Lennox.
Remember that time I dogsat for my Sis and BIL while they bought a trailer and drove across Canada/USA?
Yeah, she knows me pretty well and when I offered to watch her Dog she automatically asked me… “what do you want?”
My Sis “lives in the moment” and doesn’t take a ton of pictures or record every moment of her life like
So, I asked her in return for dogsitting to guest blog for HoneyBears & SydneyBeans! It was a total win-win!! I get to hear ALL about her trip, as she went through it, writing along the way! With pictures! PLUS She will have a written record of her family’s first EPIC road trip forever!
Actually, Sis and BIL have travelled a LOT this summer! They came out here (Penticton) for a week at the beginning of July. They also came out last week! We had a HUGE zucchini so the Girls and I made muffins and breads for their visit. Sis and Fam loved them, so I will share a savoury zucchini bread recipe with you and then let Sis take over 💛.
Savoury Zucchini Cheese Bread
Adapted from Gather for Bread
Serves: 1 large loaf or 4 mini loaves
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup shredded zucchini
¾ cup shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup of finely chopped green onion
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup of butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl add the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and garlic powder. Whisk to combine.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients in the large bowl. Gently stir together just until moistened.
Spoon into loaf pans and bake.
Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Or bake 4 mini loaves for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Part 1:
Road trip!! Growing up, road trips were a staple in my family. We frequently spent our summers camping all over Manitoba and Ontario as well as driving to see family out west in Alberta and BC. Every summer that I can remember involved squishing into a vehicle and driving. One summer there were 4 of us (my sister and I and our 2 cousins) all sitting on the back bench of my Nana and Popey’s truck when we drove from Winnipeg to Penticton. It was just a little bit of hell, but memories that last forever! That’s what it’s all about, right? The memories? It just seems fitting that I carry on that tradition with my own family.
We decided that this summer was pretty special with me being on maternity leave and my husband (Mon Beau from here on out as he is my handsome French husband) having the summer off as he is a teacher. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to purchase a travel trailer and drive all the way to Eastern Canada, to visit family and friends.
Having family far away, especially while you’re raising a young family is just plain tough. My family may be in BC and Winnipeg, but Mon Beau’s family is even further, in Ottawa, Quebec and New Brunswick. This trip would provide us the opportunity to see them ALL in one summer, how could we pass that up?!
The week before we left on this epic journey, we drove out to Penticton to visit Dad, Sistah (Kristin’s name from here on out because she hasn’t given herself one yet in the blog lol), Ninja, HoneyBear and SydneyBean. You can read about that adventure on Sistah’s blog post HERE. We brought our dog Lennox with us as my Dad will now allow him to come (after 2 years of asking lol), but only if he wears booties in the house. My Dad would pass out if he scratched the floor. He has seen my floors at home and has refused him for the last 3 years! He’s a good Pup. We rescued him from Prairie Pitbull Rescue over 3 years ago and he is fabulous with the girls. We originally planned this trip with him tagging along as he has separation anxiety and leaving him in a kennel for over a month would be devastating for him, as well as hella expensive! We planned a simple trip with no excursions as he would bark at the campsite if left alone. We also had to be careful of Ontario, Winnipeg and Montreal due to their absurd pitbull bans. Don’t even get me started on those. 2 days before we left Penticton, Sistah offered to keep Lennox while we were gone! We were more than shocked with this offer. This would be a fairly easy transition as he was already there and they have been thinking of getting a dog themselves, great! On a side note, after this entire trip was over, they definitely decided they do NOT want a dog hehe). The hurdle was that we were all meeting in Winnipeg in early August, so where would he go when they left? Sistah again volunteered to bring him on their road trip and drop him off in Calgary on their way through. Amazing! Seriously, who does that for someone? We were so lucky to have great friends Jess and Niki who agreed to pick him up from a kennel when they returned from their vacation and grabbed their own pup, only 2 days after Sistah dropped him off. They would then watch him for over a week until we returned! This was so amazing as it would allow us to actually leave our campground or go do things all together as we could not leave Lennox alone if he was with us. Let’s DO this!
All of our doggy reservations were set in place! We were leaving the next day to head home to Cochrane for 1 day to pack the trailer up and begin our journey. After groveling at Sistah’s feet for taking Lennox, she confidently advised me that to pay her back, I should write a guest blog post about our travels to share with all her readers. Since we are quite different people, I silently mumbled SHIT under my breath and gave her a thumbs up. I can do this…I can do this. With that being said, here is our trip across Canada and the US in 5 weeks…with a 4 year old and a 6 month old.
TIP #1
Road trip = CAA
If you’re planning a road trip, consider getting CAA (AMA in Alberta, BCAA in BC). Not only does it provide you a peace of mind if you break down, lock your keys in the car or by accident toss a child out the window, but did you know they offer FREE maps and travel books? I was given a map and guide book for EVERY province and State we were planning on going through, probably over $100 worth! Amazing and so helpful.
All which came in extremely handy when looking for things to do without internet in the USA or letting SweetPea follow along on the map. She was amazed to see my yellow highlighter cover the map as we continued on our way! Yes, I got bugged from so many people for using paper maps, but shit was it fun! And so nostalgic 😉
July.9th, 2017. 4am. We hitch up our brand new trailer for the first time, wake the kiddos and fight the fog to Tim Hortons, our current life line. We are off!
First stop was over the border to Billings, Montana. Little did we realize that driving 1000 km in one day is NOT a good idea with young kiddos! It took us 14 hours to get to our destination with a super grumpy and non eating 4 year old as well as a wailing baby who would only calm down by sucking on my pinky finger and us all singing Twinkle Twinkle in unison. It was awesome.
Not to mention 200km of an insane wind storm and a near head on collision we escaped with Mon Beau advising “at least the brakes work well with the trailer attached”. Cue Mama freak out!
When we arrived in Billings, our route was blocked off due to above said wind storm.
TIP#2
Bring a GPS. “Jane” was Our life saver!
We finally arrived at our destination for the night, Wal Mart parking lot. We took one look around at the people being arrested in the parking lot and said F it. We would find a campground….for $62/night…AMERICAN. Really? If this was how our trip was going to go, I was prepared to head back home lol.
In the end, we survived our first day on the road. I whipped up a batch of my finest KD and Mon Beau took SweetPea to the park, while I put Cabbage to bed. I never did get to see that campground lol I sat outside in my brand new camping chair for not even 3 mins and the mosquitoes ate me alive. With that, I surrendered and we all fell asleep before our heads even hit the pillow.
Day 2….
From Montana through Wyoming, to the South Dakota badlands…where the speed limit is actually 130km/hr?! It was a relief to see that construction zones slowed down to 105 km/hr 😲…which Mon Beau replied “you mean I have to speed UP for construction zones?” Lol Mon Beau is a very “cautious” driver. So cautious, I bought him a hitch cover years ago that says “I may be slow, but atleast I’m ahead of YOU”. Just imagine him with 30 feet of trailer behind him 😂
We booked a campground 1.5 hours outside of Rapid City, South Dakota as we had our dog when we booked and did not plan on doing any sightseeing. On our way there we drove through the Badlands National Park. The badlands are mesmerizingly beautiful. The rocky yet savannah like terrain made the drive from Rapid City to our campground stunning.
You could see nothing for miles and miles and it made us question where on earth we would be sleeping that night lol and then we turned! Jane says 1.5 km to our campground…. but we still saw nothing in the distance. We thought Jane had failed us…but then we saw it in our tired and groggy eyes, hooray! Where were We?! We arrived at our campground Badlands/White River KOA at 7pm-after the kids bedtime and dinnertime, so everyone was the opposite of happy. Thank God for those emergency boxes of KD! Sweet Pea and Mon Beau went for a dip in the pool while I put Cabbage down for the night.
I still haven’t seen outside our camper. When I did, it was pitch black out and I went to find WiFi near the campground office to update our families on where we were. As I left my little air conditioned oasis of our trailer, I was smacked in the face with the heat of the badlands…and this electrifying sound. I could barely hear myself think. Was it a gazillion crickets? No way could they make noise THIS loud. I was confused, but on a mission for Wifi. I found a connection and was so happy to catch Sistah and have a Facebook Messenger conversation with her! And then all of a sudden I felt something fall on my shoulder and more falling around me. WTF! I screamed like a baby, as I do when I see a spider, bee or any other insect that is not an ant. Straight up, I’m a suck. I was so creeped out and mortified, I ripped back to our trailer, but not without getting a video of the horrid bug sounds in the pitch black and sending it to Sistah to feel my pain. Please excuse my potty mouth.
Mon Beau told me when we left, those bugs are called Cicadas and they lose their shells, which is what was falling on me. There were at least 15-20 of them stuck on each tire. YUCK!! Here are pictures of what it looks like intact and also while losing it’s shell so you can be just as grossed out as I was.
You’re welcome 😉
We had one full day to explore Rapid City. There are many things to do there (Mount Rushmore, Reptile World, Cosmos Mystery Area, etc). With such a young family, we chose a trip to Storybook Island with the littles. Let’s face it, Mount Rushmore would’ve been miserable for us with an uninterested toddler and it is actually 30-45 minutes away from Rapid City. Cosmos is not baby friendly as strollers are not allowed and there’s a great chance of tipping over with a carrier on the uneven ground.
Storybook Island was definitely the right choice with young kids! It is an admission free children’s amusement park with hands-on playsets and storybook characters to be creative with. They do accept donations and recommend giving $10/family, which we did. It was awesome seeing SweetPea say nursery rhymes and sing songs when she saw characters such as Humpty Dumpty, Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and her favourite, the 3 Little Pigs. She rode on a train around the park and took a ride with Mommy on the carousel, where I thanked the kid working for making me sick for the rest of the day 😂 I chatted with an older woman who was there with her grandchildren and she said she has pictures of taking her own children here when they were young! You can tell it is dated but also renovated a bit. In the end, SweetPea (and us!) had a blast and it was an inexpensive day, bonus!
Before heading back, we stopped in Wall, home of the famous Wall Drug Store. This drug store began in the depression in 1931 and almost closed down until they decided to offer FREE ice cold water to all customers. It started bringing visitors in from the highway who in turn bought items that helped the store survive. Today it is a 76 000 sq ft tourist attraction that has historic stores, the original pharmacy, delicious homemade donuts, an ice cream shop, a cafe that sells 5 cent coffee and even a courtyard with water fountains you can run through is a must see!
TIP #3
We found that driving one long day, followed by one shorter day and then a no travel day- staying a whole day at a destination, worked best for all of us. One long day (approx 10 hours) every 3 days worked well because it would come after a no travel day and we were as refreshed as could be when doing something silly like this.
Next up on our journey was our long day as we just spent a no travel day in Rapid City. We spent a whole day in the truck travelling from South Dakota to Minnesota. Our long days ended up being 600-700 km long in distance, which turned out to be about 10 hours with 2 kids and a gas guzzling truck pulling a trailer. This was the day my baby turned 6 months old! We started her on solids about a week before we left, so it is safe to say her first month of trying foods was nothing more that squeeze pouches and rice cereal. No homemade food for you second child! She has since been enjoying a lot of homemade food since we’ve been home 🙂
We stayed a quick night in Albert Lea Minnesota at another KOA Campground Hayward, Minnesota Campground | Albert Lea / Austin KOA We met a lovely couple who was from New Hampshire with 3 kids and super prepared with their tent trailer they bought for $1 and fixed it up! There were organizers everywhere, names on towels and dad even had a huge binder filled with 30+ reservations at their destinations. They kind of reminded me of what Sistah would be like if she ever stepped foot in a campground! We enjoyed a quick dinner and dip in the pool before calling it quits for the night. We had another travel day tomorrow!
Next up was our “short” travel day and our destination was Utica, Illinois, which is 1.5 hours outside of Chicago. Our short days planned to be approx 400-500 km and took us about 6-7 hours to reach our destination. We arrived at Starved Rock Campground in time for wiener roasting, S’mores, a shower and bed. It was definitely the most rustic campground we stayed at. It reminded me of places like Wasagaming Campground – Riding Mountain National Park in Clear Lake Manitoba or Rushing River in Ontario, where we would camp growing up.
Yay for a no travel day in Chicago! We took our time in the morning as we knew we were in for a long night. We decided that we had to go to a White Sox game and they just so happened to be playing that evening at 7:30pm, go figure! 7:30 is passed both Girl’s bedtimes and right in the middle of Cabbage’s “witching hour”. The girl literally flips a switch and goes into freakout mode at 7pm sharp. When she means bed, she means bed. We couldn’t let that stop us though. Good thing she loves my Ergo Baby Carrier 😉.
We decided to head into Chicago at about 10 am and park at the White Sox baseball stadium and take the train downtown.
We planned to spend most of the day at Navy Pier as there is so much to see and do. That changed as we were walking there and we came across Pizzeria Due and spent 2 hours of our day to try Chicago deep dish pizza lol it was worth it!
We kept on walking and arrived at the ever so popular Navy Pier.
There are fountains kids can frolic in directly outside the Chicago Children’s Museum at Navy Pier Inside there are multiple shops and restaurants, including the biggest McDonald’s we’ve ever seen! We took a spin around inside, took some pictures outside by the water and began our walk back to the train, which was about 25 minutes (or about 4500 Fitbit steps 😉) to head to the baseball game.
The White Sox game didn’t start until 730pm, so we were able to have a good 1.5 hour break in the truck before the game so we could all feel refreshed and then got to wander around the stadium for an hour before the game began. The Girls got first game certificate and buttons (even though this was SweetPea’s second MLB game). See Sistah’s blog post for that fun story! There was also a kids zone where they got to meet the mascot (SweetPea was shy so she preferred the non real version of him lol), throw a ball around and race an electronic player in a sprint.
SweetPea had a blast! We shared a yummy nacho hat for dinner which was tortilla chips and marinated chicken smothered in tomatoes, lettuce, jalapenos, sour cream and guac and served in a plastic White Sox hat. So yummy! I did get to watch at least some of the game while trying to get Cabbage to sleep in my Ergo carrier lol.
We left at the end of the 6th inning as we had a 1.5 hour drive home still. We got the kids in their Pjs and joined the never ending, crazy ass Chicago traffic back to Utica. Seriously, my heart rate was through the roof when driving there!
Did I mention that our campground closed and locked the doors at 9pm and that if you tried driving in, your tires would be popped from the SPIKES they have out? Yeah. When we got back at midnight, we had to park outside the campground, load the girls into our jogger stroller, adorn a forehead flashlight and trek back to our site. After my best EVER Fitbit steps day and an unforgettable day and evening, we crashed so hard I’m sure the neighbours heard us snoring.
Indiana. The land of “we like to have 80km in a row of construction and traffic jams. And then when you’re through that, we will add on 40km more. FML. We lost over 2 hours of our day stuck in construction and used almost an entire tank of gas stopping and starting through it. On guard! Through Michigan, over the border in Sarnia and to Niagara Falls.
This was a long day, especially because Cabbage popped her first tooth today! We left Illinois at 7:30am and I had to call our campground in Niagara Falls at 8pm when we realized we wouldn’t get in until close to 11pm. With them closing at 11pm and not willing to stay open later, we had to boogie!
We had snacks for dinner in the truck and I did bedtime routine in the backseat with the girls. I fed Cabbage her nighttime bottle in her carseat, read SweetPea her books and they both drifted off as it got dark. We rolled into our campground Scott’s family RV at 10:46pm. The lady I talked to on the phone was waiting outside and cheered when we made it, finally lol Thank goodness we have a quick set up with the trailer to transfer the Girls on days like this. The challenge ended up being our chatty neighbour who hopped on over to ask us a gazillion questions and give us advice on Niagara, while we were trying to get set up. I swear, Mon Beau, the guy who detests small talk, attracts it 😂 it’s just how the world works.
We all slept in after our late night and we didn’t really have a set plan. Which for Niagara, is a sin! I ran into our campground office on our way out and Brittany, our cheerleader from the night before sent me off with a town map and several ideas. Since we have a 4 year old who hates getting wet (yep I just said that 😂), doing a boat ride to the falls was out of the question. We opted to view the falls from Clifton Hill, an area that was shockingly bustling with “game-packed arcades, neon-lit souvenir shops, themed restaurants and carnival midway- style rides, just a short walk from your best view of the American Falls.” Cited from CAA’s Ontario Tour Book. Thanks AMA! It was tourist central. The claustrophobia I developed when living in Asia many years ago creeped up on me, but I was able to push it aside when I saw the stunning Falls. From a distance they were ferocious, I can only imagine what they would look like from the Maid of the Mist on water level! I would say that I have travelled a lot in my 34 years on this planet. From coast to coast in Canada, Mexico, Western Europe, Asia and Malaysia, even to the forbidden North Korea and I’m not sure I have seen anything more stunning. We took a good look and some selfies of course, then went back to spend our afternoon on Clifton Hill, what a blast! We wandered around, had some lunch and SweetPea was allowed to pick one fun thing to do. She picked…a haunted house?! This girl is sometimes scared of her own shadow, so we were surprised lol She was sure though, so I took her on and we put on our 3 glasses and used our guns to shoot all the monsters inside. She did great! Until we were finished and came out, the doors opened and a high pitch scream was heard. It was then all over. The tears were flowing and she now will never go on another one of these rides. I am so very deeply sad about this lol.
From a young age, I have had an obsession With waterfalls. Counting them as we drove from Winnipeg to Penticton, daydreaming about how romantic they are, hiking to them and drinking from them. I always knew Niagara Falls was on my bucket list to see with my own eyes, no matter how touristy it is. I can now check that sucker off and smile knowing my girls can too 😊
We could not go to the Niagara region and not hit up a few wineries! We have both only been to the Okanagan wineries, so this was exciting! With kids in tow, we found the perfect winery to buy a bottle of wine for Sistah, Ninja and Dad for looking after Lennox. It was called Two Sisters Vineyards and it was the fanciest and most beautiful winery I had ever been in! The best part was that even though we were dressed like we were Netflixing and chilling all day, we didn’t feel like we were judged, bonus! Just a couple of weeks prior, Kelly Rippa and Ryan Seacrest were flown there in their private helicopters for a tour. It was THAT kind of winery.We bought a beautiful bottle of Merlot for the fam jam and were on our way to find some easy drinking camping wines. We found a good selection of these at Caroline Cellars. They also entertained SweetPea with a glass of juice and multiple suckers hehe Niagara was one of my favourite days of our trip. But now that I’ve seen it, I don’t think I’d go back. Well, maybe for the wine 🙂
We made it to New Brunswick! With a night in Quebec to eat ALL the cheese curds of course 🙂
