Our Eastward Aye

(2. Slept under the stars ... not quite ... part 4)

Before I continue with my experiences almost under the stars, I include this side note for those who have been following the mouse tales. Also at the cottage, I had two encounters with the mice while driving the car. Oh yeah; it's true. Cuppa found the blog where she described those incidents. I'm sure you'll enjoy another good laugh at poor old AC.

The year after Westward Ho, we headed in the opposite direction on our Eastward Aye adventure, which I also turned into a web page. By then, I knew a little bit more about constructing web pages but still not a lot. However, I think it looks passable, even after these many years.

On our previous trip, we had at least set foot in all of the western provinces: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Now, it was time to visit the Maritimes: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. After this trip, we had visited all provinces except Newfoundland. Fortunately, east is a lot closer to Ontario than west, and after stopping in Ottawa (from Sarnia) for a night, we were able to reach New Brunswick fairly easily within a day.

While the west was large and magnificent, especially the Rocky Mountains, which thrilled me to pieces, I found the east to be charming and pleasant with ocean everywhere. We camped in New Brunswick's Bay of Fundy National Park, saw the tide come in and walked on the ocean floor at Hopewell Rocks. Then, we moved onto Prince Edward Island where we managed to pitch our tent right on a spider nest in PEI National Park. I swam in the ocean for the first time in my life, (not bad considering it was getting on in September and I was the only fool in the water that day) and visited Anne's (of Green Gables) Land.

Finally, we headed off to Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia. We drove the Cabot Trail (several times), whale-watched, enjoyed a Sunday afternoon of fiddling at the Red Shoe Pub, and visited the old French fortress at Louisbourg. The camping went fairly well on this trip until we did encounter some rain towards the end. However, we had erected a canopy over the tent (see blue tarp in photo below), just in case; in retrospect it turned out to be a very good idea: better idea than we knew at the time.



For we didn't know that the tent was poorly designed and leaky. However, when we got back to Ontario, we headed to the cottage where we often slept in the tent right by the river rather than stay inside. It rained there too, but without a canopy the tent took in quite a bit of water. Fortunately, we had the house to revert to, so it was not a real problem.

But it did cause us to purchase a better tent, which turned out to be a very good thing ... in the following year.

Meanwhile, I am pasting in one entry from the Eastward Aye journal of our trip around the Cabot Trail.

---

On Monday morning we headed back to the Hometown Kitchen for another fine breakfast, but we didn’t have any fascinating encounters with Buddhists or anyone else this time. We decided that we wanted to drive the Cabot Trail again, this time all of the way around to Ingonish on the Atlantic side. We purchased a cassette tape at the camp store that narrated us around the trail. More tourist places should do this type of thing. The day was misty and not great for pictures, but the drive was just as thrilling as before.

One thing I had wanted to do, after reading about it in a travel book, was to purchase a lobster sandwich on the Cabot Trail and to eat it by the ocean. We were able to make such a purchase in Big Intervale (or perhaps Cape North). In the same store, we met a lady from Cheticamp who had lived on the next street over from Cuppa’s parents in Toronto. The Disney folks are right; it is a small world after all. She recommended that we take our sandwiches to Black Brook Cove and have a picnic lunch there. Always follow the advise of locals. It was a remarkable spot, and we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch in what must surely be a little, Way Cool! foretaste of heaven.

On the drive back toward Cheticamp, we drove right into an incredible fog. We drove into the cloud at North Mountain. As we turned a corner, we could see it lying there in wait, but there was nothing else to do but to press forward into the maw of the thickest fog that I have ever encountered. Strangely enough, when we got near the top of Mount Mackenzie, the sun came out. We stopped at the lookout and tried to peer into the valley below, but we couldn’t because the fog had completely socked in the valley and locked out our vision. The pattern repeated itself several times; the mountaintops were clear while the valleys were dense with cloud.

We did have another marvellous experience that day. We saw our first moose. It wasn’t a big one, and it wasn’t a male with great, ponderous horns, but a moose it was. She suddenly appeared on the road before us. She stopped to stare at us, and we stopped to snap pictures; after two quick photos, she stepped nimbly over the guardrail and vanished wraith–like into the forest. We finally had our sighting! It seemed like everyone else that we talked to had seen at least sixteen dozen, and we finally saw one. It was just in the nick of time, for we were to break camp and begin driving southward on the morrow.

Our Westward Ho

(2. Slept under the stars ... not quite ... part 3)

This is one reason why I don't do well with memes. This is the third post on the second point of one hundred on the list. Can you imagine me attempting the whole meme? All one is supposed to do is to make bold the items on the list that you have completed. But, oh no, I have to do it my way.

I was a geography who didn't get to travel much, but nine years ago, we took our tiny, old Corolla thousands of miles out west. It was to be a long vacation, so one had to mind one's expenses; therefore, we did a lot of camping. We camped on the Canadian Shield and on the Prairies on the way out, and we camped in the Rocky Mountains for about a week while we were out in Alberta.

I kept a journal and later, before the era of blogs, or at least before I knew about them, I turned my journal into my first website, Westward Ho, which, warts and all, is still online here. I didn't know what I was doing at the time, so it's not a great website, but what the heck, ite still works for the most part although better in Internet Explorer than Firefox.

I absolutely loved the trip, camping and all. In fact, camping was a large part of the experience. I'm almost a decade older now and am pretty sure that I wouldn't do it again, especially having a not-so-good experience since then, but it was super back then. It's rather amazing in a way when I contemplate it now, that a couple in their fifties would pack up an old little Corolla like we did and push it to the extreme, but we did it, and it was great.

Here is one entry cut and pasted from the website: nothing special, in fact badly written we a ton of "we dids" and "we wents" etc" — just what we did and saw on one particular day.

August 1: Camping at Lake Louise

I am sitting at the Lake Louise campgrounds on a gorgeous day: sunny with a few scattered clouds and a temperature of about 25°C. There is a breeze that actually makes it a little cool when a cloud passes over. The sun is also starting to dip behind the treetops and will soon force me to move from the picnic table to the very handy camp chair that Thesha gave me for Father’s Day. Before I make the monumental effort to move into the warmth, I must devote myself to finishing the humungous chocolate chip cook that Cuppa bought this morning at the Lake Louise Village.

.... I have now finished my cookie, moved into the sunshine, and it is still cool enough for me to pull on a sweatshirt. Except, as soon as I write that, the breeze dissipates, and I become a trifle warm. Regardless — back to the journal.

Since we had left the car packed for the most part after getting back to Althegal's place, we were able to get an early — for Anvilclouds — start. We were packed and in the car by 9:30. We made our usual Tim stop around Althegal’s corner and again in Canmore. We were in the line-up at Lake Louise campground by 12 noon. We had a bit of trouble pitching the tent because it took a while to pound tent pegs into the rocky ground, but everything was set by about 2:30.

With time on our hands, we decided to visit Yoho again. We found the Natural Bridge on the Kicking Horse River. It is simply a place where the torrent has pounded its way through the rock, but left and overhanging rock bridge (and semi-waterfall), and will, someday, become just a gorge or chasm.

Further up the winding road, we came to Emerald Lake, which is yet another gorgeous, turquoise, glacial-fed lake. We walked around a bit, took pictures and saw some wild lupines. There was a restaurant and tourist shop, but we managed to avoid buying anything. Through a telescope we were able to see the Burgess Shale in the distance. Many years ago a geologist discovered this important site where Cambrian fossils, about 500 million years old, were lifted high into the mountain peaks.

We made another pit stop at a teahouse/tourist store in Field. We had cookies outside by the river and mountains. We bought some postcards and proceeded back toward Lake Louise, determined to finally spot the Kicking Horse Pass lookout at the Continental Divide. We missed it — must be on a side road somewhere. Although we were unable to note the exact spot of the Divide, we did see that the river was flowing west; after a few more minutes driving east, we noticed that the river was also was flowing east.

Rather than return to camp, we ventured onward to Moraine Lake, which is about 20 km from Lake Louise. The road was winding and bumpy but scenic. We were right on the edge of the mountain on a number of occasions.

Moraine Lake turned out to be very blue rather than the familiar turquoise of mountain lakes because it, for the most part, does not originate from glacial meltwater. The blues kept shifting, depending on the directness of the sunlight. What with all of the shifting and all of the damnable tourists, it was difficult to get any decent photos, but we tried.

After shopping for a bit, we drove back to our campsite and made more sandwiches. Of course, we had cookies and fudge too and a tin of mandarin oranges, which tasted pretty fantastic.

I almost forgot a pretty significant event that we only witnessed on tape. While we were touring in the afternoon, Hans, our neighbour in the campsite to the north of ours, recorded some significant footage on his camcorder. We were astounded to peer into his viewfinder to see a huge elk grazing contentedly all around our tent. Hans is from St. Catharines, Ontario, has stayed here many times and has seen the elk several times. He says that he has been here during a snowstorm in August and also when the campground had to be evacuated because two bears were spotted lurking about. I hope I can miss the both the snow and the bear!

Tenting to Escape the Mice

(2. Slept under the stars ... not quite ... part 2)

In continuing my version of the meme that I started in my previous post, I have another tenting experience to relate. I have to say "tenting" because it wasn't camping as such. It occurred more than twenty-five years ago, about a year after my close encounters with the mice, and, once again, it put me close to being under the stars. As with the previous post about camping in Algonquin Park, I thought that I had blogged about this before, but, once again, I can't find it. However, Cuppa related much of the hilarious background story in full detail in Mouse in the House.

My condensed version: mice were always a problem in Cuppa's parents cottage, which really should be called a cabin ... or shack. It was a primitive place with no plumbing. We'd go into town, which wasn't a town at all but just a tiny hamlet, with jugs to obtain drinking water, and we'd wash up in creek water, which was pretty clean but not potable. Both we and the kids were young, and we had a great time roughing it. But, as I said, the mice were always lurking ... which was okay as long as they left us alone. Well, I shouldn't say, "Okay," but we tolerated the situation in order to enjoy the general setting of a cabin in the forest by a lovely creek with a wonderful, little waterfall.

However, on one fateful night, I awoke to something crawling around in my pajamas, whereupon I leapt out of bed, slammed my legs against the door jamb on my wildly hysterical exit from the bedroom while rending my pajama top in a frenzy of terror. (You really should read Cuppa's full narrative.) My feelings for the place were never quite the same after that incident, but we did return the following summer — with our trusty tent this time.

You see, it was still a great spot, but none of us (meaning me, the chicken-livered one to whom they were most attracted) really wanted to share our beds with the mice, so we slept in the tent. We'd use the cottage/cabin during the day and do all of the holiday-ey, cottagy things that one does on vacation: basically laze, swim, read, and eat. However, come bedtime, the four of us would head out to our rodent-free tent and sleep blissfully, once again almost under the stars.

I slept much better not having to worry about trespassers in my jamies.

Not Under the Stars

I am not tempted to participate in very many memes although I usually comply when I am tagged. I did see a list of 100 things on Janet's blog, a bucket list of sorts. One is supposed to indicate which things one has done. Of course, I can seldom comply with meme rules exactly, so what I think I will do is grab some points from time to time and see what memories and thoughts they conjure. The whole list is here if you want to see it.

2. Slept under the stars

That was the second item on the list, the first being whether one has started a blog. Well duh, wouldn't everyone who were to pick up such a meme be a blogger by default?

Regardless, I've never done it: never slept under the stars. But I have certainly slept in a tent, and I think that's pretty close.

One time was when I was still nineteen years old. My friend and I had concurrent vacations, so we decided to spend them together: the first week at Expo 67 in Montreal, and the second camping in the wilderness that is Algonquin Park, which covers about 7 630 square kilometres (almost two million acres or 3000 square miles), in Ontario's near north. Our plan was to canoe some of the 2400-plus lakes and 1200 kilometres of streams, but we didn't get very far. We paddled for a day and then rested ... and rested. Boy, did we rest a lot.

While I'm almost certain that I have posted about the trip previously, I can't find it for linking purposes. Nevertheless, I'll cut the account a bit short and refer only on our very silly sleeping arrangement.

You see, this is bear country, and bears do like to scrounge about in campers' food supplies if they can possibly arrange it. My friend decided that, in order to protect our provisions, we should sleep with the food in the tent. While I thought it odd, he was the experienced camper, so I didn't question him. How would I know that you're supposed to hang your food pack out of reach in a tree? Otherwise a bear could possibly crash into the tent and maul those who stood (er slept) between him and a midnight snack. It was a very bad decision that could have led to disaster, but no bears sniffed around, and both we and our food remained safe.

This was to be my only experience of wilderness camping but not my only tenting experience, but I think that's enough for one post.

Foto Friday

With Zachary hogging much of the limelight these days (Limelight? What is that?), it's time to give Nikki Dee her due. Above, she drives Mom crazy. Mom will sit at the computer for a few minutes, and the kid will insist on being up there, and she can get quite upset and vocal if she is not allowed. She is a strange duck to be sure.

But she's also a lovey duck and a ton of fun. She and Daddy are having a great time in the next picture. It's a great shot that SILlee took, holding the camera at arm's length while he played with the kid.






Oh what we do to keep the kids amused. We don crazy headgear (above) or do the dance. If Nikki Dee is distraught, a little dance with Buppa will generally calm her quickly. Below, she rests her head against my shoulder and calms right down. I may have been smiling because she often tries to hum along. She's very cute, you know.





When I label my very own firstborn grandchild as an odd duck (even strange was actually my adjective of choice somewhere above), I do so deliberately. You see, in the above photograph, she insisted on climbing up on Grandma's lap while she was rocking Zachary. Wait, I agree; that's not so strange. But what is strange is that I have no time to wait for the right shot because as soon as she sees the camera she is at pains to check the image. Right away; can't wait. The problem is that she wants to see the image before one has even taken the picture, for, as you can see below, she is hastening off the lap to see the picture. Odd duck, indeed!



Finally, while Cuppa has either blogged these next two photos or plans to (I forget which), I can't help but show them too. Once again these are two Daddy shots that are quite wonderful: taken through the glass as she peered in from the outside on a winter day. I don't mind using Daddy's pictures because they were taken with my camera, and I do all of the processing work, which is really the greater job. Aren't they great?

We Have Today

Cuppa is back! Because SILlee has been away on a course, she's spent the last three nights over at Thesha's. There are two babies after all, one less than a month old, so she kindly offered her services. Mom could tend to the younger in the middle of the night, while Grandma could take charge of the older if the need were to arise.

For whatever reason, the older one often awakes for a period at night. While it's often just for a few moments, it can get longer, much longer. Thankfully, that didn't happen during Cuppa's watch as just the short awakenings occurred.

But you know what? Even though we were together during the day, I still missed the old girl. One gets used to having another body around the house, and while I can quite get into a certain amount of solitude, I also find that a little goes a long way.

We're kind of joined at the hip, the two of us, but as senior citizenship begins to approach, one can't help but ponder the future at times. When we discuss it, neither of us can quite imagine being on our own without the other, and neither can quite imagine hooking up with someone else.

It will happen, of course; inevitably, one will depart this form before the other. The remaining one will adapt because that is what one has to do; there is no viable choice.

Meanwhile, it's good to have The Cuppa back home. And I rather think that we're both going to be around for a good while yet. If not, we have today.

Smiley

SILee has been away this week, so we've been spending extra time at Thesha's. Cuppa has even been sleeping over in case both babies were to become needy at the same time. So far, it hasn't happened. In fact, they've both had pretty good nights.

I am seeing more of the open-eyed version of Zachary these days.



The kids and I are still getting comfortable with each other. It's a work in progress. It doesn't help when he proffers the finger though.



Yesterday, as I was holding the little guy, I got excited and proclaimed that he had produced a genuine smile. Then I thought, "No AC, it can't be." But he did it again, about five times in five minutes all told. Cuppa grabbed the camera and caught this one — the third smile, I think. I know it sounds improbable for someone who is just three weeks old today, but they sure seemed real enough.



Then, as I was looking through photos from a few days ago, I found this next one. Looks a bit like a smile too, but let's just put that one down to a fluke.



Anyway, as I continued to hold him and walk with him (from the smile photo — two above), Zach fell fast asleep (below). Perhaps we are beginning to understand each other after all.