not-really-my-birthday birthday day

so technically i turn 33 today. happy bastille day to you all!

however, today we met the worst weather of our whole trip thus far... and most of the day ended up being us soaking wet, stuck in rainshowers. so we've decided that it doesn't count. my real birthday will maybe be tomorrow. unless it rains all day again. then - maybe it will be monday. we'll just have to see. kinda like this trip....it's all rather up in the air. even b'days.

we are staying in our first hotel tonight and thankfully they have wireless internet. it's been harder to find up here in canada, so you may not hear from me for a few days once again.... did you know our dollar is about even with the canadian dollar? oh yeah. it is. dave and I have AMAZING timing.

everyone is so freakin nice in ontario. it's pretty awesome. two thumbs up for ontario. well, except for this rain, but it seems like it's hard to bypass it on the east coast right now. it's just thunderstorming everywhere!

i won't go into our reflections on quebec just yet. suffice to say, we are DONE with french.

anyway. let's get up to date with pictures and our travels so far. from the post below, i am sure that we've all gained a lot of pot-making wisdom. that was back on july 5th. after we left dad and ellie, we went to my friend sexy's house (carrie nelson). she recently acquired the house up the road from her parents. it looks amazing. it's like 4 bedrooms or something and has an in-ground pool. niiiiiiice. she's living there with an old school chum of mine: lisa walker. these are two of my oldest friends. i've known them since about 1st or 2nd grade when we were all in brownies together. :)

we spent the night at mom's and the next morning said goodbye. my mom is allowed to share the house with two special girls. this is puddy (aka pudster, stubster):



and this is missy - she has lyme disease AGAIN, so she was a bit limpy during this visit... :( but she's a trooper:



from mom's we drove south to glenside, PA, where, as you already know, we saw the AMD in her original habitat. and we have pictures to prove it:

in the living room:



the laundry chute:



her old bedroom clutching an old tennis award proudly:



and, oh yeah, chillin by the pool. i'm the one with the towel wrapped around my head as my fair little skin can not tolerate this sunshine crap.



so we end up having such a great time with AMD, we just stay over. next morning she kicks us out since her own flight is leaving back to SF that day and we hit the road. we get out of PA, fly through New Jersey and head into New York. We get off the NY Thruway and head up the east side of the hudson. it was breathtaking. we stopped in Hyde Park and did the tour of FDR's home:





good stuff. lots of woodchucks on the grounds. FDR mandated that they be left alone.

from there we spent the night at a Campground in Woodstock, NY. ate one of the best veggie meals I've ever had and even got a chance to check the internet:



next day, we headed up into the adirondacks. if you've never been, you should add them to the list. we stopped in schroon lake, NY for lunch and a nice hike:





i had actually been there with my family many years back. ran my first 5K there. strange.

from schroon lake, we headed on back roads to vermont. the landscape opened up into beautiful farmland and pastures and the rain held off, so all was good. we made it to burlington that evening and fell immediately in love. we ended up staying 2 days. and that's where we'll start next time.

:)

oh - and thank you to everyone who called! :) so nice to hear friendly voices on a wet, miserable day! so - we are dealing with .79 cent a minute cell phone charges in canada right now, so i will catch up with you all in a few days when we are back in the states.