Fiddleheads and Covered Bridges

So today as we rolled into Perth-Andover for lunch we figured that there is no time like the present to write a post about the last few days. On Thursday we woke up nice and early and took the ferry to St. John, and then spent the afternoon at a table set up for us by Maureen in the market. Our next day wasn't quite as peachy, we biked from St. John to Fredricton, a grand total of 120 kms in the rain. The day improved when we dropped by an old friend of my dad's, Ilkay, and she fed us a delicious and unexpected meal. Fredricton continued to surprise us when we went to the market the next day and found out that we weren't allowed to set up our banner anywhere. The last surprise was when we dropped into Savage's bike shop and Matt Savage gave our bikes a check-up free of charge, which mainly involved new sets of brakes for both of our bikes. We thought that our trip was doomed after we almost hit a black cat that ran across the road infront of us. Turned out to be quite the opposite, we got a free campsite in Hartland and an awesome picture of this car inside the bridge. And today we had a lovely morning biking up the St. John river valley to PA.

on the whiteline

1st day
blue flags and columbines
swallowtails and red wing blackbirds
a raccoon after the bumble bee bag (our food bag)
free firewood for a crane
the 1st 75 clicks have unfolded

3rd day
1st starbucks coffee for both of us on the Digby ferry
we saw no fireworks
porcupine falling out of a tree
farmed seahorse eggs destined for China

Human Rights College = Awesome

I really don't know where to start writing about the HRC, it was just that incredibly amazing. To avoid rambling on and on I think I'll just pick a few of the highlights: (According to me and in no specific order)

1. The Amazing Activist Race, part of which included taping up 4 Amnesty posters in the best places you could find. For our group these places included a Metro bus, Theodore the Tugboat, and Jenn Farr's bike.

2. Getting to hangout with people from right across Canada. A couple of them were even from....
Manitoba. Which is a joke that you might not get unless you were at the concert at Grand Parade, which happens to be the next highlight.

3. The march in support of the Lubicon Cree and the free concert. For the march pretty much everyone who was at the HRC and AGM walked from the Dalhousie Student Union Building to Grand Parade in downtown Halifax carrying posters with various slogans on them. Once we made it to where we finished we listened to some live music and had our pictures taken infront of a pumpjack that we the HRCers had made.

4. My final one would have to be taking part in the Annual General Meeting. I also realized during all the discussions that doing all the workshops during the HRC really prepared me to be able to talk to other Amnesty members and tell them my point of view without having to make everything up as I went.

School's Out (Almost)

We had a few busy days, selling cranes at the high school on Saturday and then presenting our project to 6 different groups at diversity day on Monday, also at the high school. Today, (Tuesday) our local paper, the Bulletin, came out with a good article that Keith Corcoran wrote about our adventure. Thanks Keith. If you want to have a look at the article: http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2009/052609/news/index011.html
We also received a call from Al Heubach at the Bike Barn in Lunenburg offering to donate some bike equipment to our cause. Thanks Al. We also received an unexpected email from Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty Canada, wishing us well. I hope to meet him at the Human Rights College next week. Bob is busy getting the garden planted and fixing the fencing for the turkeys that arrive the same day we leave. Mum will have to look after them this summer. There seems to be a lot to do in preperation to leave home for that long. Only 5 days of school left, and 2 weeks until we leave!!

Car Wash

It was a cold, drizzly Nova Scotia day but we washed a lot of cars and got more than $200 in donations! The Katimavik bunch were a huge help, in fact, there wouldn't have been a car wash without Josh, Jeremy,Ele, Angie, Frederique, Laura, Eli, Matt, Greg and Julia.

Special Thanks

Tucker and I just wanted to give a special thanks to Rev. Ruth Brown and the congregation of Trinity United Church, in Mahone Bay for inviting us to their Sunday service and their kind reception. The strawberry cheesecake was awesome as well!
And thanks to Sheldon MacLeod at CKBW radio in Bridgewater for furthering our efforts on this adventure. Thanks to all!

Progression of Speech

I have written a speech that I must deliver in the 4-H club. I figured that it might as well be about this project. This is competitive although I have little interest in that aspect. 2 weeks ago I delivered it to the club and won. Today I delivered it again at the county level and won, this time it comes with a tropheous blob of plastic, with gold pointy things on it. I hope I don't hurt myself. The good thing is that more people will hear about our project.