Terry Fox Run

This past Sunday (September 19th), I ran in the 30th annual Terry Fox run for cancer. I ran 8 miles  across Confederation Bridge, from Prince Edward Island back to New Brunswick. I set my fund raising goal at $500 and thanks to the generous donations of friends and family, I was able to beat my goal and raise $560. Thank you to everyone who donated!

I was running in honour of my grandparents, Jim and Lillian Hamilton, both of whom died of cancer. They are missed.

Read more about my run on my running blog here and here.

The Damn Weather

For most of July and August, the weather in Sackville was unbearably hot and humid. Ever since the hurricane/tropical storm swept through, it has been bloody freezing. Somehow we completely skipped over Fall and went straight from summer to winter. Last night there was a frost warning. For the past several days, I have had to walk Nova with gloves and a toque on. How is this possible in September? It also doesn't help that our heating systems are not as automatic as the electric and natural gas heating I have been used to all my life. I actually don't even know what kind of heat the main heater is at my parents' house, all I know is that it is controlled by lever on a thermostat and is easy.

Here in our old house in our small town in rural canada, we have two options, neither of which seem particularly easy to me.

One is an old (1959) furnace.

Powered by oil, which is stored in this tank.

The other is an old (god knows how old) wood stove.

Powered by, well, wood.

Both of these sources of heat require maintenance before using them for the first time after not being used all summer. In addition to the basic maintenance, our chimney, which houses the output for both the furnace and the wood stove, is in shambles. So that needs to be repaired and hopefully it will be done soon since it also allows water to leak into the basement when it rains.

Today, since D has a visitor in town to assist him (apparently I am not good enough), he is cleaning out the chimney for the wood stove.

Which is apparently quite dirty. At last check, there was this much soot that had been banged out of the pipe.

 I am also happy to report that when I went outside to take pictures, I realized that it is actually kind of warming up today. It is about 19 degrees Celsius (66 Fahrenheit). I guess we might get a couple of decent days before winter fully sets in. Also, this weekend is the Sackville Fall Fair, and since today is the perfect day to be outside, I think that is where we are heading.

Classes have begun

Well I survived my first week of classes. I only teach 2 classes, but they have been taking up all of my time, which is why I haven't been posting. I definitely need to learn regulate my class prep time better. Both the classes have gone fairly well so far. One major difference I noticed between here and Texas is the students aren't as respectful. I guess I adapted to the Southern politeness, and it will take me a while to get used to non-Southerners again. That being said, I am in Canada, which is known for its niceness, so it really isn't bad at all. It's not like I am in the North East U.S. Now that would be scary!

Impromptu road trip!

Last night, I noticed on Facebook that a fair maid was in need of some electrical work. She lives almost 2 hours from Sackville right beside the Fundy National Park (Aside: I was recently informed that while everyone else says Fundy as it is spelled, Newbies say "Funday.") Now Sackville is also on the Bay of Fundy, but not the good part. There are no beaches in Sackville and the views, while pleasant, are not breathtaking. For those who don't know, the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, which is what draws people from all over the world to see it. I have been dying to go visit Jane and to explore Fundy park, so I offered D's electrical services for this morning. Shameless plug for D's company here: http://www.onsiteelectrical.ca/

First of all, the drive from Sackville to Alma is the official Scenic Fundy Drive that basically involves all the way up and all the way back down an arm of the Bay of Fundy. Although it is totally inefficient, the views of the water and the hills and the trees and the mud made up for it. We arrived at the fabulous Cleveland Place B & B shortly after 10 am, with Nova in tow. D was able to remedy the electrical issues in about 15 minutes while I chatted with Jane, and then me, D, and Nova were off to explore. I didn't think to bring my camera when leaving the house, and it wasn't until about half way through the trip that it dawned on us to take pictures with our cell phones, so most of what we saw is undocumented.

We began with an easy little jaunt just off the highway that was a loop through moose and beaver territory. We saw a couple of beavers, but alas, no moose. We really wanted to see a waterfall, but we didn't want to work too hard for it, so we found one that was not too much of a hike off the road. It was very cool to see, and I wish I had a picture of it to share, but unfortunately the picture is only in my head. I guess people will just have to visit me so that I can show them in person.

Next we drove to the end of a road that took us to Point Wolfe. This is where I realized that I could, in fact, take pictures. We stopped just outside of a covered bridge to snap this shot, which was only just the beginning of the awesomeness.

We drove down the road until it ended, parked and then walked through one of the trails where we were delighted with this view.

On the way into Alma, the bay looked to be at a fairly high tide. Here it must have been on its way out. (I am mostly guessing because I have no idea.) We could see people down on the beach on the right, and decided that it was time to dip our toes in the water. So we headed down.

Almost there:

Beach!

Nova had her first ocean experience. I don't think she could tell the difference as she still gulped down the water like crazy and then barfed it back up just like he does when we take her to the lake.

And just so I could say I did it, I stuck my feet in that freezing cold water!

I loved being at the beach, but definitely did not love having to climb all the way back up...

On the way home we took the extra-scenic route down Hwy 915, where we detoured to Cape Enrage, which definitely lived up to the hype in the tourist brochures. It was an amazing view and we could even see blue water beyond all the brown, which made it seem like the real ocean. It was also damn windy, and damn cold, so we did not stay very long.

Thanks to Jane for all the destination recommendations!

Hurricane/Tropical storm

Well it appears that I have survived my first real hurricane, or maybe not. I arrived in Texas right as Katrina was happening, but it was too far away from Austin to have much of an effect. Next came Rita and she was supposed to come right through Austin, but then ended up not coming anywhere near. The closest I have been before this, I guess, was Ike in 2008, which passed over Austin after it caused fairly severe damage in the Galveston and area along the gulf. It was downgraded quite a bit by the time it got to Austin.

Hurrican Earl was my 4th "almost hurricane." It appears that it was not actually a hurricane when it came to my part of the world. The news reports were up and down about whether it was a hurricane or a tropical storm. On Friday night it was declared that it would come inland in Sackville as a Category 1 hurricane. Overnight, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, but then it was upgraded to Category 1 again in the morning. It didn't end up hitting Sackville as directly as anticipated, and although it was windy and rainy, not much happened. In fact, I was taking a nap when it hit. I woke up, looked out the window at the sheets of rain blowing across the road, thought of videotaping it, but decided that napping was more important. So that explains the level of scariness of the storm. Pretty underwhelming overall, which is probably a good thing.  

Relaxing on the island

I know this blog is supposed to be about my adventures on the east coast, but my visits to the west coast were so delightful that I have to share about the west coast again. Specifically visiting my aunt on Vancouver Island. I got to see so many people I love while I was home, which was amazing but being on the island is always my favorite part of visiting. Especially when Sharon comes along.

First of all there is the view from the ferry. I was so overwhelmed by how beautiful it was even though I have taken this ferry ride many, many times. I guess usually it is in the winter when I go over or it is raining or something because I don't remember being this awed on past voyages. I kept thinking that I could use these pictures to lure my American friends to Vancouver for a visit. (Is it working yet?)

Then there is the view from my aunt's house:

In addition to the awesome views, we also get wildlife. Squirrels, raccoons, and deer. Now normally I am afraid of deer, thanks to my former labmate who managed to help me view these docile creatures as evil killing machines. Sharon is also afraid of deer, so we tried to do therapeutic exposures (from afar) during our trip.

We watched one attempt to eat a tomato. (You can't really hear it, but someone calls the deer a dumbass during the filming . You can hear me comment on it, though.)


Deer eating a tomato from LDH on Vimeo.


Then the next day we watched some fawns frolic and eat leaves. You can't hear it in the video, but the leaves are quite crunchy, so sharon started refering to them as deer chips. Crunch, crunch crunch. Nom, nom, nom.


Deer eating leaves from LDH on Vimeo.


Now I am back on the east coast, and my posts about east coast weirdness will resume. I just thought I would share my fabulous vacation and hope that it was successful in luring my non-Vancouver friends to Vancouver.