808 pages later...

In this week’s sara-Sunday-update, I hope that you won’t be too disappointed. In the last week, I’ve started in the lab, which means reading lots and lots and lots of papers, and occasionally running outside to avoid hyperthermia. While outside it is damn hot (forty degrees and up is my definition of damn hot), inside the lab it is bloody cold. (side note: I’m currently knitting some pretty rad red-and-black fingerless gloves that I can wear while at my computer to keep my fingers and wrists from a-freezing)

Since my social skills are so well tuned, I still have a grand total of zero friends in California, and hence I spent the weekend reading. Not reading just anything, though. In the past 3 days I have started and finished (devoured, perhaps) the last of the Robertson Davies trilogies that remained by me un-read, “The Salterton Trilogy”.

For those of you interested in my reading habits, you’ll recall that I’m probably the only person under 80 who has read “The Cornish Trilogy” and “The Deptford Trilogy”, and now “The Salterton Trilogy” too. Old Davies has such sharp wit and clever characters in all of his books, that he has almost garnered the title of “Sara’s favourite can-lit author”.

Well, I suppose I’ll go back to listening to a podcast of DNTO (yes… I already miss the CBC).

Davis: 3 days later.

In my first three full days in Davis (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) I have definitely gotten on my way to being settled. This is mostly my father's doing, as he feels that not having a bed is a more serious problem than I do. In my last three days i have visited the SPCA thrift store twice, and found a kitchen table, shelves, and chairs. I've also found a desk and a futon on craigslist, and finally, i bought a bed from IKEA, because used beds are GROSSGROSSGROSS.

I've also visited customs (it turns out that i had to "Import" my car at the border, but neglected to. oops), as well as the DMV (4 times...) and many other scenic areas of Davis/West Sacramento.

Also, it turns out that California is much hotter than the Ottawa Valley. Yes, it is a "dry" heat, but when the thermostat reads thirty-eight it still feels bloody hot.

So.. to end todays ramblings before I go to bed: Come and visit me! if you're nice, i'll let you sleep in my bed, and i'll take the craigslist futon.

The last day on the road…

Well, today we drove from SLC (no, I didn’t see any punks…) to Davis. We stopped briefly to admire the great (stinky) salt lake and marveled at the salt flats that followed. Before entering the Sierra Nevada mountain range, we saw plenty of geothermal energy stations around hot springs. I think that 5 days on the road may be a bit much for my “delicate” system. As we were passing through the Sierra-Nevada mountain range, I actually found myself thinking “well, they’re impressive, but Yellowstone was better” and then I went back to my knitting. On the way to Sacramento we stopped in for a swim at a beach on north Lake Tahoe. As it was a mere 29 degrees Celsius outside, there were less than 10 other swimmers, but the lake was magnificent to swim in, and made for a nie break before finishing off the trip. After lake Tahoe, we drove through Sacramento and arrived in Davis (which my father thinks is a City version of the Glebe).

Needless to say, there are several things that I have learned after traveling 4800 km in 5 days.
1) I am a better navigator than my father, as he neither looks at road-signs nor maps. At the beginning of the trip we were sharing the driving and the navigating equally, but as soon as we left Ontario we quickly realized that this was not going to work if we intended to ever reach our destination. How could I have gone 26 years without noticing this?
2) My father thinks that 2 Burce Springsteen albums in a row is alright, but does not agree that 5 Tom Waits records in a row is delightful. (I only got to play one tom waits cd per day).
3) Sometimes people at truck stops give you cookies. (raisin and oatmeal cookies from an old fellow working at a Subway in the middle of Nevada)
4) There is always a golden oldies station playing rush (by the way, I have updated my view of purgatory to be : driving through the desert/Salt flats listening to a static-ey radio station play Rush).
5) Yes, Americans seem to be fatter than Canadians.
6) The Americans that I’ve encountered on this trip seem to be much more polite than Canadians (or at least montrealers).

Yellowstone to SLC



Ok. So we decided to take the scenic route through to Yellowstone park, which if you have 3 hours to spare is a great idea. It involves driving along the “scenic beartooth pass” and it is beautiful. In order to pass into the mountain range, the roads zig-zag, with U turns to make the elevation passable by ordinary automobiles. But once you are up past the tree line, it is one hell of a sight.

After getting to Yellowstone using the scenic route we were pretty knackered and decided to only do minimal touristy things, but we did stop and see the hot springs, and man are they hot. If any of you want to make a gorey horror film, please include a “death by hot-springs” scene (yes, yes, I know that this was in Haunted, but now that I’ve seen real hot springs, it makes the whole idea more horrifying). In addition, we also stopped for every moose and bear that other tourists saw (or imagined). I found it pretty hard to believe that people just stop in the middle of the road for indefinite periods of time to see a bear. (can’t they just go to their local dump??).

After leaving Yellowstone, we drove to Salt Lake City, which I’m sure is more impressive during the day. Tomorrow, we hope to make it to Davis.

From Fargo to Yellowstone


If you ever find yourself driving from Fargo to Yellowstone, stop at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and just look at the Badlands. They are pretty bad, alright. The best thing about the park is that the park wardens aren’t too concerned with safety, and if you want to hop over the fence to see what the other side looks like, they are ok with that, and will even loan you their binoculars, and point out wild things in the badlands. I saw a buffalo snoozing, out in the open! Although it was a pretty magnificent sight, it is no wonder that people were able to hunt them so—I think that Darwin had a rule for creatures that take siestas in the mid-afternoon, out in the open.

We’re now staying in Billings, which is just outside of Yellowstone national park. Tomorrow, we’ll be driving through Yellowstone, and hopefully spending the night in Salt Lake City. After that, it is Davis-Land for me, and there will only be pictures of hippies and lab-mates.

Hello Americal Land!




We rose super-early this morning to hopefully miss out on any rush at customs, and took the bridge from Canada to America Land (above). Once in AmericaLand, one of the first stores that we passed was a gun shop (aaah… guns! ). The rest of the day was spent driving and driving and driving and driving.


We drove west along the south shore of Lake Superior (it is one BIG lake), and then continued driving west. Finally, we arrived at Fargo (yes! I’m in Fargo right now… no, there are no woodchippers in sight) and I’m about ready to sleep.

Day one on the road: From the Valley to the Soo




Alas, I wouldn’t want to bore you with details, so if you bore easily just look at the pictures. Today was the first day in my trip from Pakenham to Northern California. I’m driving there with my father and all of my worldly possessions (that fit into my car). We left Pakenham today, knowing that my cousin David was going to make us supper when we arrived in the Soo. Driving on the trans-canada was a lot nicer than I thought it would be. I had never been west of North Bay on the 17, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was much nicer looking than Kapuskasing (the swamp-content was way less). Also, I discovered that if you are an unemployed teenager in Sudbury then the cool thing to do is hang out by the hiway, pick blueberries in the ditch, and then stand on your parent’s van with a big sign that says “Blueberries” and wait for people to stop.

We arrived at Sault Ste. Marie in time for a lovely dinner with my cousin David, his wife Shannon, and their daughter Amelia. They live in a year round cottage- thingy, that was gorgeous. Amelia was kind enough to convince her father that I needed a boat ride, and then yelled FASTER!FASTER! for the whole time . Before leaving I was adorned with Canadian-Flag temporary tattoos (well, only one). It turns out that there is more to do in the Soo than I originally thought. Then end!

LeavingCanadaCanadaDayParty

On Saturday we had my “Sara-is-leaving-Canada-Canada-day-party” which involved some good wholesome nighttime barnclimbing, swimming and jumping into the Madawaska River from abandoned piers and some more traditional booze fuelled fun, which was dampened only by the rain.

To everyone who made the trip all the way out to pakenham…. THANK YOU!! And,of course a super big thanks to Barb (now I will never forget what you look like while huffing yarn), Kim and David (now, in case I lose my passport I’ll remember that I’m a Canadian) and of course the Z.O.M.B.I.E.s (I didn’t realize that all of that booze was for me! I thought that I was just drinking someone else’s Bombay Saphire and that no one would give me what for since I’m moving so far away).

Also, I learned several things this Canada-day.
1) All grocery stores are closed on Canada day in Ontario, so if you’re having a food related activity you’re best to leave the country and get some supplies in Quebec (which Neil did).
2) Norm ALWAYS wears spiderman boxers… and he even wears them swimming.
3) If i a had a hankering to move to california before, i could have done it quite easily. It turns out that California, ontario is just between Pakenham and Tatlock, just down the California road. Who knew? (Ohter than Kim’s mom, of course)

So… once again, thanks to (in approximate order of arrival) Kate, Dan, Barb, Jon, Danielle, Kim, David, Claude, Leroy, Norm, Lauren, Amin, Kevin, Clarisse, Juan, Scott, Phuong, Katherine, Brad, Jen and Mike…. I’ll see youse guys in December.