credit for the above photo to Alex Pominville of Pominville Photography.
It was then off to Wildwood, NJ on the Jersey Shore for a week at my favourite childhood vacation spot. After 12 hours of driving spread over two days (including an overnight in Binghamton, NY), we reached our destination, and it was a blast! :)
The boys enjoyed the beach ...
Although my fearless Little Tyke developed a bit of spooks around the waves, which is unlike him, and a bit sad and diasppointing, but of course in a way almost a relief to his parents who are glad he's so brave, but sometimes wish he understood the idea of danger a BIT better ...
And rides ...
But it was definitely a weird week at the same time. The first sign of the strangeness to come was an earthquake we felt on our first day out on the beach. Apparently, a 5.8-magnitude quake hit Virginia, down the coast, which we managed to feel up in Jersey (I've heard from some Ontarians they felt it too - so apparently quite the thing).
Unfortunately, though, as minor as that was where we were, it was only the harbinger of things to come. Our lovely, almost week-long vacation, it turns out, was only meant to last 3 days instead of six, as on Thursday we received word that Hurricane Irene was heading up the coast to the Jersey Shore, and Wildwood was being evacuated as of 8am Friday morning.
A bitterly disappointed Daigen family loaded up all of our stuff and began the drive inland and north, eventually reaching Montreal, where we decided to make SOMETHING of our two remaining days of vacation anyway, hitting the Biodome on Sunday, featuring animals and plant life from four ecosystems found in the Americas (the rain forest, the gulf of St. Lawrence, the St. Lawrence maple forest, and the sub-polar region).
The boys even got to ride on their first subway - Montreal's excellent Metro!
Incidentally, Montreal met Irene as well on Sunday, only she wasn't quite so harsh to La Belle Ville as she was to the Jersey Shore.
And we checked out the Ecomuseum Zoo on Monday on our way, finally, home.
We calculated almost 40 hours of driving, 4 hotels, 5 different cities overnight, and just about every kind of weather but snow on this trip. Relaxing beachside family vacation, as planned? Not exactly. An unforgettable adventure? Yeah ... one could say that.
Although my fearless Little Tyke developed a bit of spooks around the waves, which is unlike him, and a bit sad and diasppointing, but of course in a way almost a relief to his parents who are glad he's so brave, but sometimes wish he understood the idea of danger a BIT better ...
And rides ...
But it was definitely a weird week at the same time. The first sign of the strangeness to come was an earthquake we felt on our first day out on the beach. Apparently, a 5.8-magnitude quake hit Virginia, down the coast, which we managed to feel up in Jersey (I've heard from some Ontarians they felt it too - so apparently quite the thing).
Unfortunately, though, as minor as that was where we were, it was only the harbinger of things to come. Our lovely, almost week-long vacation, it turns out, was only meant to last 3 days instead of six, as on Thursday we received word that Hurricane Irene was heading up the coast to the Jersey Shore, and Wildwood was being evacuated as of 8am Friday morning.
A bitterly disappointed Daigen family loaded up all of our stuff and began the drive inland and north, eventually reaching Montreal, where we decided to make SOMETHING of our two remaining days of vacation anyway, hitting the Biodome on Sunday, featuring animals and plant life from four ecosystems found in the Americas (the rain forest, the gulf of St. Lawrence, the St. Lawrence maple forest, and the sub-polar region).
The boys even got to ride on their first subway - Montreal's excellent Metro!
Incidentally, Montreal met Irene as well on Sunday, only she wasn't quite so harsh to La Belle Ville as she was to the Jersey Shore.
And we checked out the Ecomuseum Zoo on Monday on our way, finally, home.
We calculated almost 40 hours of driving, 4 hotels, 5 different cities overnight, and just about every kind of weather but snow on this trip. Relaxing beachside family vacation, as planned? Not exactly. An unforgettable adventure? Yeah ... one could say that.
