76: (Belated) Fall Catch-Up

I found this blog post I wrote in October and then didn’t post! Happy belated fall, everyone.

Somehow it’s already October and I haven’t posted anything in over four months. I think this may be my last year of blogging, after my year-end roundups, which I enjoy so much.

We had a fun and hectic summer with lots of live music and dancing, plus working on the garage whenever we had a free day. This was followed by a very busy September with two vacations in a row.

We started off with going to Pentastic, as we do, and then we came home and did some laundry, and off we went to Halifax. Our trip to the east coast was planned for 4 days in Halifax and then up to St. John’s, Newfoundland for 6 days. It didn’t turn out exactly like that but it was interesting.

We flew to Halifax on the red-eye and did not have a lot of luck sleeping on the plane. We arrived around 8:30am and went for brunch, dropped off our bags and then went on a 3 hour Segway tour.

We were a little groggy, but it was super fun. We did a Segway tour on a trip to San Francisco years ago and had a blast so we thought this would be a good way to see the sights in Halifax and get our bearings when we arrived. We were right! Segways are surprisingly easy to get used to and it’s really fun to zip around, up and down hills, with little effort, zooming past pedestrians.

After that, we were done for the day so we got donairs and pizza for dinner and then slept for about 13 hours. The rest of the trip was on and off rainy and we did a lot of walking around. The highlights were going to the art gallery and seeing Maud Lewis’ house in real life and visiting with a friend who had moved to Nova Scotia a few years back, and the Halifax Central Library was very cool, design-wise.

We were supposed to fly to St. John’s on a Saturday morning but our flight had to be rescheduled because of Hurricane Lee. We moved out of our airbnb (which at that time had no power due to the storm, so no great loss there) to a hotel downtown.

Our room had a view of the harbour so we could watch the storm, and it was connected either underground or via enclosed overhead walkways to several nearby buildings, so we could get around quite a bit when it was too crazy outside. We spent the evening eating junk food and watching old movies at the hotel and it was actually quite nice to have some downtime and not feel like we should be making better use of our vacation.

When we did get to St. John’s we stayed at a guest house that was about a 20 minute walk from downtown, though we also had a car. Each day we drove around a bit and did a lot of walking too. Even though we lost a day and a half due to the rescheduled flight, I think it was enough time to see everything we wanted within a reasonable distance.

St. John’s is very cute and the geography is interesting there, but unless you want to drive many hours, you can see most of it in a short time. We had a fun stay and we did all the usual sights like Cape Spear and Signal Hill. We drove to Dildo, of course. We ate excellent fish and chips.

When we got home we had a weekend full of dance events, while we were jetlagged, and then spent the next week recovering. Now I am in fall catch-up mode.

We are looking into getting our furnace replaced with a heat pump because it is more efficient and better for the environment, and there are a lot of grants available to offset the cost, as well as a 0% loan option. Today is my first consultation, with 2 more over the next week and then we will decide what to do with this info.

Tonight we are going to see Little Shop of Horrors at the Stanley Theatre. I saw this musical at the Arts Club as a kid and loved it. We also watched the movie many times after that. It has been years since I’ve seen it in any form so I am excited for the evening out.

December Update on the above:

We got the heat pump, along with an electrical panel upgrade in November. We are still wading through paperwork on the grants and loans but hopefully we will get reimbursed before our credit cards are due. We are also eagerly awaiting our upcoming utility bills to see if we will actually save any money each month or not.

Little Shop of Horrors was fantastic!