I‘m laughing at your comments about the teaser ending to yesterday’s post. Hey, you think I haven’t learned a thing or two about story-telling and the value of a hook after all these years? Heh!

On my last full day in Vancouver, I once again found myself awake well before sparrow’s first fart. Fully dressed, showered and caffeinated by 5:15, I was out the door looking for photo ops just as the sun was breaking the horizon. It was worth the 10 block wander back down to the Burrard Street Bridge, where I found the marina at Granville Island just waking up.

On the other side of the Burrard Bridge, I found English Bay and these ocean liners sitting peacefully in front of the majestic mountain backdrop.

I captured slightly different perspective of the same scene on my iPhone.

I was back at the hotel by 7:45, keen to get started on the day’s conference events, when I checked my e-mail and received some horrible news: the sister of one of my dearest friends lost her long battle with cancer in the night. She died at 46, leaving two sweet young children behind. I was heartbroken for my friends, and angry at how helpless I felt far, far away on the other side of the country.

Not knowing what else to do, I sat through most of the morning’s presentations, but my heart just wasn’t in it any longer. Between the bad news about the daycare situation and the devastating loss for my friends, I kept welling up and blinking away tears. I even looked into changing my flight home, but since the conference organizers had paid for my flight I wasn’t sure how or if I could change it.

I slipped out for a walk at lunch to clear my head, and found myself outside the very same bike rental place I’d patronized the day before. I don’t think I walked there consciously, but when I realized where I was, I was happy enough to oblige my subconscious. I rented another bike and hopped on.

The day was brisker but clearer than the day before, and as I pedaled my heart lightened by degrees.

Once again, I could not resist the urge to stop and photograph the Lion’s Gate Bridge. And this time, i filled my purse and pockets so full of sea glass that I had a hard time balancing on my bike, camera slung on one side and sea-glass-laden purse on the other. Note to self: next time, rent panniers, too!

This time, though, instead of cutting back through the park along the causeway, I continued the loop around to English Bay. I nearly fell off my bike from vertigo when I rounded one corner and found this breath-stealing combination of open sea, sky and distant mountains. For a girl with a tough of agoraphobia, Vancouver is one white-knuckled, gravity-defying view after another!

It was mere minutes after I stopped to watch this furry little fellow cross the path in front of me to hop down and forage for lunch among the tidal pools that things got really messed up. (Aren’t raccoons supposed to be nocturnal? This was practically high noon.)

I came around a curve on the path and found a man unconscious on the path. I stopped my bike in surprise, and a rider coming up directly behind me stopped, too. We were on a fairly isolated stretch, but people had come at me from this direction less than a few minutes before — either he had just fallen, or they had stepped over him and kept walking.

We tried to wake him up, and I have to admit that my first reaction was one of hesitant fear. He was somewhere north of 60 years old, grey and a little grizzled, and it was hard to tell if he was hurt or maybe sleeping something off — although the middle of the path deep in the park is a pretty strange place to pass out.

He had fallen in the recovery position, so I adjusted his head ever so slightly to make sure his airway was open and made sure he was breathing, all the time mindful of the expensive camera around my neck, the great distance I was from home, and rather anxious that he might wake up and be very angry with me for touching him, and then we called 911 from my iPhone.

It took about an hour between the time I found him and the time I hopped back on my bike, but it seemed like three days. It took quite a while for the ambulance to make its way on the bike path down to us, and luckily a few local joggers had stopped and were able to take my cell and give the ambulance dispatch a more clear idea of our location than my “Um, we’re in Stanley Park, somewhere on the bike path near English Bay.” (It’s a 10 km loop around the park.) Another lady who stopped was a nurse, and she and her partner stayed to take over the first aid until the ambulance arrived.

We still weren’t sure what had happened to him until the paramedics arrived to put him on a back board and turned him over, revealing that the side of his face that had been against the pavement was bashed and bloody. They speculated that he had either misstepped on the curb beside the path and fell down hard, or had a stroke and then fallen. Hard. He never did regain consciousness, and the nurse said his neural response was very atypical for someone who had simply passed out.

The whole experience was rather surreal, but I had to choke back tears when the first constable on the scene stopped me just as I was about to ride away and asked me for ID and contact information, “in case he doesn’t make it.” In case he doesn’t WHAT? The very worst part of the whole thing was how much he looked like my Dad — same age range, very similar physical build. I kept thinking, “He’s probably somebody’s dad. Someone might be worrying about him.” I still wonder how he’s doing, hoping he’s home with his family and recovering well. I still feel a little guilty, too, for my first thought — that he was drunk and sleeping something off. He was hurt needed help, and for what seemed like a long minute when I first arrived, I almost didn’t want to stop.

Needless to say, I was completely unnerved and my concentration for the rest of the day was officially shot. I couldn’t stand the idea of just sitting around my hotel room waiting for the day to end so I could fall asleep, wake up and go home, so I walked. And walked. And walked. And while I was walking, I took more pictures.

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom:

Sea planes are photo-worthy:

And then, in that endlessly strange day, I stumbled upon a giant street party celebrating Vancouver’s 125th birthday. I’m not sure if the giant Lego orca was part of the 125 celebration or if it’s always there, but it made me homesick for my Lego junkies back home. (The stage to the left is a part of the 125 celebration.)

The only thing the boys knew about Vancouver as I headed out there was that the 2010 Olympics were there (they still play with their Olympic mascot stuffies) so they were suitably impressed when I told them I saw them light the Olympic cauldron.

And then, finally, it was time to go home. It was a great adventure, if not a little more stressful than it had to be. The flight home was just about perfect, and after all the spectacular scenery I’d been watching for days, it was the sight of the rolling flats of the Ottawa valley that once again brought me near to tears.

That’s my place, I thought as we flew over the muddy brown farmland just hinting to green. That’s my home. I belong there.

And I was practically bouncing in my seat with anticipation to see my family by the time we banked over downtown and I caught this once-in-a-lifetime (well, once in MY lifetime, anyway!) shot of downtown Ottawa.

Home.

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Tuesday marked the second day of my trip to Vancouver, and also the whole reason I was there in the first place — to give a presentation at a conference about social media in government and how we use social media at Army News.

I was keen to give the presentation. So keen, in fact, that my body refused to acknowledge the time difference between Ottawa and Vancouver (something to which I never quite acclimatized) and I was wide awake for the day at a little bit before 4 am. Hey, I’d slept in by Ottawa time zone standards! So, I puttered about the hotel room playing with my umbilical cord (erm, I mean, my iPhone) and getting myself dressed, and as soon as the sun was up I set off to explore another corner of the city before the conference started.

I took some pictures but honestly, they weren’t even worth sharing with you. Although the rain had blessedly stopped, the light was still flat and uninteresting, and most of the shots I took never made it past mediocre.

My morning got considerably more bright when the conference started. The first presentation was excellent, and then I was up. I had a great time speaking, and got some fantastic feedback from fellow participants. Can I brag for just a minute? Here are a few of the tweets that greeted me after my presentation:

From @AndreaGulay: Listening to @DaniGirl – Example of Best Practices – So glad she is here! #smgov

From @shannonmcfadyen: A mobile site is cross platform vs apps that are proprietary. A great consideration – thnks @DaniGirl #smgov

and: Thanks @DaniGirl for an informative #smgov presentation. Your candor was refreshing

From @opportunityknck: @DaniGirl Great talk … well done and informative #smgov

From @chicken_scratch: A shout out to @Danigirl for an engaging presentation this morning at #smgov #yvr. Who knew the Canadian Army was so hip?! #pr #media

Isn’t that terrific? And during each break in the conference, people were coming up with me to chat, to know more about what we’re doing, and to talk a little bit more about the points I raised. One sweet woman even said mine was her favourite presentation and the most useful. Totally made the scary flight in with no coffee for five hours worthwhile!

We had 90 minutes for a lunch break and I was still twitchy with energy from my presentation, so I stepped out for a brisk walk and found the sun shining! I’d had it in my head that maybe I’d walk to the close edge of Stanley Park and poke around for a bit, and then wander back. I walked past a bike rental shop as I walked up Robson Avenue and popped in, thinking I’d find out what I needed to rent a bike and what it would cost to rent one after the conference was done for the afternoon. It was so inexpensive and so straightforward that, with more than an hour left in my lunch I just rented one on the spot and hopped on.

I tell you, while it was never on my life “to do” list to impulsively rent a bike to ride the sea wall at Stanley Park — but it should have been! First, after walking everywhere for two days, the sheer speed with which the blocks whizzed by as I rode was exhilarating. Then I hit the actual park, and started seeing things like this:

And this:

It was undoubtedly the most scenic bike ride ever, and a gift of a day because the forecast had once again been calling for rain.

I don’t know why, but one of the things I most wanted to see in Vancouver was the Lion’s Gate Bridge. And so when I came around the bend and could see it so clearly spanning the background, I had to hop off my bike and enjoy the moment.

I poked around for a bit, and eventually hopped off the sea wall and wandered down to the boulders exposed by the low tide so I could take a few pictures like this one.

That’s when I made a discovery that made me gasp in surprised delight. You know what I found? SEA GLASS! Tonnes and tonnes of great big gorgeous pieces of sea glass.

Remember how excited we were to find it last summer in Nova Scotia? This put that bounty to shame. I quickly filled my pockets, but was precariously close to running out of lunch hour and had to move along more quickly than I would have liked.

In fact, rather than complete the full circle around Stanley Park, I decided to cut through the park along the causeway that leads to the Lion’s Gate Bridge and follow it back to downtown. By the way, I have never seen a park with so many rules for cyclists as this one — ride your bike here, don’t ride your bike here, walk your bike here, and god help you if you miss a rule because people will yell the rules out at you. Yeesh!

By the time I got back to the conference I was a little sweaty and well-exercised, but we had an afternoon of really interesting presentations.

All in all, it was a stellar day and I was totally forgetting to feel homesick — right up until the point just after the conference ended around dinner time that I got an e-mail from my daycare provider telling us she was quitting the business as of the end of the month. Sigh.

And that’s when things started to go really sideways. Cuz you know bad news always travels in threes.

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The day I left for Vancouver last week was very much a Monday, in the most pejorative sense of the word. Due to huge line-ups at the security gate, even more huge line-ups at the Tim Hortons inside the departure lounge, and the most terrifying turbulence I’ve ever been subject to (as in, holding on to the seat in front of you in a white-knuckled death grip) I didn’t actually get my first coffee of the day until we were flying somewhere over Winnipeg, a good five hours into my day. And my personal TV thingee didn’t work. And thanks to the lack of coffee, I had a pretty good headache.

I’d been watching the weather for weeks, and the forecast for the day of my arrival had never varied: rain. Not showers, and not even a hint of potential sunshine. And it figures, this was the one time that the forecasts were 100% correct. The clouds were so heavy that I could barely see the tops of buildings let alone the mountains as we made the quick trip from the airport to downtown. It was the flattest, dullest, least-photo-friendly light you could possibly imagine — and yet I was still taken with how gorgeous a city Vancouver is. It reminds me of Ottawa, and of London Ontario, where I grew up. I was first struck by how green everything was, and by how livable the city seemed.

Despite the ongoing downpour, I was determined to make an adventure of my time in Vancouver. By the time I checked into the hotel, it felt like it should be late afternoon but in fact, it was barely 10:30 in the morning and the whole day stretched out in front of me. I packed my favourite lenses into my camera-backpack, grabbed the complimentary umbrella the hotel so courteously supplied (should have seen that as foreshadowing!) and headed out. I wasn’t even completely sure where I was headed, but by the time I hit the lobby I figured Granville Island would be a good place to start.

With umbrella clutched in one hand and holding my jacket closed over my camera in the other, I stepped out into the rain. After a block or two, I shifted my backpack to my front to better protect it from the rain. The walk to the aquabus mini-ferry that would take me across False Creek to Granville Island was only about eight blocks, and I was delighted to find an edifying cup of Tim Hortons coffee on the way.

This is the Burrard Street bridge, a block down from my aquabus stop. I’d spend a lot of time on my Vancouver mini-vacation either pointing my camera at or standing on this bridge pointing my camera at something else. And FWIW, when the light is so unbearably flat that the world is almost monochrome anyway, B&W photography is your friend!

This, on the other hand, is the Granville Street Bridge. Most of Granville Island, which isn’t really an island but a peninsula, is tucked underneath it.

And then, like a burst of sunshine, I found the public market. It was warm, it was dry, and it was unbelievably photogenic.

I wandered happy little loops around the market building for a couple of hours, stopping now and then to have a bite to eat (fresh cheese and spicy sausage for lunch, a banana and another coffee for a snack) and to touch base with the rest of the world on my iPhone.

I have to tell you, I started out homesick and never really got over it. I love love love traveling, and exploring a new city by myself with a camera is just about the definition of a perfect day rain or not, but everything I saw I wanted to share with someone. When I saw this candy shop, for example, my first thought was for Beloved and how he’d be drooling over it. I even e-mailed him this picture: Wish you were here?

And then I discovered the amazing Kids’ Market at Granville Island, and missed the boys even more. It’s a whole warehouse dedicated to kids’ stuff — multiple toy stores, book stores, kids’ clothing stores, and even a huge indoor play structure.

Alas, I could only spend so many hours in the warm, dry and not-raining market before I had to move back out into the rain. I explored the marina for a few moments before hoping back on the aquabus and heading back downtown.

It was still only mid-afternoon Vancouver-time by the time I made it back to the hotel, even though it felt like it should be the middle of the night. I paced around my hotel room for a little while, considering various options, before I decided that the Pacific Centre would make a good option for more rain-safe wandering. Plus, they had a Tim Hortons. It was all I needed to motivate me back out into the wet, umbrella clutched like a talisman.

I was too tired to be interested in much more than idle wandering, until I discovered H&M. I’d heard people raving about H&M before, but had no idea what a fantastic store it was. Really, why do we not have one of these in Ottawa? Great quality stuff and, at least while I was there, amazing sale prices. So what did I stock up on? Clothes for the boys, of course.

By the time I was shopped out, it was close enough to dinner time for me to call it a day. I stopped one last time to take pictures of these daffodils across the street from my hotel (it’s been kind of disappointing to return to the pre-spring muddy brown that predominates here in Ottawa after the lush verdancy of emerald green and blooming Vancouver!) and thought the composition with the umbrella in the background was a nice take on the old “April showers May flowers” cliché.

Soaked to my knees and thoroughly walked out, I finally made it back to the hotel room. It would be nearly a full day before my hiking boots dried out! I figure I probably walked a good 10 km or more, and though I was quite proud of myself for actually getting out despite the rain, it seemed by the throngs of people in the street that getting out in the rain isn’t much of an accomplishment for Vancouver natives.

The view from the hotel room, by the way, was pretty spectacular, looking right down on Robson Street and the commercial district.

I had to laugh when I was listening to the local weather that evening. Not only had it been a rainy day in Vancouver, but it had been a record-breaking day for rain. The previous record for April 4 had been 18 mm of rain, and up until the evening news broadcast, more than 30 mm of rain had fallen. Somehow, that made it all worthwhile.

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I‘m very excited! On Monday, I’ll be hopping on a plane and heading for the left coast to speak at this social media in government conference. What fun, eh? This is similar to the conferences I’ve spoken at here in Ottawa last June and September, and I got a really great reception (and reviews!) both previous times.

This is my abstract:

Social Media Is Not One-Size-Fits-All: How To Choose The Right Tools For Your Audience, Your Message, And Your Organization’s Goals

Many government departments and agencies are considering launching their own YouTube channel or Facebook fan page. But how do you choose which tools are the right ones for your organization?

The Army News team in the Department of National Defence has posted nearly 2,000 videos to YouTube over the last three years and those videos have been viewed more than 1.6 million times. Their channel is currently ranked within the top 75 YouTube channels for Canadian news and reporting. They’re also using Twitter, iTunes, Flickr and Facebook to share information and engage Army stakeholders.

Social media is not one-size-fits-all. Not every tool is appropriate for every situation. In this session, you will learn how to choose the right tools for your audience, your message and your organization’s goals. You’ll also review some common issues to consider when using social media tools in a government environment, including:

* Tweeting in both official languages
* Managing comments – and responding when necessary
* Giving your organization an authentic “voice” and personality through social media
* Developing content that is relevant, interesting and timely
* Matching your policies to your tools
* Analyzing your audience and evaluating your tools to ensure they’re working for you and not the other way around

Danielle Donders, Web Manager, Army Multimedia

I love the topic and I love the interaction during the seminars. I’m so looking forward to it!

Of course, the other thing I’m looking forward to is the ginourmous photo opportunity that is Vancouver. I’ve been before, twice on the way to Victoria and one other time on business — but there was no down time for exploring.

Any suggestions on treks I may want to take with my camera? I’m staying right downtown on Burrard, not far from Robson Square. I don’t think I’ll bother with a car as I only really have the one day free and a couple of evenings, and it seems like there’s plenty of interesting stuff nearby. Granville Island is to the west and Gastown is to the east of where I’ll be staying; any thoughts on which one might be a better destination? I definitely want to check out the waterfront. Also not far away is Stanley Park, but a 15 km hike to cram them all in might be a little bit too much to cram in, especially since the current forecast is calling for — surprise! — rain on Monday. Any indoor suggestions are welcome, too!

All in all, I think just about anywhere you can point your camera in Vancouver, you’re going to come away with a good shot or two!

The real challenge is how I’ll manage with no laptop to process the pix as I go, as Beloved thinks his pesky work is more important than my obsessive photo habits. I know, the nerve, eh? Especially when I’m so considerately leaving all three boys here with him to keep him company!

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I know summer isn’t really over yet, but I’m back at work now and my holidays are over. Even though it’s a little less than a month until the boys go back to school, Beloved’s holidays are also more or less over after next week. So, even though there is plenty left of the summer of ’10 to enjoy, I’m feeling retrospective about it already.

It has been, by just about any measure, an amazing summer for us. In the month of July alone, the boys swam in an ocean, a Great Lake, an inland freshwater lake, a river and a pool. How awesome is that? That alone has to qualify as some sort of excellence-in-vacationing milestone!

We did a *lot* of traveling this summer — the big trip out to Nova Scotia, a slightly less epic loop around Southern Ontario to visit two sides of the family, and lots of little day trips. Oh how I love a good road trip! And to their credit, the boys only twitch a little bit when they see me loading up the car again.

And so, if swimming in salt- and fresh-water bodies isn’t your idea of a good time, here’s another way to measure excellence in summer vacations: how many Tim Hortons did you visit?

In the great summer of 2010 road-trips, aside from my usual Barrhaven and west-Ottawa Tims locations, we bought coffees and mocha iced-capps in:

• Drummondville, QC
• Grand Sault, NB
• Moncton, NB
• Halifax, NS
• Lunenburg, NS
• Bridgewater, NS
• Saint John, NB
• Bristol, NB
• Lévis, QC
• Morrisburg, ON
• Trenton, ON
• Georgetown, ON
• Aberfoyle, ON
• Clinton, ON
• Angus, ON
• Hunstville, ON
• Renfrew, ON

Phew, that’s a lot of coffee! I wish I had some sort of passport so I could have collected stamps from all of them. What, too obsessive? I swear, I only used this map to roughly locate a few for our trip out east! (For the southern Ontario loop, I used an app for my iPhone. Um, yeah, maybe just a weensy bit addicted. But if you love Tims, it rocks!!)

So, apparently in addition to a lot of swimming, we drank a lot of coffee this summer. *blush*

How ’bout you? What’s your measure of a summer well spent?

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Here’s something you likely noticed about me: I’m always up for a new adventure. There are some thrills, though, that I have purposefully avoided in my life, and riding a motorcycle has always been one of them.

In fact, up until last week, I’d never been on a real motorcycle before. I grew up in a family biased against motorbikes — my grandfather witnessed a horrific accident in which a motorcycle rider was killed, perhaps even decapitated if my memory of the story is correct, and his fear of bikes was passed on to my father and to me.

My brother Sean, on the other hand, happened to marry into a family of people who have their M-class licenses and love motorcycles. When he mentioned a year or so back that he had his own bike, I admit I was surprised, and worried. Bikes to me are dangerous and reckless machines, even in the hands of reasonably responsible people.

But I was also just the tiniest bit intrigued. I’ve long admired their fluid lines and shiny chrome bits, and admit to being curious in a very hesitant sort of way. Which is how this ended up happening when we visited my brother’s family last week:

Yeah baby, that’s me on a motorcycle, entrusting my life to the same kid I spent most of my childhood looking for new and unique ways to make miserable. Right about the time this was taken, I was thinking I should have been a whole lot nicer to my brother when we were kids!

He took me for the most amazing, exhilarating ride through the concession roads and secondary highways near his home in Georgetown, and I was astonished at how much I enjoyed it. Um, once I started breathing and stopped clenching my jaws and butt cheeks in terror, that is.

So now that I’ve logged a good 20 minutes of saddle time and am a professional motorcycle passenger, here’s five things I learned about motorcycles:

1. It doesn’t take long for you to get used to the alarming way the ground rushes up at you when you bank to make a turn, but the first few times you turn a corner you’re sure you’re road rash.

2. To truly enjoy the experience, you must first stop envisioning the potential 24 point newspaper headlines describing the horrific crash and grieving family you left behind.

3. You don’t have to hold on tightly enough to leave finger prints. Through two layers of leather. (Sorry, Sean, hope the bruises heal soon!)

4. Riding in the snow is obviously out, and riding in the rain is only for the truly dedicated. Riding in long pants, an armoured jacket and 3/4 length leather gloves is also no treat when the humidity nears 40 degrees.

5. Oh my sweet lord, it’s a LOT of fun. I liked it waaaaaay too much. As soon as I unclenched my sphincter, anyway. Once I relaxed and started enjoying the ride, I could immediately imagine a perfect afternoon spent on the bike with a camera stowed safely inside my jacket, doing carefree loops around the Niagara escarpment and stopping here and there to take pictures as the spirit and the prevailing wind inspired me.

Aside from the amazing feeling of connection with the environment that I felt on the bike, like we were a part of the landscape instead of merely passing through it, what amazed me was the instant admission into the club of cool as soon as I donned the motorcycle jacket and helmet. I couldn’t believe how many people raised a hand in casual salute as we drove past, including one elderly gentleman standing beside his car who waved at us with happy enthusiasm as if we were Peter and Jane Fonda.

(Less cool was standing in a parking lot with two bike dudes looking on in amusement as my brother untethered my helmet for me just seconds before I hyperventilated. Apparently I need to practice my cool just a wee bit more.)

And the quote I used in the title of this post? Totally appropriate and totally true. I hadn’t wanted to go any faster than 50 or 60 kms an hour, but when I looked over Sean’s shoulder one giddy moment and saw the speedometer creep over 100 km/h on those back country roads, I felt a crazy kind of blissful freedom I never would have expected. I still don’t think I’d ever want to actually drive one. Too heavy, too complicated, too much risk. But to ride along as a contented passenger behind someone as capable and trustworthy as my brother? In a New York minute.

I don’t know what’s more astonishing, that I’ve come to love riding a motorcycle or that I’ve come to appreciate my brother as capable and trustworthy. Who would have guessed it?

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What do you do when you and your husband and three kids successfully survive a 3500 km road trip through four provinces?

Give ‘em two and a half weeks to recover, then throw them back in the car again and head in the opposite direction!

We just finished a week-long road trip loop through southern Ontario and up the shore of Lake Huron to north of Huntsville and back through Algonquin park. Thanks to the miracle of scheduled posts, I’ll bet that you didn’t even know that I was gone! We left Saturday afternoon, after the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk (which I will blog eventually) and just got back a while ago.

I have a few stories to share and a few million pictures to process, but here’s one that sums up the trip just about perfectly… my brother brought us to this wonderful Tow Mater on the Bluewater Highway on our way into Goderich for a day at the beach:

Doesn’t it just scream “road trip” and “family vacation”? Mad props to the guys at the Goderich Power Centre and their awesome sense of humour.

More soon, after the laundry and a really thorough cleaning of my darling little Mazda…

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We’ve finally arrived at the last post in the Nova Scotia road trip series, a mere two weeks after the road trip itself concluded. (!)

A few days before we left for Nova Scotia, I mentioned Oak Island to Beloved. I remember learning about the Oak Island Money Pit in school when I was a kid — it’s a mysterious site just up the coast from Lunenburg where they have been trying more or less since the late 1700s to get to the bottom of a mysterious pit loaded with contraptions and booby traps that have thus far managed to foil any potential treasure-hunters. The treasure itself is unknown, but rumoured to be everything from spoils from Blackbeard and Captain Kidd to Marie Antoinette’s jewels to the Arc of the Covenant. (Not much hyperbole there, eh?)

We were intrigued. The site is currently closed to the public, and though we corresponded briefly with a lovely woman from the Oak Island Treasure site, what would have been a very cool private charter of a small boat that would take us around the island with someone who used to be a tour guide at Oak Island didn’t work out. Would have made a great blog post, eh?

But, on our first night in Lunenburg we discovered an entirely different kind of treasure from the sea, and we were instantly addicted to collecting it: sea glass.

Sea glass, also known as beach glass, are small pieces of bottles and other glass items that have been buffed by the sea, sand and salt water until the edges are smooth and the surface is frosted. It takes a decade or more for the sea to wear the sharp edges down. The most common colours of sea glass are the green of wine bottles, the amber of beer bottles, and clear glass. Less common and more valuable are blues, yellows and reds.

When we went to Bar Harbor in 2007, I’d found a few tiny pieces of sea glass and was delighted with them. They’re each about half the size of a pea — just wee grains, really. When I saw in the description of the cottage we’d rented that “our” beach was renowned for sea glass, I figured we’d find something similar and come home with half a dozen or so shiny little bits.

Instead, we found the motherlode of sea glass. It was *everywhere*. The first night, we walked the beach in the briny fog just to explore and found mounds of the stuff. I was wearing cargo shorts and had to hold them up with one hand by the time we walked back to the house, so laden were my pockets with gorgeous chunks of sea glass. The next day, we filled a ziploc baggie. By the time we left, we were filling a small bucket AND baggies with each excursion. (Yes, we are the obsessive family.) And the wonder of it was that each high tide, one at 6 am and the other at 6 pm, replenished the supply.

Lucas showed his first differentiation of colour when he expressed a preference for the “green ones” and would walk up and down the beach with me picking up only green bits of sea glass and then dropping them ceremoniously into my bucket as he declared “another one green one” with pride.

In short order, we became sea glass experts. The amber and green ones are the most common (beer and wine bottles, mostly) with clear also common. Blues and pastels are more prized, and reds and oranges and blacks the most rare. We also found bits of pottery worn smooth and crackled.

I read online that it takes decades for the sand and surf to smooth and buff the sharp edges and to give the glass the characteristic frosted look. I’m fascinated by the idea that for some reason, the tides pull glass to this particular beach and not one just a few kilometers down the shore. So cool to inspect the pieces where you can still see some of the decoration and speculate from where it came.

We collected so much sea glass thatfrankly I’m not sure what to do with it all. I’ve put some in a glass vase in the living room to remind us of our trip, and given some to my mom. I put some in another glass container and put it in my window at work, and I have yet more still tucked away into a ziploc baggie upstairs. I could sell it — it fetches a pretty price on etsy for crafters. Or I could keep it and make sea glass jewellery myself. In, um, all my spare time.

Beloved and the boys and I were so enthralled with our daily beach combing in search of sea glass that we debated the merits of quitting our day jobs and simply living in the summer house, collecting and selling sea glass online. There’s that much of it!

Our trip to Nova Scotia was amazing in so many ways, but the sea glass was the most unexpected and the most delightful of all. And we’re already making plans to go back. I’m just not sure if we can wait until next year.

Edited to add: So many of you have e-mailed me asking about the location of our secret stash of sea glass that I thought I’d be nice and share the location here. Happy hunting!!

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I still have a couple of last posts to write about our Nova Scotia road trip a few weeks ago. It must be a good vacation when I can’t quite leave it behind, eh?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my first impressions of New Brunswick in general and Fredericton in particular were not favourable. The day we spent driving through New Brunswick was miserable with rain pouring down so hard that the car hydroplaned regularly — an intimidating experience on the best of days, augmented considerably by the rolling hills and 110 km/h speed limit. And then, this happened:

Near Fredericton, we accidentally took an off ramp we weren’t supposed to take, and then took the same off ramp back into Fredericton again when trying to get back on the Trans Canada. Then we needed to turn off anyway when the low-fuel light came on and I was about to burst my own tank for need of a bathroom. We turned down a country road in search of a promised gas station that was no-where to be found. That’s when Simon gacked all over himself. It was the lowlight of an otherwise spectacular trip.

It would take some serious rehabilitation to redeem my (albeit brief) impression of Fredericton after that. Lucky for Fredericton, Sue was on the job. Sue, the blogger formerly known as MadHatterMommy, is one of my oldest and bestest bloggy friends. She’s witty, smart and kind; one of those people whose writing makes you a better writer and better thinker, too. I’ve admired her for years, and one of the first things I did when planning out our road trip to the east coast was to touch base with her and see if we could arrange a meet-up.

She hosted us for a delightful Sunday brunch on her picturesque back porch, where Lucas ate his body weight in the fresh berries she put out.

Doesn’t that look like an advertisement for a perfect Sunday morning? The boys were instantly charmed by Miss M, and as soon as we were done eating Miss M brought the big boys inside to show them around and share her toys. They held an impromptu costume party, where my boys came dressed as dufuses.

Meanwhile, Lucas engaged himself watering Sue’s flowers. Isn’t the light gorgeous here? I swear, if I lived in that house I would never leave. It’s like a little island of serenity!

We popped over to the park across the street for a bit to shake out a few of the sillies before we piled back into the car for the long afternoon’s drive to Rivière-du-Loup. Simon and Miss M discussed the mysteries of the universe with deep contemplation.

And, far too soon, we loaded ourselves rather resignedly back into the car. Not before one last photo op, though.

I have to admit, even though Sue and I long ago passed that threshold from Internet acquaintance to friend, I was shy about invading her place early on a tranquil Sunday morning. When you admire someone as much as I admire Sue, it’s nerve wracking to actually meet face to face. By the time we left, though, it felt like we’d been friends for years (well, I suppose in fact we have!) and we all agreed we wished Ottawa and Fredericton were a little closer together, to facilitate a few more playdates.

Thanks again Sue, for a wonderful morning and for redeeming the entire province of New Brunswick for us. Any time you’re near Ottawa…

There’s one last post pending in the blog series that lasted three times as long as the vacation… our adventures in treasure hunting. I’ll put that one up soon!

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I‘ve told you about the drive to and from Nova Scotia, and the ferry ride, and our visit to Halifax. I still haven’t had a chance yet to tell you much about our breathtaking little cottage on the ocean, or the amazing little town of Lunenburg just across the harbour.

We chose Lunenburg by sheer flukey luck. I spoke to a couple of people who had visited or lived in Nova Scotia and collected potential places, then trolled the cottage listings until something with the right combination of affordable, available and interesting caught my fancy. The house we stayed in was beyond amazing — three out of four sides of the house managed to have windows that looked out over the ocean. One bedroom upstairs had a king-size bed and the other a double, both (to the massive delight of the boys) with TVs in them and a huge bathroom with a jacuzzi tub that also had an ocean view. It was probably close to the same size as our town house, but decorated with taste and money instead of random impulse buys from Ikea and Pier One.

There was a huge deck with a BBQ in the back, and you only had to walk off the porch and cross the lawn and a very un-busy road that dead-ended a few hundred meters later to be at the ocean, looking out across the bay toward Lunenburg. Amazing! And once the fog lifted, every morning the sunrise looked like this:

(It’s 6:15 in the morning and I’m in my pajamas, standing in the middle of the road as I take this picture!)

Because we had to drive the long way around, it took us about 15 minutes to drive into Lunenburg, and every day we were in Nova Scotia we drove through or stopped by at least once. It’s big enough to have two small grocery stores and a Tim Hortons and a hardware store and a small commercial area downtown, but not much else. It’s so gorgeous that in 1995 it was designated a UNESCO world heritage site:

Lunenburg is the best surviving example of a planned British colonial settlement in North America. Established in 1753, it has retained its original layout and overall appearance, based on a rectangular grid pattern drawn up in the home country. The inhabitants have managed to safeguard the city’s identity throughout the centuries by preserving the wooden architecture of the houses, some of which date from the 18th century.

Aside from the shops and the simple joy of the colourful houses, though, I was afraid there wouldn’t be a whole lot for a family to *do* in Lunenburg. Luckily, we stumbled upon Captain Fred and his Lunenburg boat charters for a fun morning of fishing in the harbour. But the most fun we had in Lunenburg was definitely at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.

It seemed from reading their website that it was a pretty small museum, but we spent half the day there and saw only about half of the exhibits. They have aquarium tanks filled with the kinds of fish and other sea life that are native to the area, like lobsters and scallops, halibut and of course, cod. We spent quite a bit of time playing with this board with the international signal flag alphabet, where each boy spelled out his name:

The Bluenose II, the successor to the schooner you see on the Canadian dime, is supposed to be in dry dock for a two-year retrofit and upgrade, but she’s currently moored outside the museum, so we spent a while wandering around on her. The big boys in particular were enamoured with her.

Okay, I admit it, I was tickled by the idea of being on the schooner that’s on the dime, too. And she’s truly gorgeous, with mahogany fixtures on the deck.

The Bluenose II isn’t always in port, but they have another schooner, the Theresa E. Connor, and trawler named Cape Sable that you can also board and explore above and below decks. This would have been the captain’s quarters.

They also had a “touch tank” where the boys could stick their hands in a tank and touch or hold sea stars, anemone and scallops. And the big boys were lucky enough to be two of the four kids chosen from the crowd to help launch a scale model schooner into a pool — a wonderfully engaging and educational display.

Each day we passed through Lunenburg, Simon asked if we could go back to the Fisheries museum. It was that good! And it cost us all of $22 for a family of five.

Did I mention how much I loved Lunenburg? I’m spoiled for any other destination now — no other place could be as perfect as this for us.

I’m not quite done with the travel blogging — still have to tell you about our most excellent bloggy playdate on the way home, and our absolute favourite part of our Nova Scotia oceanside holiday.

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We didn’t intend to go to Halifax our first full day in Nova Scotia. We figured maybe Canada Day might be a good choice, or one of the other days a little later in the week. It turned out, though, that we needed to make the hour-and-a-quarter trek back up to Halifax right away so we could pick up the keys that my mother had so kindly Fed-Exed to us so we could get the majority of our luggage out of the roof rack!

We also had no idea until two days before we left that the Queen would be visiting Halifax at the same time we were in Nova Scotia. In fact, as we made the white-knuckled, hydroplaning drive from New Brunswick across the breadth of Nova Scotia and past Halifax down to Lunenburg through an endless torrential downpour, it was a pleasant distraction to listen to the CBC Radio coverage of Her Majesty’s arrival just a few kilometres away.

When we left Lunenburg to make the hour-and-a-half drive up to Halifax on that first day, the fog had yet to lift, but by the time we arrived in Halifax the clouds were sporadic and we were getting peeks of blue sky. We got lost once looking for the MacKay bridge, but made it safely into and out of Dartmouth without any of the feared bridge closings due to the Queen’s visit. It was stunning seeing some of the international naval vessels on hand for HRM’s visit in Bedford Basin.

(Why do they put up those annoying guard rails that mess with my pictures?! Safety-schmafety!)

I’d intended to do a bit more online research about Halifax before we visited the city, but we hadn’t had the time, so I really only had the barest idea of what it might offer. Pier 21, Barrington Street, Keith’s Brewery, the Citidel, Theodore the Tugboat… and the Barenaked Ladies’ uncharitable “Hello City” were about all I knew. So we simply pointed the car toward the harbourfront and made things up as we went along.

We found a parkade right outside of Brewery Market, and had lunch in a nice little place with excellent fish and chips called the City Deli. Conveniently, it was in the same building as the Alexander Keith’s Brewery – Beloved’s own personal malted mothership.

We were going to go on the Brewery tour, but it was an hour long and we were afraid the kids would be somewhere between distracting and disruptive (although the Brewery did say the tour was for all ages) and so we decided to wear them out with a hike up to the Citadel instead.

On our way out, we noticed that most of the harbourfront streets were at least partially barricaded for the Queen’s visit. We followed the crowds and the media trucks to the back of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and found out that they were milling about awaiting the Queen’s visit — two hours hence.

Needless to say, we did not stand around on the pier with the kids waiting for HRH.

We did, however, exhaust the kids with a quick walk up from the harbour to the Citadel. (What is it about hot humid days on vacation that make me want to run my children up a hill to visit a military fortification anyway?)

We enjoyed watching the changing of the sentries (did you know they’re not actually military personnel, but summer students?) and the pipe and drum band. We wandered around on the ramparts for a while, and watched three helicopters escorting a fourth helicopter through the afternoon sky — I’m willing to bet there was some royalty flying by over our heads! The boys had fun completing the historical scavenger hunt put together by the Citidel staff, and felt very rewarded when they earned a cookie for their efforts.

By the time we hit mid-afternoon, more than one of us needed a nap, so we trekked back down the hill and checked out a few of the shops on Barrington Street (which reminded me a lot of Dundas Street in my home town of London, Ont.) before heading back down the coast to Lunenburg.

We’d taken the NS103 highway both into Nova Scotia the day before and up the coast from Lunenburg earlier in the day. While it was an efficient ride, it wasn’t very charming. In fact, you can barely see any signs of habitation — just kilometre after kilometre of highway that looks more or less like this:

We took a long look at the map and figured the scenic “Lighthouse Route” might take a little longer than the 75 or so minutes we’d spend on the main highway, but that it would be worth it to see some of the gorgeous little towns along the seaside. Ha! More than two hours later and we still hadn’t even made it to Lunenburg — granted, we had seen some gorgeous glimpses of the sea! — and we decided to stop for dinner in the charming little town of Mahone Bay. We found a little place called the Innlet Cafe, and they treated us so well and we enjoyed our dinner so much that we went back for dinner there a second time. If you’re looking for a nice place that’s receptive to families without looking like a ChuckECheese, this is the place for you!

Although the afternoon had been mostly bright if not overcast, by the time we rolled back down the rural road to our little home by the sea the fog was once again as thick as the proverbial pea soup. It would take another half day to lift and reveal the splendor all around us.

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Even though we’re home now, I still have a whole bunch of things I want to tell you about our trip to Nova Scotia. Finola hit on one subject I wanted to address with her questions in the comment box yesterday: “Do you recommend all the driving with young kids? Did they enjoy?”

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! In a heartbeat! Did they enjoy it? Mostly I think they endured the driving part. In fact, Tristan suggested on the ferry from Digby to Saint John that “maybe our next vacation could have a little less driving?” But would they tell you that it was worth it? I’m sure they would.

The driving was long. L-O-N-G. The first day we drove just over 800 kms from Ottawa to Grand Falls (aka Grand Sault) in New Brunswick. It was clear and warm, and the driving was so easy that we were filled with optimism and excitement for the rest of the trip. The Best Western in Grand Sault was comfortable and had a great pool for the kids.

I’d intentionally chosen Grand Sault over Edmunston as it was about an hour further down the road, leaving us with a slightly shorter day of driving on the second day. By sheer luck, that turned out to be a great choice because day two of driving? Was horrible. Awful. Really, really bad. It started to rain about 20 minutes into the trip. It poured torrentially for the entire day, 700 + kms of hydroplaning, soaking, white-knuckle driving. Near Fredericton, we accidentally took an off ramp we weren’t supposed to take, and then took the same off ramp back into Fredericton again when trying to get back on the Trans Canada. Then we needed to turn off anyway when the low-fuel light came on and I was about to burst my own tank for need of a bathroom. We turned down a country road in search of a promised gas station that was no-where to be found. That’s when Simon gacked all over himself. It was the lowlight of an otherwise spectacular trip.

We broke the return trip up into three legs, but the next time we go to Nova Scotia (and even before we left, we were already planning for next time, we loved it that much) we will stick with a two-day return trip. The ferry from Digby to Saint John left us unimpressed, and although we had a lovely visit with a friend who completely redeemed Fredericton (more about that in another post) it made the return trip longer than it had to be. And the accommodations the last night in Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, were another lowlight of the trip. In fact, next time we will probably take the American route home, taking the ferry from Yarmouth to our other favourite vacation destination, Bar Harbor, and making our way home from there.

I’d been most worried about how Lucas would handle the driving. The big boys are already well-experienced with road trips, as our relatives all seem to live about five hours away and we do the trek a couple of times a year. Eight or nine hours in the car is a lot to ask of a two-and-a-half year old, though. We put a DVD player on the headrest of the seat in front of him and fed him a steady diet of Muppet Show, Max and Ruby and Bob the Builder, but to my surprise and delight it was the books that really kept him engaged. He carefully paged through all the books I had for him, plus his brother’s colouring books and word search books and puzzle books, over and over again. He fussed on and off, but never with much conviction. Unfortunately, he now demands a movie and his soother on even the shortest of car trips to the grocery store, but we can wean him of that one over the summer. In the end, he was a trooper!

We sedated the big boys with a DS and a game boy, and a separate DVD player that they only used on the very last day of the trip. Simon found that playing the handheld games upset his stomach, so he spent a lot of time either looking out the window or watching Lucas’s DVD player from the seat behind him. Tristan would play the video games for stretches, but then put them away of his own volition.

We did go through almost two full packages of gravol. I cringe at the idea of them consuming that much medication, but both Simon and Lucas seem to have inherited Beloved’s childhood susceptibility to motion sickness, so we gave them each a dose each morning, and any day we’d be spending more than an hour in the car. And Tristan took advantage of a dose on the ferry, during some choppy seas in the Bay of Fundy.

The other part of the actual driving that had worried me was cramming everything into our little Mazda 5. With one back seat folded down, though, and the roof rack, we had more than enough room for everything we needed. We packed two large suitcases and one overnight bag, a booster seat, an air bed and pump, a big bag of extra shoes and hats, and a backpack for each boy, plus two bags full of toys and activities, my camera bag and the lap top easily into the car with room to spare.

I’m so proud of how well the boys behaved in the car, and how well they traveled. Lucas only asked a few times, “What are we doing?” and told us he wanted to go home not too many more times than that. I don’t think Tristan uttered a single, “Are we there yet?” and Simon finally learned that asking doesn’t make the trip go any faster. My “magic bag of tricks” full of snacks and books and playdough and crayons and a handful of other small diversions definitely made the trip easier, but I have to give credit to the boys and their inherent good natures. That’s what made the trip easy.

It’s only been a little over a day since we got home, and I’m already looking forward to the next road trip. If we can do 3,420 km in nine days, we can go *anywhere*!!

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Taking the ferry across from Digby, Nova Scotia to Saint John, New Brunswick seemed like a good idea in theory. It’s more or less the same amount of the day eaten up, but instead of driving up and around the land portion where Nova Scotia meets New Brunswick, you take what is as the crow flies a much shorter route, 72 kms across the Bay of Fundy.

With a three hour crossing, though, the time spent in the car seems to be more or less the same, except letting the boys out for three hours in the middle of the trip seemed like a much better alternative than having them strapped in the car for all that time.

Or not.

They were, um, a little squirrelly on the ferry. Out on the deck, up on the upper deck, down again. Into the “arcade” (three ancient video games) and out again. Sit, flip through a book, up again. Over and over again. I had a brilliant flash of insight based on desperation about two-thirds of the way across, and asked the purser if there was any way to arrange a visit to the wheelhouse. (Is that the right word? The cockpit of a ferry is a wheelhouse, right? Ugh, I am such a city girl.) And to my surprise and delight, he brought us right up!

There was another dad up there entertaining his kids, and they each got a turn to steer the boat, too. The crew was great — they were explaining all the levers and dials to us, and they told Simon that the old (but still functioning) telegraph system from the old days was actually the torpedo and they used it to torpedo the whales. I think the kids still believe him!

Then the purser introduced the crew by name — the captain’s name was Mark and the first mate’s name was Danny. I laughed out loud and said, “Wow, my name is Dani and my husband’s name is Mark, and it’s our anniversary today!” The crew chuckled, and the other dad there with his kids said, “Hey, it’s our anniversary, too!” Turns out we were married on the same day AND we’re all from Ottawa. And that’s when the crew laughed rather nervously and started talking about looking for some salt to throw over our left shoulder!!

In all, the ferry was a long trip that smelled like fried fish on the inside and worse on the outside and that seemed to take about six hours instead of three. Next time, we’ll bank the $200 and drive the long way around! But, props and thanks to the Holiday Inn in Saint John (the *only* nice thing I can say about Saint John) who left us a bottle of wine, two wine glasses, and three bottles of water and a bag of BBQ “Crispers” for the boys when I called up in advance and told them we’d be arriving on our anniversary. That’s a lot better than last year at Great Wolf Lodge, when all we got was a chipper, “Well! Happy Anniversary to you!”

We’re home now, but I have more stories to tell, including five ideas that saved the trip, our new favourite obsession, and the story of a bloggy playdate. But for now, I have a whole lot of crap to put away!

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After spending most of the last week driving in and out of and through Lunenburg, I’m pretty sure that either the whole town is colour blind, or the housepainters are on some trippy drugs.

I mean, really!

And the view from the harbour is even more riotous with colour:

Even their old abandoned boats are beautiful!

And to think we started out in all that colourless fog. Ottawa is going to seem positively drab by comparison! I’m thinking of painting my house that hot pink from the first picture above, and the trim in that lime green. How much will the neighbours love me?

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Sometimes when you’re on vacation, you have to let go of the plan and go with the flow.

Today, our last full day in Nova Scotia, we’d planned for a morning fishing trip and an afternoon drive up the coast to see the lighthouse at Peggy’s Cove. But when we arrived in Lunenburg at the wharf, the fishing boat was out and would be another hour. We decided to head out to Peggy’s Cove for the morning, and do our fishing adventure in the afternoon, but before we were 10 minutes out of town we’d managed to make two wrong turns, the baby was melting down and another boy was complaining about tummy trouble. We scratched the Peggy’s Cove plan and wandered around Lunenburg for a bit hoping that everyone would settle down a bit. By the time we’d explored for a while, the hour had elapsed and we were able to head out to sea after all.

We had the old fashioned fishing boat and Captain Fred all to ourselves, and we started with a pleasant little jaunt around Lunenburg Harbour. Then we set anchor near the (snicker, it’s true) Highliner fish plant, and put in our lines.

Can you see the stoic look on the littlest one’s face? He was not impressed, right up until I showed him how to crank the reel, and then he was (snicker) hooked. Tristan got the (only) catch of the day, a good 3 or 5 lbs of flounder. (And? A flounder is a spectacularly ugly fish!)

So we never did make it out to Peggy’s Cove, but we can always save that for our next Nova Scotia vacation. Come to think of it, we didn’t see a single lighthouse the whole trip. Isn’t Nova Scotia supposed to be lousy with them?

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My mom wrote me an e-mail telling me she was loving the pictures, but maybe I could hand the camera off to Beloved every now and then, she’s quite sure he wouldn’t break it, as she’d love to see a couple of pictures of me with the boys.

Here ya go, Mom! Me and the boys on the cliff at Ovens Park, with the big blue ocean behind us.

(I guess smiling into the sun with your eyes open is an acquired skill. Tristan was *trying* to smile for you!)

Edited to add: and here’s a little mosaic of our very laid-back Canada Day at the Lunenburg community picnic. After five solid days of adventure, we all needed something simple and low-key, and this was just the ticket.

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(There are a few more pictures here!)

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It’s been foggy since we arrived in Lunenburg around dinnertime the day before yesterday. Funny, we drove into Halifax/Dartmouth (to pick up the keys for the luggage rack!) yesterday, and the fog seemed to have pretty much lifted by mid-morning, but as we drove back down scenic Highway 3 (“The Lighthouse Route”!) around dinner time the fog started rolling in again. I’m not sure it actually lifted around here!

You know what, though? I don’t mind the fog. It’s not raining, and it’s not really cold, although it is damp and I worry a bit what all that moisture is doing to my camera! But the fog makes everything so ethereal and enchanted. Like this, I think my favourite picture since we arrived.

Did you know the white balance setting to get the colour right on fog is daylight, and not cloudy? And that there is as much light, if not more light, in fog than on a cloudy day? I’m becoming a “shooting in fog” expert!

It’s actually starting to roll back out to the ocean this morning. I can see further into Lunenburg Harbour than I’ve been able to since we got here — we’re up to maybe 100 feet instead of 30! And the stuff on land is a little less foggy, too. The fog is really not so bad, though, for two reasons. The first is that I really don’t have much to fear of an ocean I can’t see! And the second? Foghorns. All through the night, you can hear the foghorn going off. At first, I thought they were on the boats, but I think they’re fixed at the edge of the harbour so the boats can hear them. Maybe boats have their own too?

Just before the fog started to lift this morning, around 6:15 while the rest of the house was still sleeping, I stood on the porch and filmed this little video to remember that mysterious, beautiful sound of a foghorn on a still summer morning.

It’s supposed to be sunny and warm for the next three days, which is exactly the weather I’d hoped for. But I’ll miss this for the rest of our trip. It’s… magical.

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Fog + ocean + porch = Best! Coffee! Ever!

The fog still hasn’t lifted enough for us to see more than five feet into the water, but I can tell there’s a huge bay out there by the sounds of the foghorns calling out to each other, and a distant clanking.

So amazing!

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So I’m in Nova Scotia, and I have a lot of stories to tell you already. Like torrential rain for eight straight hours of driving, and the inevitable bit where someone barfs (not me) and someone misses an exit (also not me) and we end up lost and really unhappy for a bit. And the bit about how the Queen arrived in Halifax the same day as us, and the part about how un-freaking-believably beautiful this little house on the ocean really is, and how it’s so foggy I can’t really see more than five feet of ocean but I can hear the fog horns calling out to each other. Truly fan-fucking-tastic.

Nope, this is the story about how my mother is on the way to the Ottawa airport to the Fed-Ex people there, and how I’ll drive to Dartmouth tomorrow to pick up the package that she’s overnighting to me. The package with the key. To the roof rack. With half our luggage, including all the boys clothes except the ones they were wearing yesterday, and all our jackets, and most of the boys toys. Oh yes we did. We locked the Thule rack up nice and tight the night before we left, Beloved hung the keys on the hook, and there they stayed.

Heck, I was planning on heading up to Halifax eventually anyway… tomorrow now seems like the perfect day to do it! Oh, and if you want to see the pix of day 1 on the road, Ottawa to Grand Sault, NB, they’re on Flickr!

Much more to come — for now, I’m going for a walk in the fog at the edge of the ocean… with my boys and my camera. Life is good, and my mother and father are truly a treasure.

Thanks Mom and Dad! I owe you (another) one. Wait, I think after Beau’s great escape, we might be even on this one.

Edited to add: by the way, UPS told them it would take up to four days and cost $65. Fed-Ex shipped it from Ottawa to Dartmouth from 6 pm to noon tomorrow for $25. Yay Fed-Ex!

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