Road Trips for Dummies

After my epic cross country road trip, I have decided that it would be irresponsible of me not to pass on all the wisdom I learned to you folks, my faithful readers.

The first thing you should do when planning a road trip is to determine if you should actually do a road trip or just fly, take the train or take the bus. This may be done by asking a few simple questions.

• Are you more interested in doing a road-trip than simply arriving at a destination?
  
• Does the thought of driving to your destination excite you because of the freedom it presents?
  
• Do you want to make some stops along the way?
  
• Do you want to really see the country side?
  
• Do you have some friends along the way you really want to see?
  
• Do you enjoy sitting in a car for long periods of time, possibly by yourself?
  

If you answered 'yes' to most of the above questions, congratulations, you should totally go on a road-trip. If you're interested only in your destination, there's a good chance that the airfare for that same trip is cheaper than gas. Even taking the train or bus could be preferable.

This brings us to our next section:

Planning

Since you have clearly decided to drive, it is time to plan your road-trip. This may differ from trip to trip, depending on how long its going to be. Lets assume that it'll take more than a day, and you'll need lodging of sorts along the way.

The best thing about road-trips is that they're about the journey, not the destination. Plan some flexibility into your route. If you want to stay in a certain place more than you planned originally, make sure that's possible to do. Try as hard as you can not to make any hard deadlines in your plan. Unfortunately that's not always possible, you might have to get to work, start school, whatever, but if you can call some people and tell them not to expect you for an extra day, you're doing things right.

Start by planning definite stopping points. For me these are usually friends or cities I want to see. Next figure out what the most amount of driving you want to do in a day is, then plan intermediate stops in between if need be. I suggest not driving more than 12 hours a day. 12 hours isn't actually all that bad, but driving more than that gets difficult and wears you down.

The final step is to ensuring that you actually have places to stay in your plan. Since I like staying with friends, this usually involves a) making sure they still like me enough to let me crash on a couch, and b) making sure they plan on being around when you hope to be rolling through, and c) letting them know that it could be subject to change within a certain tolerance. Another place I like staying is in hostels. Hostels, unlike hotels, don't usually have overnight check-ins, and you usually have to be there by 9:30 if you want a bed for the night, so you need to keep this in mind.

Driving

Now that you've planned your trip, there are a number of things to keep in mind while driving.

Comfort

Make sure your drive is comfortable. Its hard to survive 12 hours in a car if you have a belt poking into your back, or luggage in your personal space, or if you're too hot or too cold because you didn't dress for the weather. It is important to dress for the trip, it is very unlikely that you will be going to a formal ball at the end of your trip, so don't wear a suit, or button up shirt. My personal favourite outfit is a t-shirt and sweat pants.

Another important aspect is luggage. For me, I find it uncomfortable if the vehicle is messy, or if there is luggage in my personal space. Pack your things properly, ensuring that things you may require during the trip are handy, and everything else is nicely packed.

Fatigue

Fatigue will kill you. Make sure you never drive tired. If you feel like you're getting too tired to drive, turn on the air conditioning. If you aren't fully alert in a minute or two, pull over and switch drivers if that's an option, or take a nap. I have to admit to two occasions in the past (not on my most recent trip, because I've learned my lesson), waking up when the vehicle drifts onto the rumble strips on the side of the highway. I was lucky, you might not be.

It is also important to realize when you will likely experience the most fatigue. I am usually good while it's still light, but tend to have to fight fatigue as soon as its dark. I try to make sure my driving for the day is over by sundown (you can't see much of the landscape at that point anyway).

Food

One thing I have found to make or break a road-trip, is the food I eat. If I eat chips, cookies and candy, the driving sucks. I end up getting a sugar high, then crashing and not only feeling kind of sick, but having to fight fatigue again. On the other hand, eating healthy – like making sandwiches or buns before you leave – can make you feel great all day.

Stress

Do your best to avoid stress. As soon as you start stressing, the trip is no fun anymore. Things that I try to avoid are driving with less than half a tank of gas in areas where gas stations are few and far between, car troubles, not having cash while on a toll road, having to be at a destination at a certain time – especially if its an unrealistic goal. The list could go on and on, but you get the point. Figure out what stresses you out, and do your best to negate them as much as possible.

In conclusion...

My recent trip across the continent (mostly Canada), was among the best experiences of my life. I saw a lot of great people I already knew, met a lot of great new people, and experienced countless people's incredible hospitality. Not only that but I experienced some phenomenal countryside. I had loads of time for self-reflection which is hard to get in the hustle and bustle of normal life. I would highly recommend an extended road-trip to anybody.

Panorama Shots

Over the course of my trip, I decided there were a few places which would make GREAT panorama shots, only I don't have that functionality on my camera. I figured I could probably find some GNU program to do it for me, so I took the shots anyway, and guess what? I did find a great little program to do it for me, so here are some pretty neat panoramic shots.

I believe this is the Bow River, in Kananaskis

Lake Louise and surrounding mountains, with snowbank very prominent in the foreground

Kamloops from a surrounding hillside.

If you want a hi-res version of any of these, leave me a note in the comments.

Day 13

I left my camera in the trunk of my car today, so sadly I don't have any pictures. Google might help if you wanna know what Vancouver looks like.

Today I finally got to Vancouver! The driving was much the same as last time: breathtaking. It was interesting, because for about an hour or so before Abbotsford I was driving constantly down, and the hill was steep for 90% of the way too! I hadn't realized how high up in the mountains I was.

I met up with my friend Robin, and promptly found an April transit pass on the ground. I'm pretty excited about this because parking is very expensive in Vancouver, so the less I have to do it, the less money I have to spend.

Then Robin took me to the beach on UBC, which interestingly enough is the only nudist beach on a university campus in the world. Fortunately there were no naked people there... not quite warm enough yet.

We did a brief tour of campus/Granville island, then I went to see my cousins at Trinity Western. I'm currently staying in one of the dorms here.

From now on, I don't think I'll be posting every day, I'll keep you updated as cool stuff happens! I'm starting my house-hunt soon!

Over and out.

Day 12

Today my friend Red and I explored Kamloops. Kamloops, or rather the Okanagan Valley, is a semi-desert, or psedo-desert or almost-desert. I'm not 100% sure what the correct terminology is. Whatever it is, Kamloops surrounded by hills which are full of shrubs and a few scraggly trees and paths to walk on. Its very different from the Rockies, but it is quite beautiful none-the-less.

Kamloops from one of the surrounding hills.

We walked among the hills for a while, then went down to the river and walked along it for a while. The river isn't quite as clean as the glacier ones in the mountains, but right now its about that cold. I'm told there are sturgeon in there, and in the fall a major sockeye salmon run goes through it.

The river will rise 2 to 3 meters still

Just a train... nbd

We spent a majority of the afternoon relaxing as I caught up on blog posts while watching TV (I apologize if it seemed a little dis-jointed), after which I went with Red's sister and mother and dropped her off at work. I ate dinner with her family, then joined them on the family grocery shopping trip. On the way Mr. Red gave me a brief driving tour of Kamloops, telling me some of the history and geography of the area. Even the trip to Costco was fun: it felt like I was back at home with my family.

Tomorrow I am on my way to Vancouver! After almost two weeks of looking around the country, I'm going to have to start looking for both a job and a place to live. The idea is to sublet from a student for the summer, so that can get a general idea of Vancouver life before I sign a lease and legit settle down for an extended period of time. As for jobs? I want to apply everywhere, and take what I get, re-evaluate how much I'm liking it, then possibly spend more time looking for a more permanent job.

Happy 4/20 to all, and to all a good night.

Day 11

Last night I visited my Calgary cousins at my cousin's house. His house is an ex grow-op (I would like to confirm that it is no longer a grow op), and requires a lot of work. To date, he has redone his bathroom, bedroom, most of his floors and most of his living room. His wife is an architect and does most of the design work, and he is an impressive DIY-er. The results are beautiful. I was especially impressed by the furniture he made.

The original plan for me was to go kite-snowboarding today with a friend of my uncle's, but at the last minute he heard about a funeral he needed to go to. I decided that instead of coming up with something else to do, I would just move along. So I packed up my things, said goodbye to my aunt and uncle, and set off to Kamloops BC.

My uncle and I went over a number of points of interest on the way and planned out my route.

Going back into the mountains took my breath away again. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. If you have never been to mountains, put it on your bucket list, its something else. No amount of pictures and descriptions prepared me for this. My first detour was to get off the 1 West to the 1A West. Its a little more scenic and the objective was to see mountain sheep, which sadly did not happen, but it was still beautiful, and I saw a coyote!

Next stop was at Johnstone Canyon, which is a short walk up a canyon with a stream running through it. There are some beautiful falls. I only went to the close ones so I would have time to see the rest of the things on my list and get to Kamloops sometime today! I only fell once on the hike, which was impressive because the entire hike was on packed snow and ice.

I REALLY wanted to jump in, but its all glacier water, and  its still kinda winter...

Leaving the Canyon I came across one of the animal bridges I talked about earlier this week.

Animal crossing

Next stop was at Lake Louise. I walked around there for a bit. For those of you who don't know what so special about Lake Louise, just think about any post card you've seen from the Rockies, and you're probably picturing Lake Louise. Its still covered in snow and ice at this point, but its still very beautiful.

Lake Louise in the winter

I finally pulled into Revelstoke, and turned south to visit the Halcyon Hot Springs. This detour involved taking a ferry across the Columbia River. As it turned out they could be better described as the Halcyon Hot Tubs, but at least the locale was very nice.

View from the ferry

I mentioned in a prior post how the idea that nature could be very dangerous out here was a foreign concept to me. I got that feeling even more today. Every mountain has obvious avalanche routes on it where there are no or very few trees. When an avalanche goes, it takes out EVERYTHING in it's path, including trees, rocks, roads and cars. There were signs everywhere which said “Avalanche area: No stopping”, even tunnels so in high risk areas so that the avalanche would go over the road, and cars don't get swept off the road. The most interesting thing I saw in this regard was a couple army guys in an “avalanche control” area with a cannon pointed at a mountain, and starting to stop cars. I didn't see what exactly they were planning, but I would assume they were going to set off a preemptive avalanche.

Avalanche tunnel

I'd like to talk about my friend Garmean, who has been my faithful companion this whole trip. She keeps me from getting lost, and in typical female fashion, she is always telling me I'm lost when I don't go exactly the was she thinks I should be going, but we talk through it, and at the end of the day she gets me where I need to be.

And that's how the cookie crumbles.

Day 9 and 10

Yesterday I decided I would visit Edmonton after all. I was going to leave it out and come back this summer, but I had some time and just went for it. The plan was to see my friend and my cousin, but my friend had to work.

I started out at the West Edmonton Mall, but quickly turned around and met a different friend at Starbucks. I went back to the Mall and actually wandered around inside. I was very underwhelmed. Like the age-old adage goes “Once you've seen one shopping centre, you've seen a mall”. If you don't find that joke absolutely hysterical, please leave this blog and go rethink your life... or at least your sense of humor. For the rest of you, West Edmonton Mall is pretty much a normal mall, but its quite a bit larger, and it has elements of a theme park interspersed through it. I never saw the whole mall, and I heard later that they had penguins in there, which may have impressed me had I seen them, but alas it didn't happen. They had a skating rink there too. I was watching the skaters for about a minute until I realized that I was watching a bunch of 8 year old girls in skin coloured spandex unitards doing figure skating, and that I probably looked super creepy... so I moved on.

After the mall, I went to my cousin's place. They served me dinner, then we went out to a bowling alley, which had an hour long waiting list to play at. We decided to leave and go get ice cream.

My cousin is a site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity. After staying at my cousin's place overnight, I went and volunteered for a few hours, installing a few windows and doors.

If you haven't guessed or heard: Edmonton isn't a particularly exciting city...

Tonight I plan on seeing more cousins over a few beers.

A typical Albertain vehicle

That's pretty much been my last few days. Vote for Pedro.

Hostels

By popular demand, I'm writing a post dedicated to my hostel experiences. The first thing people tend to say about hostels is "That was a creepy movie!". I've never actually watched it, so I have no idea, but I DO know that they are a great place to stay cheaply in a city.

The way [most] hostels work, is they're part of a network of hostels. If you're a member you get to stay at a given rate, if you're not you get to stay at a slightly higher rate. I'm a member of Hostels International, which has hostels in most major cities around the world.

Toronto hostel

Admittedly, they are very hippy/hipster places to hang out. Everybody I've met in them just give off that vibe... I can't really place it, so just trust me on this. That being said, they are very relaxed environments, and if I didn't usually show up and go right to bed, I would take the time to get to know some of the people: I'm sure they have great stories to tell.

The setup of most hostels is you have a common room with a TV, couches, tables, occasionally kitchen facilities, public computers and the like. In Toronto they have a pool table too. The default sleeping arrangement is in rooms of 10 to 15 beds, in bunk-bed format. The mattresses are lumpy and don't have much in the way of lumbar support, but the sheets are clean and the lodging is cheap. If you want to pay extra you can get a room with only 4 beds, or even a private room. Bathrooms and showers are also shared, but in all the hostels I've been at so far, they have been exceptionally clean, cleaner even than your bathroom at home sometimes.

Hostel in Regina

The other upside to hostels is that they tend to be right downtown in cities. In Ottawa, the hostel is in an old jail, right on King street, in Toronto its a 10 minute walk to the CN tower on Church street, in Minneapolis I really don't know how close to downtown it is because I just passed through - but it looked like it was in a good location, Regina doesn't have a big downtown, but the hostel is right there! I suppose that this isn't always necessarily a good thing... I paid more for parking overnight in Toronto than I did on lodging, but I'm sure you could park elsewhere in the city and cab over if you were staying longer.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Day 8

Today was amazing. My experiences today were ineffable, completely beyond words, but I'll do my best.

We got an early start because it was forecasted to become overcast around noon. We dropped my aunt off at work, then drove out towards the mountains. As we drove, my uncle told me about different peculiarities about the city.

The bow river runs through downtown Calgary. Its all glacier water and it runs into the city's reservoir, so its super cold but really clean and clear. Apparently people like to float down the river in inflatable dinghys during the summer, but the cops nail them all the time for not having life jackets. I'm speaking from experience when I say that you don't EVER want to get that sort of ticket.

A recent bylaw says that all new [large] buildings can't have square corners. Calgary gets really windy, and the turbulence coming off non-aerodynamic buildings is devastating. The city has actually closed down a few times in the past few years because the wind has knocked out windows on people below!

I have never been in a city where absolutely everybody drives almost exactly the speed limit all the time. If you're going through a school zone where the limit is posted at 30 km/h, people drive 30 km/h. There are speed cameras everywhere, and almost everybody has stories about getting a number of tickets from them.

Another oddity from Calgary is that they don't really plow many residential streets in the winter, so the snow just builds up, and it gets packed down, and collects potholes, so most people drive SUVs or trucks so they don't bottom out their vehicles all the time. They also don't use road salt. Instead they throw down pebbles, so everybody has cracked windshields, which they are resigned to replacing every few years when it gets too bad.

One thing that really surprised me was all the stories about people dying in many different ways by nature around here. Back in Ottawa almost nobody dies because they drowned, or were buried under snow, or eaten by wild animals etc etc, so I was given a whole new profound respect for nature.

We got to the mountains, and I realized that its very early spring, if not still winter here. There is a lot more snow than back home for sure. All the lakes are still mostly frozen, and I needed my ski jacket, gloves and a toque to stay warm. We did a small hike to a waterfall that was still covered in snow, but it was still very pretty.

A snow bank in the parking lot

How strong is that sign!?

Next we went to spray lakes, and I assessed the possibility of kite-snowboarding there later with a friend of my uncle's. I think it would be great! As we arrived there, there were a few people just setting up their dog teams to go on the lake. He assured us that the ice was still good, so we walked out and determined that kiting was a definite possibility.

I figured my mom would want me take a picture of the dogs...

From there we drove to Canamore which is essentially Banff, but less commercialized, and less busy. There are some really nice shops with beautiful mountains in the background, and a river going through the middle of it. We got lunch at the local A&W before going to Banff.

Canamore, going into the valley.

On the way to Banff, my uncle explained how 'they' were trying to help people co-habitate with animals in Alberta. For instance, apparently a lot of bears hung out near the train tracks, and were getting killed by trains. At first they thought it was because all sorts of grain was falling off the trains from the prairies going to the coast, so they actually went around and vacuumed it up. It didn't work, so eventually they put cameras on the front of these trains, and found out that the bears would be in the woods, hear the trains and try to run away from them. The most open place to run would be on the tracks, so they would start running down the tracks, and get hit. They're still working on a solution for that.

Another interesting factoid I learned was that 'they' determined that the highways split up breeding populations of certain animals, essentially inbreeding them and weakening the population. They spent a lot of money building animal overpasses, which the animals ignored for about two years, and everybody thought the money was wasted. Eventually however the animals got accustomed to them and now use them all the time.

Finally we got to Banff and looked around. Just as my uncle had warned me, Banff is very commercialized, and it reminded me a lot of mont-tremblant from back near(ish) to Ottawa. The hot springs were closed for the season, so we walked up and looked at the Banff Springs Hotel, which is a huge castle of a hotel built by Sir William Cornelius Van Horne. The same guy who built the CP rail, the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, and the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. I'm pretty sure that they could have filmed the Harry Potter movies there...

A Lousy shot, I know. I'm not a photographer...

Anyway, that's the short version of my day. I did a lot, and I'm still not 100% sure I wasn't dreaming for most of it. Tonight I'll figure out what I'm going to do for the rest of the week.

Until next time: Don't call me, I'll call you. ;) (Besides that being an attempt at a witty closing statement, seriously, its long distance and I probably won't answer the phone...)

Day 7

This morning I decided to go to church before I started on my trip to Calgary. A quick google search for “Regina church” yielded a few results. I decided on Regina Apostolic Church because they had a 9:00 service, and the head pastor and his wife were named Rick and Linda. Its hard to go wrong with a team named that.

The music was both conservative and liberal at the same time. All they sang were hymns, but they were very pentecostal in how they sang them. If you don't know what that means, basically they get very into their singing. Another thing I noticed was that I was one of 5 or so people out of 200 under the age of 60. The sermon was good though!

I may have spoken too soon yesterday when I called the prairies flat. There certainly are sections of it that are very flat, but I found that soon after leaving Regina all the way into Calgary the prairies have a lot of rolling hills. Most people I think find the prairies boring because there isn't a lot on them. A lot of grass, quite a few cows, the odd grain elevator and open road. Another thing that surprised me is that there are actually quite a few trees, they just grow in groves here and there, not in forests like the rest of Canada. The Ottawa area is actually much flatter than the prairies as a whole, you just don't notice it because there are trees and buildings everywhere.

I got to Calgary after a short trip of 7 hours. It amused me when I got on the highway after church and my gps told me to remain on highway 1 for 751 km. Soon after arriving in Calgary, I had dinner with my Aunt and Uncle, after which they showed me a bit of Calgary.

The Calgary water reservoir

Tomorrow my uncle is planning on taking me to Kananaskis and Canmore and showing me some mountains and hikes. Hopefully we'll see some mountains goats and bears and the like. Provided I don't get eaten by wildlife, I shall update again tomorrow.

Day 6

Checking in from Regina Saskatchewan today. I woke up this morning and once again donned my travelling pants in preparation for another twelve hour drive. Leaving Minneapolis today and seeing it in the daylight made me wish I had a day with a bicycle to explore the city. It had some really nice buildings and infrastructure. Driving in last night I also noticed that the river I crossed just before entering the city would be really nice during the day.

I MIGHT have missed my exit while taking this picture.

After 5 days, I finally got a real change of scenery. I almost missed it at first, but then I saw a herd of Buffalo and realized that I was entering the wild west. North Dakota is definitely one of the most interesting states in terms of scenery that I have visited. A majority of my drive through ND gave me views of rolling hills, ageing farms and quaint villages, interspersed by creeks and lakes. I would have loved to stop and explore some of the towns along the way, but I didn't have time.

Somewhere along the way through North Dakota, I had a first: I stopped and picked up a hitchhiker. I didn't get his name, so lets call him Hobo Jim. Hobo Jim was an oil worker. He told me all about the oil drilling industry in the US, and how much money you can make working in the field. Did you know that North Dakota produces more oil than Saudi Arabia? He told me all about jumping trains, and asked about the quality and quantity of women in Vancouver. I dropped him off at the intersection of 200 and I-52, and drove off. I hope he made it to his destination...

I stopped for gas in a smallish town, and asked for directions to a grocery store so I could buy some lunch. The lady directed me to a Walmart 'Super Store'. I wasn't kidding when I said it was a fairly small town, but this Walmart must have been the size of three entire Costco stores from back home. I'm bad at guesstimating areas, but the interior must have been at least 2 acres.

One thing I did notice as I got further North, is that there were a lot of hill-billy residences. Lots of trucks up on blocks in front of run-down shacks. Piles of garbage, etc etc. That part wasn't as pretty. All that disappeared after crossing the border back into Canada (with the exception of the entire city of Estevan... that place is a real dump).

I was a little bit sad to leave the states. Mainly because gas is MUCH cheaper there than in Canada. The lowest price I saw was $3.80/gallon. Most guys know the conversion between litres and gallons because there isn't much else to look at while standing at the urinal, so for the ladies – that's about $1.00/litre.

Now that I have seen the prairies, I can confirm that they are indeed quite flat. Since they are very flat, every little dip collects all the water from miles around, so what you end up with is a lot of grass, and a lot of huge puddles. I have no idea how many stick around during the summer, or to what extent, but my guess is that they could be PRIME kitesurfing slicks. I wonder how many people have tried that...

These are just some puddles.

So, after a full day of scenery changes I ended up in Regina. Regina is pretty much a big city in the middle of a huge grass field. You can see it from 20km away on the highway. I was expecting it to be small and boring, but its actually quite a nice city. Apparently everyone for miles comes to Regina in their souped up cars to party it up on a Friday night.

So that was my day! Surprisingly full of interesting (to me at least) sights and experiences. Tune in next time to hear about my drive to Calgary!

Day 5

I woke up today and put on my travelling pants. My pants may be missing an accompanying sisterhood, but they sure are comfortable, which was important since I left Leamington this morning and drove all the way to Minneapolis.

I was a little bit nervous crossing the border in Windsor, but they didn't give me any troubles, just asked a lot of questions, including wanting me to list everything in the back of my car! (I may have summarized a little bit)

I finally got new tires, and what a difference it made! Despite them being all season tires, they are worlds quieter and smoother than my old summer tires; safer too, I hope.

Sorry, no pictures today. Nothing really interesting happened. As a cop-out, here is a flowchart I made for if you ever do your own roadtrip.

It is now my intention to lie down and sleep for several hours.

Picture from day 2

I wanted to share this in the post about day 2, but I didn't have my camera with me whe n I was posting. I present to you my grandparents, still happily married after 61 years. As I was about to take the picture, my Opa said "Don't waste a picture", so I took the picture and didn't waste it.

Oma and Opa took me out for lunch

Day 04

Today I left London and headed off for world famous Leamington Ontario. For those of you who have lived under a rock for your entire life, Leamington is located on the southern tip of Ontario, on lake Erie, which also happens to be the southern tip of Canada.

Leamington is also the tomato capital of Canada

I arrived around 2 in the afternoon, just an hour and a half before my friend Cliff had to work for 6 hours. He was washing his truck when I arrived, so I quickly washed my car as well. Its now super shiny and no longer has bird excrement down the sides.

Cliff had thoughtfully dropped markers on google maps all around Leamington, with a description of why that place is significant to the area and the local history. He lent me his phone and truck for the afternoon, which I spent taking in the surprisingly numerous sights that the area has to offer. I saw attractions as a big tomato tourist booth, the Heinz ketchup factory, the local park, marina, ferry and Point Pelee National Park. I stood as far south in mainland Canada as is possible without getting your feet wet.

Nowhere to go from here but up

At the end of the day I randomly ended up exploring a Value Village and bought a few awesome CDs such as Eric Clapton unplugged, Creedance Clearwater Revival, Elton John as well as Coldplay, for the next few days of driving. To top it all off, I found the book “The Princess Bride”, which I have wanted to read for a long time.

All in all, today was a really good day. Tomorrow I turn off my phone and I enter the US of A for about a day and a half.

Days 2 and 3

Tuesday I got up at 6, and couldn't sleep anymore because I was excited to be on my way. My first stop today was in Hamilton at my Oma and Opa's place. We had coffee then went to the harbor for some lunch. As we drove there my Opa pointed out all the sights Hamilton had to offer, and told me about which buildings had been recently renovated and how Hamilton desperately needed a Dutch store.

I drove to London to visit my friend I, and ended up meeting all her roommates, most of their boyfriends, and their dogs. It was a bit of a whirlwind meet and greet, and I hope there isn't a test later. I brifly visited the UWO campus and met up with another friend, then hung out for the rest of the afternoon.

Her roommates seem to have this obsession with feeding people. I says its just with me for some unknown reason. I don't think I've gone more than five minutes without being offered SOMETHING to eat. It was difficult convincing them when I really could not eat any more food, but it was very much appreciated.

The only better thing than hostels for travelling cheaply, is couch surfing. Not only is it free, but it comes with a knowledable local tour guide and sometimes even a good home cooked meal! If you don't know anybody where you are going try couchsurfing.org if you don't find that sort of thing too sketchy...

I had a great couple days, but the play by play version sure is boring to read about... so I'll leave it at that. Until next time: stay classy San Diago.

Day 1

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. If you don't like your nickname, nobody knows its you so don't worry about it.

Yesterday morning, I was up at 7, ready to go at 8, then stuck around for breakfast and one last family photo. I was on the road after a relatively tear-free goodbye, at 9:05, 5 minutes later than I planned, which I thought was pretty good.

This past week has been a pretty crazy week. Frantically trying to get my guitar finished, saying goodbye to all my friends, and packing kept me pretty busy. Finally after months of planning, I had no plan and was on the road.

After hitting the open highway, I got off on the very next exit and filled up with gas, for a whopping 132.something per litre.

I arrived in Toronto at about 1:45 in the afternoon and walked around for about an hour trying to find a public washroom, which is apparently a rarity in downtown Toronto. I met my friend Paula and walked around more seeing world famous attractions such as Trinity square, Sugar Beach, and others (oh yeah, the CN tower too...)

The Steam Whistle brewery in downtown Toronto

One Thing I learned is that the rumors are true! There ARE street cars in Toronto, and you SHOULD learn about them for your G1 test... although I never drove near enough to one to have to remember all the rules regarding them. As I recall, they boiled down to "don't run over pedestrians."

I stayed in a Hostel last night. If you have never heard of hostels, I would take the time to educate yourself regarding them. I was introduced to the concept very recently. Basically how it works, is you buy a two year membership for like, $35, and you can stay in any one of a million hostels worldwide for membership prices, which is usually on the order of $25/night (non membership prices are only slightly higher).

The HI Toronto Hostel. Its a really neat place

Alright, I'm going to go eat some breakfast and make my way over to Hamilton now. Have a great day!