Andie's Big Adventure: Home Again, Home Again!

And so, 234 days after leaving home (but who's counting?) we walked into the loving arms of our friends and family.

 

Please be assured that the very next day, I got a haircut. I couldn't deal with the witch hair anymore. I apologize for the back of my head in this video.

When I first told everyone that I really wanted them there to greet us, a couple of them said I was nuts - The Canada Cold had gotten to my head. Why on earth would I want to come home to a rowdy houseful of people and kids. I'd be worn out! But I can't imagine being gone from everyone for so long and walking into a quiet, empty, dark house. And good lord, did you notice that within 60 seconds of pulling up in the driveway, we both had drinks? Oh, also, we made everyone unload the truck and car while we basked in the glory of our Estate. Sure, I'm crazy. Like a fox.

So instead of tomblike silence, we got a house full of boisterous joy and love and laughter, old friends, new babies (!) and evidence that despite the fact that life had gone on while we were away,people did apparently miss us and were glad we were back.




This. THIS, is what our house is supposed to look like, goddammit! Full of people! Please ignore my witch hair.

We planned our arrival party weeks before we hit the road, and with the help of our neighbors Darlene and Jim, Phillip's mom, our brother-in-law Craig (who also took the video THANK YOU CRAIG!) our nephew Benjamin, and Zoe's, we had one of the best homecoming parties ever. Zoe's provided the food, Craig and Benjamin iced down the beer and set up the backyard, Mrs. Reid brought and chilled the wine, and Darlene flitted in and out like a bee, fussing and helping and cleaning and serving and organizing.

It was good and bad to see the kids. They obviously had not followed my orders and stopped growing while we were gone. Look at the young women! I swear to god Liza was four when we left. Good lord. Someone hold my walker while I grab a stiff drink.

Pootie knows how to relax. He was a tiny bit happy to get home. And put on shorts. And remove his shoes. Goodbye, glacial cold! Hello, hookworm!

We are so lucky to have had the opportunity to go to Newfoundland and see such a beautiful place and meet the wonderful people we can now call our friends. Megan and Dennis and Sadie. Neil and Kim and Margot and Ewan. Kathryn and Mavis and Bern and Jessie (bark, bark, Mavis and Jessie!). The grumpy old guy who lived at the end of our street, but was always sweet to me. Trevor, Brianna, Lyndsay, Shay, Curtis, Frank, Mike, Matt, Luke. The little blue house on the cove  - we miss you all!

But truly, there's no place like home. Our own home. Our own kitchen. Our own backyard.

Our own bed.

Especially after 234 days away.

Welcome back to 305, y'all.

Andie's Big Adventure: The Rest of the Drive Home

We left off (three weeks ago) in Corner Brook. Still in Newfoundland. You've probably figured out that we're not still there. If you haven't, and you think we're still in that hotel room waiting to leave, rest assured, we are not.

Rather than give you a blow-by-blow of the long journey home, allow me to hit the highlights. And provide crappy phone pictures to go along. Pootie and I are not Instagram users, so these pretty much suck.

We drove from Corner Brook to Port Aux Basque the next morning. It was about 2 1/2 hours. Absolutely breathtaking view of the mountains. And these pictures are a disgrace, but they're all we have. Try and get the gist.

Yes, this was taken with a camera phone by the driver. Yes, the car was in motion at the time. No, it was not me.

We arrived with plenty of time to relax and explore a little. Port Aux Basque is pretty, and we had a very nice day.

We were staying at a place right by the ferry, so we took Dinky for a walk and checked it out. Then I had a long talk with him about the ferry, and about how the mean, horrible, awful, no good ferry people wouldn't let him come up to the cabin with us, so he was going to have to stay in the car for the trip. He was not happy. (They were actually very nice. But Dinky is a little bit of a drama queen.)

The next morning, we went to board. I reluctantly left my poor dog in the truck by himself. The crossing was about 5 hours, so we had time to get some lunch and spent the rest of the time in our little cabin, making use of the wi-fi.

In the second picture, I am trying to text Dinky, but he wasn't speaking to me. See how sad I am at lunch? Granted, it could have been the not very good salad they gave me, but maybe I was sad about my dog. Maybe.



Ice. In the water. In case you wanted to know just how far North we were.

I was reunited with my poor boy and he was most unhappy with me. Fortunately, we were in Sydney NS, close to the hotel, and I was able to unload him and spend some time apologizing. The Cambridge Suites there took good care of us again, and really pampered Dinky. They had a little blanket for him to lie on (to protect their sofa) and dog bowls with a placemat (to protect their floors) and scoop bags for walking (to protect their grounds) and dog treats (to protect their reputation with the canines).

Obviously, he was appeased.

I'd say out of all the hotels, the Cambridge Suites in Sydney NS wins hands-down.

From Sydney we drove to Moncton, New Brunswick then the next day we set out for the USA. !!

We hit the US/Canada border around noon. There was a nice plaque before the booth that said, "'We pledge to cordially greet and welcome you to the United States' and ' We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity and respect'."

Yeah... not so much. The guy was a complete troll. I half expected him to say "Who's that tripping over my bridge!?" Sad. We were so excited to be coming home, and instead of being welcomed, we were treated like something unpleasant the guy had stepped in. Maybe because I'm from the South, my definition of "courtesy" is different. But I'm pretty sure I know Rude when I see it. I would have liked to have been the biggest Billy Goat. Who flew at the Customs man - um... troll - and poked his eyes out with his horns, and crushed him to bits, body and bones, and tossed him out into the cascade.  Man, those Norwegians are violent. I can see why Disney hasn't done that story.

We were hoping to utilize our cell phones as soon as we crossed the border - because we could suck up data with impunity! - but that didn't work out. We were driving through Seriously Rural Maine and most of the time didn't have any cell coverage at all. We got into Camden late afternoon. It was so nice to be back in the states, ugly border patrol troll notwithstanding. It gave me an opportunity to catch up with my family and see how my dad was doing.  Dinky did some serious chilling while I texted and talked.

Dad had his kidney removed while I was on the ferry in the middle of a bunch of ice and snow and freezing rain.  I have a pretty pitiful picture of him in the hospital, but I'm not posting it because my mom would kill me. And I wouldn't blame her. Dad had a really rough time. I'm glad my brother could be there with him and Mom for the surgery since I was kind of out of reach.

Once I'd talked to Mom and found out how Dad was, ("in an inordinate amount of pain"), I needed a drink. Not nearly as bad as Mom and John did, but I still needed one. We went to dinner at 40 Paper, where we'd eaten on the way up. We both ordered a Knutty Knob (Knob Creek bourbon with lime and amaretto - it was absolutely wonderful) and had a very nice dinner. I highly recommend that place.

We had enough time to enjoy the scenery in Camden - I'll remind you we honeymooned there. It was good to walk around. And I was honestly surprised at the fact that I was glad to see an American flag. I'm not exactly all that sentimental.

We were up and at 'em early the next morning to hit the road to Mystic, CT. We were still a pretty long way from home. We tried to eat at Chicken Little again, but they'd apparently switched to a Breakfast/Lunch only place while we were in Canada, so we wound up at a really good Italian Bistro downtown. And for the first time since I'd been gone, I ordered an Old Fashioned, and the bartender knew exactly what I was talking about. (I had a seriously awful experience in Quebec City when I was there for work - the bartender said she could make one, and I got a glass full of ginger ale with a splash of Jack. First of all... nope, nope, nope! No ginger ale. What the hell? And second of all, Jack is NOT bourbon.) Anyway, I was VERY happy. As you can tell.



Maker's Mark. Now THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is an Old Fashioned.

Next morning was a drive to Hagerstown, MD. We went West to avoid New York City and DC. That was a good call. Saved us an hour or more of sitting in stop and go traffic on I 95. We wound up on some smaller highways, but the scenery was gorgeous. Rolling hills, horse pastures, and lots and lots of green. Spring just got more solid and vibrant the farther South we went. It was a joy to see. I hadn't realized how much I missed all the color until I saw it. We got to Hagerstown, had a decent dinner, my dog got some snuggle time, my husband got to wear flip flops for the first time in many months, and we had a field of sheep outside our hotel window. Beautiful. And we were in the home stretch.

Finally, our last day of driving. It was uneventful except for the excitement of getting back to North Carolina.

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!!!!

And then we got HOME!

But that's another story. For another day. And another blog post. Because seriously, you have to need a break now. So stay tuned. I promise I'll be back sooner than I was last time I told you that.

Andie's Big Adventure: Going Home! Day One

Buh-Bah, Portugal Cove and St. John's!

Well, it's finally winding down. I have enjoyed our time in Newfoundland, but I have been very ready to go home and see my friends and family. Then I went from "very ready" to "extremely anxious" when I found out last week that my dad has a cancer on his kidney and has to have it removed. The whole kidney. The day after we were scheduled to leave. I told my family no getting married, no getting divorced, no having babies, and no going in the hospital while I was up here. But as usual, they didn't listen. It's been tough being so far away and not able to get there.

We got on the road Thursday morning headed for Corner Brook. Dinky spent the first hour pacing and panting in the back seat, then finally settled down and went to sleep. The scenery was beautiful toward Corner Brook - tall mountains, lovely fiords - and in the middle of all that beauty, a Tim Horton's cup rolling around in the middle of a deserted highway. Newfoundland has a litter problem.

We drove through some really strange weather. It would be sunny and sleeting and snowing hard. Then drizzly. Then snow. Then sunny. Rinse and repeat all the way to Corner Brook.

We had gotten the cars washed before we left. They were so pretty and shiny!

Yep. Didn't last long in that weather.

We had thought (foolishly) that it was a 7 hour drive. Turns out it was more like 9 plus change. Pootie was fit to be tied, because we were going to eat dinner at the home of one of the professors there and we were running late. And he hadn't saved the email with the phone number. And the address.

We are well-organized, that's what we are!

We did arrive in one piece, managed to get to the hotel and call our host and get directions. We were only about 20 minutes late. The hotel wouldn't let us leave Dinky in the room, so he got to be a dinner guest too. He was very well behaved and didn't drink too much and embarrass us.

It was a long first day on the road, but the bed was comfortable.

Stay tuned for more terrible phone pictures and the rest of our trip home. HOME!

Andie's Big Adventure: Tilt House Bakery

Tilt House Bakery
1194 Portugal Cove Road
10:00 AM - 6:00 PM Tuesday - Sunday
Closed Mondays

Tilt House Bakery is about three miles down the road from our rental in Portugal Cove. I've been going there since we arrived in September, and I asked the owner if I could come in and do a blog entry on it. It is a food blog after all. Most of the time.

Meet Ann Davis, owner. She graciously took me around the bakery and let me poke around in the nooks and crannies and ask lots of questions. Ann is very nice, very feisty, and has some of the prettiest eyes I've ever seen.

Ann had been the manager at Auntie Crae's Bakery for fifteen years. When the owner decided she was ready to close up shop, Ann thought about what she wanted to do. She said at age 50, what else could she do but just open up her own bakery? So she made plans to open Tilt House. She had her eye on the building for a while. It was a meat shop in its previous incarnation. Some of the old equipment for salt beef and curing and smoking is still there in the basement.

For the first year of setting up, she worked seven days a week, fourteen to sixteen hours a day. I'm tired just thinking about it.

She took me to the back where the action was going on. I met Donna Tucker and Barbara Bradbury White, who were having a good time mixing and washing. I met several other employees and they were all busy as bees. Someone is on the premises 24 hours a day, six days a week doing the baking and cleaning. Ann has four deaf employees and made sure she learned sign language for them. When she tried it out on them, they didn't understand what she was saying. Evidently, American sign language (which she'd learned) is as different from Canadian sign language as English is to French.

Of course no bakery is complete without heavy equipment. These machines help section and weigh the bread and roll dough. Ann said the bread sectioner saves them 40 hours of labor a week.

She uses these gorgeous 60 year old loaf pans - she calls them pots. She salvaged them from a place downtown. She'd also ordered some new ones that she cut her hands on when she opened the box. When she saw how thin and flimsy they were, she sent them back. These are perfect. They're nice and thick and heavy.

Starting up a new business isn't without its growing pains. When she first got her big Hobart mixer, the bowl was rusty and as far as she was concerned, unusable. She was horrified that it had apparently been still in use at a pizza place before she got it. She received it the day before the opening health inspection. With no time to replace it, she filled it with soapy water and set it aside. Fortunately, the inspector looked at it and moved on. She got a replacement, but discovered it wasn't the right size. The attachments kept hitting the sides and bottom. She got someone to modify the bowl and some of the utensils, so it works fine now.

The equipment is taken apart and scrubbed regularly. Ann says if you don't, flour bits and such fall to the bottom and bugs get in there. The place was spotless. She's fastidious.

I asked her if she still likes to cook at home. She said of course she does! She works on new recipes and tweaks old ones all the time. She spent two weeks recently working on a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie that is every bit as good as her original ones.

The behind-the-scenes look was so much fun! But of course, the best part about a bakery is what comes out of the kitchen.

Everything is made from scratch with no preservatives. Bread, rolls, breakfast pastries, scones, cupcakes, cakes - you name it and she has it. And everything I've sampled (which is quite a lot, actually) is delicious.

Her business has grown since she opened in April of 2011. She sells rolls and bread to restaurants, scones to bed and breakfasts, and an assortment of items to a few shops downtown. She'll also bake custom batches of bread by request. Her sister Sue helps out, and her 8 year old granddaughter comes out to help as much as she can. Ann is teaching her to bake bread and rolls.

Ann and Sue.

Ann plans to start baking game pies with rabbit and moose. I hope she does those before I leave. She already has pizza bread and baked baguette sandwiches along with other savories. She says a few of the pilots Calgary come over from the airport down the road and clean her out of the baguette sandwiches and take them home.

That's Beth on the register. Hopefully she won't object to the photo.

One of my favorite things from Tilt House are the gingerbread cookies. I always have one ready for Sadie when the Keoughs come to dinner. They are decorated by Nancy Keating and Laurel Keating, who are also childrens book authors.  They put together cookie baskets for special occasions as well.

Nancy and Laurel are insanely talented. Their cookies are little works of art, and they change all the time. Ann has saved a few of her favorites.

I'd have saved them, too. Beautiful.

There's nothing at Tilt House that isn't wonderful. The stock changes frequently, and her customers (myself included) are fine with that. They don't complain that the same old something isn't there. The offerings change based on the season, and the whim of the baker.

Which is as it should be.

Andie's Big Adventure: The Holidays

Well, another holiday season, come and gone. But this wasn't just another holiday season. We were 1800 miles from home for this Christmas. Which meant some new experiences!

Like the Mummer's Parade!

This is a tradition that goes back quite a long time. Initially it was about social inversion. The have-nots would dress up in disguise and go visit the haves, where they were fed and liquored up and allowed to have a go at the upper class (hence the disguises) with no ramifications. My neighbor Kathryn says not too long ago, they would dress up and crash parties, but it started making people uncomfortable. So now they pretty much dress up and have parades.

Pootie's advisor Neil and his son Ewan took us to observe. Of course, I had to get a picture of the beautiful Newfie I saw. I told Pootie I was going to write a photo journal called "Dogs I Have Met While Walking" and he said that would be one he would not be reading. Be that way. A lot of times they're nicer than people.

Isn't he cute? Ewan, not Neil. Neil is cute too, but I'll leave telling him that to his wife. Look at those eyes! And that hat! I want that hat. It was interesting, and we enjoyed it. Thanks to Neil and Ewan for bringing us along! We were sorry Kim and Margot couldn't make it.

Another new experience for us during the holiday season was snow. Snow! We've certainly gotten snow back home, and a couple of times, it's even been on Christmas Day or the day after. But nothing like this snow.

More than an inch, for sure. It didn't stick around long, but we enjoyed it while it was here. One of us especially much.

The Cove was beautiful.

We went for a walk at Pippy Park in the middle of St. John's after ours all melted to enjoy it some more.

The woods and marshes there are lovely. No, we didn't see any moose.



Next time it snows, we want to do some sledding and cross-country skiing.

But for this trip, we just wandered.

And we were fortunate enough to get to spend Christmas Eve with Megan and Dennis and Sadie and Dennis's mom. I got Sadie her own Magic Bunny. She already has one, but she tried to make off with mine one time she was here, so I thought she might like her own. Thank god there was no bunny cage fighting. They got along fine.

Dennis's mom Jo Ann made us a mouth-watering plate of what they call cookies - we'd call it candy. She had chocolate mice on there, which I have discovered here and absolutely love. She's going to give me the recipe, so if I don't make a complete mess of it, I'll blog it when I make them.

We are lucky to have met the Keoughs.

Christmas evening, we got to go to Neil and Kim's for a very fine dinner and good company. But I didn't take the camera, so you don't get to see that. It was fun! And the food was excellent. Kim is a great cook.

We had a very happy holiday way North of home. We missed our friends and family, but are glad to have gotten to experience Christmas here. It was something special.

Hope you all had a great holiday season! Happy New Year from us at the temporarily relocated Cafe 305!