Shoveling Snow in Canada – Look What We Do for Love!

As I mentioned earlier, I just got back from beautiful, sunny cold, miserable Toronto.  And boy, is my throat tired (from coughing).

And no, it wasn’t all fun and lizard games either.  The wonderful thing about being slowly encased in snow is that you have to regularly shovel your way out.  This accomplishes very little, other than making you feel like you have some control, when in reality God is toying with you.

Bitter?  No.  But this is an excellent time to mention that Myrtle Beach is beautiful and sunny right now.  I walked around wearing shorts today.

So in case you are interested in looking at purchasing homes in a beautiful resort town where people wear shorts year-round, go to CohenMyrtleBeach.com!

Anyway, here are the pics:

 

Here I am, starting off on my trek to clear off the driveway and sidewalk.  I am wearing: 2 jackets, 2 pairs of pants, oversized boots, 2 pairs of socks, gloves and a hat. 

 

 

At the beginning, I felt like I was wasting my time.  Oddly enough, I felt the same way two hours later, when I looked outside and saw that everything was covered in snow again.

 

 

You’ll notice that Bingles’ neighbor is selling his house and moving away.  I wonder why….

 

 

Here I am, pissing in the wind shoveling more snow.  Bingles had fun telling her neighbors that this was my first time shoveling snow.

 

 

As you can see, I had no idea what I was doing.  At all.

 

 

At this point, the driveway was “done”, which means that it was safe to drive over for about 30-40 minutes.  Good job, Myrtle Beach Website Designer!

 

 

Next comes the salting.  Did you know they use actual salt?  I thought the term “salting” came from how you sprinkled it on the ground.  I had no idea it was real salt.

Amazing.

 

 

Bingles felt that I could be trusted with an ice scraper, even though I had never used one before.  I’m glad to report that no one got hurt.  Unfortunately, no ice was scraped either.  Again, I had no idea what I was doing.

So anyway, that was fun.  Once again, any person who is living in Canada, take some time to come down to Myrtle Beach.  Spend a week here, and then seriously tell me you want to leave.

Oh, and our gas is a lot cheaper too…

Hanging with the Critters at Reptilia in Toronto – Look What We Did!

I don’t know if any of you have been following the weather in Canada.  If you haven’t, let me sum it up:

It’s freaking cold!  It is freeze-your-ass-off COLD!  It is several degrees below ZERO. 

FAHRENHEIT.

It’s not cold like “oh hey, it’s a bit nippy outside” cold. 

It’s more like “oh hey, my arm just fell off, but thankfully I’m too numb to feel it and I’m too frozen to bleed” cold!

So I did what any smart person would do, and I left beautiful, warm, sunny Myrtle Beach (where people are wearing shorts right now) and flew to Toronto see my beautiful Bingles.

Why, you might ask, would an otherwise smart person fly from a gorgeous resort town to a frozen wasteland?

THIS is why.

Ah yes, the beautiful Bingles.  Gorgeous inside and out.  So beautiful, so loving, so caring, so brilliant, so perfect in every way, that I knowingly flew to Coldtopia to spend a week experiencing what it’s like to freeze internally. 

So anyway, while I was up there, we decided to fulfill our addiction to critters (and pretend we weren’t in the Arctic) by going to Reptilia in Toronto.

Reptilia is a really cool place!  It’s kind of like a smaller version of Ripley’s Aquarium, except with reptiles instead of fishies.

Here are some pics that Bingles took of me cavorting with the swamp monsters.  There were a lot more creatures there, but here are the highlights:

 

We start off by meeting my new BFF, whom I’ve named Bert.  Bert was the patriarch of this particular clan of iguanas, so he kept a close eye on me at all times.

 

 

Here is Bert yawning.  He would also move his head up and down while puffing his little turkey-neck thingy (you gotta appreciate my scientific lingo).  I think this was meant to be some kind of alpha-male “step off my turf” display.  Anyway, I just did it back to him, not to threaten him but because I thought it was funny-looking, and I wanted him to see how silly it looked.

 

 

I named this iguana Ernie.  He slept the whole two hours we were there.  Watching him sleep made me tired, so we took a little nap together.

 

 

Feeling rested and refreshed, I decided to show my appreciation of nature by poking at angry snakes.  Incidentally, I have a pair of snakeskin shoes that are almost exactly the same color as this guy.  I didn’t tell him though.

 

 

Feeling somewhat amorous, I started to kiss every scaly thing in sight, starting with this snake.

 

 

This Gila Monster was one of the few things that actually was eager to kiss me  back.

And don’t think I didn’t appreciate it either.  It’s nice to feel loved.

 

 

It’s true what they say; kissing a bunch of strangers is tiring.  So I went back and napped a bit with Ernie.

 

 

Not wanting to do the stereotypical “toad kissing”, I chose to mock them by puffing my face out at them.

Unfortunately, amphibians are well-known for their lack of appreciation for physical comedy.

 

 

Reptilia is chock full of gators and crocs.  In fact, they have the largest crocodile in captivity, or the largest crocodile in Canada, or whatever.  Something like that.  They have a very big crocodile, so big that it has the distinction of being the largest something-or-other.

But he/she was hiding in the corner, so I decided to party with this guy, who in my humble opinion is the most friendly crocodile/alligator in all of the Greater Toronto Area.  Friendly, or maybe just hungry.

 

 

And yes, I kissed him too.

 

 

These guys were *ahem* busy.  I did not kiss them, as Bingles informed me that doing so would be a violation of several Canadian laws.

 

 

 

This angered me very much, and led me to have a temper tantrum, followed of course by another nap.

 

Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of the feeding we got to watch up close and personal.  We were about 3 feet away while one of the employees took out some kind of fairly large lizard (a Ruta?  Guta?  something like that) and fed him/her a bunch of dead rats.  Sweet.

 

We also didn’t get any good pics of their King Cobra.  Apparently, it is Canada’s Largest Venomous Snake, which is amazing because Canada is well-known for their tropical snakes.

 

Anyway, Reptilia is a great place for critter-lovers in or around Toronto.  Lots of fun, and they keep it nice and warm in there (which was much-appreciated).

And the price is pretty fair too.  It was less than $30 (even after Canada’s consumer-raping sales taxes) and their staff is very courteous and knowledgeable.

So, for any people in Canada who are still thawed enough to read this, head on over to Reptilia, and tell them Myrtle Beach Website Designer sent you!

Even though they don’t know who I am…

How to Fly to Myrtle Beach CHEAP! – Look What We Did

A wise man once said, “it’s not the journey, it’s the destination.”

That man was wrong.  Especially when it comes to flying.  But I digress….

My girlfriend, Bingles, lives in Ontario.  I, of course, live in Myrtle Beach.  And we visit one another about twice a month.  As you can imagine, that means a LOT of flying.

Well, with the average cost of a round-trip flight from Toronto to Myrtle Beach costing about $450, that can get pretty expensive.  I may be successful, but I’m not loaded.  Yet.

It didn’t take long for us to start looking into a less-costly way for us to be able to travel a lot back and forth to see each other.  And it took even less time for us to discover Myrtle Beach Direct Air.

Myrtle Beach Direct offers trips from Niagara Falls, NY to Myrtle Beach starting at $99 each way.  The average cost of a round-trip flight is around $250.  And unlike most flights to Myrtle Beach, it is a direct flight.

That’s right, no layovers!  You are in Myrtle Beach in less than two hours!

It’s easy for us.  Bingles just drives about an hour from Toronto to Niagara Falls International Airport, and then flies here.  Or I fly up there, and she picks me up.  AND THE PARKING AT NIAGARA FALLS AIRPORT IS FREE!  That saves another $50-80, depending on how long she’s here for.

And it gets even better!  You see, Myrtle Beach Direct offers something called Family Ties Passports.  These are round-trip tickets that you can pre-purchase for future use.  You can buy as many as you want (provided they aren’t sold out).  And they cost $150, including taxes and fees!

That’s right, I fly round trip to Toronto for $150.  I said it.

Oh, and the plane they use is an Airbus A320, chartered through Virgin Air.  Each seat has its own TV with DirectTV, movies, video games, and more!  The seats are VERY comfortable, much better than Spirit or Delta…

What it looks like in the Plane. Nice.

…I could go on and on.  Bingles and I have nothing but good things to say about Myrtle Beach Direct.  And they fly out of more places than Niagara Falls.  That’s just the one we use.

For more info, go to www.MyrtleBeachDirectAir.com!  And tell them we sent you.

At this point, they probably know who we are…