A Return from The Keystone Province

I'm back from Holidays, and couldn't be less refreshed. But in a good way.

I took a whirlwind five day trip from Grande Prairie to my hometown of Pierson, Manitoba for Christmas to visit family and friends I haven't seen in over a year. I was awesome to see everyone, and I took a few photos to show the highlights:

Here's my girlfriend after I forced her part-way across the Souris River Swinging Bridge:
This was the biggest smile she could muster, as she was in sheer terror most of the time while going across the oldest and longest cable stayed footbridge in Canada. Apparently she doesn't like rickety wooden bridges, and my constant jumping up and down to make it bounce didn't improve her attitude towards them.

Next, here I am in front of a giant statue of a banana that's been built in the town of Melita since I was last home.
Apparently our part of Manitoba is called the "Banana Belt" because it's warmer than the rest of the province. I don't think anyone knew this, or really cared, until this statue was built. It's very, almost exactly, reminiscent of an episode of Corner Gas I once saw...



I also gave out a lot of presents to family this year too. What I like to do is buy stuff from the internet, get it mailed to my parent's house where they wrap and deliver the gifts from there. But I neglected to read the fine print of a "Darwin Awards" book from Amazon I purchased, which turned out to be more literal than I realized, as the book was roughly two inches square in size.

My sister's boyfriend still liked it though.

I also got to see my niece Elizabeth for the first time ever.
She took a small break from screaming after being put in this Santa outfit for a picture.

And that's pretty much it. I did some math and we flew and drove roughly 4,800 kilometres, that's just under the length of Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Happy New Year everyone, it was nice seeing all of you from back home. Hopefully it's not an entire year before I can come back.

Nickel Creek - When In Rome