Sleep patterns shot to hell

I wasn't already having enough of a hard time sleeping, with the changing back to no daylights saving, I'm sleeping even less.

I'm so fed up of waking up around 5am starving. Then I can't get back to sleep. I really don't need to get up before 6:30 or 7am. But I've been awake since 5 and starving. If I eat now, I still won't get back to sleep or if I do, I'll wake up groggy and pissy startled at 7:30.

My problem is that I fall asleep too early at night. Drives me NUTS. Lately between 10 and 11 I go out like a light. But the side effect is waking up between 4-5 am.. which as I stated earlier does nothing for me.

My car is considerate

My car broke down on Sunday night coming back from Kahnawake. It broke down about 5 minutes away from home. It was weird too, we were driving along sources and the car just stalled while we were driving. No amount of cajoling, or coaxing got it going. I had to call for the CAA and get it towed to my favorite garage, the Midas on St Charles near the 40.

In all fairness, I drove 5 hours on Sunday. I drove 2 hours to Ottawa, then another 2 hours back but didn't drive straight home, I drove to Kahnawake to pick up Bill. The boys had a boys night out planned, which included seeing the movie "Capitalism" and going to a strip club. One cannot live in Montreal and never have been to a strip club. It is just unheard of.

We stopped about 1 hour in Kahnwake and then were driving me home when the car stalled. To the car's credit, it did not stall in Ottawa or on the road to Ottawa. It did not stall in our 2 week trip through the maritimes. Heck it could have stalled on the Mercier bridge going into Kahnawake. But it chose to stall just a few minutes from home.

Midas figured it was the timing belt that was finished, and damaged. A coworker explained that when a timing belt breaks it could destroy your motor. I lucked out mine got damaged before it broke. While it cost me over $1000 to fix, at least it was for a good cause.

My little Mazda Protege 1999 rocks! [But I still hate Mazda the company for their horrible treatement of those who buy their cars]

Why is there SUGAR in EVERYTHING?

I'm having a bad day. A bad Tuesday. Because this week Monday was Canadian ThanksGiving.

So this morning I wake up to 17C in my house. It's been hovering between 18-20 since Friday, but now it's 17C. So I broke down at 6am to call for repairs. I'm still waiting 8 hours later. Very much like last time, where though they were supposed to be here between 7am and 1pm, they called at 1pm to say it woulnd't be that day. Well now furnace isn't working, so today it's going to be TODAY. At least I hope so.

Anyways, so I'm getting hungry and figured I should get myself lunch. I checked in the freezer and realized we have smoked Salmon. I love smoked Salmon. Was reading packaging to figure out how to thaw it out and serve it, and low and behold the ingredients:

Salmon, salt, SUGAR, smoke flavour.

SUGAR? WHO the FUCK puts SUGAR in FISH.

I'm so SICK OF SUGAR. It's like the worst poison on the planet for some people, people like me who are hypoglycemic, and it keeps creeping into EVERYTHING.

I can't have coleslaw or most salads in restaurants because the vinaigrette has sugar in it. I have to read carefully the ingredients of everything I want to put into my mouth because 90% of it comes with added SUGAR.

I mean the government bitches, whines and complains about the obesity epidemic and the diabetes epidemic. Does it not occur to anyone that it has to do with the VOLUMES of sugar put in most foods? Of course not. Lets' add MORE SUGAR in MORE THINGS and kill each other off more quickly.

Like we need sugar in SALT [yes.. they add sugar in Salt too!], or FISH, or tomato sauce, or salad dressing..... I mean it's enough it's added to nearly everything, but FISH????

Who puts SUGAR IN FISH????

Anyways this did nothing to put me in a good mood. I just wanted to toss the Salmon into the garbage. Again who the fuck puts SUGAR in FISH??????

Google Maps

I tried mapping the trip with Google maps but it went crazy on me. I'm going to have to try again. We travelled somewhere between 4200-4500km. Crazy eh?

Also another thing I want to research is how cold it was each night at the location we stayed at.

We're going back home today. Our trip is over.

It started to rain about 4 am. It did not let up till the car was completely packed. It was fun taking down the camp it heavy rain. Despite that I managed to take a walk to the beach, wanted to see if it was worth making a stop before heading back towards Quebec. It was pretty scenic. Took a few photo’s of the vegetation, especially the lichen hanging from some evergreens. Was just amazing.

Once we packed up, we went to pay for the night. They had said it was fine if we paid on our way out. We made a short pit stop at the beach, so Samer could take a few photo’s of the coast/beach. Then we got on the road towards Fredericton and then towards Grand Falls. We took exit 18 in Edmonston and stopped to gas up and to eat. We stopped again at a subways and this one had whole wheat bread, so we had lunch there before continuing to drive.

We stopped at a road side stop past St Jean Port Joli and then we switched drivers. It was mid afternoon. I predicted we’d be around Quebec City for rush hour and I was right. We were there around 5ish and ended up in a lot of congestion for about 30 minutes and continued on the 20 until we met up with the 30, and we took that to avoid coming in by the Champlain bridge downtown. The 30 becomes the 132, and you can get the Mercier bridge that way, which is easier living on the West Island of Montreal. You avoid all the downtown traffic.

We got home around 8:30 and found Bill hanging out with the cats. He’d been house sitting for us. Was just weird that there was no car in the driveway. He had Earl, his mom’s bf, drop him off on the way to work Monday the week before.

We head towards Digby, to take the Ferry to St John's

Surprisingly I managed to be awake at 6am Montreal time and since it was raining we managed to get packed and leave the campground before 9am. We made it to Digby by noon local time.

We bought our tickets for the Ferry from Digby to St John’s and then went to eat in Digby, at Shore line restaurant and gift shop. I had the greek salad and fries, he had an ‘Acadian poutine’ and shrimp fussily alfredo. Was pretty good. We had originally stopped in the Subways but they had no whole wheat bread which is a deal breaker for me.

Then we spent the time we had left in Digby shopping for souvenirs. I even picked up 2 M of Nova Scotia plaid fabric! We got on the Ferry around 4pm and I’m typing as we are about to leave Digby from the ferry. This particular ferry takes 3 hours to cross the bay of Fundy. Unfortunately I was a touch seasick and ended spending par t of the time at the laptop station recharging Samer’s laptop and surfing a little.

We could might have seen whales but didn’t. We got to St John’s just around dark. We took the road to New River Beach, probably 20 km away. It’s a provincial park on the shore of the bay of Fundy. It was pretty scenic, except we arrived in the dark.

We spend the day in Halifax near Pier 21

Today we drove from Porters Lake to Halifax. The original plan was to go to Peggy’s cove first and then visit some of Halifax, but apparently having an inaccurate map sent us in another direction. Halifax seems to be just as disorienting for me as Sydney was. Some places, it seems I just get lost in, or drive in circles. So we first got lost in Darmouth because I pointed Samer who was driving in the wrong direction, then we got lost in Halifax.

Ironically if we’d followed our gut, we would have landed in Peggy’s cove. In the end lacking a good map, we followed the tourist info sign, which took us to Halifax Harbour. The downtown part, near pier 21, were the Maritime Museum, the SSC Arcadia and the HMSC Sackville are located. We toured the museum where we could have spent 4 more hours. But I knew the ships’s tour ended at 5pm, so we hurried up. We also ate at Murrays [murpheys? ] restaurant a 1 lb lobster and some sweet potato fries. We bought souvenirs there as well.

After the visit of teh ships, we walked around a couple of blocks to take pictures of |St Mary’s cathedral and 2 other churches that were within eyesight of each other. We had parked the car and did all this tour walking. We arrived in Halifax by one bridge and left by the other. We got lost kinda a 2nd time going to Porters Lake park & campground, but at least we knew what road the park was on and found it more easily.