Saturday, August 15, 2015

The Great Canadian Roadtrip: Abducting Ron Clifford

 One of the things that many people forget when planning a road trip is that it can be the perfect opportunity to pull a heist.

This is why when my wife +Debbie DeBaeremaeker  and I started on our epic cross-Canada road trip adventure the first thing we did was kidnap master photographer Ron Clifford.

Seriously.

Tho "kidnap" may be overstating it, since he went voluntarily.  Ron is a friend we met during our time in the Chrysta Rae Photo Scavenger Hunt on G+.  Thru the good graces of fortuitous fate we ended up discovering that we both ended up having reasons to visit the western side of the country, so we invited him to tag along. (Yes, he did go willingly, officer, why do you ask?)

He happened to live along the route for the first day's journey, so he ended up being our first stop (well second. I live with a quilter - I will let you figure out what our first stop actually was).
So with a Ron safely ensconced in the Geovan of Destiny, we raced across the country in search of our first stop.

Oh, about the first stop.  Class participation time:  If one was heading from southern Ontario, with a goal of heading west to Alberta, and travelling about 4-6 hours a day, what would your first stop be? 

Go ahead. Guess.

Nope, you are wrong.

It is in eastern Ontario.

(???)

So long story short, my sister-in-law got married last year, and my wife made them a quilt as their wedding guest book.  My wife finished off the quilt, and wanted to deliver it to my sister-in-law in person.  She lives in eastern Ontario.

So the first stop on our road trip west was to drive a days journey east.  That is just the way we rolled (it helps if you suspend your disbelief for the remainder of this series).

Aside from the heist, our first day was pretty uneventful.  We did end up stopping in Colborne Ontario and visiting the Big Apple - the first of many Roadside Canada attractions we ended up discovering along our journey.
Little known fact (at least by me). One can go inside the apple, and stand on the very top.

We spent the night with my sister-in-law in eastern Ontario. We invited over another Scavenger, +Derek Kind, for supper, so the boys ended up talking photon capture, and the girls discussed sisterly things (I'm a dude, so no idea what that may include).

Thats it really.  A pretty uneventful day.  I hope you found it as interesting as this llama. 

Tomorrow we head west once again, and visit some of my old stomping grounds.  We end up visiting more Scavengers along the way, and taking way more photographs than I ever thought possible.

Stay tuned.  This party train is just leaving the station.

All aboard!



Thursday, August 13, 2015

The Great Canadian Road Trip: There And Back Again

Summer is here, and the time is right for dancing in the streets an epic road trip.

Frequent readers of this blog may have noticed that things have been a tad quiet around here over the past month.  Some of you may have even wondered why.

Wonder no more.

The reason is that my wife and I have been on an epic road trip across Canada (and parts of the States) that left me way to busy to be able to share my adventures.

Now that we are back, I can start to share some of our stories. So, over the next bunch of posts I will fill you all in on our epic adventures, but let me give you a summary.

On July 18th we all piled into the Geovan of Destiny and headed northward from our home in North Carolina to our family in southern Ontario. There we left the kids in the capable hands of their grandparents.  While the kids got a classic "summer on the farm with grandma and grandpa", my wife and I hopped back into the Geovan of Destiny and started an epic road trip across the middle parts of the country  - from the eastern edge of Ontario to the western edge of Alberta (and beyond).  An epic quest that took us over 18 days to get there and back again - tho we did stop to smell the flowers (and buffalo) along the way.

Along the way we picked up friends and strangers, camped, geocached, photographed, hiked, adventured, and explored our way across the great and wonderful country known as Canada.

So stay tuned as I'll share some of these adventures over the next few weeks.

She's gonna be a beauty, eh?

Monday, August 10, 2015

R.I.P. Garmin eTrex 30

I am sad to have to announce the untimely death of my trusty Garmin eTrex 30 this weekend.  Its life was tragically cut short by an unfortunate encounter with the passenger door of the Geovan of Destiny at a mega event in West Bend Wisconsin.

This plucky GPS is survived by his owner, and a Motorola MotoX (first gen) smart phone.  In lieu of flowers, please send Amazon gift cards to pay for his replacement.

~ August 2013 - August 2015 ~

Sunday, August 09, 2015

Maritime Philosophy

Across this Lake is another state...

   ...of mind.
   ...of being.
   ...of the Union.

Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Milestone: My First British Columbian Cache

Today I claimed my first British Columbia cache, collecting all 10 provinces for my geocaching map.

Go me.

Milestone: My First Albertan Cache

It is official.  I have logged my first geocache in Alberta. Only one province left to go!