I hate flying.

Or more accurately, I hate airports.

Plastic knives to eat with.  $13 cocktails. Not being able to bring in my bottled water.  Sitting here, waiting...waiting...waiting... for my flight, which was supposed to be leaving in five minutes, to start boarding.  FUCK YOU AIRPORTS!

After a lazy Sunday afternoon spent reading a book in Central Park, I'm now sitting in Hell's Kitchen enjoying my last moments of vacation.  This moment includes a mind-blowingly delicious red velvet cookie, oh yeah.

I've had an amazing week, but goddamn I can't wait to get home.  Ten days away, living out of my suitcase; one week home, working my ass off; one week on the road, living out of my suitcase.  Incredible, but exhausting.  And fattening.

I can't wait to get home and wake up tomorrow with my fluffy monsters snuggled in to me.  To not have to get up and BE anywhere (well, until work, but that's not until mid-afternoon).  To go to the gym.  To COOK FOOD.  I haven't made myself a meal in three weeks.  THREE WEEKS! That's nuts.

I have twelve days of normality before hitting the road with Ashley for a punk fest in Hartford.  That promises to be a weekend of extreme fun and gluttony, so the next twelve days have to be focused on healthy eating, sleeping well, and working out.

I love that, even though I've had to keep postponing my big trips, I'm managing to jam so many incredible short excursions into my life.  As much as I'm ready to be home now... I can't wait to hit the road again.

Almost home again...

My mini-American roadtrip is coming to an end, and even though I'm on a train to my favourite city in the world (NEW YORK!!!) I'm feelings pangs of sadness, but not because the trip is ending.  I miss my man already.  These long-distance things...ugh.  I love it in a way, because when we're together I can kind of close the rest of the world out and just focus on us.  But I hate it too, because if during that time you're not feeling 100% (like me yesterday), it's hard to hide that and remain positive.  I don't want to spend a day of our limited time together feeling sick, but what can you do?  In my head I want us to be happy every minute we're together... but I guess that's just not possible. You have to decide at one point, am I going to pretend it's all good, in order to keep up this idea of being a fantasy, or are you going to admit you're grumpy/nauseous/tired and accept the reality that no one can really be a fantasy *all* the time?

Stupid reality...

It's funny how within the last few weeks I've had two such differing trips, each one so amazing.  A and I and our limited budget, stopping at every tourist attraction to take silly photos, sleeping in the car, soaking up every minute of the incredible Canadian landscape.

Then this American trip, money not really an object (although I kept telling him it should be, it's hard to get the stinginess out of me sometimes!), sleeping in fancy hotels,  eating and drinking like gluttons, trying to fuck in as many States as possible (we hit six on this trip, missed out on three though, grr!), and planning to hit tourist attractions but passing them up to spend time together instead.  American monuments just don't seem that interesting when my hot American boyfriend is laying in our giant bed.  

Normally when I return from a trip I just need to adjust my mind back into the reality of Ottawa and my daily life.  Now, I need to adjust my mind back to the reality of Ottawa and my daily life... and to try not to feel too wistful that I have to wait weeks again before I have my man in bed beside me.  BUT, mixed in with that wisftulness is the excitement and anticipation of seeing him again in a few weeks - ahhhh life.  Everything is a double-edged sword with you!

In Philly. Off to a bar where I can drink beer in bumper cars and eat vegan corn dogs (I'd say pogos, but I'm in America so I have to speak American).

Tomorrow I will ingest both a vegan and a regular Philly cheese steak.  Good thing there's a sweet fitness centre here and I brought my resistance tubes for a good workout.  In Canada, I'm able to go to Goodlife anywhere, so on my east coast trip I still hit the gym 3-4 times.  Here, I'm being spoiled and treated to gorgeous hotels, that are all decked out with fancy cardio equipment and pools.  Whoa. La.  

Now for a little American History

Will be spending the afternoon checking out Civil War monuments and purrhaps the Edgar Allan Poe museum in Richmond, VA, before spending the night in Washingon DC! Got a room right by the Lincoln Memorial, so I foresee a drunken me screaming JENNY!!!!!! like I'm Forrest Gump later.  Also gonna see the White House, Washington Monument, Smithsonian.... oh yeah!!!!

Today will also be my first time driving a vehicle other than my own car ever (well I drove Katie's car for my drivers test, but that's it), and my first time driving on American roads.  Stay off the roads, my American friends :P

Philly tomorrow and Friday, then NEW YORK CITY Saturday night!!!!

Home again

Survived the 15-hour drive home.  And only drank two cups of coffee and two energy drinks to make it (I was the only driver).  Been home about three hours now and feeling really wonky, every time I move my head it's like a haze and I know I should be asleep but I can't shut my brain down.  Ugh.  Hoping to wake up feeling okay tomorrow, because I have a lot to do this week before hitting the road again in a week! This month will bring about TWO mini-American roadtrips, YAY!  Can't wait!

Trailer Park Bitches

Yes, we dressed up like the Trailer Park Boys and went to the park where they shot season one.  Meet Julianne, Rikki, and Boobles.

We rule.

Bay of Fundy

Did you think it would be possible for me to gush even more about how amazing this trip is?

Tonight we walked through the mud in the Bay of Fundy, watching a group of girls go mud-sliding.  Goddamn it looked like fun, but they had clearly come prepared for that adventure - their car was parked beside ours, and the entire interior was coated with garbage bags. Our feet and ankles were coated in this red, clay-like mud, that took three washes to come off my feet.  And we just walked out into it - we weren't doing mud-angels and slip-n-slides like they were.  But were they ever having a time, if I lived out here I think I'd go out and do the same.

The sun was starting to set so we decided to drive around and find a place to camp and spend the night.  I wanted more than anything to camp right on the beach, like Mike and I did last year, but the tides are extremely high at this time of year and there would be no BEACH on the beach at high tide, just tide.  So we drove for over an hour down the coastline, looking for a road to bring us anywhere suitable to park for the night.  Every thing that looked like a road turned out to be someone's driveway.  I was way more disappointed than I let on when I suggested just heading back to Truro and spending the night somewhere there.

Then, we found it.  A tiny roadside pointing us to a dirt road, which we followed until it turned into an even smaller dirtroad, fallen trees lining it on both sides.  A was terrified, and I was making jokes about how in a horror movie, we'd be yelling at the screen 'TURN BACK YOU IDIOTS!!!!'.  But I couldn't even stop and turn around, because it was so narrow.  So we kept going.

And now I'm sitting the back of my car, about 30 feet away from the ledge overlooking the Bay of Fundy.  There are two campers here, so we're obviously on someone's property, but they're not home and it's late, and it's the east coast, so even if they show up I highly doubt they'll be mad at us.  So this means we get to stay in a Canadian paradise tonight.  And in the morning, we get to walk out onto the Fundy shore, and make a fire and watch the sun come up over the coast, before heading to Burncoat Head Park, the site of the worlds highest recorded tides, where we'll jump in the beach before heading back to Halifax.

Travelling these days is so odd.  Here I am, at the end of a dirt road, on the edge of the Bay of Fundy.  Yet I'm still typing away on my netbook, and I still have cell reception.  Which reminds me, I need to get an new phone plan, because I just got my phonebill from a month of international texts with my man... and it's even scarier than the drive to this spot was, ha.

Technology is amazing. We're in Maccan, waiting for the highest tides in the world to come  in. Basically in the middle  of nowhere, nothing  but water and trees around  us...but even way out here, and even though he's on the other side of the continent, I'm able to sext my man.  AWESOME :D

Cape D'or

I'm not sure how it's possible, but every day out here so far has been my favourite.

I am sitting here winded and sweaty, having just walked down to Cape D'or, and back up the steep climb.  It was breathtaking.  I mean that literally - as Alanna and I stood at the literal edge of the rock cliffs, you could hear the intake of breath as we stood there, awestruck.

Today we woke up after spending the night in the car in a truck stop parking lot and headed to Joggins, where we were stoked to see the fossil cliffs.  Along the way, I pulled off to check out some wetlands, and we discovered we had accidentally come across one of the areas to view the 'tidal bore'.  To quote the guidebook, 'the Bay's incoming tide is so extreme that it temporarily reverses the flow of several rivers that empty into the bay.  When the tide and rivers collide (twice a day), a notable wave called a 'tidal bore' can be view moving upriver'.  It was pretty cool to see it rush in, and move past us in seconds.

We then continued to Joggins, which failed to impress.  It was awesome to stand on the beach and have the high tide push in on us, we had to give up our hunt for fossils and head back to the stairs out when the tide was almost pressing us against the cliffs.  But overall, not that exciting.

I do have one complaint about small-town Canada.  GET MORE GAS STATIONS.  We drove through four or five smalls towns with the needle on empty, passing signs counting us down to the next gas station - and the first sign said it was 56km away.  I was trying hard not to stress, while blasting through the winding country road at 120km, and A kept a good poker face on even though I'm pretty sure she would have killed me if I'd ended up stranding us on the side of the road.  But we made it, and I learned that I get at least 35km of driving even after my gas light has come on, so at least I'll know that for next time :P

Our next stop was Parrsboro, where A wants to go to the geological museum.  Along the way signs pointed us to Cape D'or, and we decided to check it out.

WOW.  Wow wow wow wow wow.  I was just standing, just now, on the edge of a copper cliff who knows how high up.  It was so surreal - jagged rocks everywhere, the water covered in fog, it felt so unsafe, which is something I'm not used to in Canada.  Here I'm used to ropes and things keeping you away from the danger.  But here there was simply a sign on the edge that said 'DANGER - actively eroding cliff'. One teeny little sign.

I can't believe I'm here.  It's been so amazing.

Tonight we're going to camp somewhere on the Fundy shore, before heading back to see friends in Halifax for a couple of nights and then... home to Ontario.  UGH!  At least I have a roadtrip with Ashley coming up to look forward to, and right after that my man will roll back in to town for a few days.  Without that to look forward to, I honestly wouldn't even want to go back.  I love it here.  I think I may have found my new home.

death to all mosquitoes

The Cabot Trail/ Cape Breton Highlands National Park

When I was in Guatemala almost two years ago, I met a married couple that I became extremely envious of. She was French-Canadian, and I think he was Scottish.  They'd met travelling a decade ago, and never stopped.  Not even when they had kids- she had their infant son strapped to her, and their 3-year-old daughter wasn't missing a beat.  Not even when climbing the ruins at Tikal - the kids went with them.  It made me so happy to see, but the pangs of jealousy also crept up and surprised me.  I'm not one for marriage.  It has never been anything I aspire to, and when I see my future, I see ME.  Independent.  But seeing them made me wish for a partner, because when I do have a child, it won't be as easy for me to keep travelling alone.  A single woman with an infant wouldn't be safe everywhere, and I'd get tired.  So I've had in the back of my mind for a while now that when I have a baby in a few years, I'll have stop travelling.

Then I hit the Cabot Trail, especially the section through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, and I saw what I'll be able to do when I have my baby.  The park section has 24 different trails, with differing intensities, all leading to spectacular views, waterfalls, gold mines, etc.  We didn't do any of the trails today, but I am going to come back here with my baby when I have her.  This is an area I can easily spend a couple of weeks camping in, safely, and the hikes can be done with her strapped to my chest.  I can't wait :D

Anyway.  Enough dreaming.  The last 24 hours have been so beautiful they may as well have been a dream.  I can't even count how many times A and I have stood there breathless, looking at the beauty around us.  I'd honestly never even known about this area, and now I highly suggest all Canadians come out here.  Other people too - I've gone to other countries specifically to go on adventures in areas that can't even compare to some of what I've seen.  And we haven't even hit the Bay of Fundy yet, and that's been called one of the 10 Wonders of the World.

So.  Yesterday we left Price Edward Island, after camping out in the car near Thunder Cove, and headed east to Cape Breton.  We made it partially through the Cabot Trail, and up 'Smokey', where we saw the most beautiful view we've ever seen.  It was too dark to take photos, so we turned around and camped out basically on a rock ledge overnight.  We woke up just in time to catch THIS in the morning - I hadn't even gotten out of the car when I took this photo

We hit the road at 6:30am and started back up Smokey.  I'm so glad we went back in the morning to see this again...

And it just kept getting better and better.  As we climbed up into the mountains, it got foggier and foggier, until we realized we were driving through clouds.  Yes, I said CLOUDS.  Amazing.  Got insanely foggy for a while though, and as I'm a new driver, I was petrified.  Driving down a steep mountain, with shitty tires, almost no visibility...it was one of the scariest times of my life.  I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through, but once we were done I was exhausted and had to have A take the wheel for a bit while I napped.  


I can't wait to come back here in a few years and spent many days up there.  We did it all today in half a day, and what we saw was mind-blowing.  I can't even imagine what I'm going to see when I come here again.  I can't wait. 

Thunder Cove