Escaping City Boundaries
City or country?! Lying back in the sun, eyes closed with the breeze from the lake cooling me and listening to the band of crickets and cicadas, it’s hard to believe that I’m in the centre of Canada’s capital city. Living in Ottawa, we are spoilt for choice of where to escape the noises and heat of the city. Parks, lakes, rivers and beaches spread all over, waiting to be enjoyed and discovered. I love exploring these places, which makes... Read More
Wishlists
I’m sure that 90% of people reading this are the same as me and that somewhere hidden safely away (so as not to be a constant reminder, but equally a heavenly escape) have a ‘wish list’. Now this could be a list of anything-you may even have multiple wish lists of varying topics (in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m one of those ‘list’ types!) But the one specifically in my mind today is, naturally, my travel wish list. Wish lists come in... Read More
Driving in the East of the USA
My first major road trip was when I was seven. And really, it wasn’t a trip as I never did make it back to the starting point. When my family moved from San Antonio, Texas up to New York, we drove. 5 days visiting various famous sights along the way–though we did ship the rest of our belongings up. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything. I have no idea which sights we visited and what famous things I touched or experienced. It’s... Read More
Who Says You Can’t Go Home?
Food with my childhood friend, Liz, in Baltimore. Sometimes it's who you're with that really makes a place "home"... I’m driving from my mom’s house in Hanover, NH to my alma mater, Wellesley College, in Massachusetts after a pretty intense Thanksgiving road trip. The descent to North Carolina begins…again. On the radio– Bon Jovi’s “Who Says You Can’t Go Home”. Wish I could say I had a moment... Read More
We Are Travelers
Beautiful Vermont I gotta hand it to him: my boyfriend hates mornings, and he sleeps in every second he can (well into the afternoon, sometimes), but if he has to get up and out of the house at a certain hour, he does it with military precision. So it’s not a minute past 6am that we pile into his GMC envoy for a long trip ahead of us. It’s pitch black outside and you can hear the ocean rolling just across the street from our home. I’m... Read More
Silver Week – Part I
Day 1: Ellie & I depart Shimokita at approximately 7pm on Friday night, after work. We spend most of the evening winding our way down to the Tohoku Expressway which starts in Hachinohe. The road is new and relatively empty, and we are quickly out of Aomori and into Iwate prefecture. We drive until around midnight and pull into a rest stop, where we discover a relatively clean bathroom and an entire room full of vending machines,... Read More
Adventures in Aomori
Playing outside is one of my necessities in life. I enjoy it for all the physical aspects – the knowledge that yes, my body is capable and strong; for the appreciation of nature – cicada songs and wildflowers; for the distance it can put between me and the rest of civilization; and occasionally for the adrenaline rush of ascent, descent, or finding myself in a dicey situation. But what has been one of the most enjoyable aspects about... Read More
Castles and Cars
If I had to give a single piece of advice to travelers, it might be “Make friends with people who own cars.” Obviously, when meeting new people, it’s probably not the best idea to lead with “Hi, I’m Margaret, do you have a car?,” but it’s true that cars open up whole worlds of otherwise unreachable opportunities. In college, car-owning friends meant free airport pick-up and trips to Target, but when you’re traveling, they can mean... Read More
Drive Me Crazy
2010 Camaro in Imperial Blue by Lisa My brother-in-law is a car guy. You know, he reads magazines about cars, fixes up cars, goes to car shows, owns a pretty 2010 Camaro, wants to drive in rallies, and so on. After being with him for over ten years, my sister is now a car girl (though her preferred car is a Corvette, which she does not own). I am not a car girl, not in that sense. I only understand what goes on under the hood enough to know... Read More
Modern Day Covered Wagon
When I told folks that a week after graduation my plans included a two-week cross-country road trip with my boyfriend and his younger brother, ‘they’ told me I was crazy; ‘they’ said that I had no idea what I was getting into; and ‘they’ wished us luck. You know what? Sometimes ‘they’ are wrong… and sometimes they are right. All I knew was that a road trip starting in Boston, Massachusetts... Read More
