As much as we plan out these roadtrips, we keep our eyes peeled for unique experiences along the way. Day 3 of our Northeast Adventure would definitely bring us some fun surprises.

On our way out of the suburban PA town my brother calls home, we saw a billboard for a place called Thunderdog Fireworks. You should really click that link - the logo is of a chiseled dachshund wearing a cape and holding a lit firecracker. Andy became a bit obsessed with getting a t-shirt with this logo on it. So Thunderdog Fireworks needed to be added into our itinerary for sure. But before we got to Thunderdog, we saw another billboard for a place called Roadside America, which promised to...

When Andy and I find a place we'd like to visit, we keep it in mind to see if it might organically fold into a future road trip. Over time, enough destinations accumulated in the Northeast USA to warrant a big road trip. Total Bonus: we live in New England, so no flight or car rental required!

At first, we thought it might just be a 6 day road trip. But it kept expanding...and expanding. And soon enough, we found ourselves with a 12-day itinerary spanning 2,000 miles across four US states and Canada.

The journey began by loading up my little Mazda hatchback and heading east out of the Boston suburb we call home. In less than three hours, we were wandering around Empi...

Apart from grassy fields, there was nothing for miles on Route 2. We were on our way back up to Calgary. No cars. No houses. Nothing. It was strangely beautiful, but the kind of road where we were really grateful we had decided to gas up beforehand. Check out this Google Street View to understand the true scope of nothingness if you don't believe me.

We finally got to South Calgary and checked into our hotel. It was dinnertime and we'd heard that there was a Famoso in Calgary. If you recall, we originally stumbled upon Famoso in Jasper and it was some of the best pizza either of us had ever eaten. We just had to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy it a second ti...

If you've been reading chronologically, you know that Day 7 started with a jolting bear encounter (see Part 3 here if you need to catch up). The plan for today was to travel over the border into the United States and drive the famous Going-To-The-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. But sometimes the world just has different ideas as to how you spend your day...

We successfully crossed the border, but not without relinquishing some fruit. Oddly, that beautiful California orange that we purchased in Calgary wasn't allowed back in its home country.

The entry to Going-To-The-Sun Road was only another 30 miles south in the town of Saint Mary, Montana. Upon our arrival, we wer...

Oh hey little town of Jasper, Alberta! We're up early and hungry.

After a breakfast sandwich at Coco's Cafe (their motto is "If you don't eat, you die!"), and a quick visit to the Bear's Paw Bakery, we were off to the mountains!

Before we ever embarked on this Canadian Rockies trip, and before I experienced that low-grade panic attack on the gondola ride up Sulphur Mountain (see Part One), we had purchased Jasper SkyTram tickets for the morning of Day 5. The SkyTram goes to the summit of Whistlers Peak in Jasper and I gotta say, this gondola was a waaaaaay easier ride than the Sulphur Mountain gondola. Each car holds up to 25 standing people so it ended up being super...

When one falls asleep in a pizza-induced food coma at 8pm, one usually wakes up a bit confused at dawn the next morning. In Banff National Park near the end of May, the sun rises at about 5:30am. That's pretty early, even for us earlybirds.

Knowing that there was exactly one restaurant in a 25 mile radius (conveniently located at our hotel) that wouldn't open up until 8am, we decided to walk through Johnston Canyon before breakfast.

There are two trails at Johnston Canyon. The upper falls (a 2 hour hike), and the lower falls (a 1 hour hike). We opted to walk the lower falls trail because we had a heck of a lot planned for Day 3 of our Canadian Rockies adventure and w...

I'm a map nerd. I visit Google Maps two or three times a day just to "street view" a random place I've never been. I've always considered myself above average in the geography category of Trivial Pursuit. And I know the capital of Pennsylvania without needing to look it up. 

So when Andy mentioned Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada as a potential road trip, it was a little bit of a blow to my ego. My response was "Huh? You wanna go where? Never heard of it."

I guess I hadn't thought much about western Canada as a destination (besides maybe Vancouver). But I took a look at a map and just west of Calgary in the province of Alberta, a magical land of white mountai...

Andy and I often talk about how lucky we are to be New Englanders. There's something here for everyone: beaches, mountains, forests...adventurey stuff, chill stuff, artsy stuff...great seafood, craft breweries, Ben & Jerry's.

Hey, if talk of food made you hungry, check out this Buzzfeed post of foods New England does better than anywhere else - Andy has very strong opinions about #8, while I'm a connoisseur of #17.

One of the more touristy things to do here is to visit the Boston Harbor Islands. It took me a good 10 years of living here before I went. I always figured it was a right of passage for locals, so I was shocked to learn that Andy, a born and raised Bostonia...

You gotta keep life interesting...why not dedicate yourself to something a little insane for just one day and see how it goes?

On one particular late-May day, staring down at my breakfast burrito and banana, I said "Hey, Amberly, look at all those tubed shaped foods! I challenge you (me) to eat nothing but foods in the shape of tubes today." And, so, it became "Tubed Foods Day".
 

Andy and I had a whole day of nothing planned. We decided to drive a little bit north of where we live and walk around the town of Rockport, Massachusetts. We figured we would just see where the wind took us from there. In Rockport, nobody is in any big hurry to get anywhere, which goes again...

My heavy suitcase really messed things up. Somewhere between carrying it down the flight of stairs at the Cavendish Breeze Inn and hoisting it into the back of the rental car, Andy's back got bent out of shape. Like, really bad. So bad it was even painful for him to be a passenger in the car.   

Today was Day 6 and we'd be taking a plane back home to Boston tomorrow - but there was still so much adventuring to do! We needed to drive over 5 hours to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia...like, right now if we were gonna remain on schedule. This could get rough.

We made it a few miles into New Brunswick before stopping for breakfast at a truck stop sort of place called the ...