girls gone wild

casey's birthday, stagette, and just all around camping fun, happened 2006 during the july long weekend.

we were all in need of a getaway and this was the perfect opportunity. in truthness, when you compare your stag to this one it was probably tame (i truthfully don't know as i have attended a total of 2 and both involved camping). however i bet on your stag you didn't have an electric fence??

we roadtripped to lake louise, alberta. fun tunes (golddigger by kayne west and diamond on the soles of her shoes by ladysmith black mamboza), fun walkie talkies (tiffany~"mama bear paging papa bear") good games (i mean there was the best judge in scattgories ever~wink wink) AND AN ELECTRIC FENCE (touch it...TOUCH IT or cook on it?!!) not to mention excellent weather to go with all those things.

...really it was a bunch of girls hanging out, laughing, walking, hiking (in sandles), "gaming", eating large quantities of food & drinking just a bit.

in terms of lake louise it is a pretty touristy area, especially during the summer...but when you have views like this with a fabulous group of friends, the buzz of the area doesn't seem to get to you...

i was on the amazing race...

...okay so not really but it sure felt like it. i went to australia in 2004 with two friends i used to work with. it was a specutacular trip, full of laughter, tears, fun, with a mixture of extraordinary sights. byron bay was one of the best places on that trip. the age i was, the mentality i had and the atmosphere byron had worked well together. it had a hippie, relaxed feel to it, yet all those good tourist things i wanted were at my feet.

cut to the amazing race...the most easterly point on the mainland of australia was in byron bay (it already sounds like a destination that contestants would have to go to, right?). we decided to rent some bikes from our hostel, trek up to the lighthouse and then down the path to the point.

THE CATCH: the bikes had to be back before sunset (more on that later) all of us, having done so much walking at this point thought this should be a cakewalk, or not...

now comes the excuse portion of this story: our bikes ONLY had three gears as we rode up the hill...no no let me rephrase that: MOUNTAIN. that with the combination of the extreme humidity, one water bottle between the three of us, we were just slightly underprepared.

THE RESULT: one of us could go no farther up the hill/mountain. really it is just a point after all...it can be seen from a distance, right? the other two were stubborn, bound and determined to go to the actual point. i mean one million dollars was at stake!!! past the lighthouse, jumped off the bikes and running down the path towards the destination...weird from this angle it kind of looks like the sun is setting doesn't it??

needless to say we did not make it before sundown...and i think the importance on why we needed to be back before dark was the ride back down. one of us got accosted by a bush turkey. life flashed before her eyes as she was shocked that she would go out of this life by a bird eaten on thanksgiving day. swerved away just in time, life back on track. another, i cannot speak for how she felt, but by the blood curdling screams i think her bike lacked brakes (who needs brakes down a monstourous deathtrap of a hill~i mean mountain??) three girls, in the dark, on a winding road leading us to our end, screaming who knows what...

...we definitely deserved the million!

a little sentimental about stanley

so the first place i want to write about is stanley. i love new brunswick and one of my favourite places is stanley. its the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else... my grandparents lived there all my life. there is a barn just beside the house that i was always told to avoid as it will fall down any minute (it still stands).


there is also a woodlot that used to be a maple tree/christmas tree farm where before my grampie passed away he would mail us a christmas tree every year from new brunswick to alberta so that we could have a little peice of home with us during the holidays (my grammie still upholds the tradition). mainly i love this place for the memories like:

-down the hill is a high school where, in my recent stay i would wake up to the singing of "o canada"
-walks with my dad through the woods or collecting wild flowers with my cousins and brother.
-sitting on the veranda at night looking at the stars with my grampie listening to his moosecalls and having long talks
-catching fireflies and playing in the park with my cousins
-i even love how the floorboards creaked when my parents and grandparents went to bed
...so many more memories and i love them all! :)

first post after 1.5 years!!

so i have had this blog since june 2005. it started when my friend casey unvieled her blog and in order for me to comment i thought i needed my own. i instantly got hooked onto the "blog universe" and was added on as a user to case's blog. however, i still had this empty page that needed to be filled! ideas came to me but i really wanted to write about travelling. i am obsessed/love every aspect of travelling...because i pretty much express my ideas, opinions and everything else on casey's blog i figure this one can revolve around the good, bad and ugly experiences/events, that have happened in my past travels (and hopefully future ones?) eventually it may evolve into something else but till then, i hope you enjoy mine (and hopefully my friends) fun adventures! :)