vacation chapter 3: Maine-iacs!

After a few days in Canada, we were ready to head back to the U.S. It's not that we don't like the Canadians and their beautiful country but we were running out of money. I'm just being dramatic about that damn exchange rate.

After we got searched at customs coming into Maine, we headed to
Caribou to spend time with Jesse's dad. We were also happy to stay with family (Jesse's aunt's and uncle's house!) instead of a hotel. Especially since the family happened to have every video game known to humans, including Guitar Hero.

This is a tree Jesse climbed when he was a kid.


This is one of his dad's cats. They named him Dice-K, which is awesome. I love a cat named after a baseball player! And Dice-K the cat is awesome too.



After a few days in northern Maine with Jesse's dad, we headed to the southern part of the state to spend a few days with Jesse's mom and her husband. We went to the beach and swam in the ocean.


We tried to buy muff for 99 cents but then realized it was an egg bacon muffin and wanted nothing to do with it.


Hey! Fancy meeting you here!!


Jesse's sister and her family came to visit. We bought this sweet Transformers voice changing helmet for his nephew. It was awesome.


Jesse's mom has a cute kitten. His name is Jake.


We went to York's Wild Kingdom and saw lots of cool animals behind chain link fences. I don't think I had ever seen such a young zebra before. It was all wobbly on its feet.


And then we saw the Alamo.


And then we rode a carnival-like (read: scary) ferris wheel. And then it start to lightning and thunder in the distance and I was pretty sure we were going to die.


But I was wrong and we lived. After we left the zoo we started the drive toward Niagara Falls. We didn't book a hotel room ahead of time because we thought we'd drive until we got tired and then find a room. We got to Syracuse around 10PM and weren't able to find a room. Well, the Budget Inn had a suite for $120 but we opted to sit in the parking lot of the Clarion where we could get the strongest wireless signal and booked a room on hotwire.com in Rochester.

We arrived at the Hyatt around 11PM. We asked the kind man at the front desk if there were any restaurants nearby. He got out a little map and showed us where we would find several bars and restaurants. When Jesse asked if we could walk to the bars and restaurants, the kind man said we should walk to them and that it would only take 5 or 6 minutes. Sweet! He forgot to mention that they would be the scariest 5 or 6 minutes of our lives. I don't know much about Rochester, NY but now I know to NOT walk to anywhere from the Hyatt at night. Scary people everywhere. After we ate and drank at a bar, we asked the bartender to call us a cab. He was having a hard time reaching a cab company so I said, "Hey we just walked from the Hyatt but it seemed a little shady. Do you think it's safe for us to walk back?" and he said, "Uh. You need to take a cab." So we took a cab and arrived safely at the hotel. Who knew Rochester would be scarier than Detroit??

Your next installment, vacation chapter 4: happy anniversary!, will show up sometime in the next year. I'm tired of writing about vacation. Are you tired of reading? It's okay to admit it. Really!

vacation chapter 2: Quebec, Je ne parle toujours pas français

I had never been to Quebec so we decided to stop by the old part of the city while we were on our way to Maine. After we parked the car we walked down some stairs and this was the first sign I saw. I immediately fell in love with the city.


We parked under the building at the top of the hill and then rode down on the little elevator thingy. And then we walked back up the hill. Since I had twisted my ankle the day before, it probably made more sense to walk down the hill and take the elevator thingy back up. We don't make any sense though.




Quebec is a classy city. That's what I say.


Quebec really was nice, even though we were only there for an hour. We ate maple ice cream and walked around and sweated and I bought a magnet with a beaver on it. Sweet!

It was a long drive to Caribou, Maine. I got bored and ended up taking a bunch of photos. These fields of yellow were really pretty and I meant to ask someone what it was but I forgot.


Coming up next: vacation chapter 3: Maine-iacs!

vacation chapter 1: Montreal, Je ne parle pas français

Saturday morning (July 21) we drove from Detroit to Montreal. The drive actually went really well even though it was long. Canada sucks because the exchange rate is pretty much 1-to-1 right now. The Canadians blame it on the U.S. dollar being weak but whatever. We know the truth.

Sunday morning we walked down to the old part of the city.

And we happened upon some locks! Yay!! I love boat locks.

And I wanted to get on this guy's boat.

Where did Jesse go?


We ended up going to see the Bodyworlds 2 exhibit at the science center. I hadn't seen it before and found it very interesting. And creepy. And when we went to a deli afterward to get lunch, I looked at the shaved meats and decided to eat a bag of chips instead. Yuck and yuck.

The Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal wasn't far from where we were walking around so we decided to check it out. It was pretty cool. Sorry about the link that is in French. I couldn't get the English one to work.


I like cemeterys so we went to Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges because it is huge and really old. When we pulled in we saw a lot of signs like this one.

I don't speak or read French and Jesse was driving so couldn't stop to try to read the sign. When we drove into the cemetery we noticed nobody had mowed in a long ass time. I'm terrified of snakes and I know that snakes like to live in cemeterys that haven't been mowed in a long ass time so we didn't walk much off the road.

Right next to that cemetery is the Le Cimetière Mont-Royal that had been mowed recently. It was really pretty until I stepped in a small hole and twisted my ankle.

Back in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges I stopped to take a photo of this.

Right when I was done taking the picture I turned and a fox ran out from the tall grass. I was afraid of snakes when I should have been afraid of foxes. It was much cuter than a snake and I tried to find it again. The grass was much too tall.

And we found out that the signs at the entrance of the cemetery were in regards to the work stoppage at the cemetery. Apparently the workers were locked out when they demanded higher wages, better benefits, all that good stuff. I hope they get to go back to work soon.

We went to a fancy dinner at a restaurant where apparently, Ben Affleck has been sighted. I ordered some kind of fancy squash ravioli and was mortified when my entree showed up and there were 5 raviolis on my plate. 5. And they were skinny little things. So I ate dinner again later.

After fancy dinner, we were walking around and found a parade beginning to form. There were brides in underwear and grooms with the asses cut out of their pants (and they were commando!). And I didn't have my camera!! We ran back to the hotel room and grabbed the camera and went back. I didn't see the brides and brooms but I took some photos of goofy Canadiens anyway.


We were tired from a long day of walking around the city. Monday morning we got up and found a little place to get crepes and then headed toward Quebec, and eventually Maine.

Coming soon!
Chapter 2: Quebec, Je ne parle toujours pas français.