Trip Part 1, By the Numbers
Posted on August 29, 2008
Filed Under Call us tourists | Leave a Comment
Today is the 100th day of our adventure. So here are a few numbers for you:
Number of Provinces and Territories Visited: 8 provinces, 1 territory
Number of States Visited: 24
Number of New States for Sierra: 3 (Idaho, Oregon, and Maine)
Number of Times Canada-United States Border Crossed: 12
Number of Time Zones: 6
Number of Bookstores Visited: 19
Number of Poutines Eaten: 4
Number of Flip-Flops Sierra Broke: 2
Number of Mats Left Behind: 1
Number of Vehicles Passed on the Open Road: 27
Number of Times Interstate Closed Down When We Were on It Due to Hazardous Waste Spills: 2
Number of Times Parallel Parked Using 2 Meters: 3
Number of Bighorn Sheep Seen: 2
Number of Bears Seen: 7 (4 Black, 3 Grizzly, 0 Polar)
Number of Moose Seen: 4 alive, 2 dead
Number of Lynx Seen: 1
Number of Stone Sheep Seen: 2
Number of Bald Eagles Seen: Too many to count
Number of Nights Spent in a Hotel/Motel: 2 (both via Priceline)
Number of Nights Spent at Camp Wal-Mart: 6
Number of Nights Spent in a Brewery Parking Lot: 1
Number of Days With Rain: 46 (out of first 86)
Latest Sunset: 12:46 a.m., June 18 (19), Fairbanks, Alaska
Earliest Sunrise: Shortly thereafter
Miles Driven in the RV: 14,341
Most Miles Driven in a Day: 538
Most Expensive Gas: See-$6.80 US in British Columbia, Paid-$6.22 (enough to get us to cheaper gas)
Most Hours of School Done in a Week: 32.992
Number of Times Daria Walked Into the Men’s Room: 2
Best (and Worst) of the Trip, Part 1
Posted on August 28, 2008
Filed Under Adventures, Call us tourists, Food, Random musing | 2 Comments
We, the Hieronymus/Labinsky family, have decided to put together a “Best (and Worst) of the Trip” list. There will be four lists, each for a leg of our trip, and this is the first one.
Best Meal: beerbistro, Toronto
Best RV-Cooked Meal: Pasta With Red Peppers and Tomato Sauce (Sierra calls it Tomato-Pepper Pasta)
Worst Meal: Kelly O’Bryans, Prince George, British Columbia
Best Ice Cream: Toft’s, though Dad votes for beerbistro’s Rochefort Chocolate Ice Cream
Best Pie: Norske Nook, Osseo and elsewhere in Wisconsin
Best Cheese: Country Castle Limburger (Mom); see also Another Cheesy Blog Post
Best Perogies: Supreme Perogies from Mississauga, Ontario
Best Chocolate: Len Libby in Portland, Maine (Sierra’s); unknown-name chocolate from Montreal (Mom and Dad)
Most Decadent Dessert: Malteazer at Death by Chocolate in Edmonton, Alberta
Worst Candy: Idaho Spud candy bar
Best Fish Sandwich: Salmon Burger at the Chena Pump House, Fairbanks, Alaska
Best Single Dish: Lobster at Beal’s, Southwest Harbor, Maine (Mom), Smoked Meat at Schwartz’s, Montreal (Dad and Sierra)
Best Pizza: Pizzeria Roma in Juneau, Alaska
Best Poutine: Rocky’s Burger Bus, Calgary, Alberta
Best Beer: Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale (Dad); New Glarus Belgian Red (Mom); No Beer, I’m under 21 (Sierra)
Best Bookstore: The Amazing Bookstore in Juneau, Alaska
Best Candy Store: Len Libby in Portland, Maine
Best Grocery Store: J.A. Moisan in Quebec City, Quebec
Best Artisan Experience: Bragg Farm Sugar House, Vermont
Best Museum: University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, though Sierra votes Henry Ford Museum in Detroit
Best Campground With Service: Glowing Embers in Edmonton, Alberta
Best Campground Without Service: Signal Creek in Tongass National Forest, Alaska
Best Showers: Smithers, British Columbia
Worst Showers: Conestoga Campsite
Best Campground Pool: Camp Eriez, Lake City, Pennsylvania
Best National Park: Jasper National Park, Alberta
Best Waterfall: Niagara Falls (DUH!)
Best Hike: (tie) Wilcox (Banff) and Plain of the 6 Glaciers (Lake Louise), in Alberta
Best Drive: The Icefields, in Jasper-Banff, Alberta
Best Alaska Highway Stop: Watson Lake Signpost Forest
Best ‘World’s Largest’ … : Violin, in Sydney, Nova Scotia (See You Meet the Nicest People)
Best Deal on a Haircut: Dad’s $4 Haircut in Chinatown, Toronto
Best T-shirt: “Saskatchewan: Hard to Spell”
Best Thunderstorm: July 7th, Cassville, Wisconsin
Worst Stretch of Road: Delta Junction, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Yukon
Best Canadian City: Quebec City, Quebec
Best Canadian Province: Nova Scotia
Best Small Town: Sitka, Alaska (Jasper)
Best Small City: Juneau, Alaska
Best Town Name: Ecum Secum (Nova Scotia)
Prettiest Small Town: Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
Town With the Scariest Seagulls: Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia
Best City Market: Granville Island, British Columbia
Best Public Transportation: Toronto
Best Day: Too many to count
New Jersey Cardboard Boat Races
Posted on August 25, 2008
Filed Under Call us tourists | Leave a Comment
Posted by Stan
We might drive slowly, but when you log more than 14,000 miles in about three months, then you are breaking the “rules” of Slow Travel: Slow down, immerse yourself in the local culture and avoid the fast pace of rushing from one guidebook “must-see” to the next.
We expect the pace to slow in Europe and next year in the Lower 48, but I’m not sure if we’ll immerse ourselves in the local culture as successfully as today, when we spent several hours at Oxford Furnace Lake in Oxford, N.J., just a few miles from Daria’s sister’s house.
First we watched our brother-in-law and one of our nephews, Fernando and Andrew, in their regular Sunday morning pick-up soccer game. The bigger attraction was the first Oxford Cardboard Boat Races, an event to raise money for the local rescue squads (a volunteer fire department and more).
These aren’t tiny little boats, but large boxes designed to hold one or two people (usually children). The winning boat is the one that travels the farthest distance . . . in most cases before it sinks. Thus the dead boat area continued to grow throughout the day.
Most of the spectators, and there were plenty, had a connection to the rescue group or the participants or both.
Did I mention that when we got to the lake, church services were just starting in a pavilion near the parking lot?
What if the RV were a hotspot?
Posted on August 24, 2008
Filed Under Random musing | 2 Comments
Posted by Stan
We’ve completed most of the tasks we need to before we park the RV and head off to Europe for 15 weeks, from winterizing it (since it will be December when we return) to having the leak around the skylight fixed.
And we’ve talked a bit about if we should go with a wireless broadband connection for the 2009 leg of the trip. Makes the story in today’s New York Times, “Caution: Driver May Be Surfing the Web,” even more interesting.
Basically, “Chrysler is poised to offer in its 2009 models a new entertainment option for the children: Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity. The problem is that the entire car becomes a hotspot.”
Auto safety experts aren’t thrilled.
Two studies, one Canadian and reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, the other Australian and reported by the British Medical Association, examined cellphone records of people injured in automobile crashes. Both studies concluded that when drivers were talking on phones, they were four times as likely to get into serious crashes.
The studies show that laws mandating the use of hands-free phones are little help: the increased risk of injury is attributable to the cognitive impairment from the phone conversation, which distracts in ways that a conversation with a seatmate does not, and was just as high for those using hands-free sets as for those with hand-held ones. (Don’t look for a similar study for the United States: the carriers refuse to supply the necessary records, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in Arlington, Va.)
J. R. Peter Kissinger, president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington, calls “distracted driving” one of the leading threats to “all of us who drive or walk in this country.”
Not sure this would be an issue with the RV. It’s demanding enough that surfing the web while driving would never be a temptation. Sierra, on the other hand, would love to live in a traveling hotspot.
(Note: The photo at the top, as you might suspect from the license plate, was taken in Maine.)
Canada’s like the U.S., except …
Posted on August 21, 2008
Filed Under Random musing | 5 Comments
Posted by Daria
Words spelled differently: tonne, harbour, centre, etc.
Interesting foods: Poutine (French fries, gravy, and cheese curds); dulse (seaweed); ketchup-flavoured potato chips; donair (meat cooked like a gyro, also a sandwich); coffee cream
Interesting highway signs:
Please keep a safe gap from vehicle ahead
Physical depiction of blowing wind god’s head to denote windy highway
Slippery When Frosty
Badger Crossing
Important Intersection
Blind Crest
Egg in an eggcup used to symbolize the breakfast in bed-and-breakfast
Other interesting signs:
No Lightering (no dropping off of boat passengers)
Maple leaf used in the McDonald’s insignia and elsewhere
Licensed Premises (alcohol served)
Also:
Bilingual signs in something other than Spanish
Curling arenas
Mixed measurements, e.g., stuff sold by the pound sold next to stuff sold by the kilogram
Tim Hortons—hockey-player-founded fast food restaurants/doughnut shops (also in border states)
Local newscasts without commercials
Radio stations start with “C”
Idle-free zones for vehicles
If your purchase is $4.99 and you hand the cashier a five, he/she won’t automatically return the penny
$1 and $2 coins (nicknamed loonies and toonies)
They say, “Sorry” instead of “Excuse me”
Trash Talk
Posted on August 16, 2008
Filed Under Museums & tours | 4 Comments
Posted by Sierra
It’s heavy, it’s packed together, it’s made of garbage! What is it? A cube of garbage? Close, but not quite. Guess again. Give up? It’s the one, the only … Traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashosaurus! And where does this “dirty” dino live? The Children’s Garbage Museum, of course. Located in Stratford, Connecticut, how you view this kooky place depends on how you see garbage. If you see it as disgusting, unimportant, and BOR-ING, skip this place and go to the Knucklehead Hall of Fame instead. If, however, you believe in recycling and know how important it is, you might want to consider stopping here.
The Garbage Museum seems to be especially popular with school groups. And no wonder! It’s packed with activities, including a Trashosaurus Scavenger Hunt, a recycling quiz, and windows on the second floor which show you the next door recycling center. A good thing about the size of the museum is that it can be done in less than 45 minutes.
The first thing to greet you when when you enter is Monsieur Trashosaurus. Trashosaurus is big and covered with old toys, signs, traffic cones, fan blades, sunglasses—you get the point. From this point you can see most of the rest of the museum, which includes the tall, colander-like cones of cans, the “Cave of Worms,” the pyramid of juice boxes, and the “ping-pong ball/recycle center” display. You look through the museum, then head upstairs to the Recycling Center Viewing Windows. You can see the aluminum, plastic, cardboard, and glass be separated, packed, and bundled into cubes. You observe all the conveyor belts that lead from machine to machine.
This basically concludes the museum experience (told you it was small!). You may hate the museum, or you may love it, but chances are, you won’t find it boring.
A Connecticut Castle
Posted on August 16, 2008
Filed Under Call us tourists | Leave a Comment
Posted by Sierra
Atop one of the “Seven Sisters,” the seven hills in East Haddam, Connecticut, sits Gillette Castle. Completed in 1919, the “Castle,” also called the “Seventh Sister” took 5 men 20 years to build. The estate was personally designed by actor/director/playwright William Gillette, who is best known for his role as Sherlock Holmes on the stage.
After Gillette’s death in 1937, the Seventh Sister was auctioned off. Several real estate agencies bid for it, but Gillette’s will specifically stated that the castle was not to fall into the hands of any “blithering sapheads,” so instead the State of Connecticut purchased it in 1943. It has been open to the public since then, except during restoration from 1999-2002.
After entering the castle, one thing you will see is the secret passageway door. Gillette used this to avoid unwanted guests as well as to make dramatic entrances at the foot of the stairs. You climb up the stairs and into the Great Hall, which has doors into the Conservatory, the study (the other end of the secret passageway), and the lounge, among other rooms. Outside of the Great Hall sits a window with colored glass between two panes.
Continue up a staircase in the Great Hall to the second floor, which mainly consists of the bedrooms. By standing at the balcony, you will notice that mirrors over the doors allow a person in the balcony to see the actions of people standing in the Great Hall.
After ascending the stairs to the third floor, you will enter the library/gallery. Here there are many authentic books, as well as some reproduced paintings. Off of this are a few rooms which contain pictures and letters of Gillette’s. Then there are some stairs down and the “tour” is over.
The Five-Minute Guide to Canada
Posted on August 12, 2008
Filed Under Call us tourists | 4 Comments
Posted by Daria
Don’t have time to read much? Well, here’s a quick and easy guide to the Canadian provinces and territories, roughly in the order in which we visited them. As a special treat, it includes a sampling of the winners in the “Hieronymus/Labinsky Best of the First Leg of Our Trip” Poll.
British Columbia. Big and tall. Trees, mountains. Whistler ski resort full of rich people and hipsters.
Major city: Vancouver, one of the best Canadian cities. Took a minuscule ferry to Granville Island Market, drank beer, bought chocolate, ate pierogies. Rained. Public transit deal: Ride for free with a passholder on Sundays.
Yukon. Nice, but … See What Vast Is and Ice Age, Explained. Crappy roads with many frostheaves. Coffee generally bad. Expensive gas. Major city: Whitehorse, the Paris of the Canadian Northwest.
Northwest Territories. Are you kidding? Do you know how much gas is? Greatest license plates ever (bear-shaped).
Nunavut. We were having none of it (see Northwest Territories for reason). Have yet to see a Nunavut license plate.
Alberta. Best parts: Mountains, dinosaurs (See Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts). Also: plains, badlands. Winner! Best town: Jasper.
Major city number 1: Edmonton. Awesome mall (see Not Your Average Mall), Old Strathcona neighborhood. Winner! Most decadent dessert: Malteaser at Death by Chocolate.
Major city number 2: Calgary. Oil and cowboys. Best food: Poutine and burgers at Rocky’s Burger Bus.
Saskatchewan. Flat, farms. Winner! Best T-shirt: “Saskatchewan: Hard to Spell.”
Major city: Regina. Not very big, brewpubs not kid-friendly. Great little campground right outside town.
Manitoba. Almost as flat, farms. Major city: Winnipeg. The Forks for a nice market with several pierogi options. Alicia’s, a Ukrainian restaurant that looks like someone’s grandmother’s house. Overrated: Bridge Drive-Inn, an ice cream stand (If the wait is longer than 15 minutes, move on.).
Ontario. Hilly, farms. Beautiful driving along Lake Ontario. Major city: Toronto. Winner! Best meal of trip: beerbistro. Bustling Harbourfront, authentic Kensington Market, $4 Chinatown haircut for Stan. Winner! Best Public Transit Deal: Family passes $9 a day on weekends, take you anywhere you’d want to go. Minor city: Niagara Falls, somewhat tacky but the awesomeness of the falls is unsurpassed.
Quebec. Hilly, farms. All the signs really are in French!
Major city number 1: Montreal. Big. Fast drivers. Great food: Smoked meat at Schwartz’s (Winner! Best Single Dish Not at Beerbistro), Fairmount Bagels. Favorite area: Neighborhood east of Park Mont Royal. Public transit deal: None that worked for us; paid $32 for the three of us each day. Lovely brewpub: Dieu de Ciel. Overrated: Underground city.
Major city number 2: Quebec. Winner! Best City in Canada. Great walking, great neighborhoods, lots of cool old buildings, battlefields. Favorite neighborhood: St-Jean, especially the chocolate museum and North America’s oldest grocery store. Public transit deal: Free shuttle from campground or pay shuttle ($5 roundtrip for all three of us) from aquarium.
New Brunswick: Hilly, trees, farms, coastal towns, covered bridges. Bay of Fundy—amazing tides, mud. Officially bilingual. Major city: Saint John, always spelled out, didn’t stop but it looked nice from the toll bridge.
Nova Scotia: Winner! Best Province. Hilly, oceanside cliffs, adorable coastal towns, numerous meandering scenic drives, lighthouses by the dozen. Cape Breton Island—beautiful scenery, great music, Acadians. Out-Maines Maine. Major city: Halifax, nice walkable downtown, plethora of panhandlers, sidewalks at cafes built out for pedestrians. Winner! Prettiest Town: Peggys Cove (see They’re Watching You).
Newfoundland and Labrador: Didn’t make it, see Wish We Hadn’t Missed Number 2, below.
Prince Edward Island: Didn’t go there; Sierra’s not interested in Anne of Green Gables.
Recurring themes: Bad roads, pierogies, Tim Hortons, rain (more a theme of the entire trip).
Wish we hadn’t missed, number 1: Victoria, BC; world’s largest pierogi and kielbasa, AB. We needed to be in Banff in time for the big Rain Festival, er, Canada Day.
Wish we hadn’t missed, number 2: L’Anse aux Meadows, NL, where the Vikings landed, and Gros Morne, NL, where the Earth’s mantle is visible. But you have to drive way into Quebec and/or take a ferry to get to Newfoundland. Maybe next year …
You meet the nicest people
Posted on August 10, 2008
Filed Under Random musing | Leave a Comment
Posted by Stan
Would you drive three hours out of your way to see this? You would if you are a Slow Traveler.
We didn’t know anything about “the world’s largest illuminated fiddle” until we saw the image on a postcard in a Cape Breton gift shop. It’s not just that we have an affection for roadside attractions, particularly “the world’s largest [fill in the blank],” but that earlier in the day we picked up a book of fiddle music and a CD to go with it because Sierra plays the violin.
So although we previously had no plans to visit Sydney we headed off the next morning to the largest city on Cape Breton. With Daria furiously looking through guidebooks for a clue as to where in the region it would be located, we wheeled into town feeling a little lost.
I pulled into the first gas station and asked the man behind the counter (sounds simple, but I can’t count how many times in the past similar questions have been met with blank stares). He didn’t hesitate. Just get back on this street and drive down five kilometers, he said, providing a few other instructions.
Then the only customer in the place joined the conversation. “You going right now? I’ll show you the way,” he said. No was not an option.
Out the door he went, climbing into his truck. We followed. When we reached our destination he led us into the parking lot, then got out of his truck to chat.
Ten minutes later we were still talking, like everybody in the Northeast these days, about the weather (”Worst rain we’ve ever seen”). And about gas prices, and about how not everybody in Sydney thought spending the money to build a 57-foot-tall, eight-ton fiddle was a great idea, about RV campgrounds, about driving through the Canadian Rockies.
One person like this, whose name we never got, makes up for scores of drivers who honk and make unfriendly gestures when you are driving around a little bit lost.
Another Cheesy Blog Post
Posted on August 8, 2008
Filed Under Food | 1 Comment
By Sierra K. H., Curds ‘n’ Whey Reporter
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the cheeses!” That was what Official Cheese Chopper Daria Labinsky said after the Official Cheese Label Maker and Curds ‘n’ Whey Reporter Sierra K. Hieronymus introduced each cheese at the First Vermont/Wisconsin Cheese Fest. The cheese were:
* Scratch & Dent Swiss from Who Knows Where (bought in Monroe, Wisconsin, at Brennan’s)
* Boucher Blue from Green Mountain Blue Cheese in Vermont
* Summertomme from Willow Hill Farm in Vermont (made with sheep’s milk)
* McCadam Wicked Sharp Cheddar from New York, bought at Cabot Creamery in Cabot, Vermont
* Horseradish Cheddar from Cabot Creamery
* Sundried Tomato Basil Cheddar from Cabot Creamery
* Pepper Chèvre from Blue Ledge Farm in Vermont but bought in Burlington, Vermont (made with goat’s milk)
* Cherrywood Smoked Mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm in Vermont but bought in Burlington
After eating each cheese, our three judges, The Slow Travelers Times’ own Judge Stan, Judge Daria, and Judge Sierra, rated their favorite cheese(s). In the first round, Judges Stan and Daria both liked the Madison best, and the Swiss least. Judge Sierra liked the Mozzarella, Tomato Basil, and Summertomme best and the Pepper Chèvre least.
In the second round, Judge Sierra liked the Mozzarella best and the Madison least ( “It made the rest of my cheese taste bad for a while!” she explains). Judge Stan picked Boucher Blue as his favorite and Tomato Basil as his least favorite. Judge Daria remained loyal to the Madison and slung mud at the Swiss.
After each round, the judges gave each cheese its place. Here are the cheese placings:
Horseradish: First Round: 5th Second Round: 8th Final Place: 8th
Wicked Sharp: First: 4th Second: 4th Final: 4th
Tomato Basil: First: 7th Second: 7th Final: 7th
Madison: First: 1st Second: 3rd Final: 2nd
Mozzarella: First: 2nd Second: 1st Final: *Blue Ribbon* 1st!
Swiss: First: 9th Second: 9th Final: 9th
Summertomme: First: 7th (tied) Second: 6th Final: 6th
Pepper Chèvre: First: 6th Second: 5th Final: 5th
Boucher Blue: First: 3rd Second: 2nd Final: 3rd
Sometimes the judges’ faves won, sometimes they didn’t. But remember next time you have a cheese night like we did, don’t forget to say: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the cheeses!”
keep looking »