If you haven’t had an opportunity to travel through the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, add them to your destination list.

Last week we carved a fun & relaxing loop by driving up to Quebec City, skirting the top of Maine, then descending to bisect New Brunswick while making our way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We hopped onto the ferry in Yarmouth for the last leg, bringing us back to the US via Portland, Maine.

It was a week of beautiful scenery, non-existent traffic, and delicious farm-to-table food and microbrews accented with abundant fresh seafood — all fused with local civic appreciation for the arts, walking trails and lovely gardens at every stop.

Opportunities to draw have become a treasured part of vacationing for me, my sketchbooks being the most enduring and powerful of souvenirs.

It was a happy discovery to notice that Canadians don’t seem to be surgically connected to their cellphones as is so ubiquitous here. I feel like we hardly ever saw anyone walking and talking or texting, and restaurants seemed to be virtually mobile-free.

While it made sketching people a bit more challenging, it was lovely not to have the same bend of the neck and hand placement on each and every subject, not to mention avoiding being a captive third party in a conversation you want no part of.

In addition to the omnipresent public art that Canadians apparently and appropriately feel is an important investment in their quality of life, we caught several wonderful exhibitions that I will share next week; I hope you’ll return to read about them.

On A Different Note______________________________________________________________________________

My piece “Dichotomy” will be showing on home turf through the end of November in the upcoming exhibit Fabric of Our Lives at the Grange Hall Cultural Center here in Waterbury Center. The opening is Sunday, October 1 from 3-5pm. I would love to see you there!

If you are local, keep your eyes and ears peeled for future offerings at The Grange. Our community is very lucky to have a creative venue that offers something for everyone: theater, music, exhibitions, workshops, yoga classes, etc.

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And finally, I just discovered the 10 Minute Writer’s Workshop podcast. The name says it all, each episode is a short and sweet glimpse into the process of a wide variety of well-known writers. The ideas are valuable for writers and readers alike. You can find it on iTunes.