Home Again

      Hi everyone. Happy October 2. I'm home from my travels. Having not seen much of the news while I was gone,  I was surprised at all the damage from Hurricane Helene. And so many deaths also. It's sad. And tensions and aggression worsened in the Middle East. I feel like I missed a lot. Never mind I forgot yesterday was my daughter's wedding anniversary.😩

      Because this is a long post I've decided to break it into sections so you can read or skip anything that might not interest you.

      My trip:

    I'm now home from my travels north. We had a great trip. If you ever have a chance to visit the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec I highly recommend it. It is gorgeous. Plus the area has some wonderful "local" charm and color, lovely people, and at least in late September, wasn't really crowded either. (Although I'm sure the crowds would vary in other times of the year.)

    It's also a mostly dog friendly area, and the pups had lots of places to walk. 😀  I say mostly because there were a few  areas  where dogs weren't allowed, but even so, none of that really ended up interfering with overall plans.  The actual "bad" thing about having the dogs with us is that it didn't work for making a stop in Quebec City at the end of our trip. Luckily we've been there before as it's only about 6-7  hours from home, which isn't exactly a hop, skip and a jump but still shorter than us driving down to say Washington DC or Philadelphia. Quebec City is one of those cities that is never bad to go back to because it is a really beautiful and unique place.  And maybe the only European feeling city in North America. Hopefully I'll get back there again sometime sooner rather than later. 

     For those of you who asked about the dogs crossing the border, it was all very easy. Going into Canada we crossed into New Brunswick first. We were asked the usual questions, handed over the dogs updated rabies shot info, and then the border agent asked if the dogs wanted a biscuit. Of course they did!

  Crossing the border on the way home  also ended up being very easy. I'd heard and read about some new rules for bringing dogs home to the US. One of those was having to have your dogs micro-chipped with a universal chip. I'd also read that you had to show that you filled out an online CDC form. My dogs had both been micro-chipped years ago, and I was told by my vet we should be all set. Still, all these new rules made me a bit concerned. But the agent never asked anything about the dogs.  When the agent asked us to open the back window, Miss Maddie stuck her head  out, followed by Pete, and the agent tried to suppress a smile and look tough. 

    Although after 8 days of traveling (1700+ miles/ 2700+ km later), the back of my husband's Outback wagon was a disaster zone, so I imagine the border agent figured we were on vacation and in a way, living out of our car. We  started off having everything so neatly packed, but then things shifted 😏 as we packed and repacked and moved from one stay to the next. However, after checking our passports and after a couple of  quick questions, we entered Vermont without any issues. 

   I still haven't gone through photos other than what's on my phone, so more will come once I get to that process, but here's a few sneak peak photos.

We all enjoyed a Saturday afternoon beach walk along the St. Lawrence River which is so wide at this point that you can't see the opposite side..

We also had a lovely trail walk earlier in the day also.

And at one of our stays we had this great  local trail right out behind the cabin. 

   New Art:

  Last month before we went away I pulled apart a spiral bound journal and turned it into an autumn themed journal.  Once my pages were complete and  dried I rebound it with the same spiral binding. It's mostly junk journal style, or if you're not familiar with a junk style journal, it was me using up some bits and pieces, doing some inking, stitching, painting as well as lots of other techniques.

      Today I have a page from that journal for Alison's Autumn Colors and Inspiration challenge at Art Journal Journey.  

  

         The background is covered with some left over paints and some ink. Then I added some scraps of paper and a die cut piece of lace. Since the journal was unbound I was able to stitch the top and bottom of my page on the sewing machine. Then added some punch out and die cut images, as well as the acetate moth. Finally I stamped the quote, and there you had it. 

and last but not least Second on the Second:

      Since today is October 2, it is also time for Second on the Second       . Here's a few random art pieces from October of 2020. It was interesting to go back and read my blog from a time when we were still mostly isolating, and there were no covid vaccination. 

That's all for me. Enjoy your day!