Leaving on a Jet Plane
A week away was planned some time ago and here it is. …
Travel
Bladder Saver
Lately I’ve been making fairly regular trips back to my hometown. Well, I have three hometowns, and I’m traveling past or to at least one of them on these road trips. I drink coffee. I always take along a bottle of water. When nature calls, I’m caught in that all-too-familiar state of wondering how to answer. A stroke of genius hit me on Sunday. …
Throwback Thursday – The Hockey Series in the Shadow
All Canadians know about the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series in which the NHL proved its supremacy via Paul Henderson’s last minute goal. In 1974, the upstart WHA took on the Russians with a different outcome. The World Hockey Association was attempting to prove it was as good as the National Hockey League and better than the Russians. It had some of the great players but it didn’t have the preparation time that the NHL had enjoyed two years earlier. …
Throwback Thursday – The Hockey Series in the ShadowRead More »
Leggo My LEGOLAND
Only one thing could get me to go to LEGOLAND at the massive Vaughan Mills shopping centre on a Saturday. He’s short, adorable, and the son of my Little Sister. And he happened to watch Lego Batman about eleven times last week. …
Throwback Thursday – Science, I Love Thee
Four years ago on a trip to Calgary, Alberta to visit my cousin Barbara-Anne, we grabbed a few more cousins and took a road trip to Drumheller and the Royal Tyrrell Museum. If you love science like I love science, specifically dinosaurs and fossils, you’ve got to check it out sometime. …
Throwback Thursday – Icelandic Adventure
How quickly a year flies by. Last February, we went to Iceland and got to see and experience things that aren’t available anywhere else in the world. From the jagged and unique terrain to the opportunity to actually stand between two continents, to the friendly people and their unusual way of life, it was truly an adventure. …
Throwback Thursday – Jamaican Dreams Dashed
Jamaica is beautiful. You probably don’t need proof, but here’s a photo I took off Montego Bay when I was there in the early 1990s. …
Lobster Will Flounder
How anyone can dispute the science of climate change baffles me. It’s fodder for stand-up comics (Can we trust temperatures taken 150 years ago?? Back then they were using leeches to cure disease!) and hard right-wingers who believe that if it wasn’t in the Bible, it doesn’t exist. Oh, unless it’s something convenient like a microwave or Tinder app. …
Road Trip – Destination #2; Belfast, Maine
Up until about the 1980s, Belfast, Maine was the world’s chicken-processing capital. Then, like car-makers high-tailing it out of Detroit, the chicken companies left Belfast for other parts of the world, taking with them jobs and the town’s economic engine. Now reinvented as a lobster and ship-repair hub, Belfast is a model for how other towns can survive after a similar downfall. …
Road Trip – Destination #1; Hampton Beach
Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, is a sunny, sandy spot where Derek’s family traveled to a time or two when he was young. If you know Grand Bend, imagine its main drag opposite the beach and about 10 times as long. That’s Hampton Beach, which is beautiful and pristine and popular. …
Bye-Buy B3
This motorcycle mama is coming off the road. …
Throwback Thursday – Nice, Je Suis Désolé
One can’t really appreciate the magnitude of the Grand Canyon until they’re standing on its edge. And you can’t truly get a sense of how beautiful and pristine the coastline of France is, until you’ve stood on the beach, with its white sand between your toes. …
Throwback Thursday – Parlez Vous Francais?
For years, I wanted to see England and France. Eight springs ago, I finally got my wish. It was a wonderful trip with a few days in Paris, a few days in London, time spent in Kent and Nice as well as a week at a beautiful bed and breakfast in a medieval town called Cagnes Sur Mer. …
Throwback Thursday: Scott Shannon, Still Tops
There aren’t too many people to look up to in broadcasting anymore. Thousands who thought Jian Ghomeshi was all that sure got a slap upside the head in the past year or so. And the business is less stable than ever. Even some of the well-liked, long running hosts find themselves at the wrong end of a pink slip. Take Jennifer Valentyne. She was let go from CITY-TV after 17 years simply because they found a cheaper way to do what she does. …
The Meat Machine
It’s after midnight and you want some fresh hamburger or a can of pate. What are you going to do? Well, if you’re in Paris, France, you simply find the right butcher shop on Rue de Charonne and pop some coins into their meat vending machine out front. …
Throwback Thursday – Motorcycling in France
Now that spring is here, a young – er, middle-aged woman’s fancy turns to getting out on her motorcycle. Well, this one’s does. …
My First Book of Scraps
The last few times I’ve wanted to make a book to encapsulate a trip or an event, I’ve done it online with Shutterfly. When it came to Iceland, for some unknown reason, I decided to make a scrapbook. Now I’m one of them! …
A Final Thought on Iceland and Traveling
If I had unlimited funds, and no need to work, I would travel, travel and travel. To me, travel means exploring and finding out where the locals spend their time. Avoiding tourist traps as much as possible. Visiting museums and finding out-of-the-way places to stop and look around. And without fail, every time I come home, I’m more grateful about life in Canada. …