Musical Times

Last weekend I was in a musical, Sweet Charity, and it was my first musical experience.

I was a chorus member and I had a wonderful time, in addition to being in the background in a few scenes I had a couple of lines as a "young man" and a panhandler. I didn't seem to get a snap of my panhandler get-up, it was in the vein of old timey Salvation Army (or so I'm told).

It really looked like a played a crazy young man judging by the picture on the left, and yes, that is a glue on mustache that I'm sporting. Amazing, I know. I also played a hippy:

The whole experience was great, from start to finish and I met a lot of great people that I hope I will get the chance to work with again next year!

Cape Breton Adventure

This past weekend Greg and I packed up our snowshoes and headed out with some friends to spend a few days in Cape Breton - where there is snow!

We stayed just outside of Baddeck in cottages and had a beautiful view of the Bras d'Or Lake.

We had lunch and headed out on Saturday afternoon for a great snowshoe through the trails behind the cottages. There were some hilarious adventures through the woods on no path in particular - thankfully I had my Garmin to track just how far we went (6.07km to be precise!):

Some interesting finds along the trail:

On Sunday we packed up after a lovely evening and lazy morning to head towards Usige Ban Falls. We were treated by an amazing (mostly) frozen waterfall and an excellent trail. It was really perfect for snowshoeing, particularly because of the fresh falling snow.

I tried to set up for a group picture before we took off, but my first attempt wasn't successful:

I took a bit of video one this hike:



This hike was a bit shorter, 5.22km:

Trip To Wentworth

After a two year break I finally made my way back to a ski hill. The break certainly wasn't intentional, it just seemed that I didn't get out. So yesterday Greg and I went to Wentworth yesterday and spent the day throwing ourselves down the hill and had fun doing it.

The hill was pretty worn in by the time we got there (around 11:30) so there were a number of icy patches and on my first run I learned where a few of those were...the hard way. I slipped on my toe edge and landed on my knees - ouch!

Lots of colours! Thankfully with all of my other falls (there were many) I landed on my bum and just kicked up a lot of snow, got up, dusted myself off and kept on my way down the hill. Greg also had his fair share of wipe outs, but I seemed to take the cake in the bruise department!

Sheet Harbour Cottaging

Last weekend Greg and I were invited to spend some time at our friends parent's cottage just outside of Sheet Harbour. It was a beautiful spot on a man-made lake and was previously a camp ground so it was perfect for our myriad of tents! I say we were cottaging because the only thing we did in regards to tenting was sleep and change in it. The cottage has a full kitchen and bathroom and there is a huge deck where we stuffed our faces on several occasions.

It was a great day when we arrived and although I don't have any pictures folks went swimming and other kayaking. Greg and I opted for the kayaking and it was great to explore the lake. We actually tried to chase a loon for awhile....it was on to us.

Pipes direct water from the lake into this pond just next to the cottage, there are a surprising amount of fish and ducks here regularly:

Left: Pitcher Plant found on our Sunday hike. Right: washer toss, what's camping without it?!

After a large, late lunch on Sunday we decided to go for a stroll before eating another large meal. We piled into vehicles and drove about 25 minutes to reach this beautiful walk which ends at the ocean:

The sunset was beautiful, unfortunately my iPhone camera doesn't quite capture it:

Interesting rock formations along the coast, one of the friends along with us is a Geologist so we all learned a bit about rocks:

Left: sparklers by the camp fire - amazing! Right: Instagram shot of a snail:

Left: one of three very cute dogs with us for the weekend. This one wanted to eat all of the food on the table and was successful in a few attempts. Right: freshly made biscuits and cinnamons bunts with homemade jam was ready to go on Monday morning as a breakfast appetizers. Did I mention how amazing this cottage and its cottage owners are?

After eating another extraordinarily large meal we headed out again for a hike. This time we piled in the cars and went to Taylor Head Provincial Park. There is a nice walk along the beach (with clear, cold waters) and it turns into the woods for the rest of the 3km:
 

Barren landscapes and lots of smelly seaweed baking in the sun (it smelled awful!)

Thank you Donald and Renee for inviting us!!!

Miramichi Adventure Part 1

After super rainy weekend in Maine we headed to Miramichi. The plan was to camp and hike Mt. Carleton, but since our gear was soggy and smelly we decided to stay with Greg's parents a few nights early.

Pretty much daily there were epic clouds with accompanying thundershowers.  You can kind of make out some of these clouds below, we took a walk on the boardwalk in New Castle:

Before we actually got to Miramichi, we stopped at a suspension bridge along the way. It gave us a pretty view of the Miramichi River:

Greg's Aunt and Uncle have an AMAZING garden, something to aspire to and we were invited to take some yummy goodies with us. They have since been put to good use (thanks Clara and Keith!)

Rather than hike Mt. Carleton we went to Kochibouguac National Park for the day. The plan was to go for a hike, but our plan turned into hiking AND kayaking - yippee!

A view from a look out, the water was super still and we saw a lot of birds from here (eagle, cormorants, ducks) :

This is the path to the look off, beavers had clearly made their mark:

Eagle!!

Geese!!

Now, perhaps it's because I don't speak French. But the location of "Petit Large" just cracked me up:

In addition to the hike up river we checked out "The Bog", which is a pretty cool ecological site. There is this tower where you can get a great view of the landscape.

This bog spreads out from the centre by changing the level of acidity in the soil. Only certain plants/trees can live in such an environment so it forces the landscape to change from a forest to a much more sparse and desolate looking spot:

Finally we went to the beach, not for a swim but just to check it out. There was this clever sign instructing those who might have "accidentally" taken shells from the beach to return them to a bin just below the sign. Well done Parks Canada!

We also saw a Piping Plover hanging out below the boardwalk. While kayaking we actually saw an adult plover and its three fledglings - very neat!

Mt. Katahdin

We did our best to climb Mt. Katahdin weekend before last, it rained and rained and rained some more. We were able to climb to about 3000 ft to Chimney Ponds, but the ranger at that point didn't recommend we go further. To be fair it was 12 degrees, pouring rain and our finger nails and lips were blue.

Also, my small camera broke because of all of the rain so my pictures of this trip are lacking.

We did have a good time at the campground, it didn't rain all of the time and we managed to have a fire both nights. There was even a lodge at the campground complete with hot tub and bar, yippee!

Here are a few photos from our adventure-vacation!

After setting our tents up in the rain and getting soaked (from the rain) after a paddle in the pond we decided to warm up and dry out  by having dinner at this swanky place. They actually put us upstairs rather than downstairs with the regular people....we were rather dirty so we thought they didn't want to put us in view of their regular customers:

There were lots and lots of clouds all weekend but in this instance they were pretty over the lake:

Saturday morning we got up dark and early to head to Katahdin for 7AM. Like I said it rained, it started about 5 minutes in to our hike and got progressively worse as we climbed up and up. Thankfully we Josh was able to start a fire to try and dry out our soggy clothes. Unfortunately it rained again over night and most things got wet again - womp womp!

Sunday Beth and Josh braved the pond to have another paddle, it was pretty foggy:

On our way back to Canada we stopped in Houlton at a Pizza Hut which was stuck in the 80's. Beth made a delightfully eclectic salad with pretty much everything from the salad bar in it:

Greg and I will eventually get back to Katahdin to climb it and hopefully the weather will be more cooperative!

More MS Bike Tour Goodness

While my last post had a more general audience vibe to it, this post has more to do with what I normally blog about - random things!

Here are a few nerdy couply photos of Greg and I, one in our biking gear and the other in our neon formal attire (for the evening banquet):

Way, way back in the summer in 2006 I did research in the Gaspereau Valley on tree swallows for my honors project with my good pal Allison. As part of the bike tour we actually biked by all four of the field sites so I couldn't help but stop and take a picture with one of the bird boxes:

An interesting fire hydrant and a lovely old church in downtown Wolfville:

They had an awesome bathroom sign at the exhibition centre, I like how men's is underlined. Once we got to Sackville (where we stayed for the night) we relaxed on the deck, drank lots of coffee and took in the rain shower under the canopy. It was pretty delightful, here is Greg taking in my pictures from the weekend:

A much deserved beer on Sunday when we got back to Sackville. We stocked up on new beer at Premier Wine and Spirits off Spring Garden St. This was a very tasty choice:

MS Bike Tour, Video Style!

I volunteered to film Beth's (amazing!!) speech at the banquet on Saturday night, and that led me to think that I should video tape more of our shenanigans.

So not only do you have the chance to watch Beth's (amazing!!) speech you can check out the video and photo montage of the Neon Riders' version of the 2012 MS Bike Tour:



You can also watch Beth's (amazing!!) speech here:



In two days we biked about 2000km with a team of 18 (2 of which were our pit crew/photographer, a wonderful treat!) The Neon Riders raised over $12,400 towards MS research and had an awesome time!

For more information about the MS Society of Canada, click here.

And for more blogging fun about the Neon Riders, check out fellow Neon Rider Josh Graham's blog:  MS be Shaven

MS Bike Tour Preview

This past weekend I participated in my very first MS Bike Tour and it was amazing!!

I have lots of pictures and videos to share with you but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Until then here is a sneak peak of some of the colourful people I hung out with on the tour: