Hazy and Crazy

Somewhere between Stephenville and Port aux Basques, NL

June 23, 2013

Here's a shot of that haze I mentioned in a previous post.  It looked a little too smoggy/brown to be the normal summer haze.  If you missed the aforementioned post...turns out it was smoke from forest fires in Labrador! 

Isle of Lewis: Drive-by Peat Harvesting

Isle of Lewis, Scotland

June 27, 2012

This shot was taken from the car on our way to the Callanish standing stones.  It was very common to see dark strips of exposed peat being harvested on Harris and Lewis.  

We lucked out with the weather during our stay, this was one of the few rainy days we experienced during our trip.  That darn sun just kept following us wherever we travelled!

The Sappyfest Chronicles

Oh Sappyfest...you came and went like a pleasant daydream.  Wait, was it a dream?  No, it was real...I have the blisters on my feet to prove it.

Sappyfest is the only music festival on my radar these days.  It's within a 4 hour drive from my house, the crowd is there (mostly) to listen to music and I only recognize 3 or 4 of the bands in the lineup.

Sappyfest:  your port-a-potties were air freshened with well cured sinsemilla smoke rather than ammonia pucks.  Your festival guide told me to accept lineup changes:  "things change, get over it".  I did.

The drive to Sackville was hopeful, filled with anticipation.  This was my second foray into the fest' that is sappy so I had a vague idea of what, when and where to expect it.  

The air on the highway was hot and the windows were down.  I'm sure I wasn't the only driver who had a Don Quixote moment when passing the large wind power array at the NS/NB border.  

Once I crossed the Tantramar marshes (it was just like the Sappy Times handout said....utter those words like a mystical incantation:  tantramar marshes, tantramar marshes, tantramar marshes), it was as if I had entered Mordor.  Epic cumulus clouds and sunny skies were replaced with a thick blanket of grey fog that enshrouded my home away from home.  At the time, I thought I wanted more sun.  As it turns out, I didn't know what I wanted.

Skip ahead to the last day of the festival.  I sat in a shady corner of a parking lot, enjoying the support of the soft driver's seat in my car.  I felt like I was drowning.  It's not the heat, it's the humidity.  Actually, it was everything.  A weekend of sensory overload.  I was suffering from hipster fatigue.

I bolted.  

Staying in Sackville for another 4 hours quickly started to feel like getting up for work after a heavenly and relaxing long weekend.  I started assessing my festival experience the way day traders perform a price/earnings ratio analysis of stocks and bonds.  I realized how Sappy happy I felt.  I stopped thinking about getting my money's worth from my ticket the way ravenous diners approach a cheap buffet.

I couldn't stay any longer, so I didn't.  I escaped.

I fueled up my body and my car and hit the road.  I gave my new Eternal Summers cd a test run as I had another Don Quixote moment.  I was awake, alert and happy to be driving.  Maybe I was just happy to be in a comfortable, air conditioned seat.  

I ran.  I ran back to my cosy Lunenburg county home.  I ran back to the chilly embrace of my familiar Atlantic ocean.

I was happy to see a thick bank of fog greeting me as I crossed the county line.  I rolled down the windows.  I inhaled and exhaled.  I cooled down.

Thank you, Sappyfest.  See you next year.

(more pics and stories to follow)

Maplewood to Elmwood--the end of the road

Last part of the trip that day, I tried to slow down the video to show the girl running home after church...you can almost see her smiling. Hang tight while the video gets processed by our friends at googletube.

Ahhhh!!!! what did I do? I can't remove the two extra embedded clips...Do'eth!!

*Update: video's up, enjoy!