This is an account of a family trip we made from Pickering, Ontario to Pasadena, Newfoundland (ie all within Canada for you non-Canadians though for some reason we passed through the U.S. on th way up) from late July to mid-August 1993. I was bored and restless on the car ride there so I grabbed a notepad and started writing in my sloppy, chicken-scratch handwriting and then typed it all out once we got back home. At the time, I was about a month or so from being 18 (oh, it's a coming of age tale...actually, the scary part of it is it kind of is...but mostly is not) and in retrospect, though you may find this amusing, you may also find it a bit juvenile at times. My opinions, attitude, etc. then is not necessarily the way it is now.
Just for reference purposes, some "characters" in this journal include Dan (my brother, 2 years younger than me), Amber (my sister, 6 years younger than me), Sarah (my stepsister, exactly 5 years younger than me -- yes, exactly; she has the same birthday as I do), Michael (my stepbrother, 8 years younger than me), Wally (my stepfather) and my mom.
Once we get to Newfoundland, there's more people but it seems I took the time to introduce all of them at the time anyway.
The good news is, those who have read this have enjoyed it. The bad news is, this is a bit long and is therefore not the kind of thing you'll likely want to read all at once. So I've separated it into pages so that you can read a bit and then come back some other time. Or you can print out the pages and read this later at your leisure. Also, the journal is broken down by date and the entries for the car ride there and back are further broken down by time of day so it would be relatively easy to read a bit and then find your place later. Hope you enjoy this. Click on the "START" button below or skip ahead to a particular date of the journal if you prefer (Saturday, July 31st and Sunday, August 1st I've broken up into multiple pages since all of Saturday and most of Sunday I was in the car and I wrote a lot more). Duplicate this freely so long as I get credit for it.
