Road Trip

Here’s What You Need to Remember Before Your Extended RV Road Trip in Alberta

Are you planning an extended RV road trip in Alberta? A trip that could put you out for weeks, or even a full month, is no event to just “wing.” You’ll need to be meticulous in your planning – especially if you aren’t doing this solo – and you’ll want to plan out as much as possible. Obviously, leave room for some error and freedom, but it’s a good idea to have a rough estimate of time spent on the road and time spent checking out each stop along your journey, RV trips can be great fun for the whole...
Auto Insurance , Road Trip

Little Known Ways to Improve Your Vehicle

If you have grown to recognize red deer auto insurance quotes, the different local mechanics or even recently gotten your car through an upgrade, then you are surely an owner that is very keen on ensuring that your vehicle is always within its optimal condition inside and out. In fact there are a good amount of considerations that you can look into as a vehicle owner to be able to guarantee that your car will always be well improved and running at its optimal functioning and performance, and with this quick list below you can surely begin to learn some...
Tablelands

Walking The Tablelands

Gros Morne has three dominant features: Bonne Bay, Gros Morne mountain, and the Tablelands. We had expected epic fjords and rocky forested mountains - but we hadn't expected the Tablelands. In the middle of green and damp Newfoundland, the Tablelands looked like a chunk of Arizona or perhaps even Mars. It turns out that this is because the Tablelands are a piece of the earth's mantle that was shoved up to the surface by plate tectonics. It's heavy in iron, so it's rust-red like the surface of Mars. It's also low in nitrogen and other plant-friendly nutrients, so the plant...
Yosemite

Two Days In Yosemite

Every year I visit my family in California in late March, and every year we try to find something new to see or do. This year, we decided to see Yosemite National Park. In a lifetime of visiting California, I somehow never managed to make it there. I've flown over it several times, but it's hard to see much detail from 30,000 feet. My mother and I drove eastwards from the Bay Area, passing whole hill-sides of windmills: The valley grew steeper and rockier, eventually coming right up to and sometimes even over the road: Finally we came across a...
Insectarium

Iceberg Beer And The Newfoundl And Insectarium

Most of our time in Gros Morne, the weather was spectacularly sunny and warm. We had packed for rainy weather, so had started running low on appropriate attire. On the second-last day, we hiked to a lovely set of waterfalls:  And on the way back got caught in a torrential downpour. Funnily enough, this is the one time we hadn't brought our full raingear, and we got thoroughly soaked. My Gore-Tex enhanced boots ended up getting soaked from the inside by water wicking through my socks from my water-saturated trousers. We gave up on the campground and got a hotel...
Quebec

Road Trip 2012: Quebec

In May 2012, my mother-in-law gave us her old car - but we live in Halifax and the car was in Edmonton. So we flew there and drove it all the way back to Halifax. We had great weather and I had a new camera. This is part 14 of a series of blog posts about the trip. (All of the photos are hosted on Flickr - click on any to see bigger versions and browse the full set.) We left Montreal in the morning, after trying to find my parents' first Montreal apartment near the McGill campus. We stopped...
Gros Morne

Getting To Gros Morne

Driving most of the way across the continent wasn't enough for us in the summer of 2012 - a combination of wedding gifts and soon-to-be-expiring Aeroplan points made us decide to spend a few days camping in Gros Morne, Newfoundland in early July. I had only been in Newfoundland once before, when I was two years old, and I have to admit I don't really remember it very well. We also didn't do any camping or hiking that time - so this was all going to be new to me. Just like in our May road trip, we were exceptionally...
Smoky Home

Road Trip 2012: Aeropress Morning And A Smoky Home

In May 2012, my mother-in-law gave us her old car - but we live in Halifax and the car was in Edmonton. So we flew there and drove it all the way back to Halifax. We had great weather and I had a new camera. This is the last part of a series of blog posts about the trip. (All of the photos are hosted on Flickr - click on any to see bigger versions and browse the full set.) After several weeks and several thousand kilometres, we were ready to get back home to Halifax. Our campsite in New...
Gros Morne

Climbing Gros Morne Mountain

"Wh-wh-wha? Just give me some time to digest this." It was our first morning in Gros Morne. We had planned on climbing the mountain at some point on our trip, but figured that we would ease into it by having some shorter hikes first. Shannon had noticed that the morning was sunny and clear and had suggested to me that we should climb the mountain today. This being Newfoundland, there was no way of knowing how long we'd have the nice weather, and you really don't want to navigate the top of Gros Morne in the fog or rain. There's...