This mom and her teenage daughter drove 10,000 km for Island Fringe Festival

A mother and her 14-year-old daughter arrived in Charlottetown this weekend after two months in a car together criss-crossing the continent.

Victoria Goring and her daughter Carson are in P.E.I. to perform a play they wrote together at the Island Fringe Festival.

Since leaving their home in Los Angeles in May, they've logged 10,000 kilometres.

"You've got two people in one car, a small car, driving across the continent but it's actually been fine," Carson said.

You sometimes get a little sick of each other.- Carson Goring

"You sometimes get a little sick of each other, but then you tell jokes, you find something new in your play, and you realize how lucky you are to have that experience."

That experience has included performances at fringe festivals in London, Ont., and Portland, Maine. They backtracked to Toronto for another performance before leaving for P.E.I.

They've visited many places they've never been to, staying with friends, billets, hostels and "very cheap hotels" along the way with no agenda except to get to the next fringe festival.

"We both love travelling.If we didn't like travelling then it might not be as much fun," Carson said.

"There's always funny times with us, you know, a single mom and daughter in a car, there's going to be definitely some comedy."

Spontaneous trip

On the way to Portland, they took a spontaneous detour.

"We saw a sign that said 'New York City, 300 miles' and we said, 'Oh 300 miles, that's nothing, let's just go.' I got to go to New York City for the first time, so that was awesome," Carson said.

"I think that's really awesome for families to come out of their comfort zone and go do stuff like that, so a very fun adventure."

The Island Fringe Festival runs from Aug. 2-5. The Gorings' play is called The Cardboard Countess. Carson plays a depressed teenager who gets bullied by the kids in her school. She meets a woman who calls herself a countess who has built a castle and a ballgown out of trash.

"At first you think the lady is crazy but eventually the teenager starts to believe in her and it's a really wonderful story about how these two characters save each other," Victoria said.

Bonded in special way

When they leave Charlottetown, they'll head to Saint John for another fringe festival before making the long trek back to California.

At each festival, they get a couple of local teenagers to join the cast, which Carson appreciates.

"We kind of get a break from each other, we get to meet new people," Carson said.

Though Victoria said sometimes they get "cranky from each other," she said the two have bonded in a special way.

"We just have one little phone that we share between us so there is not a lot of screen time, it's just a really wonderful way to get to know your kid," she said. "We have a lot of fun on the road. We like the same sorts of things. We like museums, we like nature, we like theatre, obviously."

Carson agreed.

"It is super fun," she said. "We've had a lot of really unique experiences which I don't feel a lot of people my age or a lot of moms would get to do with each other."

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