how good it feels to be back home again

august 8 - we are currently at home again, and i am writing this at my oma and opa`s house. on tuesday we go to edmonton to see kairo. tonight, me and luke are having a sleepover at our grandma`s house, with our cousins. emma, julia, katrina, and samuel. for the past couple of days we have been driving for 14 hours every day, and have not slept in a tent for a very long time. we washed our car today. i miss my friends, even though i don`t want to leave manitoba. it is home for my heart, and my soul. i will be very sad when we leave. i wish that we lived here. i get exima in edmonton, because it is so dry there. it is nice and moist in the air here. i can`t wait till the cousins arrive at grandmas house. almost home.
anna.

And then we drove...and drove

August 5 - (John writing).  So we spent our last day in the Maritimes seeing our last two legislatures (Charlottetown and Fredericton) and then making our way in the US to begin the trek home.  Bought a GPS unit as we were tired of trying to use the iPhone with spotty coverage.  Then later today we stopped and bought an $8 atlas from Target....we were tired of not being sure where the dmned GPS unit was taking us!  Last night we stayed in Bangor, Maine and tonight we are sleeping every so briefly in Willoughby Ohio (I bet you've never stayed there before).  When you're driving 12 hours a day the diesel car sure is handy, only filling up once while we drive.  That means we drive from bathroom break to bathroom break so instead of measuring MPG or litres/100 km we measure PB/D.  Cheers.

Vacation Schedules

August 3 - John writing from Charlottetown

How do you schedule the time on your vacations?  We worked hard in preparing for this trip, trying to set it up so that we would not just be driving, sight-seeing, eating and sleeping.  So I planned for us to arrive at campsites/hotels by 3 in the afternoon, leaving us time to set-up camp/check-in, have dinner and then relax for the evening.  Well, almost five weeks into our trip and we have yet to experience the relax part.  It seems there is always something that puts us behind schedule, leaving us to scramble for a late supper and then get to bed late.  One thing we consistently seem to underestimate is the time it takes to feed a family of four.  We like to make/cook our own meals when we can, both to save money and because we prefer to eat that way, but that means planning ahead and taking the time to shop for groceries each day, as we can't store very much food while we travel.  And eating in restaurants is not always quick either, as it take time to find a good place in a strange town - a place that serves the variety of foods we seem to need, serves healthy foods (deep fryer free would be nice) and meets our budget.  For this reason we really enjoyed our time in Corner Brook where our friend Doreen Klassen either cooked for us or took us to her favourite places.  It meant we did not have to spend the time shopping/cooking or hunting for food, as she did or had done the work for us.  And to top it off, we ate healthy (or at least healthier) food for those days.
Of course sometimes the scheduling issues we've had relate to issues beyond our direct control.  The other day was a perfect example.  We left our campsite in St. Peter's, Nova Scotia (on Cape Breton island) at a good time in the morning, hoping to get to Charlottetown by mid-afternoon so we could set-up camp, have dinner and go to the Anne of Green Gables musical by 7:30 PM.  Google maps said the drive should take 3 hours and 49 minutes.  As they are usually quite generous with their time, we thought we would be fine.  The only problem is that this route involves taking a ferry and with our ferry experiences so far, we should have known better.  We couldn't make the 1:00 ferry but arrived in plenty of time for the 2:30 ferry, only to just miss getting on that boat so we had to wait for the 4:00 ferry which then turned into the 4:30 ferry which actually left just after 5:00 PM.  By now we knew we were going to have to hurry to get to the show on time at all, so we quickly booked a hotel in  Charlottetown, had supper on the ferry and made it to the show on time...but without the relax part of our day.
In case you haven't heard about our ferry experiences (we've now been on five ferry's/ferrys/ferries?)  On our way to Newfoundland we were scheduled to leave North Sydney at 1:30 AM.  That's late enough for a family that has developed a routine of being in bed by 10:30 while camping, but then we got the news that the ferry was delayed until 3:30...so we went to see a late movie (Toy Story 3 in 3D...not the best $50 we've spent on this trip!) and then fell asleep in our car in the ferry line-up.  The ferry didn't arrive in port until 3:30 and only left around 5:00 AM.  Then our 16 hour crossing took 17 hours and well, there went the relaxing evening we were supposed to have on our first day in Newfoundland.
On the return trip from Newfoundland we made the mistake of not checking the ferry schedule for updates before we left Corner Brook (2 hour drive to the ferry in Port au Basque).  When we arrived at the ferry dock we were told the ferry was delayed for 12 hours!  Our 2:15 PM ferry was now scheduled to leave at 2:15 AM...not good news.  We had the option of waiting in line in a parking lot for 6 hours on the chance we could get onto the 6:00 PM ferry, or return at 12:00 AM for our own ferry.  We decided to wait as stand-by for the 6:00 ferry and got on.  However, this still meant arriving in North Sydney after midnight, when originally we had been scheduled to arrive at 8:00 PM - another relaxing evening gone.  (oh by the way, if you are ever on Cape Breton Island during the August long weekend, book your hotel well in advance as there was literally NOTHING available.  I called a lot of hotels before I found a motel that had just received a cancellation).
So here's hoping that the final week of our trip sees us make good time in the morning and early afternoon, prepare our camp and food in the later afternoon and enjoy relaxing evenings all the way to Alberta.  Well we can hope can't we?

Anna of Green Gables

New Found Land

July 31 - (Wilma and Anna writing)  Just a quick  (or not so quick) blog to let you know we are still traveling.  We have just left Cornerbrook Newfoundland.   While in the Corner Brook area we drove to Gros Morne National Park.  Doreen Klassen, our very gracious host in Cornerbrook was with us.  We had a lovely lunch in the Park and then set out for our hike.   It was great to be active.  It felt like we hadn’t done much physical activity in the last few days.  It was raining lightly, and we were surprised  at how wet we got.  We saw a moose. Up close too. Then we saw a very tame squirrel, up close, eating a wiener. We feared for its life. We learned some interesting facts about marshes and things by the signs along the way. Some of us also thought there were to many boardwalks. As I mentioned the hike was soggy and when we arrived at the fjord, the view was non-existent due to  rain and fog.  We have seen some amazing pictures of the fjord though.  Yesterday was sunny (some people didn’t listen to Anna when she said that we should have done the hike yesterday) and we did another short hike near Corner Brook and got muddy again.  We actually jumped half a kilometer down a river, using only rocks to keep our shoes dry.  In the end, Anna (me) was the only one with completely dry feet.

We are waitig for the ferry back to the mainland tomorrow.  When we arrived at the ferry it was to discover our ride was DELAYED BY 12 HOURS!

  We are in line with a slim hope of getting on the 6pm ferry and not the 2:15 am ferry.  Our last province is Prince Edward Island. 

(all the boring sentences were not written by Anna.)

With our hosts in St. John's, Bill and Patti Clark.

(this is the view from their front yard!)

Quick "hello"

July 30 - (John here)  Just a quick "where ya 'at" from Newfoundland.  We are now in Corner Brook, on the West coast.  Had a GREAT time in and around St.John's, uneventful drive across the island, soggy hike in Gros Morne National Park and now relaxing and seeing the sights in Corner Brook.  However, we don't have access to internet (except for these few minutes) AND we don't have cell phone coverage here (time to expand your coverage Rogers?).  So we'll post a decent update in the next few days when we're in PEI.

Cheers

Travel update

July 25 - After Ottawa we enjoyed our camp ground at Quebec City.  Definitely worth knowing about if you plan to camp close to Quebec City at any time.  Clean new bathroom and laundry facilitities, snack bar, swimming pool with lifeguards, water front.  All for 28 dollars a night.  The sites are wooded.  Free bus ride to downtown Quebec.

We enjoyed seeing the sites in Quebec City, did A LOT of walking, including some walking in the rain at the end of the day.  Maple syrup pie anyone?

Finding relief in Quebec City (National Assembly in background)

We arrived with great relief at our first destination in the Maritimes on July 18;  a resort in St. Andrews by-the-sea.  We were all ready for a little rest and relaxation and found a beautiful spot on the Bay of Fundy in which to do just that.  Lots of time by the pool, reading, and a bit of golf.  Sleeping in some real beds (and Fairmont beds at that) was another relief we enjoyed.  Not that our Thermarests are uncomfortable, but this was sure better!

Fun in the Sun at the Fairmont Algonquin, St Andrews NB 

After three nights at a resort, we went back to our tent.  This time we spent one night near Hopewell Rocks, NB and had our first major rain-camping experience.  It rained most of the night and in the morning we had to take down our camp in a pouring rain.  I remember rains like this from Manitoba, but in Alberta we don’t get these rains – steady, pouring rain, soaking everything and everyone who might be trying to take down a tent!  Thankfully our next day and night in Halifax was sunny, breezy and dry so that all our gear was quickly dried out.  We continued our tour of provincial parliament buildings and found Nova Scotia’s to be the most unique to this point – smaller, more intimate, less security (“random” in Luke’s words).  We enjoyed that.

Playing in the Bay of Fundy

Then it was off to catch a ferry for Newfoundland, with enough time to see a large chunk of the Cabot Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands.  Perhaps we are becoming jaded by all of our travels and experiences, but we were uniformly disappointed by this.  Again, perhaps we are spoiled  or were too tired…

We arrived in Newfoundland last night.  The 16 hour ferry ride it self was uneventful (although it is amazing how little rocking motion on a boat can turn a prairie family green).  The ferry was originally scheduled to leave port in North Sydney, Nova Scotia at 1:30 am but was by this time delayed until at least 3:45 am.  This works out okay if these are day time hours but become a challenge when it is the middle of the night.  So using John’s iPhone we found the nearest movie theatre, and went to see Toy Story 3 in 3D, then drove back to sit in the ferry line up for a few hours.  The kids and I slept in the car as we waited.   By 3:45 we were able to climb into our bunks on the ferry to sleep. 

Today we spent our first day exploring St. John’s and surrounding area and wow, this place really is amazing.  I’m sure we’ll have more comments about it in a few days but for now we are thrilled to be here.  We’re staying with some friends just north of St. John’s, literally looking right onto the ocean from their front yard.  Cheers.

Relationship

Observations about traveling together…

July 25 - (Wilma writing) As we are regularly and for great lengths of time confined to small spaces together, we are experiencing a unique opportunity to evaluate relationships.  While it is not always easy to face our less appealing ways of relating to each other, the close quarters do offer us the opportunity to improve on our communicating abilities.  

You may think I am trying to find a gentle way to say we cannot stand each other any more.  This is certainly not the case, we are embracing the learning opportunity afforded us through this travel adventure:  We are developing a greater appreciation for each other and understanding the implications, each in our own way, of how our relating style influences the response of the others.  It is stretching us, but in a positive way.  

Car games

July 19, Fairmont Algonquin Resort, NB

So I'm sure many of you have your favourite games to play in the car, when you're travelling a long distance and need a way to pass the time.  Not only do they help to pass the time, they can be a great way to interact with each other in the car.  Between reading books, listening to music and watching movies, there are a lot of ways to pass time in the car without interacting.  Here's a sample from a game we played the other day, driving to Quebec City from Ottawa.  Each person in turn gets to add one word to a sentence, making some attempt to connect ideas.  As you may notice from this example, we had recently heard a story (Anne of Green Gables) that addressed the use of the colon...not sure we quite managed it, but heh, you try doing that as a group effort!

"Twas the morning after Easter that Egg awoke to cracking noises.  She thanked the Lucky Duckling for being quiet.  Franklin didn't appreciate the messiness of the door.  Towering over Seattle, with its gore-ish light was the Lucky Duckling: standing than all eggs was a lucky, smallish duckling.  However, it being fat, the smallish Lucky Duckling found it was fat, and although he loved all smallish, fat ducklings, he couldn't bring flowers.  Houses interrupted CBC signals during his ear training exercises.  Coffee Pot [a reference to another car game we play] (plurally) and greyish, brown, green tea was better, although never quite clean.  On December 1956, Martians became fat persons (humanoid) with perogies as their main food source: perogies were what they ate.  Vehicular movement confused lucky Martians of humanoid ducklings.  Mazda, the cleanest car thing that ate lucky, smallish Martians with lucky, rotund ducklings, was poised on the CN pool diving Subway (eat fresh) board.  Tent lights notoriously caused serious vehicular confusion:  having caused vehicles to become confused, when tent lights were on.  Trains crashed silently through white mosquito infested bushes, causing vehicular and earrings with jewels to jump.  French Martians talked."

Hmmm, doesn't make any sense to me either, but I do hear a number of references to items from our trip.  How many can you find?

   Everyone needs some of these travelling pics - don't they?

Wilma driving, Luke 'n Anna watching a movie.

Still here...

July 16 - (Wilma writing here)  We've been getting some text and email messages reminding us to post to the blog.  So in case any of you are still checking, we are still here and back on the road.  Today we are on the road to Quebec City, which we will explore tomorrow (Montreal was a very brief, one hour stop today - it's a big country!).  Yesterday we explored the nations capital.   The temperature was hot, the humidity high, but we enjoyed our tour of Parliament (and it's coolness) including the peace tower.  A benefit of making Canada’s parliaments a focus of our trip is that tours are free.  It has also been interesting from a historical perspective.  

Wiebe family in Ottawa

Earlier this week we stayed with friends near Niagara Fall, toured the falls, got to reconnect with friends we had not seen in a long time and taste some early peaches.  The kids enjoyed the swimming pool.  Have I mentioned that the temperatures are hot and the humidity high? 

         Luke getting a lesson from Oscar Peterson

Oh I forgot to mention, we were in Toronto earlier this week  where we did the parliament tour and “climbed” to the top of the CN tower.  Enjoy the pictures and we'll try to post regularly.  Feel free to text or call us if you want to stay in touch more regularly

  Anna and one of "the famous five", a part of the "Women are persons too" statue set.

As We Liked It

July 11 - We're enjoying a lazy Sunday morning here in KW.  Wilma has gone for a walk, Anna is walking around taking pictures of things around the house (we're staying with Ken and Lynn Bergsma Friesen) and Luke is just waking up/eating breakfast.  Later this morning/early afternoon we will drive out to St. Jacob's and see some of the scenery, including the horse and buggy driving Mennonites in this area.
Last night we drove out to Stratford, had a wonderful dinner and went to see "As You Like It".  It was a great production, updated just enough (1930's) to make it interesting (Nazi references sure make for easy bad guys) and Luke and Anna both enjoyed the play very much.  We had tried listening to a production in the car driving down here, but found it quite difficult to follow.  However the staged production was easy to follow (for the most part) and great fun to watch.  What a treat. Tomorrow we explore Toronto and then off to Niagra/St. Catherine's area.  Laat gaan Nederland!


Dinner in Stratford

Lynn, Simon (Anna, John, Luke) Ken, Allegra in KW

WE STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

July 10 - We drove, and drove and drove. And I was SO bored that I felt like making really annoying noises. Finally we arrived at the lamest campsite EVER! We slept in a tent as usual, and even though we were right by the lake thing (Cypress Lake) we didn't even SWIM! We woke up and packed, and hiked to the huron lake thing in Georgian bay to swim (saw underwater caves "the grotto"), and it was FREEZING, and then I was BORED AGAIN! because we were in the car AGAIN! Then we stopped at Ken and Lynn's house (friends of ours in Kitchener). And now it is morning time we are NOT DRIVING!!!!!!!

And then the rains came...

July 8 - Yesterday we drove from Kakabeka Falls to Agawa Bay on Lake Superior.  The drive was long and quite slow, although beautiful and the northern Ontario roads are a lot better than I remember them.  We had booked a campsite at the Agawa Bay Provincial Park, with no real idea of what to expect.  When we arrived we were stunned by the beauty of the place and our campsite in particular.  Agawa bay is a small bay on Lake Superior and yesterday it was perfectly calm, like glass.  Our campsite was on the edge of the beach, in sand, overlooking the bay.  What a pleasant surprise.  During the night, the rains came and we had our first chance at breaking camp in rain.  It went well, faster than normal, but breakfast was at Tim Horton's.  We all agreed we prefer our own camping breakfasts!
Weather has been great - warm to hot during the day, with night time lows of around 18.   Today we drive across Manitoulin Island and take the ferry to Tobermorry, on Georgian Bay.  Tomorrow we hike to the "grotto", swim and then later in the day drive to Kitchener-Waterloo.

On the Road

July 7 - Yesterday we left Manitoba. We were sad to go. We soon forgot our sorrow by looking at Ontario for the fist time that we could remember. We stopped in Kenora and looked around and at our parents old house. Then we drove away and arrived at a nice campsite for dinner and a quick swim. Today in the morning we got up early to eat breakfast and pack. We just stopped for lunch at a picnic spot.

stiff backs all around (16 hrs of driving)

 Regina legislature 

                                          
Yesterday we left our beautiful home in South Edmonton. Between 6:00am and 6:30am we all jumped out of bed, getting dressed and packing the car. It took us till 8:30am to finally drive away from my gorgeous golden-doodle (golden retriever crossed with a poodle), Kairo. He is big for his age and very white. The poodle in him shows. He loves people, and can't find a good balance between mischief and 'good doggy!'. We will all miss him terribly. We stopped in Regina to take photos at the Legislative building, walk around a lake and eat artificial junk. Then we drove for a very long, boring amount of time and stopped after midnight to meet our aunty Bev at the Manitoba Legislature. The air was so hot, and so humid I said it felt like breathing water. Then we drove and became more and more hyper until we reached Steinbach after 1:30 in the morning. Now we're at our Oma and Opa's house in Steinbach Manitoba. We are still very exited about the upcoming events in our parents hometown of Manitoba, such as; a sleepover with our very missed cousins in Grunthal, and a family gathering at our grandma and grandpa's house. We leave for northern Ontario on Tuesday morning - stay tuned for our next update after that. (I did not want to say that last sentence, that was my dad.)

Canada Day and Packing

Although we haven't yet left Edmonton, our journey has sort-of begun. Yesterday, Canada Day, we spent most of the day packing, cleaning and doing yard-work, but then later in the day we went to the Legislature grounds to enjoy the party atmosphere and get our first picture taken in front of a Legislature building. We also enjoyed the fireworks later that evening - although you should know that in Edmonton the fireworks can't begin until 11:00 PM, and even then it is not dark outside. Great fireworks show though. Now we're almost ready to hit the road. Cheers.

Getting ready for an Epic journey - to Newfoundland...and back!

Planned departure date: July 3, 7:00 AM.


No pictures yet - those should be up just before we go...hopefully a picture of the packed car, packing process, etc. Right now we've purchased most of the supplies we'll need for the trip. In case you're not aware of exactly what we are attempting this summer, here's a rundown:

- Drive from Edmonton to Newfoundland...
- in a VW Golf Wagon...
- with four people - John and Wilma (parents), Luke, 13 (taller than mom, still shorter than dad) and Anna 11 (who will contribute much of the written blog.
- tenting or staying with friends enroute
- estimated distance - 14,000 KM
- estimated time - 37 days
- estimated number of hours in the car - 160
- number of ferries we will use on the trip - 4
- number of parliament buildings we expect to see - 9 (includes Ottawa and 8 provinces)
- number of rainy nights camping - hoping for none!
- number of books we'll listen to in the car - 5 (we have to agree on the book is he problem)

Anyway, I'm sure we can think of more trivia for your amusement, while you sit in your backyard or by the lake all summer sipping cool drinks and toasting the fact you are not in a car for 160 hours this summer. Do check back to see our updates and pictures and say hello.

Cheers.