Homeward Bound

horse sculpture in Saratoga Spring

amazing neighbourhoods funded by Saratoga's big winners - water and horse racing

artist retreat

amazing lunch stop on the way back down to New York City

a silly pitstop

amazing autumn colours

incredibly precious cargo

a mad dash to the opposite site of the airport for one final Shake Shack experience.

And in the space of 48 hours we were back at JFK airport getting ready for the 20 plus hours flight home. A night's stay in the beautiful Saratoga Springs set us up for a marathon 7 hours in the Impala, ending up driving waaaaaaay too close to Manhattan than I would care for when we missed a very important turn off. There was a major teary meltdown, but we ended up at JFK in one piece, ready to turn in those keys and stay the hell away from american expressways for as long as possible. Returning home to 30 degree weather was not a feeling I was quite ready for, but I had memories of frozen lakes, delicious burgers, sugar coated cake lessons and boozy nights out with new and old friends to help me deal with that.

Parlay voo fronsay?

                                          

                                                   Crossing the border into Canada



Eviction notice in Le Plateau district





Old Montreal



High school football

Rival to the iconic NY Bagel

View from the contemporary art gallery up to the incredible university

Their whole menu is made up of "sometimes" foods

Getting into the Halloween spirit

Drunk pumpkins for Halloween

Ed Banger 10 anniversary show

Frozen ponds

On the road again

Oh Montreal. It was pretty cold and pretty wet, but we went to some awesome shows and carved pumpkins for Halloween and it was excellent. I got toally taken aback by how frenchy Montreal actually is - they speak french first and then follow up with english if you look confused. We met many a frenchy on nights out that had come over to Canada for a year or two break away form europe and were all coming to terms with the ye olde version of the language spoken. We ate horse and deepfried Foie Gras double downs at Joe Beef and loved every minute, and enjoyed driving back on the left hand side of the street!
Frozen ponds are really fun to throw rocks into because they either bounce off or make sweet cracks in the ice. Yay for Montreal!

Salem and the Far North of America

The gloomy witchy atmosphere of Salem.

Salem Neighbourhood

Salem Harbour

Portland, Maine for lobster rolls

A cold and foggy day on Lake Champlain, Burlington Vermont

The last homesteads of Vermont before we crossed the border into Quebec, Canada

A quick frolick to check out the cows.

The final frontier before driving across the border into Canada was a night's stay in Salem, the town made famous for its connection to witchcraft, and a quick pit stop in the other Portland for a lobster roll and fried clams in one of the last fish houses open before their inevitable winter season closure. One more over night stop in the beautiful Burlington, Vermont had us recharged and ready to hit the road that would take us into the very frenchy Montreal. THE border crossing was a tiny outpost that closed at 4pm each day, that was similar to the size of a widow you would pay for a parking ticket at. The division between the two farms sitting either side of the border was a metre high wire fence, and the only way you could tell you had crossed over, was the radio swapping from english to french. We passed through some really beautiful lakeside towns and tried to not sound like complete fools when we asked the border attendant whether we had to drive on the left or the right. Whoopsy!