Road Trip Day Two, or how to continue a weekly feature on poured cement garden statuary on the road

On day two of our road trip we stopped at the Enchanted Forest. If you aren't familiar with this roadside attraction I think you ought to stop in the next time you're traveling the Trans Canada through the Shushwaps, not only is full of charming trails decorated with 1950's kitschy goodness plus there's no better way to run off excess energy for another long stint in the car than to run run run and climb and run, and crawl through little houses ad run and climb up a tree houses than to run it off in an Enchanted Forest.




I last visited when I was in elementary school and recall almost all of the same houses and statues. There were a few newer attractions but for the most part it was a walk down memory lane for me.



It seems that poured cement follows me now or perhaps I'm just seeking it out all on my own. This post features some of the forests finer pieces of fairy tale statuary.

In and out

Well, we made it. I'll be in and out of touch with a computer as we'll be staying at a few places with no Internet connections. (who knew that this was a possibility in this day and age?) 

The trip was a good one, we stopped at the Enchanted Forest on Highway 1 and I'll include some pictures in an upcoming post with some other shots of our second day on the road. 

In the meantime here's the play list from our trip, listed by artist

The Faint

Depeche Mode

The Kaiser Chiefs

The Cure

Glasvegas

Ladytron

First leg

road trip

We left on our trip to Alberta this evening at 6pm. The Peanut had had a long afternoon nap so any hopes of her sleeping in the car were dashed. The excitement of heading over the top of the mountains to Grandma's house was enough to keep her happy in the backseat for about four hours when we stopped for gas and a potty break followed by another hour to the motel we are staying in over night.

Wild life spotted: one deer eating by the road almost missed it nice to see, one late deer on the side of the road not so nice to see, one hawk riding the thermals.

I had anticipated meltdowns and at least one bout of motion sickness. The gravol did the trick with any tummy mishaps and we (and when I say we, I mean Peanut) managed to keep her diaper dry until the first pit stop. Our one and only meltdown happened just as we got the card to our room. Before we leave in the morning I'll take advantage of the motel wireless and post some more picks from our first leg.

Driving music

Once upon a time when I was young and impetuous I left the dance club with a good friend (also a boy whom I had a huge crush on at the time but he was also a friend first so that's not really the point) at 2 in the morning and drove from Red Deer to the Edmonton Airport to pick up some luggage for a hotel guest. My friend was working as a hotel bell boy at the time and had promised to get the luggage for the guests in hopes of a big tip. Only problem was he didn't drive and didn't have a car. Enter me with both car and license.

My friend was great conversationalist and had the same taste in music as I did (we were both big Depeche Mode fans) and the 1.5 hour trip was pleasant as was the two hours spent in the temporary parking lot waiting for the airline desk to open. One of the discussions we had while driving on the moonlit highway was what songs were good for driving to. I happened to have Martin Gore's Solo EP in the car at the time which kicked the conversation off as we agreed that the whole EP was an excellent soundtrack for a road trip; it has a kind of dreamy quality to it that seems to go well with the broken lines of the highway flashing past as you move forward.

Over the years my road trip music has varied a little but there are always a few good standards that we always end up playing. It's been a few years since we've been in a car for any length of time but we'll be bringing the I pod and car adapter for our listening pleasure. With the Peanut on board we'll have to include some of her favourites; Weezer's Pork and Beans and Depeche Mode's Wrong as well as a good sprinkling of Joy Division and Talking Heads are on her play list.

What's your favourite driving song?

Getting there without losing my mind

When we decided to drive to Alberta instead of flying, my first thought after getting a car sick kit together was how to keep the peanut entertained during the insanely long car trip.

I started to do the research and visited parenting forums to see what others had suggested or tried. Almost everyone who answered the forum posts I found answered the same. I'm not sure but I think it's fairly common knowledge that a portable DVD player is an essential tool in travel with kids. If not, one visit to parenting forums would surely drive the point home.

Yes, we have a portable DVD player. It was the first thing on my list of things to keep our Peanut occupied but it wasn't and isn't the only thing I want to take with us.

Growing up, I have memories of watching the landscape drift by as we traveled the TransCanada through the Rockies. We didn't have the luxury of portable DVD players, MP3's and game players (well I did have a Nintendo Gameboy; you know, the one that came with tetris when I was 18 or 19). I want a family road trip to include some of the same things I remember as a child, not least of which is watching out the window for a glimpse of a mountain goat or a bear.

When I was kid, road trip entertainment was a box of crayons in the back window of the Firebird (which usually caused the crayons to melt in hot weather), whatever book I was reading at the time and invisible ink activity books and for some reason legos. Of course there were also games of "Mom, she's on my side of the car!" and "Dad! she touched me" but no one likes those games too much or for too long. My sister and I would sometimes play Old Maid or Go Fish. Sometimes we'd play travel bingo. Other times my parents would make goofy jokes that depending on how old we were, either made us laugh or groan.

One joke my father would always tell at a specific point on the highway, "put your hand on the window" he'd say at the beginning of a large curve in the highway. Then at the apex of the curve where a large hydro building was located he'd turn with a smirk and say "Did you feel the pane? Get it?" Typical, punny Dad joke and it never failed to catch us as we'd always forget the punchline from the last time we made the trip. Once we were old enough to recall it we'd request it. I can still remember the coldness of the glass on my palm and the small part of me ready to quickly pull my hand away in case it might hurt.

Our trip starts Friday night. I'm hoping the Peanut falls asleep on the road and we can quietly transfer her to bed in the motel in Kamloops. I'll be documenting our trip and posting off and on while we're gone. Because we'll be on the road, I'm putting further 5 questions on hold. In the meantime I'm getting all things packed, cleaned and organized.

Speaking of Momentum

A few weeks ago I posted about the challenge of keeping up momentum. I've been actively working towards this, trying to overcome lulls and create momentum for myself as well as grasping opportunity wherever it rears it's elusive head.

Having said that, I'm once more heading into a situation where the temptation to drop the ball is going to be high. We're going on Vacation next week and I'm a little worried about whether I'll be able to keep up with the Blog, Tweeting and TMCPhoto and PeanutButterPie.

With the worrying has also come the drive to keep things going. I'll be posting while we're gone (thank all Gods for Laptops) and I may even add a new photograph or two onto TMCPhoto while we're there. We'll be at my Mom's, the location of my Borealis Photo-shoot as well as the Electric Series. I'm hoping that I'll have the opportunity to take some new and fresh shots while I'm there. Since I'll have the laptop with me I'll also have access to my Creative Suite programs.

It's been over two years since I've been back to Alberta and I'm pretty excited about seeing my family. With the exception of my older sister and my two nephews who came in March for a Hockey Tournament; I haven't seen any family except on Facebook in all that time. I'll either be so homesick to stay at the end of the trip or ready to get out of Dodge and not want to come back until a suitable time period has passed. I suppose any posts I do while there will give clues as to how I'm feeling.

Speaking of momentum and grabbing on to opportunities; I was lucky enough to get in on the recent Etsy Treasury window. In honour of our upcoming road trip I've put together a selection of items that are just making me yearn to get on the road.

I'm determined

One of the things I missed out on living in a one bedroom apartment when my daughter came along was the nursery nesting experience. Other than setting up a crib in our bedroom, there was no painting the nursery, choosing just the right lamp and all that other fun stuff.

I'm not a fan of gender specific colours (one of the reasons I was so excited about the Etsy baby shower was the colour choices my Mom had in her son's room) when I was pregnant and puffy I chose the colours I would use in the nursery if we had one, I wanted the colours of lime and strawberry Popsicles. Bright green and rich pinky red, when the light shines off of them. When we moved into a two bedroom last year I went in search of just the right furniture and bedding to suit.

As with most of our home decor, we ended up in Ikea. It's inexpensive and looks clean on modern. We picked out a mini table and chair set, a shelf and bin unit for her toys and a rug and bedding that matched the paint chips I had painstakingly picked out at the neighborhood paint shop. In addition we found a beautiful wrought iron bed on Craigslist and one of the grandma's donated a refurbished antique armoire and bed table, both painted cream to match the bed.

The bulk of the room with the rug and bedding was red and I wanted more green and something that was a little more one of a kind and specific to Miranda's likes. We also needed window coverings to help block out the early morning light (a 5:30am wake up time is not well received by either me or the husband) . A trip the the fabric store yielded a piece of black denim (to use as a light block) and a pre-made curtain in the exact shade I was looking for. To personalize it I decided to hand stitch ladybugs (one of Miranda's enduring obsessions) across the bottom.

One year later and we're in a new place; and I'm still stitching. I'm getting close though. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm determined that I'll have that curtain up in her window b the end of this summer. I have plans to bring it with me on our road trip and sew as we drive though the mountains, in between keeping miss motion sickness occupied of course.