Ireland for the last who knows how long. Amazing the thing hadn't fallen apart, really, considering what it was made out of.
We also peeked at the legislative buildings there (like the province itself, comparatively smaller than other such places we've seen so far), and wandered around the garrison district a bit, although Trav decided not to go up the nearby lighthouse. Oh well. At least he doesn't doubt me about the weather around any more; it's been naught but cloudy, grey, and foggy since we got here yesterday.

We're in slightly more familiar territory for me, at least, tonight - I think I've probably been to St Stephen before, anyways. This is the home of the Ganong chocolate factory, and we will be visiting their museum tomorrow, since we arrived a little too late today to see it. We managed to pick up some dulse for Trav, though (and apparently he likes it - and I still don't have a taste for it, bleh).
Dinner was had at a little diner in town, where I had a tasty lobster roll and piece of chocolate cream pie, and Trav's stomach was conquered by a fried seafood platter. He almost couldn't finish the damn thing, filled as it was with scallops and shrimp and clams and haddock. He ordered it thinking that the price tag (at seventeen dollars, the most expensive thing they had) would mean there would be variety, but not quantity... And he learned a very important lesson about the Maritimes.
Seafood? It be cheap and plentiful.
We also saw some fresh lobster in the supermarket, actually, at a price that rather amazed Trav - you'd never find it for eight dollars a pound on the west coast, for certain. Apparently it's at a low right now, since the Americans aren't buying as much of it as they normally do, what with their spending having caught up with them.

Alas, we're going to miss the Irish festival up in the Mirimichi - my granddad says it's going on this weekend, and of course he's off to fiddle his fingers off, hehe. But that's fine; I'll just have to wheedle him in to taking it out for us when we get there, which should be later next week.
For now, it's over to St George tomorrow after the museum, where we'll see my aunt and uncle, and perhaps even have a lobster boil. Who knows?

[Jul 12!]

Bleh. I really shouldn't wait a week between entries, because then I'd not have so much to detail about, but I get too lazy to do it every few days. Pfoo.

I forgot to mention a detail about 'northern' Ontario (which is actually at the same latitude as Winnipeg) - the rocky bits that line the road, comprising the Shield, usually have an inukshuk stacked on them. Where there is not inuksuit (plural!), there's usually a pile of stones that looks like it could have been an inukshuk at some point in the past. Bored travellers make them, is the only thing I can figure.

We spent four or five days with Travis's aunt near Toronto, and good times were mostly had except for when people were sneezing or coughing or other sickly things - I was sick at first, Trav eventually came under the weather, and his cousin's Sarah's kids (she and they were also there) turned out a wee bit ill, too, so it was a bit of a plague house at one point. Oh well.
We made a couple of trips out to the surrounding areas, coming back to the house to rest up at night. Saw bits of downtown Toronto, including the CN Tower, where we went alllll the way up to the very top of things, even though it took about an hour of standing in line to do so. The view was really more of the same as it was on the main viewing deck, but at least we can say we did it. Went to the Hockey Hall of Fame, too, and got to poke the replica of the Stanley Cup - the real one, of course, out touring with the Penguins folk at the moment. I imagine more fannish folk than I would have lots of fun at that place, but it was interesting enough even for me (although they hardly seem to think the Canucks exist, poor daft folk - Maple Laughs merch everywhere in the gift shop, though). They did have a nice little exhibit to celebrate the centennial of the Canadiens, which I'm sure my dad might have liked to see, too. We also had dinner one night in Toronto - at the Medieval Times dinner show and banquet. The food was fair decent and served rather novelly (as our serving wench told us, "your right hand's your fork, your left hand's your knife, and your lips are your spoon - enjoy!"). Turns out it's kind of fun to devour half a roast chicken by tearing it to pieces. The show was good, too, and I even managed to catch one of our section's knight's prizes - as they completed horseback challenges in the lead-up to the jousting and battles, they were given three flowers to throw out to the crowd, so I had a nice wee fleur to go back with. Had to leave it behind at Debbie's to wilt, though - I'm sure it would have just gotten crushed with us on the road.
We also made our way out past Toronto - one of them a military museum in Brantford, which was rather more of the same as the last one we saw. A reptile zoo in Vaughan was much more interesting, at least to me - lots of snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises, and other slithery things. Really neat things included an albino alligator, just recently acquired for the summer months, a bunch of smaller alligators who kept following us as we walked back and forth by their tank, a couple of hugeass Nile crocodiles, and feeding time for a Gould's monitor lizard. The keeper got him to come right out of the cage by dangling a dead mouse between tongs, and he was scampering and sliding all over the floor in an attempt to catch it - never would've dreamed such a normally slow-moving critter could've moved so quick. And we finally got back around to the proper side of the Niagara falls - much better view from the Canadian side, for certain. We didn't really stick around too long, since we'd kind of seen them already, but we did at least go down on the Maid of the Mist. It's a really good thing they give you those ponchos - we perched ourselves up on the second floor of the prow, and were half-drenched even wearing them. Good view, though.
Alas, I didn't get a chance to see aunt Janet - dropped her a call, but she apparently called back to Debbie's place rather than Trav's phone while we were out near her, and then we were moving along to Ottawa the next day, so. Perhaps another time~

Speaking of Ottawa, though, we've been here since last Wednesday, parked out at Trav's mom's dad's place. First time I've ever really met this half of his family, but they all seem a friendly bunch. Interesting accents on some of 'em, heehee. We've again been using the house mainly as a setting-off point for what we had to see around here; couple more things to see yet, and seen lots already. We dropped by the Parliament buildings on Thursday, and did a self-tour of the grounds and a guided tour of the interior of the central building. They have much more character than their counterparts on Capitol Hill - outside and inside, really, if the Library of Congress is anything to kind of judge the other buildings by. You can actually tell they've been there for a hundred years, whereas Washington was too shiny and new-ish. Although, really, the Parliamentary library is the only remaining part of the original buildings; turns out the rest burnt down in a fire in 1916 and the new parts all put in in '19. The Peace Tower is pretty neat, though - good view of Ottawa - and the neo-gothic styled arches and pillars on the insides really seemed to impress Trav.
We also managed to see the currency museum the same day, although we took a bit too long going through all the shiny monies and didn't get to see it all before it closed. Trav takes so long to go through museums - wants to see every goddamned last detail, or something, while I'm content to pore over some things and just skim over others. We did, however, see thousand dollar bills of different sorts, and even the short-lived 50,000 one (only banks were allowed to have them, for some small period of years way back when). Also money through the ages, and coins from every which bit of the world.
Trav also took us over to the Museum of Science and Technology, which alas, isn't quite as cool as Science World; less interactive exhibits, unfortunately, than they have. It wasn't bad, though, and we got to play with some old phones and telegraphs and look at some neat things in the Canadian Engineering hall of fame (I shook my fist at Sanford Fleming's portrait, and saluted Banting's), among other things. Thing of interest - trains are really, really big. They had a few engines and cars in there. Wheels taller than meeee.
Accompanied by Trav's cousin Stacy, we popped out to his other cousin Amanda's cabin (or cottage, as they call it out here) out in the wilderness somewheres. Well, really, the cabin belongs to her husband's family, but whatever. Had a nice fire and conversation, though, even though the next morning it rained and we couldn't really do much. Unfortunately, I donated a bit of blood to the local mosquitoes (still itchy, eep), even though I was wearing long clothing and had bug repellent on. Bleh. It was nice, however, to wake up to a thunderstorm and not have to do anything about it - the lake got hit rather well in the wee hours of the morning, but since there was a roof over the head, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. If we'd been out in a tent, I would've been wide awake immediately.
Dinner was had at the other-aunt-Debbie's place last night, whereupon many familyfolk gathered, and fun and food were had. I didn't get nearly so mobbed as I had been told to fear, however, probably because one of the cousins (Dana, I think? I can't keep 'em all straight) had a fairly new baby, and there was much cooing to be done over that by everyone else.
(I swear, we've not been able to escape small children since arriving in Toronto, holy moo. Yesterday was a little bit of an exercise in awkwardness, too - at one point, somehow the aunts and female cousins and myself managed to be in the same room with the babe and everyone else had disappeared elsewhere, and of course all talk was about baby, which was to be expected, I suppose, but... I dunno. I just don't get it. Kept quiet until I could creep off to find the dudes without feeling like a total heel.)
We made another excursion out there today, though, so we could further explore to St-Albert, land of cheese. Cheese curds, more specifically. Trav has been craving them since we started this trip, so we went to go find ourselves the squeaky-fresh stuff, and find it indeed we did; never, ever take Trav food shopping when he's hungry. We escaped with two bags totalling 2.4 kgs of the stuff, and I have no idea how we're ever going to finish it all. I also found some whole green cardamom pods there, though, so I can make tasty things when I get back home~ Wasn't able to find them back home, although had I not been so lazy and gone to an Indian market, I probably would have. Oh well. They had lots of tasty things in that store, though, but we dragged ourselves out before more damage could be done.

A couple things left to see, though - tomorrow the Museum of Civilization over in Gatineau, and maybe another war museum if I feel like being nice to Travis after that, but we'll see. Busy-busy.

Blarg. Being sick is never much fun. Being sick whilst travelling is even worse.

Nothing serious, of course - I just came down with a bad head cold while we were leaving Winnipeg, which shortly turned into a brief feverish spat, and then decided to leave me hacking my lungs out for a day or three. Still a little stuffy with the mucus a week later, but it's mostly gone now, thankfully.

But we saw Winnipeg, doing a few tour-y thing while we were there. We checked out Lower Fort Garry, another national historic site, which I swear I've been to before - probably on a school trip or something while I was living there. It's an old HBC trading post-fort-thing that's been kept in relatively fair shape, filled with all kinds of goods from about the year 1850. and stocked with more of the actory guides - these ones all playing the roles of people working and living around the fort, from day-to-day workers in the shop or cleaning right up to the governer's wife and his second in command (the governer was not in residence that day, out on a business venture or somesuch). We saw lots of things, like huge piles of furs and a blacksmith's apprentice made us a nail, and so on. Kinda neat.

After that we headed over to the Riel House, more historical fun - the family's house, not Louis's place, but it was where he stayed for a couple days after his execution. Learned more about the Metis there, and how they lived back at the time of Riel's death. Turns out our wee Parks pass is coming in handy; got the guided tour included with it.

Day after that, before we headed out of town, we took a tour through the Winnipeg branch of the Royal Canadian Mint, and learned all about how coinage is... coined. Trav had more fun, since that was when my cold began to act up with a vengance, but it was still interesting. And I got to hold a gold bar - turns out they're pretty heavy. Still, $500,000, clutched in my hands? Yes please.

Also, the mint makes a lot of very shiny special coins. I could get interested in collecting a few of the really pretty ones.

Once we were through there, though, we set out to cross the great void and expanse of north-western Ontario, which while indeed western (for the province) is not really north. Apparently anything about four hours out of Toronto is no-man's land or something. I mostly went through it in a haze - we were attempting to push through to make it to Trav's Aunt Debbie's place so I could maybe get a warm place to sleep to recover, but it ended up being about four days of travel anyways, and by the time we made it here yesterday, I was already mostly better. Oh well. Not like we had anything to see anyways, really, 'cept for the big nickel in Sudbury (it's pretty big).

We're here now, anywhoo, and shall fart around for a couple of days. Today's a designated rest day, where we accomplish little (except for seeing Transformers 2, which was full of kabooms), and tomorrow we'll head out into Toronto to see things out there. Day after, probably Niagara or Waterloo. I'll have to get ahold of aunt Janet if we're heading out that way, I suppose.

After that, to Ottawa, where Trav has a ton of family that I've never met. Yay?

[Jun 27th!]

When I was younger, Mom sent us off to summer camps some years. Once, there was a day camp - lots of kids, lots of stuff to do outside, canoeing and swimming and hikes and the like, and it was okay, especially since we went home at the end of the day... Except it was in the woods of southern Manitoba. Manitoba, you may or may not know, is full of mosquitoes. Giant, bloodsucking, thirsty mosquitoes.

As most of yon know, I'm allergic to the biteybites of them. They itch more, they swell up more, they last longer, and sometimes I break out into even more itchy hives all over.

Thus, Manitoban summer camp was never so much fun.

Last night we spent the evening in woods just slightly westwards of the Manitoban border.

...Same shit, slightly different location. I had so many terrible flashbacks as they buzzed around in flocks. Flocks, yes - size of small birds.

...We also caught a bird in the radiator grill sometime this morning.

Ahem.

Our stop in Moose Jaw was to see the old tunnels that lurked beneath the city streets - no one quite knows what they were originally built for, but they've been used for a couple of different purposes since their building. Now, however, a tour company operates journeys through them that illustrate two of those purposes - full of hidden doors, rooms decorated to look like they were from the period. The first tour we did was themed around the Roaring Twenties - prohibition era, specifically, with booze outlawed in the States and Canada becoming their illicit supply. Moose Jaw was one of these good little depots, being on the rail line near to the border, and even Al Capone was said to have stayed in the city back then.
So, thus we were lead about by a speakeasy madam (the character dubbed 'Miss Fanny') on our path to become bootleggers. Trav got suckered in by her to play the part of Charlie, a club regular and the drinking buddy of 'Gus', the rough and tumble overseer of the illegal alcohol-brewing operation, and that was kinda funny - turns out Charlie got more quiet than
he'd been some previous days!
It was fun, though; the Chicago Connection is definitely something to be recommended.
The other tour, the Passage to Fortune, was much more sobering - told the story of Chinese migrants at the turn of the century, most of whom had immigrated to the country to work on the railroad, and then were almost literally chased underground by racism and unfair restrictions placed on them by the Canadian government once the tracks had been placed. We were placed into the shoes of a group trying to pay off their head tax and boat fees, led through a laundry, complete with sorry-looking dormitory for the workers, and other locales that they would have inhabited, most beneath the streets. Less fun, this one, especially with the actor/tour guide yelling and sneering at us half the time, but still as interesting.

We headed a little ways into the very-southern part of the province, staying outside of a town called Willow Bunch. Apparently they had a giant there - or at least a dude over 8 feet in height. Trav particularly wanted to see the big muddy badlands, but we ended up a bit too west of where they actually are, alas. Still, we got to see some petroglyphs carved in a rock face that have apparently been there for over a thousand years.

But we moved on to Regina after that, with a couple of museums and things to see. We went through the Royal Saskatchewan Museum first, mostly devoted to the earth sciences (complete with geology and ancient lifeforms), as well as the various biomes, flora, and fauna found through the province. Kinda interesting... although insects seem to make up about half the fauna. Ick.
We also had a look at the legislature buildings, before we caught a movie in the evening. Perhaps not such a trip-ish diversion, but I wanted to see Up before it went out of theatres. Pretty cute, it was - and I think this is maybe the first Pixar movie I've seen that actually skirted tragedy at a couple points.
Our next day had us head out to the RCMP depot, where we proceeded to learn all about the policepeople in their museum, and even caught a parade drill and a small tour through the depot grounds. Pretty interesting, and I even got to pet a couple of semi-retired Musical Ride horsies. Hee.

But we've since made it into Winnipeg, after our mosquito-filled ordeal last night, and are snug in a motel room since it's supposed to be a bit stormy round the city for the next day or two. Lots of stuff to do around the city, so it'll be probably two days. We did, however, fulfill one of our goals this evening. We had sushi in the middle of the prairies, hehe. Pretty tasty sushi, actually, in a fancy little bistro.

But we must be up early to head to the Riel House site tomorrow, so away I must.

Is it a bit sad that I think I recognize the part of town we're in? (Note - two blocks away from the house we lived in, apparently; I looked it up after I originally wrote the blog.)

[From June 23rd~]

Well, we've now made it into Saskatchewan, after stopovers in a few places. Turns out the prairies out thisaway really are kinda flat - I lived in Winnipeg for a couple years, but this is even worse.

We spent a day or two around the Banff national park, looking at various things there; Lake Louise is quite blue, and the park full of wildlife. There were even elk wandering around in the campground we stayed in. We also saw some very tiny, endangered snails - turns out they only live in five of the hot springs present in the park, in highly sulphuric water. Smells like gross, but I guess they like it.

After Banff, we moved on to Calgary for a couple days. Stayed with Trav's grandparents, and saw some of his other relatives and friends in the city. I even got to make pies, stealing Grandma Brown's kitchen for a little bit to whip up some strawberry rhubarb ones. Everyone at the dinner Sunday night agreed they were quite good. My pie mastery asserts itself again~
Did go up the Calgary tower (can see most of the city from up there; it's quite sprawl-y and flat), and went to check out the military museum, which made Trav happy. I found it a bit funny that they claimed they weren't attempting to glorify war, and yet convieniently glossed over the atrocities our 'dear' boys and their allies committed - oh, sure, they went into the stuff done by the various enemy armies and what-not, but... History's written by the victors, eh?

I also got a fancy new scar to add to the collection; the oven was kind of small, and bit me while I was putting the pies in, alas.

We left their place yesterday, moving on to Drumheller. Most everyone in Canada, I imagine, knows what's to be found there - but for mine American friends, fossils. Lots and lots of fossils and strange rocks and mounds and hoodoos. Specifically, we went to see the Royal Tyrrell Museum, the premier place in Canada for those interested in palaeontology. Lots of neat things to be seen there - fossils ranging from algae and ferns to a huge collection of dinosaurs, and right on to things from the last ice age. Certainly the best was a huge Tyrannosaurus they had enshrined in the middle of a hall of 'treasures' - although they had another T-rex in among the 'timewalk' through the ages, too. And Dromeiomimus! No Utahraptor that I found, although perhaps an Albertosaurus could be substituted.
Playing in the gift shop afterwards was fun, too. Lots of little plastic dinosaur models. "I think we should call it your grave!"

Today we continued east, through Medicine Hat, to stop over and see the world's largest teepee. It was pretty big, yes - made out of large structural pipe. It was mostly visible from the highway, but we had to stop for lunch anyways. The really neat thing was all the prairie dogs running about; I've never really seen them before, and there were about a bajillion running around the field near the teepee. So cute! Although a couple of them did try to suicide themselves under the truck on the highway this afternoon.

Tonight we're staying over in Swift Current, SK, and then onwards to Moose Jaw and Regina. Couple things to see there, and a couple things in Manitoba, and then on to Ontario, which will take us much longer - Trav apparently has a bajillion rlelatives in Ottawa, or something. We've been making pretty good time so far, though.

I'm still kinda dreading the north, though.

Hrm. Five days on the road and already my mind is attempting to plan out when exactly I should bail out from the trip. Not a good sign.

It's not that I don't want to go places and see things, but the travelling - or perhaps more exactly, the camping - is hard. I'm not a very outdoorsy person to begin with, and I think it's what was dragging me down on the last month of the last trip. The reintroduction to the inclement weather and abundance of buggy critters has not gone well. I don't think the north and I are going to get along well at all.

We've managed to get to Golden, BC, however - somewheres near the Alberta border. Took five days, whereas usually it's a five hour trip, but we kind of took a rather circuitous route. We've seen quite a few things off of our list, including the site of the Hope slide (lots of rock), Hell's Gate (a tram ride down through the Fraser canyon), the last spike of the CPR, the Enchanted Forest (a naturey kind of walk filled with concrete-sculpted figurines and things; kinda cute), a self-guided tour through the Revelstoke Dam, the Glass House of Creston (the outside of which is made entirely out of concrete mortar and one-pound empty bottles of embalming fluid - rather neat, especially the guard towers and lookouts), and the historic Rogers' Pass site. Most of them were pretty interesting, especially the house, but I still want to move on, and almost... get things over with. I dunno, restlessness, you might call it.

At least here, things feel familiar; it's much more homey than the states were, even in places I've barely been in before.

We'll just have to see how things work out, I suppose.