Monday, March 7, 2011

Weekend Road Trip

On Friday morning, the boyfriend and I packed up the car can headed to Kingston for the 11th annual Kingston Canadian Film Festival, where I was invited as a guest again.  (You can read about last years' festival here!)

My sister is still attending school there, so we loaded up Whiskey to come along and stay with her for a visit. He really loves the carrier that I take on the train, so as soon as I put it in the backseat he hopped right in for a nap.

We made it through the three hour drive with a loaded iPod, homemade chicken sandwiches and Tim Horton's coffee. Its Rrrroll Up the Rim season, folks!

The festival put us up in the Four Points Sheraton Hotel right downtown and the guy at the desk recognized me from previous festivals and upgraded us to the king size bed. Sweet! I love free upgrades!

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After I finished my event with the film festival, we had some time to look around the downtown area. I lived here for four years while I was at Queen's University, so its always nice to come back and visit. It was especially fun to take the boyfriend around this time and share it with him too.

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You can always tell that winter is still around when there are ice rinks set up all around the city. I'm so hopeful for spring to come soon, but its nice seeing people taking advantage of the rinks while they still can.

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On the second day, we decided to head for lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Kingston - Lone Star!



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Its inside the old fire hall, which gives the place a great ambiance. The smell of Tex-Mex food doesn't hurt either!

We ordered the Three Amigos to share, which was three smaller glasses of their margarita flavours. The strawberry on the left was my favorite, but the boyfriend was partial to the milder banana one. Gotta love midday margaritas. Its always Five O'Clock Somewhere, right?

Of course I ended up filling up on the awesome warm tortilla chips and salsa that they bring to your table. It happens every time and I am always too full to finish even half my meal when it shows up, but the boyfriend seemed more than happy to pick up the slack.

We had planned to do some more exploring around the city after lunch, but they weather was horrible. The kind of rain and wind that goes sideways and cuts through you. Lets just say that the umbrella didn't make it back to the car in one piece! We ended up popping into stores to make it back to the hotel.

Just like on my trip to Kingston last spring, I had to stop into Hatley's to see what they had in store. Lucky for me a sale was on and I grabbed a couple of new thick tea towels.

I already have a apron in this pattern, so I was very excited to see that they had the tea towels in stock too!

This "Farmer Jill" print was just too cute to pass up. Did I ever mention that we used to have white Pekin ducks as pets while I was growing up? These little guys made me think of that and how much I loved those little ducks.

I also grabbed a cute pair of watermelon sleep shorts for the summer. It seems like ages until summer comes around, so maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part by buying them, but they were cute and only $5, so why not?

Now its back to the city and back to work, but it was nice to have the little break and be somewhere different for a couple of days. Sometimes a mini vacation is just what you need to get recharged. I think I need to plan these more often :)

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