(On a Day Like Today – Bryan Adams )

First full day here.

I was up at 5:00 am. Couldn’t sleep. Excited I guess. Made tea. Finished organizing things in the kitchen. Set up the Apple TV but I’m so cross at myself. I forgot to bring the remote. Good one Debi.

Richard was the first one to go for a walk on the beach and put his feet in the gulf waters.

So off to the town we go with our list of to do’s: post office, library, fitness centre, Starbucks, and groceries.

We rented a post office box. Now I can order a remote for the Apple TV. Fantastic!

Next was the library. Got our library cards and checked out some books. Ready to read in the sun. But not today. Raining and foggy again. 🌧🌫 But the man at the post office said they don’t usually have much fog. Thank goodness.

Took a tour of the fitness centre. We thought it was a worth while price:$95 a month for a non resident couple. Has a pool, racketball court, walking track, exercise room with weights and cardio equipment, saunas, and a variety of exercise classes including yoga. We went into the exercise looked around. It was full of old people. Now I realize that, yes, I am old. But I mean they were OLD. Much older than me. I’m not used to that. A little unnerving. So we decided we’d join and went to the reception desk. She wouldn’t let us join! Alabama state law. Bahahahaha. Only those legally married can get the couples rate. Really? Think they need to join the 21st century. She’d sell us two singles which would be almost double the price of the couples membership but by then we were quite irritated so we said thanks but no thanks.

Since we didn’t like the Piggly Wiggly yesterday we decided to try Walmart. What a zoo! It was so crowded you couldn’t even turn around. We did not enjoy this experience. We need to find our grocery store. Am I weird or do others feel this way?

Off to a fav spot, Starbucks. Not the best one as it’s a tiny one in Target but better than nothing. I had my usual Matcha Green Tea Latte with coconut milk, no syrup, one honey and extra hot. Thanks to my daughter Kathryn for introducing me to this. Love it.

Driving by a Publix grocery store we decided to go in and take a look around. Think we’ve found it. Hip hip hooray. Felt at home there. I may be strange but these things are important.

Back home, put away groceries, and have a cup of green tea.

Now for a walk on the beach. Oh my. Heaven. Huge waves, moderate temperature, and light breeze. How soothing to wiggle my toes in the sand and water, listen to the crashing waves, and breathe the salt air. What more could a girl ask for. Well this girl would like some sun but I’m sure that will come. (Sorry PEI that you’ve got snow.)

So far I’m really loving this home away from home.

Off to order the remote online. 👍

Nite all😴

We’re here!

For three months anyway.

The house is lovely. We’re really right on the beach. The only sad part is we arrived in fog. Boo Hoo. I’m sure tomorrow will be brighter. On the plus side it was 24 degrees Celsius. Sweet. I’ll post more pics soon but I have these for now. I took these from our back deck. Not the greatest photos but you can see how close we are to the beach. Unbelievable. I’m so happy.

Arriving on New Years Day we weren’t sure if anything would be open so we stopped for a few groceries at the first grocery store-Piggly Wiggly. It’s an ok grocery store but we won’t be shopping there again. There wasn’t a great variety and no organic section or gluten free products. I’m sure somewhere must carry them. I particularly want to find kombucha. I’ve been missing it.

I leave you with a a New Years blessing we received from an older man from Ohio who we met this morning at breakfast.

“May the most you wish for be the very least you receive.”

Nite all 😴

(Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Just had to share this.

Plus my playlist for the car.

Woo Hoo

(Today’s the Day – Pink)

Just a quick note to share that today is the day we arrive at our home away from home ‘Two Views’ in Gulf Shores, Alabama for the next three months. The temperature is supposed to be 21C today. I can live with that.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Chat later today.

(Happy New Year – ABBA)

We wish you joy, love, laughter, and adventure in this new year!

(What a Difference a Day Makes – Dinah Washington )

What a difference a day makes! When we left Harrisonburg, VA this morning we had a little light rain and very light traffic. Love it. Makes such a difference for driving. We weren’t on the road for very long before the rain stopped. Hallelujah. The rest of the driving was mostly uneventful and I’m not complaining one little bit. We had a lovely leisurely drive. How enjoyable.

The above picture of Sweetwater, Tennessee was one we saw online when we were deciding where to stay tonight. We knew we wanted a shorter drive today so when we saw this sweet photo we made a reservation at a hotel here. 🥴 First the GPS wouldn’t accept the address we had for the Quality Inn. It showed a different address for Quality Inn in Sweetwater so that’s what we used. We took the correct exit and followed the directions. Imagine. No Quality Inn where the GPS said. I was thinking “What the h_ _ _?” Before deciding to do a walk in to another hotel we decided to drive in the opposite direction to what the GPS said. Yup. You guessed it. There was our hotel. Bizarre. Got checked in. We both decided that our front desk girl missed the orientation session regarding friendly customer service. I can’t say she had a ton of personality or an ounce. Our room is exactly what you’d expect. Plain but clean. All that we need.

Getting back to today’s picture. We decided to take a drive down to the main street and see this quaint town. Too funny. Somehow this one doesn’t quite match mine.

But it’s still a cute town even if everything was shut down for New Years Eve and it was only 4:00.

So off to Walmart we went to buy some water, and orange juice. Walmart carries a lot more here. We bought champagne. Cheers! At the check out Richard had to show his ID. Really? Yes. Apparently they have to document everyone’s ID information before they can sell you alcohol. I bet I’ll never be allowed to forget that he got carded. 😜

Well everyone have a great evening of celebrating this evening. Make good choices.

Nite all. 😴

Hotel Review

This was a fabulous looking hotel with a large entryway with lots of room for cars to drive up for checking in. The massive lobby is amazing, welcoming, and tastefully decorated. What a friendly and knowledgeable young woman at the front desk. It didn’t hurt that when we said we were from PEI she shared that she grew up loving Anne of Green Gables and that she and her sister would love to visit PEI. Our little red headed girl is everywhere. Richard decided to park his car himself rather than have valet service. Me? Well, you know. Of course I’d have chosen valet. Enjoy life’s little luxuries. So he went to park the car and I went to the room. Wow! We had a huge room with a kitchenette, table and chairs, sofa, two ottomans, large dresser, swivel TV, king bed with two USB ports over each bedside table (how I loved that as I do like my apple products and usually I’m searching all over the room for outlets), plus separate shower room from the sink. Lovely. Then I waited for Richard. And waited. And waited. I went to look for him. I was worried. What’s taking him so long? Met him at the elevator. Guess the parking lot was a lot further away than he thought. Hmmmm. Maybe valet next time?

One of the reasons for choosing this hotel was that it had a restaurant. We were worn out from two days of stressful driving and didn’t want to try to find some place in the city. Went to eat as soon as we took our luggage to the room. Interesting items on the menu. Choosing to share the appetizer was a smart decision as we decided on loaded fries. Not a healthy choice but we had very little to eat during the day and it was different. The fries were topped with a cream cheese sauce and BBQ’d shredded brisket. OMG. Delicious! The waiter couldn’t believe we’d never had them before. Richard then had white bean chilli and I salad. We both enjoyed our meal. I especially liked it as the hostess said she loved my hair. Shout out to Jason Arsenault at The Style. You’re the greatest.

Now for some things I didn’t appreciate. The bed linens were not the finest quality. Not snuggly comfy but rough and scratchy in addition to that the heating fan was loud, even on its lowest setting. Imagine if you were sleeping next to you furnace. Not pleasant.

Apparently southern hotels are on a different time frame with their breakfasts. Remember yesterday I told you the Marriott was to open at 7:00am and by 7:15 they still weren’t? Well, the Madison this morning was to open for breakfast at 6:30. Nope. Not even close. What is with that? We had ridden down the elevator with a man who looked like a hotel manager. When he saw it wasn’t open he went through a side door to see what was happening. He never returned. We asked the front desk what was happening and she checked. Said they were running late today and wouldn’t open until 7:00. Grrrrrr. 😡 Down we go again shortly after 7. The hostess informs us it’s just a buffet this morning. No ‘a la carte’. We can deal wth that. Fill up before the days driving. Lots of pastries, bread and cereals (which I don’t eat), scrambled eggs, sausages, candied bacon, fried potatoes, and oatmeal. We ate a bit. Admittedly I ate more than Richard. He had a difficult time getting a coffee and when I asked for green tea the waitress was quite perplexed. Richard said he’d rate it a 3 out of 10. We had fingers crossed that the manager might supply the meal on the house for our inconvenience. Bahaha. 😂🤣 Wishful thinking on our part.

An expensive experience. Oh well. Live and learn. At least we’re very good at laughing at our mistakes and misadventures.

So now we’re off and plan to be in Sweetwater, Tennessee for New Years Eve.

Enjoy your day!

(Take It Easy – The Eagles)

The heading “Take It Easy” is my message to myself as you’ll understand as you read along.

After the day we’ve had we thought we deserved a nice place to stay so here we are at the Hotel Madison in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Other than the breakfast fiasco of the buffet not being open on time the day started great. We got on the road and the driving was fine. The day was clear as were the roads-nice and dry. We were driving along and all was good until the GPS told us to take the 684. We were on the 84 and felt we should be staying on it but decided we’d better follow the GPS. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It took us towards New York. So if you’re ever taking this route south be very careful of this.

All I could envision was us ending up in downtown NY city and then taking a totally new route to Alabama. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t adapt well to change. I had everything planned out and this did not sit well with me. I’m sure Richard was thinking “Who is this psycho lady and what has she done with Debi?”. Needless to say we eventually made it back to the road we were supposed to be on. Thanks Richard for staying so calm and putting up with my stressing out. Also thanks for you superior driving skills that kept us from being in an accident as, at one point, the car in front of us was taking an exit off to the right and at the very last minute decided not to take it and swerved back into the main highway. Your cool head and great instincts saved the day. Kudos to you.

One cool thing was we went over the Tappen Zee Bridge, a cantilever bridge in Terrytown, NY.

The rest of the trip was uneventful (thank goodness) but we had heavy traffic so ended up going slower and thus driving longer than we had anticipated but at least we finally got to today’s destination.

One of the most amazing phenomena of the day was that due to our little GPS side trip we were in 8 states today-Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. How sweet is that!

Nite all. 😴

Funny what occurs in the brain when you’re sleeping. In the middle of the night I started thinking about things I omitted in the original post.

MUSIC

Music has been in my life forever. My mother used to say I was singing before talking. I’ve sung my whole life. After receiving my Bachelor of Music Education from Acadia University I went on to have a wonderful 37 year career teaching elementary school music. During these years I also was involved with music in many ways. I enjoy most music: musical theatre, classical, jazz, pop, and r&b just to mention a few. Richard also has a passion for music. He’s so knowledgeable about northern soul, deep soul and enjoys UK 70’s traditional folk rock. We’re both very accepting of each other’s music tastes.

Now the reason for this post.

During yesterday’s drive we listened mostly to the radio. Enjoying CBC Radio 1 until we got to the US border. Then we hit a variety of stations: pop, classic rock, classical, and talk shows. Then he asked me to put on one of his cd’s. Sure. No problem. Guess it was that UK 70’s trad rock style. Well this stretched my tolerance to its limit. He loves it. To me it was a combination of screeching cats in the yard at night and fingernails on a chalkboard (if you’re old enough to remember chalkboards). But being the wonderful person I am, insert howling laughter here, the CD played and he enjoyed it.

Update

The hotel is lovely. Has a beautiful lobby, nice room, great bed linens etc. We had a tasty dinner last night. We went down at 7:00 (when it is supposed to open) this morning excited about their breakfast buffet and the omelette bar. Planned on having a substantial breakfast and then doing a day of driving. Ahhhh. By 7:15 it still wasn’t open. So much for our lovely breakfast. Not the best way to impress your guests Marriott.

(Day is Done – Peter, Paul, and Mary)

So Day 1 is done and here we are at The Courtyard by Marriott in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

As I said earlier, ” The best laid plans…”. Our original plan was to be up at 4:30 am and be on the road by 5:00 but the weather had a different idea. Oh, we were certainly up on time but due to extremely icy road conditions we delayed our departure, leaving Borden at 6.19 am. And when you have lemons – well you know. We made the most of the delay and ate breakfast before leaving. It was a very light breakfast as we didn’t have much left in the house to eat – but it was enough.

The drive from Borden- Carelton, PEI to about Jemseg, NB was not enjoyable. Slushy, extremely foggy with icy roads, thus we erred on the side of caution and we travelled only 60-80 km per hour.

After that the driving conditions improved and we could travel the speed limit but due to the late start and the slow driving we realized we were not going to reach our end goal for the day. Oh well. Could be worse.

We hit our fav NB stop (Tim Hortons) when travelling to the US around Oromocto, NB.

This stop area has a lot of options: Tim’s, McDonalds, Subway, gas, etc. plus an easy off and back on to the highway.

From here we continued on the the US border crossing at Houlton, Maine. For all the horror stories we heard from people, we had a very quick and easy crossing. We had heard they’d require proof of our rental accommodations (and we were ready) but they didn’t ask for it. Just asked the normal questions: where are you from, where are you going, for how long, what’s the intention of the trip, when were you last in the US, what’s your occupation (haha- we’re retired).

Our next stop was Starbucks in Bangor. Again another easy off and back on the highway. Gotta love it!

Originally our Day 1 destination was Waterbury, Connecticut but with the late start and the poor road conditions we made the smart decision to overnight in Marlborough, Mass. We chose The Courtyard by Marriott and we extremely pleased with this choice. We were tired so chose to eat in their Bistro Bar rather than go back out and find a restaurant. Another good decision. The meal was good (as was my wine lol).

So, all in all, not a bad day (and only five bathroom stops 😉).

Nite all. 😴