Would-be Travels

So, on the subject of other things ...

On May 2nd this year, my partner Tamara had a fall and broke her occipital femur, just shy of the lesser trochanter, for those who care to know.  This was eight weeks ago.  We had planned to take a vacation out north and west on the 12th, for some ten days, but this was abandoned following the accident.  For some weeks, Tamara was fairly helpless and in pain, as she's 64 and this is a hard injury for someone her age.

While I was to step away from work, I did not, and have continued along as best I could these two months.  This has reduced the number of posts on this blog and has seriously undermined efforts to continue on my book, The Streetvendor's Guide to Worldbuilding.  Still, work has been done, though I chose to focus during these weeks on editing and research, rather than ongoing writing.  The vacation was meant to be a rest from the work.  Goodness knows I need one.

This last week I've been moving back into progress mode again, though tentatively.  After cancelling the insurance on the car, to save a little money, Tamara reinstated the insurance today and took her first drive in eight weeks minus a day; not being able to drive has been her greatest woe, especially as most of the break's pain has siphoned off.  She's thrilled.  And as a result, we're making plans again.  My sympathetic workplace, from whom I'm contracted to get four weeks of vacation a year, has suggested I take two weeks together, as the year is half gone.  Tamara and I have discussed it, and agree that my vacations in the winter are somewhat less than exciting, and that perhaps I should take three weeks together.  What luxury.

This has widened our appetites for perhaps heading east, rather than our original plan.  We'd planned to roam up into northern Alberta, as we've never been north of Edmonton, and from there westward into northern B.C., where again we've never been.  As it happened, come the first week of May, all of the area we were going to visit caught fire, so that if we'd left on schedule we'd never have been able to see those places intended.  In addition, we meant to reach Vancouver and perhaps drive down into Seattle ... which meant my getting a passport.  After applying, and arranging for me to go pick it up, the government employees went on strike.  Had we left on May 12th, I'd have had to do it without my passport.

Three bad omens — Tamara breaking her arm, the world on fire, the U.S. border closed — are more than enough to convince us the trip was never meant to be.

And so, with Tamara finishing up her physio therapy, my work being amenable, and having much more time, we're now thinking of going east.  For a long time, we've considered a journey across the country, from here to St. John's in Newfoundland ... though there are concerns.  We're not young pups, though according to all our doctors we're as healthy as we could hope to be.  Tamara's able to eat only the barest minimum of either sugar or salt, which means if we go then restaurant dining is wholly impractical.  We had bought a Coleman stove for the B.C. trip and tested it out — works great!  Making our own food ensures her diet, which I also live upon since cutting sugar and salt from my body is a good thing.  But we're unfamiliar with what trial it's going to be to find a safe picnic table every day, as well as sufficient freshwater, though research tells us neither will be a problem.  Others have also assured us that we'll be fine.  We're not "campers," however.  We are dyed-in-the-wool city folk.  I haven't been camping in 35 years and never without some much smarter fellow, like my father, to tell me what to do.  So we're a bit uneasy.

Even though we'll be staying in a motel/hotel every night.

After testing, I have learned that I'm good to give Tamara a kidney, which she'll need at some point ... though her doctor has given her until November before she needs to be checked again.  But there's always the unexpected, isn't there?  For these reasons, if we go east we're going to go slowly, being ready to turn ourselves around and head home if need be.  Knowing the map as I do, Kenora in Ontario is a point we shouldn't cross without feeling confident ... as there's nothing of great interest between Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie, two places than are a goodly distance apart.

Should we take that step, we have considered plans to slip down into the States at the Sault (I have my passport), and journey through the Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin, though just as far as Oshkosh and Fond du Lac.  Tamara has a yen for fresh Wisconsinite cheese.  If we did that side path, we'd head back through Sault St. Marie, so as to get on the road to Ottawa.  I haven't been there since I was six and Tamara has never been.  We've both been to Toronto a few times, so it holds little interest.  We may go down to Niagara Falls, for despite Tamara having lived much of her life in Michigan, she's never been.

From Ottawa, we're clear about passing south of Montreal (where we were last October, by plane) and then down into Vermont, where Tamara dearly wants to go.  I've suggested cutting down through I-91 to St. Johnsbury, across New Hampshire at Berlin, through Main down to Brunswick and Bath (where the post Bumper Cars took place), then up to New Brunswick on I-1.  We might pop down to the sea here and there.

Then it's P.E.I., Nova Scotia, across the ferry to Newfoundland and out to St. John's.  Before I leave New Brunswick, I'd like to laze on the ridge at Miramichi, as the ancient song went.  We've talked about this journey, the scope of it, I've tried to explain the vast distances to Tamara and she just doesn't give a damn.  Her shoulder has to hold up, obviously.  Even if it does, and we do make it out that far, we're going to be awfully tired when we get back.  But this might be our last chance to take such a trip.

We'll have to see if the gods let us.  With one thing or another, the earliest date we can go is July 24th; the hottest time of the year, on the prairies.