Day Twenty-Six

Day Twenty-Six.8839.1km
August 5

Home sweet home.

The trip is over. Drove the last stretch today. It may have been the worst drive. Traffic in Toronto was horrendous. Just as the traffic started to improve, the weather took a turn for the worse. Torrential downpour. These factors led to an absolute shit drive from hell.

Some observations:

-most provinces beyond Ontario have really bad roads, especially Quebec
-on the other hand, beer is cheaper everywhere else
-Aaron was talking like Ned Flanders for awhile..then that evolved into this crazy hick thing. He's entertaining
-I have no money
-my car is beat
-I miss Newfoundland

and

When I drive past that particular highway exit, all I can think of is Her.

Day Twenty-Five

Day Twenty-Five.8038.6km
August 4

And I thought yesterday's driving was excessive..Today I drove nearly nine-hundred kilometers. All the way from Fredericton to Montreal. The car held up. I tightened the bolts on the wheels. Seemed to help.

Not much of note has happened lately. We left all of our driving for the end of the trip I guess. I am mostly out of money. It sucks. Can't do much of anything due to that. Tomorrow, we'll be home. It's still kind of far away, but pretty close considering that the night before last, I was in Cape Breton.

Lost a second towel. Same hostel that I lost my first one at. Kinda looking forward to my days off at home, and not having my life measured in kilometers. And sleeping in my own bed. But I'll miss this trip I think.

On another note...I might go see Fear Before The March Of Flames in London tomorrow. I hope so...even if I'm tired. I just hope I don't have to drive. Kind of tired of that activity.

Day Twenty-Four

Day Twenty-Four.7146.3km
August 3

Civilization!

Today we drove excessively. All the way from Inverness, Cape Breton to Fredericton, New Brunswick. Tiring. But we're finally doing incredible things such as: showering and shaving (two activities that, I admit, I haven't done in days). Also able to charge batteries and sleep in beds. Why Fredericton, you ask? We had the number. That's about it.

Finally have contact with the outside world again. My phone actually works here. AND we have internet. Not much else to tell. Aaron thinks he's losing his mind.

We can't rule it out..

Just on our way home now. Car is hurtin.

Made a questionable dinner with our remaining stock of veggies. Food is almost gone. I was finally able to update the online parallel to this journal tonight. It's still way back at day nine though. So much for being parallel. Our clothing is terrible. We're all wearing dirty clothes. But we don't seem to care..

Day Twenty-Three - Entry Two

Day Twenty-Three.6450km
Entry Two

Camping again. This has got to be our shittiest campsite yet. We're perched on top of a huge hill overlooking a city of Campers and RVs. And it's fucking windy. Cape Breton seems to be a windy place in general.

Spent most of the day in the park (Cape Breton Highlands) walking several trails. They were all beautiful, of course. On the first trail we saw old growth Sugar Maple forest, Salamanders and a cute little squirrel who allowed me to get extremely close to photograph it. Trail Two had a river and a waterfall. Trail Three was long and featured panoramic views of the coast and highlands as well as a mother and juvenile Moose. Chino got some good shots of them I think. So today we finally got to see some wildlife.

When we left, Chino and Aaron ate at a nice restaurant which I couldn't afford. I just got coffee. Following that we drove until we found a campsite. I was starting to think it would be a motel for us tonight, but we found this (shitty) campsite just in the nick of time. There's a very long way to go to get home. And home is where we're headed.

Day Twenty-Three

Day Twenty-Three.6301.9km
August 2

Yesterday was kinda crazy. I fell asleep again after that last entry for a while. I woke up and the dudes were still asleep. Some guy in a big old pick-up drove up the road we were on after a little while, and that was motivation enough for me to leave. He looked completely confused.

After that we drove into nearby Baddeck for food and a coffee. I discovered that I have way less money than I thought. Some careful budgeting may now be necessary. The trip fund is also almost gone. Money has essentially reached critical levels.

Anyways, after all that we started our tour of the Cabot Trail. If you start on the East side and head North, the road gets progressively better and better. We all got our permits and did some walks on the East Coast, but hunger soon forced us to find a campsite. Had to travel all the way to the Western shore to find a site we could have a fire in. This site is too full of people for me, but luckily there's a beach two minutes away to escape to.

After dinner we got pretty messed up and went to that beach. It was beautiful. The stars were all out so we laid and stared at them. Shooting stars were going by the whole time. It was spectacular.

We also played some silly games; like beach sit ups. That's where you sit up in tandem with the waves(or try to, it sounds sweet). We also made little hand puppets in the sky. Last night was really sweet.

Day Twenty-Two

Our method of transportation

Day Twenty-Two
August 1

My car was never intended to be slept in, by it's designers. I think this is the case with most cars, but mine is an extreme example. At the very least, it was certainly not intended to be slept in by three people. I can recall a certain conversation I had back in Ontario before I left, I forget now who it was, but she thought it would be a great idea to sleep in the car a lot-to save money. I now see the insanity of this suggestion.

So we survived The Ferry. It was just a bit long. I had actually begun to think it would never end. My Opa once took a boat to Indonesia, when he was younger. That took weeks. And that's just some crazy shit. I was only on for seventeen hours and I thought I was losing it.

But here we are, at the foot of the Cabot Trail. I found some rarely traveled side road which I drove up last night and we slept here. Our only car sleep of the trip. Definitely the last. At least the bugs weren't bad. They've been pretty good this whole trip, actually.

My main motivation for writing this entry is actually just boredom. The guys are still asleep. But I haven't got much else to say at the moment so I guess I'll sign off.

Day Twenty-One - Entry Two

Day Twenty-One
Entry Two

Redemption.

Despite the inconvenient length of this boat ride, a few things worth mentioning became of it. I've seen dozens of Whales and Dolphins. The water seems to be full of them.

And

I saw a beautiful sunset and sat listening to beautiful music. It was possibly the most at peace I've ever felt.

It's been so calm. The weather is perfect.