oh, Cananda

I have wanted to hike up by the Atlantic coast of Canada for a long time. I don’t know why I should want to focus on that area, but my images of the communities and landscapes that form the south and northern shore of the St Lawrence, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, are powerful. And so a while back, I suggested to Ed that we should finish the summer with a visit there. Typically he would say no to travel twice in one season, but I had three strong cards to show: 1. He had a Delta coupon worth hundreds that was about to expire 2. I reminded him that August in Wisconsin is miserable at the farm because of the mosquitoes and finally 3. I agreed to camp for a “significant” (to be determined) portion of the trip.

He sighs deeply now, or at least one third of him sighs deeply, because in a shocking development, there have been no mosquitoes this year. None. The air is free of their blood sucking presence. We do not know why. We wish we would know why. We wish whatever happened would continue to happen in the future, even as we know it will not ever be repeated – this year of no mosquitoes.

Still, there is the coupon and the camping and what the heck, we are both happily setting out today.

From one perspective, it is not a long journey. Not the flight parts anyway. We fly into Quebec City in no time at all, compared to, say, crossing the ocean. From there – it’s a challenge to get where I want to go: to the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula. We’ll be taking a fifteen hour overnight train from Quebec City to Gaspé. After that – well, there are a lot of question marks.

One thing I know for sure is that there will be at least two or three days at the beginning and who knows how often thereafter when I will be without Internet. I’m not even taking my computer – just the iPad. We have enough stuff to carry for the hike. Every pound matters.

So please be patient. As always, I will try to connect as much as I can. But life sometimes pushes you into places where you don’t have all that you need to keep you happy. You have to make do.

So, Isis has a cat sitter, our packs are loaded, all ‘to do’ things are checked off the lists. We’re off. Wish us luck as we navigate the cool, maybe damp, maybe buggy (or foggy or all of the above) forests and hills and costal shores of eastern Canada.

A bientot.