LT talks back re: forcing Boh to spend at least one Canada Day in Winnipeg

Here's a goodie that I didn't want you to miss. Just posted today as a comment to my July 1st entry. Despite being disappointed in LT for not reading my blog EVERY SINGLE DAY, like - sheesh! - her comment to my post more than makes up for it (if only because it let my brain relax a little today). It also fans my flames to institute a guest blogger policy for this website; I know more than a few of you are way better writers than I'll ever be, but are too busy with real lives to keep your own website, so the policy would let you try out the art form that is blogging if only just once. My email box is open. You can write under a pseudonym should you so choose.

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Having lived through this tradition, I can offer a few tidbits of info that you may choose to ignore:

1) Your kid(s) will hit an age where everyone else is going to Club Med or some such other place that seems so terribly much cooler than spending 2 weeks confined to a van driving from historical site to historical site. Ignore them.

2) The amount of stuff they remember will be directly proportional to their age. So, my memories of Canada day in Vancouver are really limited (I think I was about 7 on that trip), but I can remember things in pretty vivid detail about Saskatchewan (age: 16). For example, impressions of Newfoundland Canada day: cold, early (sun goes up on Signal Hill at some ungodly hour), and my sister throwing up to the extent that some kindly NFLD cops loaded the entire T. family in the back of a squadcar to get us down the hill). That's about it. Good ol' Regina, however, is worth about 25 or so awesome stories that I still have in my head. Like the way my brother insisted on picking up every bleached bone we found while driving around the praries and loading them into the white Dodge Caravan rental van until my dad snapped and forced him to jetison all but the coolest skull he had found. Location of bone dump: parking lot of Double Happiness chinese restaurant (mmmmm). Can you imagine the horror of the next diners to use that spot?!

3) If you can, stay in B&Bs - they are cheaper, and you get to meet local families. Just be prepared to drive away if things get dicey, e.g. the time my dad told us to wait with the van running when we pulled up to a house with used toilets as flower planters on the front lawn (also the great Sask trip). I don't know what happened to him in that house, but he looked pretty pale when he emerged and pulled the van away from the curb in a big hurry.

Anyway, overall, it was a really awesome concept. Take lots of pictures (make sure you get one of you in front of the Dildo post office in NFLD!) DO IT!