Canada was awesome

Just came back from a week of camping with my family in beautiful New Brunswick at Fundy National Park. It was killer. Spectacular hiking, great weather, minimal bugs... and, of course, a learning experience. Among the more valuable lessons I learned:

• Everything is cooler in the metric system. You can drive 110 km/hr on most highways and gas is only $1.09/L. I think I would enjoy life considerably more if it were measured on the metric system.
• Smores get EVERYWHERE. In your hair. In your sleeping bag. Under the cap of your toothpaste tube. Who invented these things? Damn the Girl Scouts and their nefarious plot to take over the world by gluing everything together with a thin layer of burnt, syrupy sugar and graham cracker crumbs! DAMN THEM!
  
• In a pinch, you can make cornbread in an iron skillet. This is less successful if you don't grease the skillet beforehand.
• No beer is quite as delicious as the one you crack open after a 14-km hike. (See? Isn't that more impressive than if I said "a 8.69919669-mile hike"? Hooray for the metric system! Also, hooray for Google Calculator!)
  
• Not a lot of cute men in Canada. My sister and I counted a grand total of 7. I was kind of expecting more hockey player/lumberjack types, preferably shirtless. Disappointing. Maine men, on the other hand, are delicious. Note to self: plan next camping trip in Maine.
• "Summerteeth" is a great driving album. Especially "A Shot in the Arm."
  
• Bats are pretty cute. Like furry little squirrels with wings. Until they FLY IN YOUR FACE.
• No matter how old or jaded or crushingly cynical you may become, you never truly lose your capacity to be absolutely awestruck by unfathomable, indescribable natural beauty.
  
• A week without Facebook is a long, long, long time.
  

And, to be honest, I couldn't have left at a more opportune time. It was CRAZY hot in Boston, plus the Sox were sucking it up while the Yanks were on a hot streak. The stress of those two things combined might very well have killed me. [Please note, however, that I stand by my prior lauding of the Gagne trade, despite his recent woes from the mound (so very, very unfortunate, is it not, that his name is strikingly close to "Gag me"?), and will thus not engage in any Gagne bashing in this forum.] I'm very happy to see that Jamie Moyer got his 11th win, though; hooray for hometown boys! (And hooray for the Phillies! Hi, Justin!)

Tonight, by the way, the headline on the Red Sox homepage is "Wakefield, Sox happy to see Devil Rays." I mean... there's just something so gloating and vaguely menacing about that headline. I feel like it's the MLB.com equivalent of the gleam the tough kid in the cafeteria gets in his eye when he sees that the skinny nerd's mother has packed a cupcake in his Battlestar Galactica lunchbox. Then again, it's August. Bring it on, Tampa Bay. Lord knows our wins column could use a little padding. Any chance we could get a little interleague series against the Nats going next week?