Earlier this week, Daisy spent a few hours on her phone comparing prices before she finally booked our trip to Canada in October for her cousin's wedding.
More than that, she booked our hotel accommodations for the week leading up to the wedding, the night before the wedding (different hotel/city) and the rental car. We are good to go -- flights are from Omaha to Philadelphia to Halifax, and then the same route in reverse coming home. I will be off work for one week and one extra day.
We explored several options to maximize time and minimize cost -- this included trying to plot the trip to fly into Bangor, Maine again and then drive up to Nova Scotia, as we've done a couple of times in the past, or fly from here into Denver and from Denver to Halifax (because somehow, that was faster), or to alter the days we were there because really, there's only one really important day we need to be there, and that's Daisy's cousin's wedding day, and none of them were really panning out time and money-wise. So, we had to make some compromises and some sacrifices to get it to work for the time and money constraints we have, factoring in drive time, lodgings, and rental car too. But, we got it to work.
I am excited because, if you know me, you know how much I love Canada and what I call the Canada Experience. And, I have never been to Canada in the fall -- it's always been late spring or summer when we've made our trips up there. This means that Brandon Casual can come out to play.
Look, I need one nice outfit only for the wedding -- that consists of my jacket, a pair of slacks, and basically any dressy-ish shirt I can wear under the jacket for a few hours. That's it; no muss, no fuss, just me. I'm simple when it comes to formal events -- I value function and appearance but I'm not there to outshine anyone or stand out in a crowd, I'm there to blend in and belong, so my formal event wear is pretty basic and usually stays very basic. As a bonus, it also takes up very little space in my suitcase -- a suitcase that is sadly a necessity any time I go to Canada.
The rest of my clothing? Brandon Casual. It means, in the fall in a northern climate where the air will already be crisp and chilly, I can pack hoodies and sweatpants as everyday wear. I can be comfortable and warm without being too cold or too hot. Aside from walking on a Nova Scotia beach, I don't expect to be going in the water or doing beach-like activities in October. This means, for a week-long trip? Probably three hoodies, some undershirts/underwear, a few pairs of sweatpants, some socks, a light jacket, and I'm good to go for the most part. If there are any other items of clothing I need, I will get them up there and they will likely have "CANADA" branded on them somewhere, as is tradition. We will have access to do laundry as needed at the family homestead, where we'll be the vast majority of the trip before the wedding.
This year we have opted to stay at the little seaside hotel we stayed in a few years ago when Daisy's grandfather died; I really liked it there and it's reasonable for several nights' stay. The rooms are basic but do the job, but the seaside view is wonderful, we're two minutes from a Tim Hortons and we are about 5-7 minutes from the family home and Daisy's grandmother. Last year we did an AirBNB right down the street, as you may recall -- and it was outlandishly expensive to try that again this year. My needs are pretty basic when I'm in Canada -- as long as I have some supplies for sandwiches and enough ketchup chips to feed an army, I can survive off gas station energy drinks and Tim Hortons double-doubles between poutines at the truck stop located centrally between the hotel and the family homestead.
I wish I were making all that up. I'm not. I know that little Canadian town, and the surrounding area, better than I know Omaha, and I've lived in Omaha for eleven years now. I could get to most places there almost blindfolded, and Daisy's mother -- who lived there for a very large chunk of her life -- may not even be able to do that. I don't know what it is; there's just a part of my soul that resonates with that part of the world, that province, that countryside.
The packing starts almost as soon as we return from North Carolina and I unpack from that trip. We've got some time, of course, but it's not nearly as much time as it feels like, and that Canada trip is going to be upon us before we know it. My goal is to pack very light, as light as possible with the basics of clothing and necessities, as it is very easy to get necessities once we're there in Nova Scotia and pick up better quality, cheaper clothing as necessary while there as well. Canadian Walmarts (and other similar stores, like Giant Tiger) are wild if you've never been there. It's like stepping into a time machine back into the 1990s not only in store design, but in prices too. So many people say that prices on goods in Canada are outlandish, and for some things they are -- but for basic necessities and clothing, they're really not any different than the states and are sometimes much cheaper. Clothing in Canada, especially Walmart and Giant Tiger's clothing, is of a far better quality and usually cheaper than their equivalents in the states, and they stock "fat guy" sizes everywhere. A sizable chunk of my wardrobe -- not just "Canada" branded clothing but shorts, pants, band shirts, some underwear, some socks -- was purchased in Nova Scotia on previous trips up there.
So yeah, I pack light, because I know that I will almost always bring more back than I take up there with me. And we tend to bring back as much food as we can too -- not just our leftover groceries but Canadian candy bars, ketchup chips, etc that we just can't get down here. I was eating Canadian candy bars for three months after last year's trip (being a diabetic means I need to eat them slowly and in great moderation).
We are going alone on this trip; Daisy's mother was invited to come with us so she could attend the wedding, but she declined. Traveling is very hard on Mama as she ages, and her recent trip up there with Dad was the hardest yet for her. I feel for her; I know how much she would like to be at the wedding, but I also see how ill she gets from exerting herself and how difficult travel really is for her, and I'm sure there's also an emotionally painful element to not being able to go.
Make no mistake, we're very lucky to be able to make these trips. That isn't lost on us. We are fortunate to have jobs that allow us the time off; we are fortunate to have the money with which to be able to travel internationally and domestically a couple of times a year. It's a big thing for me that I don't take any of it for granted, lest I forget how truly fortunate I am.
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