When you live in this province, the ultimate Winter plans are typically made on the west coast, right? So, we planned a trip to the west coast. When trying to find accommodations, however, we discovered our little road trip was scheduled during the exact same time as the National Special Olympics, and everything was booked solid in Deer Lake and Corner Brook. Super bad timing on our part, haha. (Note to self: maybe don’t wait until ten days before you leave to start looking for a place to sleep.)  (Apologies to Jess and Stephen. That was my bad.)

Since this post is partially titled “Winter Blues”–let me get sidetracked for a moment. For the past couple months, we’ve both felt like we’re in a slump of sorts.  Now, we’re positive-thinking people, and we lead lives with much to be thankful for.  We know that in the grand scheme of things, our struggles are pretty minor. They’re still no fun to deal with, though. After awhile, things like surprise car troubles and mystery health issues and killer toothaches topped with an emergency root canal can do some serious damage to one’s motivation and creative processes. When the month of March was approaching, we decided “Okay, we need to get out of whatever slump we’re in”, haha.  We attempted to make the most of Winter–locally.

We skated on the pond in Port-de-Grave for the first time in years: (our sister fell down and broke her ankle after I took this photo, but we won’t talk about that because this is a positive post).

We splurged on really good seats at an Ice Caps game: (Hi, Buddy!)

…they lost, however.

We took in as much live music as we could–it does the soul good. Like Repartee, at the Breezeway:

And we headed downtown for Yukon Blonde: (okay, so this is before getting in the cab to head downtown, but we all know how crummy the photos in dark venues turn out).

We took a mini road trip to Bonavista: (and managed to not fight about which albums we listened to. Except maybe when Jess and I refused to listen to Alessia Cara when Stephen insisted. Sorry but not sorry, Stephen.)

Took a little detour to Trinity on the way home: (can’t wait to visit in the Summer!)

And then took a super long out-of-the-way-but-worth-it detour to New Bonaventure, just to spot shots from The Grand Seduction: (like the bar!)

We day-tripped the Irish Loop:

(It’s worth getting out of your car to stroll the beach in St. Vincent’s. In our case, “strolling” was more like “holding oneself upright in the pouring rain”)

We all deal with periods when we’ve felt stuck–we’re all human. I’d imagine we all deal with them differently, too. What didn’t work for us: Sitting around and doing nothing. (I went and made the mistake of watching 10 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy with Jess in a single day –I think it put me in an even worse mood.)  What did work, however, was when we got up and simply DID something.

(And YAYY, it’s Spring!)