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.