While I usually don’t like to divulge too much about future excursions – I’m very excited to announce that my next major road trip will take me to Quebec for the first time in my life. One top of crossing off another Canadian province, Quebec comes with its own challenges and rewards and I’m certain will feel quite distinct from the rest of Canada that I’m used to. Making this journey even better is that my cousin Walter is coming along. As he has lived many years overseas or across the country from me, this will be the first time since a childhood trip to Norway that we’ve spent more than a few hours together. Seeing as we both don’t know a lick of French, this could end up being very interesting. We will try not to look like les touristes américains. We likely won’t succeed.

Presenting the outline of Quebec – the largest and funkiest of the Canadian provinces

Another destination that has been gnawing at me for years is Canada’s Nunavut. I’ve been meaning to take a trip to the Canadian Arctic for the better part of three years, but have been foiled by timing and cost. It is quite expensive to unleash an excursion up north, but it is something I’ll have to do sooner or later. Keep in mind that I may decide to bite on this one as soon as this year (and later this summer) if the opportunity presents itself. Obviously, if I make it up there, it will be with the intent of a more serious writing project. I wouldn’t be going just to report on the sights and sounds (that’s a given). An arctic journey (possibly Nunavut, possibly elsewhere) is definitely on the horizon somewhere.

Second, we are quickly nearing the first year anniversary of this humble little travel blog (June 16 is the exact day). A year is a big deal to me. The blogosphere is crammed to the gills with a million of sites like mine. What makes mine stand out? Why do you want to see where I, the self-proclaimed “Weekend Roady”, have ventured off to lately? What makes my trip report on Block Island any different than the 10,789 out there already?

Yikes – that’s kinda scary. I guess I should shelve my reality TV dreams for now. As I’ve said in the past, the goal of this blog was to really have no goals at all. I love to write and I love to travel and I have a keen sense of the obscure and weird, especially when your talking about geographic oddities. My appetite for travel borders on insatiable, which both defines me and scares me. I’m richly engrossed by being in a new location, surrounded by a different culture (and we have plenty of those in our own country, heck, in our own states even). Whereas some people say they spent a day or two here, a week there, etc… I like to say I “lived” there for a couple days. I am a resident of my travels, not just a passerby. I care for every place I’ve visited (I’d say that certainly shows when I take far more interest in a national news story taking place in, say, New Mexico, than I did in the past). I guess that’s the kind of perspective you’ll get from me on this blog and in any other writing I do.