Thursday 5 April 2007

This is the end...


Well, I made it back to The County after 92 days on the road. Art was happy to get the Rav back, Mum was happy to finally see me and I was happy to eat some Sam's pizza!! I thought I should wrap up this blog with a final post and provide you with some additional stats from the trip:

Final kms: 27,478

Average km/day: ~300 (equates to wearing the ass out of 2 pairs of jeans!)

# of games watched alone: 6 (out of 31)

# of days/nights alone: only 15 (out of 92)

# of home team wins: 16 (out of 31)

Gas station stops: ~70 (not including pee breaks!)

# of "Roll up the Rim" wins: Zero..Damn!

States visited: 35

Provinces visited: 6

Some might consider this a bit cheesy but I want to thank everyone for sharing this trip with me along the way. Here is a list of everyone that I stayed with or met me along the way:

Pyke, Sinead - Calgary
Donald, Jamie - Edmonton
Gary, Rhonda - Vancouver
Mark, Rachel - Portland
Trevor, Bronwyn - San Jose
Derek, Marie - Dallas
Jack, Isabel - Ruskin
Kendall, Arlene - Sarasota
Jon, Marla - Atlanta
Doug - Atlanta to Nashville
James - Atlanta to Carolina
Jason, Missy - Greensboro
Mark, Ed - Pittsburgh to Washington
Vicki - New Paltz, New Jersey, Buffalo
Laura, Heather - New York to New Jersy
Colin - New Jersey
The Cook's - Buffalo
The Weise's - Buffalo
Darryl, Allyson - Sarina
Donna, Pat - London
Steve, Kim - London
Joe, Joy - London
Dale, Chuck - Chicago
Dave, Holly - London
Archie, Hillary - Toronto
Johnny Mac - Toronto
Heather - Toronto
Emily, Sean - Ottawa
Uey, Annette - Napanee, Kingston
Spence - Kingston
Cad - Ottawa, Napanee, Kingston, Montreal, Halifax
Cad, Tash - Halifax

Thanks to everyone (family included) who found the blog entertaining enough to keep following and for your comments contributed along the trip.
Also, I need to thank all my friends in Australia for their support and assistance in getting me on my way - in particular - Brad, Jeff, Pat, Bari (thanks for the calls), Andrew (hope my stuff hasn't been put to the curb), Bennett, Rachel, Fairlie, The McLarens, Sonja, Nathan, Clara, The Innes family, and Therese for the phone calls which seemed to come when I needed them most.

Now, what crazy idea can I come up with next...stay tuned...

Wednesday 4 April 2007

Go Habs Go...



How could I possibly ask for a better finish to this fantastic road trip? The Habs win their last regular season home game 2 - 0 against the Bruins in front of their 100th consecutive sell out crowd. Montreal’s playoff hopes are still alive and with only 2 games remaining it should be a pretty exciting finish.



Captain Koivu, who received a lot of local media for being benched in the final minutes of their last game, scored both goals and they were beauties! Big time.



The crowd didn't generate the atmosphere that I experienced in Ottawa but it was incredible all the same. I have followed The Canadiens since I can remember and have never seen a game in Montreal so to say that I felt a bit of emotion would be an understatement.

The crowd after the game cheering:


There will be another post once I get home to put this blog to rest where I will give you a run down of some highlights and stats. But before I do, I have to update you on my last couple of days...

Cad (Aaron) and I went to the Napanee to spend some time with Uey (and his family). Spence also joined us from Carlton Place for a night out in Kingston.

Uey, Me, Cad and Spence:


Annette, Aaron (Uey), Hannah and Cal (forgot to take a photo of them when they were all at home so Cad took this photo of a photo!):

We were also able to catch up with another Mount Allisonian, David Pryde, who is now a stand-up comedian (and damn funny) - check out his site:
David Pryde.com

It was a great time…I hadn’t seen those guys for over a decade and it would seem the more things change, the more they stay the same.

We (Cad and I) arrived in Montreal on Monday and spent most of the day on Tuesday doing interviews for the CBC. Two radio interviews and a TV interview as well..even Cad got some airtime.

Well, it's back to Nova Scotia, 13hrs, probably the longest drive of the trip outside of the leg to Vancouver and the leg from Dallas to St. Louis. One more post to come - probably in a day or 2 once I get get over the shock of not having to move on.