by Sumiki's Dad "A twerked naval never exits." "Nasal passages: what a concept!" "Jello shoes: squishy and delicious." "I like botulism - especially in a six-pack."
We went out to have lunch at the same place we had lunch for the past two days. My dad got Steak on a Stick (with rice!) and my mom and I got two different kinds of fish and chips. For dessert, I had the turtle cheesecake again, while my dad fell in love with a butterscotch pie topped with a massive amount of meringue. The weather was nasty today - all wind and rain and fog and chill. We spent most of our time indoors as possible. After doing some Rosetta Stone French back in the room, we we
We got up groggily. My dad got up to see if the service station had a part from Sydney. They did not, but we were cleared to drive around the greater Chéticamp area from the edge of Cape Breton Highlands National Park down to a little beyond the edge of Chéticamp. Our brakes sounded no different than they had previously on the trip. Without using the emergency brake, we were initially pretty confident that we could limp along back to the States ... but if we broke down on what remains of the Cab
The man from the repair shop knocked on our door at about 10:00 to tell us that our brake had been fixed. My dad went down the street to get it, as my mom and I packed up in the room. The problem was in the emergency brake, and we were told that we should be good as long as we remembered not to use it. We set out back up the Cabot Trail, retracing our steps almost to the site of the brake-flame. Our destination was the gorgeous Skyline Trail, an almost five-mile trail on the top of French Moun
We began the day at the Alexander Graham Bell museum, along the Cabot Trail around Baddeck. We thought it'd be interesting to poke around - after all, we figured it'd be mostly about the making of the telephone. As it turned out, Graham's life and inventions far surpassed the telephone - as a noted teacher of the deaf and proponent of his father's system for teaching deaf students to speak. In fact, what was most striking was that the museum didn't talk all that much about the telephone - a go
We left our hotel at 11:00 and topped off the gas tank before going back downtown as we accidentally did yesterday, this time entering the now-open Halifax Citadel. Used from colonial times up until WWII for various purposes, the Citadel is now refurbished and acts as a living history museum, with folks dressed up in period costume, marching around, playing bagpipes, firing off cannon, etc. After going down a blind one-way ramp (and hoping that people would be following the stoplight at the bo
We caught up on some well-deserved rest and ended up leaving the hotel a little after noon. Our first stop of the day was an optical illusion called Magnetic Hill. Magnetic Hill has been known since Moncton was founded and the road was put in - there were reports of wagons and goods rolling uphill since the early 1800s. It was more publicized in 1933, and today, there's a whole Magnetic Hill complex around the illusion itself. Magnetic Hill is bizarre. To look at it, you'd say that the road di
We left Ellsworth before noon, gassed up amidst what appeared to be an octogenarian biker gang, then braced ourselves for a drive on "the Airline" - the local name for Maine Route 9. The moniker doesn't refer to air travel, but in the sense that predated mankind's first flight; it's because it's a faster route to Canada than going up and around on the modern Interstate route. The grades were steep and there were a few potholes, but it wasn't anything like the 20 miles we had to traverse on Rou
After a delicious breakfast in Bangor, we headed down on Route 1A towards Acadia National Park. Route 1A gave way to Route 3 in Ellsworth, and we got to the entrance of Acadia around 1:00. Post-Visitor Center, the first few pullouts were beautiful vistas of the shore, the ocean, and distant islands, but they were marred by the trees that got in the way. We eventually kept going after getting close to a few fearless seagulls, likely fearless because they equated humanity with free food distribu
We explored our Mount Washington hotel thoroughly. We saw the Gold Room, where the setting up of and signing of the International Monetary Fund took place, and a few old fuses - well, I thought they were old. It turns out that the fuses, part of the original wiring put in by Thomas Edison, were actually still partially in use. Honestly it sounds like a fire hazard, but I'm not an electrician. We decided to skip the treacherous Mount Washington Auto Road due to the fact that it's a private ro
We left the labyrinth disguised as a hotel at 11:00, having traversed 1031.5 miles at that point. By 11:22 we'd found our first stop at the Lexington Commons, site of the first skirmish of the Revolutionary War. Green troops on both sides panicked after hearing a gunshot somewhere, and began opening fire around the Commons. Only a handful of people were even harmed, but it nonetheless marked the beginning of the Revolution. We visited the tavern across from the Commons, which houses the origin
my parents' 31st wedding anniversary We had a small breakfast at our Hyannis hotel, then checked out, loitering in the lobby at the business-center computers looking up routes to Boston until the dealership called. They called, and we left, the last time I'd ever be in that terrible excuse for a car, the loaner Saab. As always, it barely turned over, but it got us to the dealership amid rain, wind, and cold blowing in off of the Atlantic. Back in our car by 12:15, we rolled out of the deal
Early this morning, my dad went and got the car looked at. The steering was funny when he drove in, with some terrible sounds emanating from the steering vicinity. Sure enough, the power steering system had a few leaks in it, necessitating a full overhaul. As a courtesy vehicle, the dealership loaned us practically the only car they had available for the purpose - an ancient Saab which didn't have back lights, had trouble turning over, made funny noises, and sounded especially bad if you tried
We got on the road a few minutes after 11:00. Our hotel breakfast - at least for my parents - consisted of sliced sausages called "pork ham." This is, of course, repetitive, so we thought that it was probably something we could chalk up to some local custom. A brief Google search tells me that it isn't. My faith in the overall intelligence level in human society took another hit. Before noon, we found ourselves in New London, home of the US Coast Guard Academy. It's a lot different in look and
We got on the road at 10:30 bound for Harrisburg. We wanted to avoid going through the gnarly traffic of New York City - we consider that a trip unto itself, to be done at an undetermined later date - so we decided to go up all the way to Scranton before cutting through upstate New York to Connecticut. At 11:30, we entered the parking lot for the Harrisburg Senators, the Washington Nationals' double-A affiliate. The Senators' stadium is located on an island in the Susquehanna River, accessible
After a protracted breakfast, we began the day at 11:30 and headed away from Winchester on Route 7. We rolled through rolling countryside and a half hour later found ourselves in West Virginia, on one of its little nubs. Our destination: Harpers Ferry, made famous by John Brown's 1859 abolitionist raid on its US Armory. After Brown's raid, Harpers Ferry continued to be an important stronghold during the Civil War, sitting at the confluence of two states at the war's beginning and three by war's
This was perhaps the most uneventful day one of any trip. We didn't know if we'd even get on the road today, as we had to wait for a package to show up through FedEx before we could leave. FedEx said that the package would arrive at 8:00 PM, so we spent the morning and early afternoon leisurely packing, thinking that we'd have to delay our plans by one day. The FedEx guy showed up a little after 3:00. We sprung into action, immediately panicking. My mom was in the shower, so my dad and I did e
Well folks, it's that time of year again - Sumiki's annual whirlwind tour around North America, and the third year in succession in our evil plot to turn a continent into a backyard. After over 16,600 miles in over 60 days in the first two Great American Road Trips, not to mention the sanely paced road trips of my younger and more vulnerable years, I have been in 42 states and exactly half of Canada's wonderful provinces. Looking at a map and checking off the places I've been in leaves a consp
My dad and I started brushing up on our French, for semi-obvious reasons. Never before have I suppressed the urge to say "hon hon hon baguette eiffel tower" so much.
My grandmother has been in and out of the ER for the past few weeks. She only lives about an hour away so at least one of us has been visiting and spending nights to help her recover from a series of problems exacerbated by incompetent physician’s assistants. She’s getting better, but slowly. The high school baseball season is ending soon. We had a fun awards night featuring a video where I spoke in the voice of Morgan Freeman featuring little kids going after a foul ball. We finished 20-3, an
Specifically, with regards to the gender imbalance in modern media: I'd like to see a story where, during the writing process, the characters are completely fleshed out and developed. Genders would be assigned at random at the end by computer generation, so as to avoid any unwanted author-based prejudices. Obviously this example refers to a book, but the same process could go for anything. (I was going to say more, but I think this pretty much speaks for itself.)
