So! Now it's time to adventure back to Canada with me and Kara! Here's what we did:
We left Berwick very early on 31 January. Like, really early. Stopped a few times for bathrooms, food, unsuccessful trips to the bank aanndddd.... NIAGARA FALLS!!!
A "Defunct for the Winter' Amusement Park!!! Martin's Fantasy Island, to be exact. Western New York's favorite and most affordable family theme park! Who knew?!
We had no idea where we were going, we just followed signs for The Falls until we hit this parking lot:
We ended up not parking there, because it was like, $10. But, we parked right across the street for $5. Of course, it was like the coldest day ever in the history of upstate New York, so that extra few feet across the street was painful. But, worth the $5 savings.
But then BAM -
Snowy Niagara Falls!
Picture where Kara fell asleep real quick. Too much excitement!
We looked at the picture and I was laughing so hard, and we took another photo:
We finally got it together. This is a nice one, actually.
I like that last one too. 'Oh, sister my sister.' 'Sing to me of the man, Sister...' 'It was the best of sister, it was the worst of sister.' 'Thank God Sister got that job at the bank!'
And that was the segment of the entry where I take well-known first lines of books (and a poem) and replace them with the word 'sister.' (that last one was for Maria. i hope she's reading.) Blog points if you can name the books/poem the lines come from!
And then the next day, we woke up early and took the airport shuttle to the Toronto Pearson International Airport for our flight across the country! We ended up in Vancouver, where we found the "super small plane" gate, and took a super small plane over to Vancouver Island!
Plane shots! To quote the lady sitting behind me on the plane, "This is no better than flying in a tin can!" True that. The scariest part was actually just sitting in the plane. Once we got in the air, it wasn't so bad. There were like, maybe 25 seats total. It was crazy.
So then we landed and saw MY DAD!!!!! Who we hadn't seen in over 5 months!!! That was the longest I had ever gone without seeing him. It was a very fun reunion which immediately included a trip to the nearest Tim Hortons. The reunion with my Canadian Gram and Aunt and Uncle was also awesome and SUPER FUN. We hadn't seen them in like.... 5 years? Or some outrageous amount of time that should never happen again.
Kara and I slept good that night. We were tired. And we had the most comfy bed ever to sleep in.
The next day, Kara and I decided we were going to TAKE ON THE DAY and adventure out on an enjoyable walk. There is something called the 'Courtenay Riverwalk' that is about 5 minutes from my dad's house and it's a nice path along the river that stretches for a number of kilometers. It is described on the website for British Columbia as, "a lively promenade for walkers, joggers and people-watchers."
These next photos showcase the glory and wonderment that is the Courtenay Riverwalk.
This is the Courtenay Airpark, which is where tiny planes fly in and out of. It's very fun to sit on a bench along the riverwalk and have a tiny plane land like, 50 feet from you. Trust me.
Ya know, snow-capped mountains. Like, right in your town.
American HOTTIES on the Riverwalk!
Yep, we're adorable.
Canadian pride on the Riverwalk!!! Who wouldn't be proud to be a Canadian?!?!
Dad's Cookies in the grocery store! This has a story:
So, when my American family was up in December celebrating my Grammy's 98th birthday she kept mentioning this company, Dad's Cookies, that used to be at the end of Princeton Street in Somerville,MA, where my mom grew up. And nobody had ever heard of Dad's Cookies before, and for some reason she kept bringing it up. This location of Dad's Cookies was confirmed by some of my aunts. So imagine mine and Kara's amazement when we found Dad's Cookies in a Canadian grocery. AMAZEMENT.
That Saturday, our Aunt Liza took Kara and I to Hornby Island, which you have to get to by ferry, by way of Denman Island. We drove the car onto the ferry, then drove off onto Denman Island, then had to drive across that island to the next ferry point, and then drove onto the final ferry over to Hornby.
While on the Denman Island ferry we encountered a hitchhiker hippie. Ya know, like you sometimes do. Her name was Raje... or something like that. She said her real name was something like, Susan or Nancy, but the name 'Raje' was given to her while she was in India at age 21. Yep. She was basically a Hampshire College student. And she had lived on Hornby Island for like, 25 years or something. Crazy island folk. Anyways, she hitched a ride with us while we drove across Denman Island to the other ferry point. And then we dropped her off at her house once we got onto Hornby. Nice lady. And the first time I had experienced picking up a hitchhiker. Canadians are so freaking nice.
Then! We went to a beach!!
There was lots of driftwood.
And cool rocks!
We walked up a secret path we found leading away from the beach and ended up at this Isla Taco place!!! Who knew?! It was closed for the season, which was a bummer.
And right next to it was this creepy little graffiti hut! An island bathroom, perhaps?
While on the island, we were on a fossil mission. We wanted to find some hardcore, awesome fossils and pretend like we were fossil hunters. So, with information given to us from Raje the hitchhiker, we found the best place on the island to fossil hunt. (Hornby Island is kinda famous for its neat fossils.)
Lucky for us, it was this other gorgeous beach with beautiful snow-capped mountains in the background.
We found some maybe-fossils that day. We had this great rock smasher tool that we used. You may not know this, but it feels great to smash a rock into tiny pieces.
After our rock-smashing adventure, we headed back to the ferry dock to catch the boat back.
What a great day we had!! It was super fun having a girls day with Liza, who is totally awesome.
We arrived back at my dad's house to the horrible news that our grandmother had passed away. So, we unexpectedly had to take a flight out the next morning.
TINY PLANE to get off of Vancouver Island!!! Not much bigger than a person, as you can see here.
But - how awesome - we could see right into the cockpit!!! It RULED. I want to be a pilot. It was super foggy the whole way to Vancouver. Kinda scary, especially knowing you're around all these giant mountains. But, we made it!!!
We had like, maybe a 2 hour wait in Vancouver before we flew back east to Toronto. From Toronto, we called the hotel shuttle and this darling man came to pick us up. He was the best. I might have already mentioned how awesome he was. But, he was seriously the best.
It was like, 11pm by the time we got back to the hotel, but we knew the Denny's is open 24-hours, so we drove over. The waitress remembered us from when we were there the week before :) It was nice. Like, coming home! We had delicious Denny's food! Yumm.
Then we headed back to the hotel, slept like princesses, and woke up semi-early the next morning to take on the long drive back to Maine. It was a looonnngggg drive back. Or, at least it seemed that way. But, we didn't hit any rush hour traffic through Albany, which we were semi-worried about. Smooth sailing all the way home!
So, that was our beautiful, awesome trip to Canada! Everyone should be Canadian, because it rules.
Hope you enjoyed taking a mini-blog-vacay with me! Let's do it again soon!!
I will be blogging again soon with MORE PICTURES, STORIES, AND EXCITING TIMES. As always, duh!
Have a great Friday!!! What's with this nice weather?! Enjoy!!!!
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