Why are you going? Because it’s fun!

Because, yes, just for fun can be the reason, and dare I say *should* be the reason? I want a road trip to go camping. I want a road trip to visit a friend in a different city. I want a road trip to see enormous statues of weird things. I want a road trip to see some neat museums. I want a road trip to eat regional foods in their regions. There are so many fun things to see and do!
Dungeon Provincial Park, NL
For something like this, you would want to do your research and find out what you want to see or do. There and many websites that will list things like giant statues, or parks, or museums, or nearly anything else that you can think of (maybe one day, here too!). After you have found all the things that you want to see (make sure you find out when they are open!), see if you can make a route between all the places. And make sure that if you are going to smaller places, you are comfortable driving on all the roads – there are still gravel roads between smaller towns. Google maps driving your route takes a bit of time, but if you are worried about things like that, it can save you a lot of stress and trying to find a new route.

As mention in the last post, our schedule to Halifax was (long) but so that we got there in time to pick up our kid. There was a goal. After that - we wanted to see things!

We asked the kids what they knew of Canada's eastern provinces. (There's 4 provinces, and one is an island!) We asked what they would want to do while we were out there. (See animals, hike, see whales, see an iceburg.) We talked to friends about what they enjoyed about their trips out east. (Tidal bore rafting, drive all of Newfoundland, Peggy's Cove.) And then we tried to arrange that with some of the things we wanted to see (St Pierre of St Pierre et Miquelon, Hopewell Rocks, family, friend). Our remaining trip looked like this, with travel days between:

● Spend a day in Halifax, NS (Halifax Harbour, Peggy's Cove, Canada'a oldest geocache)
● Spend day in Charlottetown, PEI (Singing Sands Provincial Park)
● Spend day in Moncton, NB (family, Magnetic Hill, Hopewell Rocks, tidal bore rafting - we should have stayed somewhere else for that one!)
● Go over night to Newfoundland (short ferry) (drove through Cape Breton)
● Spend day in Corner Brook, NL (Gros Morne National Park)
● Spend day in Elliston, NL (en route friends, puffins, whale watching, iceburg)
● Spend day in Fortune, NL / ferry to St Pierre (St Pierre et Miquelon) (Little piece of France! So cool!)
● Spend day in St John's, NL (Signal Hill, Cape Spear)
● Go over night to Cape Breton (long ferry)
● Spend day in Fredericton, NB (family)
● Time to go home again

We spent many hours in the car. But we also did pretty much everything on everybody's lists (we missed zip-lining because of size requirements, and there were a few other places that we would have liked to see). And the order definitely could have been better (though maybe not with picking up the kid in Halifax and ferry schedules). But it was fun, and we learned things that will be used next time we have a huge trip like this. But I super hope we do have another trip like it!
 
 See you later!
Shaunna

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