here I am, the only living girl in new york...

Click on the photos to see the author of these beautiful photos. TIME SQUARE OMG!

OMG! I just looked at google maps and it will only take 8 (count 'em EIGHT!) hours to drive from Guelph to New York City! ROAD TRIP!

Note: I do understand that I haven't left Yukon yet, not even taken our summer road trip and am already thinking of another one. There are no help groups for this, I checked. You'll just have to live with it.

Wollman Rink! Gotta go here, except that I can't skate. Well I can, for 5 minutes and then my feet are killing me worse than a pair of 6 inch heels.

Eat pizza in Greenwich Village!

Rockefeller Center and ice skating!

Give respects to the Lady

Brooklyn Bridge!

Manhattan!

Bridge in Central Park- Autumn in New York!

Okay, I have to stop now. These are just a few of the places I want to see in New York City.

I hear that Autumn is the best time to visit New York for its beauty. What do you New Yorkers think??

Next places up for review as future holiday spots:

• Maine--anywhere in Maine.
• Boston, MA
• Nashua, NH (paternal family is from here originally after coming over on the boat)
  
• Hyannis Port
• Elizabethtown
• Savannah, GA
• New Orleans, LA
  
• Austin, TX
  

Speaking of Road Trips...

Seeing as I am on the subject of road trips, I think I will continue. It is a passion of mine and RBs so we do a lot of it. This one is a special one though. RB and I had been dating less than a month and it was my birthday. He decided to take me up to Squamish/Whistler for it and we'd stay in a hotel overnight. In fact, we never meant it to turn into a road trip. We thought we would simply drive up to Whistler, do our thang, and then head home the next day. In the words of the Genie from Aladdan "Wrong!" I had casually mentioned I had never been to Pemberton and Lillooet and so we decided we'd drive there. And then after that, well, heck! Why not just drive to Cache Creek while we're at it. No, let's just drive the whole canyon and loop around and come through the Fraser Valley! If this was not love, I don't know what is.

And seeing as it's a road trip, and RB and I are book picture happy people, we have evidence! Behold the magical wonders that await you in the southwest coast of British Columbia! P.S.-you can click on any of these photos to see them larger!

We didn't have the grandest of weather for our trip, but it didn't matter because we were going to WHISTLER! as well as the effects of early-romance heat to keep us warm. This is looking behind us coming up the Sea-to-Sky Highway. You'll hear about this when the 2010 Vancouver olympics happen next February.

I decided I would play around with the photos just for fun. Well, actually I am playing around with them so I can fit more on here without making the post absolutely ridiculously long. Ha!
Well as you might imagine, this is us. Yes, we pose. We're posers. Have a problem with that?! Eh?!

We took some self portraits and when I say "we" I mean "I". Obviously not too savvy with the self-portraiture as I meant to capture RB but only managed his mouth. That's okay, I like his mouth. Mmmmoving on.

Sing it with me, One of these things is not like the other...who cares! What is this Sesame Street? We read maps, er, I read maps, drank lo cappuccino and respected some bears. Bears deserve respect not garbage! No sir, no garbage. I think I'll use this line the next time I mark my students' work. Dawn deserves respect and good papers, not garbage!

We went to Lost Lake in Whistler Village. It doesn't look lost to me...but if it was, we found it! finders keepers!

See RB in the waterfall. See RB missing. See RB throw his shoes off and onto the road because he can't find his way out of the waterfall without putting both feet in the water. See Dawn roll her eyes and grumble....men, eh...

I can't stay serious for all photography, so sue me! RB probably thought he had started to date a nice girl. Ha! Fooled him, eh?

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Well, just bears. Bear. One Bear that we almost hit when we turned a sharp corner and it crossed the road. We'll call this emo-bear, or suicidal bear. Nom nom nom on the dandilions. Hungry bear. I stay in car, mmm kay?

Anyone who knows RB knows he's of the frugal sort. He also loves to camp. He has a book on all the free campsites in British Columbia and this was one of them. Somehow I wouldn't camp here knowing less than a kilometer (.6 of a mile for you 'mericans) there was a hungry black bear. The campsite and I would be free...to eat.

Mainly we saw road, mountains, and trees.

We saw some beautiful picturesque country-side once we got near Cache Creek. Below is an old train tunnel.

Finally we got to this: I don't know the name of the lake but it's in Lillooet. It's so beautiful. I heart road trips!

What's the most beautiful lake you've been to?? Tell me so I can go! Crater Lake? Lake Tahoe? Somewhere? Anywhere?!!? Inquiring minds want to know!

Last Year's Road Trip

So I promised I would write about our trip from last year. I've posted a few pictures of our trip from last year when referencing places such as Montana (one of my favourite states). So we began our trip last year by driving to Edmonton (of course) and heading straight south on the Deer Foot Trail (#2) that runs north south through Alberta and right to Milk River, Alberta which is at the crossing into Montana.

Evidence of our very last Timmies for the next six days until we arrived in Michigan where, thank the heavens, Tim Horton's gods live.

Welcome to Montana, ya'll! Er, they don't really say ya'll. I just threw that in there. I'm sorry I HAVE to put more Montana pics up. It's just in me, I can't stop it...

I firmly believe that the angel of God that assisted in making Montana was an artist. It always looks like a painting!

Way to go RB! Who doesn't like a man who can start a fire, I'd like to know! Something sext about it, primal...animalistic...er.. moving on.
So I realized I skipped a whole part of our trip--Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Wyoming...but that deserves a post on its own. So I will show you the borders of our trip. They were cool none the less! The green agricultural lands leaving Wyoming and heading back into Montana gearing up to head east.
I realize this is a Wyoming welcome sign, but we passed it on the other side of the road leaving Wyoming. When we left out the east entrance/exit of Yellowstone NP, there was no Welcome to Wyoming sign. It was our goal to get welcome signs for every state, so we stopped the car and cheated a little. So this was actually a 'come again!' sign to us. Yeehaw! We sure will! Second fav state!
You just can't beat scenes like this, even when you're driving! Well, RB was driving so I got to gawk!

This is what we saw for the next day and a half. Road, heat coming off the road, dried grass, hay, wheat, and telephone poles. And the occasional rest stop. I loved it! It's so American!

I have a friend back in Newfoundland, CM, who did a similar road trip to this a year or few back and said one of the points of stoppage was Wibaux, Montana which is the last exit before crossing into North Dakota. It's a small-town-America town and he said he stopped into a bar and when he walked in everyone just stopped and stared. Obviously they weren't used to strangers. It was a biker bar. He was scared. He tipped his hat and left if I remember correctly. I believe it was a Saturday that we came through and most places were closed. In fact the "downtown core" consisted mostly of little shops closed for the summer? Strange. People who walked the street waved. It was all very charming. There's my shameless plug for Wibaux. They had the best people at the gas station just off the exit. Very friendly and helpful!
Welcome to North Dakota--home of--wait for it---FARGO! doncha know...
Our overnight stay in North Dakota had us staying at Theodore Roosevelt National Park just over the border. This was in the town of Medora, ND which is the 'host town' of TRNP. Rob was having fun playing with nighttime camera settings while I talked on the calling card to mum and my sister Jennifer.
Quite the quaint little town. Has an excellent restaurant in one of the hotels (I can't remember the name) but had excellent steak! Well why wouldn't North Dakota bring the beef, I'd like to know!
We saw wildlife...
And sunrises...

And great panoramas!

And Fargo! We didn't stop. By Fargo we were pretty much dead set on driving as much as we could and stopping only for gas. We pretty much lived on Rockstar (we picked up a cheap $24 flat of 24 from the Costco in Montana--Tax free state! Did I mention how much I LOVE Montana??!)

We'll call this 'drunk in Minnesota'
Rolling green hills! I imagine this is what Ireland could look like if they received any sunshine! ;)
We stopped for the night in St. Cloud. Anyone a Trisha Yearwood fan?? I thought so!
I'll leave this entry with a flag. This is already picture-heavy so I will continue with part II later. Enjoy! I love America!

Tell me! What do you love most about America, and what says "America" to you. Say it with pictures if you can!

Road Trip!

Now Aussie Chic has inspired me to talk about road trips. I was going to talk about the one that RB and I did last summer, but instead I have chosen to talk about our upcoming one--I will talk about past ones later. Also, I am uber excited about this one.

We will be driving a hefty 5100km (3060-ish miles for my friends to the south). Each road trip so far takes us up to Edmonton, Alberta first where my best friend Kathleen, her husband Bry and their two kids (my little darlings) live.

The Gore family (L-R: Me, Kathleen, Alexandria, and Mikayla) Kathleen and I have been friends for almost 8 years now. We worked at Orange Julius together in 2001 and have been pretty near inseparable since except when she decided to take off from BC to Alberta on me. I guess I can't really talk as I have been to various provinces and territories. I've managed to see them at least once per year since 2005 anyway...some years 3 times per year.

These are the dearest girls I've ever known. I've known them since they were in mommy's tummy and I love them like they're my own. And miss them too! Don't worry girls, Auntie's coming soon!

Now I don't have favourites, but I do love this one of Alex. They love to put on their princess dresses.

So the first leg of our journey will take us from Langley, B.C. to Edmonton. We'll definitely be seeing this sign again. Hopefully we get out early in the morning and we won't see this in daylight. As we'll be towing a trailer we will have to allow ourselves the extra hours it will take to get through mountainous terrain.

We'll be leaving August 24th in the wee early hours (I am wanting to kick RB's butt into gear around 2-3am. I used to be a competitive swimmer with swim meets that started at 5am so I have no issues waking this early...he was a sea cadet and that's supposed to make him an early riser but....alas, no.) We'll be spending about 5-6 days in Edmonton before we take off south toward Montana. I've shown Montana pics before so I won't again...well, maybe I will show new ones :)

Coming into Butte, Montana

We are planning to stay in Butte over night and then in the wee early hour head south into eastern Idaho, to Utah and south through Salt Lake City where we will hang a left to head into Colorado. I am hoping to stay overnight in Colorado--though not sure where. Any suggestions????

From Colorado we will keep on the interstate heading northeast into Nebraska--through Nebraska all the way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. From here we will go to Chicago, head south a bit around around the southern bend of Lake Michigan into Indiana and then over to Ohio. We will then head north from Toledo into Michigan up to Detroit to cross back into Canada heading to Guelph, Ontario our final destination point. I will post a map so you can see this whole trek--as I am a geographer, and I do love my maps.

Our super-awesome-fantastic road trip 2009

So, all said and done, we would like to know of places near the interstate or near our route that could potentially be of interest to us. Some of the places that I know of are:

• Lewis & Clark Caverns
• Mormon Temples in Salt Lake City
• Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado
• Iowa 80 truck stop

Any other suggestions????