we're back!

Wow, that was one awesome road trip! We visited friends & family along the way (including the family wedding in Winnipeg), did some camping, visited the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, AB (HIGHLY recommend it) - lots of dinosaurs there - went to the Forks in Winnipeg (even went on the touristy boat ride up the Assiniboine & Red Rivers), saw the world's largest Pysanka in Vegreville, AB, as well as North America's largest coke can in the same town (is there a connection there? Do Ukrainians drink a lot of Coke while painting Easter Eggs?!), saw a buffalo or bison in a national park just east of Edmonton, which I failed to stop and take a photo of, went to West Edmonton Mall (the kids LOVED Galaxyland! and I was so grateful for a fresh squeezed vegetable juice concoction from Jugo Juice), Fort Edmonton where we went on a steam train as well as a street car, drove the Columbia Icefield Parkway from Jasper to Banff (saw elk, mule deer, and coyotes), also drove the Fraser Canyon (Cache Creek to Hope), saw a few really awesome thunder/lightning storms, even tried to camp in one... a very memorable trip. Oh! I nearly forgot to mention the man-eating mosquitoes! I had forgotten completely to bring my citronella spray and the poor kids (& I) were eaten alive! I also at some point misplaced the bottle of lavender essential oil (which is wonderful for putting on bites, although this is an after-the-fact measure). I actually wasn't worried until we were listening to the local radio and they were warning everyone about West Nile virus. We camped in some pretty mosquitoey places. And some friends had about 6 cans of Off in their place (frankly, that stuff scares me; I prefer the citronella myself). And yes, we survived travelling without a portable DVD player. My girlfriend in Winnipeg lent us the Chronicles of Narnia audio-books (19 CDs) - we made it through 12 or 13 of them before arriving home - they really were a god-send. But we played travel bingo, who's who, and many other games and things to keep the kids entertained, and it was great.

Unfortunately on our 2nd to last day, one of the children got sick - VERY sick - while we were driving and now the inside of the Subaru is fairly plastered in stomach contents. It needs shampooing - in a big way. I thought, at the time, that it was food poisoning - came on quickly, lasted several hours, went away just as quickly, it seemed, but it turned out that 36 hrs later, I spent the night over the toilet (thankfully at home) myself. I *still* thought it was confined only to our family, but then I find out that where we stayed overnight that fateful 2nd-to-last-day, nearly everyone in that household is now sick, too. Which begs the question, where the HECK did we pick up this nasty bug? And how many more people have we been in contact with are going to get sick?! I feel terrible at passing along such a terrible flu. (And only now as I write this am I wondering if we contracted West Nile?! good grief, could it really be?!)

Staying raw while on a roadtrip proved more difficult than I imagined. I was fine for the first week - the bride at the wedding is vegan and there was lots of vegan food there - including some very very delicious vegan desserts (not raw, but I indulged)... but it was the week-long trip home where I lost willpower - not enough planning ahead left me in small prairie towns where it seemed there was no grocery store, where everyone in the entire town ate at A&W - so I did end up having a veggie burger a couple times (which honestly tasted disgusting). I was reading a couple books about fasting on the trip, and kept telling myself to just skip the meal, have some water, and keep driving. In a sense, I'm grateful for getting ill, as it seems to have purged my body of most of the non-raw/vegan food I was eating on the way home (I *did* stay vegetarian; the thought of meat was repulsive, but things like TimBits and Iced Capps made it into my body). Now that I'm back at home with my VitaMix I'm so glad to be able to start honouring myself with raw food the way I had been before the trip. It also just lets me know that on our next trip to the Maritimes in October, I'm going to have to pack more flax crackers, bring the blender, and locate enough supermarkets to keep me going.