Lessons learned this trip:

• When one of your best friends is getting married on the other side of the country, it is definitely worth it to go, even if it’s only for three days, and even if it depletes your savings. The memories you’ll make will last the rest of your life.
• When you hit a deer in New Glasgow on your way to Halifax to spend the night and fly out the next morning, say yes when the fireman offers to put you up for the night with his family. Also say yes to his twin brother who lives next door, who works near the airport and offers to pick you up at 5 am to drive you to your flight. Trust kind people who remind you of folks from home.
• Don’t trust yourself to do your own hair considering you think it’s “special” just to use bobby pins on a weekday. Absolutely call some of the local hair salons one hour before the wedding, in order to find the one who will fit you in, and give you a 1950’s-style updo. $70 is completely worth it. Bulletproof, awesome hair for the rest of the night is a must.
• The belly laughter of four good women travelling together is medicine for the soul.
• 90’s music is now retro, and that is really weird. I feel old! (The satellite radio in the car had a 90’s station and we listened to it while driving around.)
• At the reception, dance to every single song if you can. If you don’t feel like it, that’s OK too, but give it a try even if your feet are sore. It’s nice to just to move to fun music. Even if you’re the only one out there. Who cares, half the people (at least!) are drunk.
• I think maybe I have only ever heard “Way down yonder on the Chattahoochie” at wedding dances. And yet I still know most of the words.
• The red-eye flight is aptly named. Leaving Calgary at 11 pm their time and landing in Halifax at 6 am local time isn’t very restful. No matter – when I land in Halifax my Mum is waiting for me and I get to sleep in her car on our way back to Cape Breton (stopping in New Glasgow to collect the rest of my shit from my car).
• A car can look not-bad considering it ran right over a great big deer.
• Insurance companies can actually be great to deal with. (Mine is Aviva.)
• You never know what’s going to happen, and the best way to be content is to keep an open mind to it all.
• Failing that, take a walk around the block.

(If you are wondering where these pictures are taken, they are mainly in and around Invermere, BC, with shots on the highway between Invermere and Banff, and then between Banff and Calgary. The cafe shot with the kids looking through the window is at the Dairy Lane diner in Calgary. The last few are in the Halifax airport, and in New Glasgow.)