The Road Trip

About a week ago I packed the car and all my worldly possessions....almost, and began my drive to Nova Scotia.  There were feelings of excitement along with dread at the beginning of the trip.  You know, it is a long way from Houston to Nova Scotia.  Not that it hasn't been done before, with four children and a dog.  But we were much younger then!

And so the road trip begins...Nova Scotia or bust!

When we left Houston the weather had gotten to that point where walking outside and sweating go hand in hand, it was time to head north!  It took us a few days before we got a small reprieve from summer in the south.  It happened in Georgia...I knew I always liked that place!  We were treated to a rare low humidity and not scorching hot couple of days while we visited our friends and I picked up my co-pilots/drivers.  Over the next few days we would spend every waking....and sleeping moment together.  They really had no idea what they were in for! 

Along the way we stopped at a mutual friend's house and visited.  They live in North Carolina and they have chickens!  Sadie thought the chickens were great and tried to get them to fly out of their coop and play with her but we had to put Sadie in her own cage aka the sun porch.  She sat there and watched those chickens with great intensity.  It was her favorite part of the trip.

It is hard work watching chickens, it makes your head heavy.

New Jersey went up a few notches in my book after this trip. (It had a long way to go ...sorry NJites).  I usually want to just twitch my nose and get through the state as fast as I can. I think this year we traveled early enough in the summer that we missed the massive vacation traffic.  We also got to stop and see my LG!  We stayed in Newark at a very nice hotel and they welcomed Sadie with open arms.  Seriously!  Sadie was famous among the staff, they were so happy to see a dog.  I also got to bond with all the weird people in front of Penn Station while I took Sadie out to walk.  We were also situated near a Portuguese and Spanish neighborhood with excellent food choices for our dinner that night.  Our excellent wait staff served us enough food to feed a small country!  It was all delicious!  And LG brought enough leftovers home with her for the rest of the week!

Here I am in Newark with Marathon Girl and my LG, enjoying the neighborhood but not the heat!

half of the food we were served

After consuming mass quantities of food in a Spanish restaurant we said goodbye to my LG and watched her ride off into the dark on the train.  It was totally worth the NJ Turnpike drive!  The next day was not too bad but it was long!  To pass the time the passengers played games drawing pictures and playing word games on phones and iPads...comments heard while driving were, "A man eating a baby on a plate?"  "yes, cannibal!"  We also listened to Catching Fire, the second in the Hunger Games trilogy.  Both were great ways to pass the time!  We did stop in one of my favorite places....the New Hampshire Liquor Store!

This time I decided to declare all of the wine we brought into Canada!  Turns out... "honesty is the best policy."  The border guard did not even flinch when I declared the case of wine we had among the three of us.  We were each two bottles over our limit but he was more concerned about whether we had any mace or pepper spray.  Thank you, nice border crossing guard! 

Apparently escaping the heat of the south took a little longer than expected.  We traveled through the northeast during a heatwave.  Temperatures were over 100 in New Jersey, over 95 in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  Finally, when we made it to Maine we were blessed with lower temperatures.  "Be careful what you wish for", they say. Ever since we arrived here in Nova Scotia, we have had rain, clouds, cool temperatures and beautiful sunsets like this.....

My excitement over sharing our little part of heaven with my friends has been tempered a bit. The sun has not shone it's face since we arrived. My house guests are beginning to question their decision to stay for a week.   I can only hope they are treated to at least one day like this....