Reflections

Wisdom (I use the term loosely) from the road:

-Buy your own coffee and tea for the road, a buck fifty every rest stop starts to add up pretty quickly.  Similarly, fruit and veg (and chocolate covered pretzels, obviously) are roadtrip gold!  There are only so many breakfast sandwiches and restaurant meals one can stomach as fun as it is to have an excuse to eat junk all day long.

-Scrounge as much plastic cutlery and coffee creamer as will fit in your bag. Do this at every hotel and motel you stay at.  Turns out a grocery bag of bagels and PB isn’t much good without a knife.

-Make use of every BnB that has a washer and dryer.  Socks and underwear, man.   Everytime.

-Turns out you can take an alarming amount of video footage from the road.  You should probably ease up on the record button, if you don’t want to spend approximately 1,000h sorting and editing the various highways and roadways of Canada.

-Do not be alarmed if you see swans (yes, swans) on the side of the highway in the prairies.  No, you are not hallucinating or (completely) losing your mind (only 50%).  They are, in fact, real.  Likewise, tumbleweeds are to be expected. (Yeah, we didn’t know either). Update: don’t be alarmed if you see swans in the prairies and in Alberta.