Henry David Thoreau said as he stood on the shore of Cape Cod in the 1800's, "a man may stand here and put all America behind him." Although I thoroughly enjoyed standing on the same shore, only now that we are in Canada do I truly feel that I have all America behind me.

Interesting fact though, as we venture east into Canada we will be going even further from home than we have been yet. At Key West, the very southernmost tip of the continental United States, we were 5,774 kms from home. St. John's, Newfoundland is 7,198 kms from home! Our journey is not yet over, nevertheless we all somehow feel great relief and security being on our native soil.

We had a wonderful border crossing, with a border guard who actually had a sense of humor and asked to come with us on the rest of our trip. Naturally, our first stop was Tim Horton's! It has been nearly nine months since we last sat down in Timmy's and had a bowl of chili and a great cup of coffee - that's almost as long as waiting for a baby! Even so there are other reasons why we are excited to be back in Canada. As we drove into Canada I heard from the back seat of the truck:

"Oh, kilometers, now I know how long it will take us to get where we're going!"

"Hey Dad, speed up, the speed limit's 110 now!"

"I've missed all this wide open space!"

"It's so nice to be able to understand the second language of this country!"

"Look at all this nature - that we don't have to pay to see."

"Celsius, isn't it cool!"

"I'm sooooo happy right now!"

"I'm so full of donut and ice cap - sigh!"

But before we get ahead of ourselves and tell you what we are doing at Shepherd's Garden in Frog Lake, New Brunswick, CANADA, we have many stories to tell of our adventures in New York City...