Planning my trip to visit all 10 provinces in 2017!

Hello!

This blog will follow my adventures as I try to drive to all 10 provinces in 2017 - a year that marks 150 years of Canadian Confederation!

I will be driving my new Buick Encore AWD (because yeah, even in late April you can hit snowstorms in Canada) from Coast to Coast and back! Hopefully doing a bit of sightseeing and lots of friends and family visiting as I go.

The first leg should start next week if all goes well. I will drive from Lorraine, Quebec to Cold Lake, Alberta to visit with my Mom and Dad and brothers family. It will be a looong drive, the longest I have driven... but inshallah it will be super interesting and will allow me with many hours to practise my zen and see what I have been missing about Northern Ontario.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of my Dad doing much the same trip from Ottawa to Coombs, BC during the Centennial Year in 1967! I will look for a photo when I reach Cold Lake :)


So basically 3,500 km and five provinces - with three time zones.  I could drive through the States and gas would be cheaper and the roads possibly better... but I have never been to Northern Ontario and well, it kind of runs counter to my goal to drive across Canada this year :)

I intend to hit the East Coast this summer and BC during the Western leg of my trip... so fingers crossed this blog has a load of posts by December!

Smile and courage, Connie

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3: Nipigon, Ontario to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba

Image
So today was a "short" nine hour drive that felt longer.... Ontario is just so big!!!! But made it to Portage la Prairie, where my Mom was born! Too lazy to go into town this trip... but I have done a driveway of the house where she lived in a trip a few years ago.... Day 3 by the numbers: Km driven: 906 Hours on the road: 9 and a bit Provincial borders crossed: 1 (and boy was I happy to hit Manitoba with a decent speed limit and divided highways) Time zones crossed: 1 (and my car updated automatically - fancy!) Wildlife: Canadian geese, 1 partridge, passed a deer farm Tim Horton's visited: 1 Number of times cursed the snow: once, when I cleaned the car off in the bitter cold with no mittens, socks or boots Some observations: Ontarians drive slow, even below the speed limit. I find that weird. Manitoba drivers of a certain age do not understand that if you are not passing cars you should stay in the right hand lane. All men of a certain age hate b
Read more

Review of my 2017 Buick Encore AWD

Image
After driving 3,500+ km across five provinces and lots of different terrain - and a couple months in Quebec where I drove more than the average - I decided to add a review of my car to the blog. My car cleaned and ready for the trip! All my time in the UAE I rented - for the most part a Honda Accord - which was fine and good on gas, but not what I wanted for Canada. I had rented a Trax and an Encore last summer and knew I liked them... and my Dad has been pushing for the Encore for a couple of years (he loves Buicks). So with the help of an awesome broker (email for his name if you live around Rosemere, QC) I got a 2017 Buick Encore AWD - the Premium edition (because I wanted the bigger engine and heated seats). So first what I LOVE 💗 The heated seats - really it was on my list of "musts" after so many years living in the desert I know I have turned into a wimp! Also the lumbar support is spectacular - I wasn't stiff at all after 5 days of long days of drivin
Read more

Day 5: Manitou Beach, Saskatchewan to Cold Lake, Alberta

Image
I finally made it to my parent's in Cold Lake, Alberta! This is NOT where we grew up (PArksville on Vancouver Island, the real West Coast), but my brother works in the oil fields so this is where they live now :) Day 5 by the numbers: Km travelled: 611 km Time travelled: Almost 7 hours (gravel roads do no let you drive very fast!) Wildlife see: 1 wolf running across the gravel "highway", Canadian geese, a pheasant (yes, I know what "eating" birds look like, elk (which got me excited until I saw 6 of them and realized it was an elk farm), a few hawks/falcons and cows and horses. Cost-Co pit stops: 1 in Saskatoon, also got gas and hot pickled green beans. Times a bit nervous: more than 1 as the numbered highway in Northern Saskatchewan was like a gravel road in the middle of no where!!! Observations: I have begun to like cruise control, which I always resisted. When you have a lead foot and open highways (and don't want a ticket) you really
Read more