The trip's last days.

It's hard to believe that we've only been home for 3 weeks. The drop back in to our lives was fast and frantic. The boys had to finish up their term projects, get things ready for their portfolio meetings and I was back in to work within 15 hours of getting off the plane. Before I give you the whole summary, let me back track a bit and tell you about the rest of our trip home...
The last time I wrote, we were in St. John's and still had a couple of days there and then it was on to Moncton before catching our plane back west. We spent our time in St. John's trying to see as much as possible and we managed to pack in the following: the GeoCenter, Cabot Tower, Signal Hill, the Tattoo, Cape Spear, Peggy's Cove, a great O'Brien's Boat tour, some shopping, the Jelly Bean houses and some fantastic fish 'n chips! The boys loved the GeoCenter and they found an exhibit that was housed in a different part of the building, that was all about rocks, minerals, crystals, etc. and there was nobody there except for the University student who had been left in charge. Well, they spent forever in there looking at things under the microscope and the University student was so excited that someone bothered to seek out her exhibit, that she spent all the time we were there teaching and explaining things to the boys. It was like a two hour personal science lab! (great for checking off some of the PLO's before the boys portfolio meetings with their teacher!)

I think the highlight for me was the boat tour. We got up close and personal with some very impressive icebergs. The colours were amazing! I think we saw a total of 27 before the day was done. It was windy out on the boat, but a crystal clear, sunny day. We also saw Gull Island - home to over 1,000,000 seabirds, including puffins.
When it was time to pack up and leave St. John's, I felt a pang of sadness. Not only was I about to drive close to 1000kms in one day with two boys, but we were leaving a city that I really, truly loved. Our drive across Newfoundland was quite uneventful, although we did kill a bird, saw a few moose and drove through some pretty horrific rain. We arrived at the ferry terminal with plenty of time to spare and eventually boarded the ferry sometime close to midnight. It was an easy crossing and we all slept well. We took our time driving through Cape Breton, trying to kill some time until the Alexander Graham Bell museum opened at 9:00am in Baddeck.

The boys really enjoyed wandering through the museum and they were amazed by all the things he invented in his lifetime. We watched all the movies and they actually stopped long enough to read the little plaques that accompany most museum exhibits. After a few turns of rolling down the big grass hills outside the museum, we piled back in the car to head to our last destination - Moncton, New Brunswick.
We arrived in Moncton ahead of schedule and found ourselves with time use up. We didn't really know what we were going to do, but the boys quickly solved that problem when they spotted The Crystal Palace - an indoor amusement park. We parked the car, I got out a book and the camera and we were off. The boys spent a couple of hours riding a roller coaster, swings (I joined them for one whirl on the swings and they were the second best I've been on in the world.), and a few other rides.

We stayed with the parents of a guy I work with and we were at their house in time for dinner. That night we went to see the Indiana Jones movie and then it was straight to bed so we were ready for our last day of trip adventure.
We left early in the morning and headed out to Hopewell Rocks and we got there in time for high tide. (for those of you that don't know, Hopewell Rocks is known for the highest tidal changes in the world.) The rocks were spectacular and we spent about an hour wandering around and taking pictures so we would have something to compare to when we returned in the afternoon for low tide. Next on our list was driving out to Cape Enrage. It is a Lighthouse, turned Adventure Center, run completely by University students. When we arrived the boys were ready to explore and hopefully get in some rappelling. Well, it turned out that there was a high school program in full swing and one of the instructors was sick, so there was no one to take us rappelling. However, there was a really big cliff that had a rope hanging down it (there were going to be stairs installed later in the week) and one of the workers said if we felt we could handle it, we were welcome to head down the cliff to the beach. After arriving at the cliff and taking a look, it definitely fell in to the "don't show Grandma the pictures" category, but we hadn't balked at any challenge yet on the trip and if we were going to die, this would be a good way to go. Down the cliff we went. Even Dylan. Simply amazing. It was the rocks on the beach that enticed him down (did I mention I had to buy a suitcase to bring home all the different rocks he collected across the country?) - they were flat and black and perfect for building Inuksuks.

We spent a long time on the beach hanging out, playing and exploring. Then it was time to head back up the cliff. Whose brilliant idea was it to come down a cliff, anyways?
Back to Hopewell Rocks we headed, but we stopped on the way to take a picture of a beaver in a tree. Did any of you know that beavers climb trees?

Low tide at the rocks was very cool and after Brendan was as covered in mud as one boy could get, we went back to the car, stripped Brendan and headed back to start packing up for the plane ride home the next day.
The very last day was strange. We got to the airport, gave back our car (with much less fuss than I was expecting after our previous car difficulties), had some breakfast, got on the plane, flew to Toronto, got off the plane, got on another plane, flew to Vancouver, got off the plane, got our bags, met Grandma, loaded the van and drove home. And then it was over. Two years of planning, two years of saving, and 37 days of travelling had come to an end.
I'll do one more entry with my thoughts and the lessons I learned in 37 days with two boys, so stay tuned.