This trip, though less noble than the one from my last blogs,
is one that I expect to be full of adventure. I have a fantastic travelling
buddy, Jenn, and we will be making our way across Canada and the US over 2
weeks. It’s a very planes trains and
automobiles kind of trip, with a ferry, gondola, and roller coaster thrown
in! Okay…roller coasters aren’t a form of transportation, but boy they are fun!
We started day 1 flying out early (before sunrise, so I can’t even say ‘bright
and early’) to Victoria. For my non-geographo-philic friends, (a new sarcastic word
to describe someone that dislikes geography as much as I do), Victoria is a
cute island on the west coast of Canada, not far from Vancouver (or Seattle). (Note:
I’ll try to translate the Canadian to American as we go through…)
After settling into our seats for the flight to Toronto, I
was reminded just how much I love flying. The familiar soft bouncing in your
seat as the plane taxis down the runway, the big turn warning you that the real
magic is about to happen, an immediate acceleration as the plane starts to go
as fast as it can before the pilot changes one thing and suddenly we’re flying.
I imagine that’s the biggest thrill of being a pilot: putting the pedal to the
metal with nothing but an empty road and big blue sky in front of you. When I
had a motorcycle and the roads were quiet, I loved accelerating as quickly as
possible when the light turned green. You had just a second where you felt like
you were flying. (Perhaps it’s good I sold my bike….)
After a nice nap, I settled into an airplane movie. It is
great having a personal player in front of you and yet I’m nostalgic for the
feeling of curling up with a good book in the seat. In my travelling days, I
could finish an entire novel on one flight, but now I try to see how many
movies I can cram in. I should stop watching Oz now and open up the book that’s
just crying to be read….but I just can’t seem to! Plus I have lucked out. Both
movies I watched (that I expected to be terrible) were both quite endearing:
Guilt Trip and Oz. Maybe my standards are too low on a plane and too high in
the theatre, but they really both were good movies!
It’s funny being on this trip. For what feels like the first
time, two whole weeks off scares me. Can I really be gone so long? This last
year was unbelievably taxing, taking a full course load at the same time as
teaching courses, essentially two full-time jobs and going to Kenya in the
middle. My relaxation has really just begun, and rather than be relieved, I
don’t know, I seem to be apprehensive about leaving and having to force
relaxation. Oh well, I’m sure that will change as we’re only 7 hours into the
trip and there are many exciting things planned. (And I'm sure you feel terrible for me right now. Thank you for your sympathy. It is hard to relax!)
Upcoming events: skiing, Carrie Underwood, Mount Rushmore,
Dream Girls, Book of Mormon, going to the 3 biggest malls in North America,
roller coasters (did I mention that?), and so much more! We’ll be sleeping on a
train travelling through the Rockies, staying in hostels, and there’s a haunted
hotel on the books (shhh…don’t tell Jenn). We’ll be going to Victoria, Vancouver,
Edmonton, Calgary, Banff, Winnipeg, Minnesota, South Dakota, Chicago, and
Toronto, with a few other places along the way! As always, this blog is a
record for myself, so I don’t have to remember every moment, but if you want a
glimpse into my random mind, please feel free to take a peek during our journey.
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