Wildlife and haute cuisine.

Fresh salmon sauted with red peppers, savoury rice, caramelised baby carrots and salad. It's amazing what you can rustle up on two burners in the freezing cold. The task fell to me to invent a salad dressing, since we'd forgotten to bring any. Some oil, red wine, lemon juice, mustard, fresh herbs and seasoning saw to that and we were not embarrassed by a lack of dressed salad.

The seasoned campers stuck to wine for their evening's imbibing. The idiots drank beer. After a final late night drive to the comfort station for last wees and teeth cleanings we settled down into our sleeping bags and divvied out the ear plugs. Hey, we all snore ok? Then of course, the stupidity of beer made itself apparent. I am all warm in my nightshirt in my sleeping bag. It's the middle of the night, minus 18 degrees and pitch dark outside and I need a wee. I could get properly dressed and walk to the loo or I could get half dressed and find a tree to hang on to while availing myself of a nearby snowbank. This was a clear winner, so I donned coat and boots and popped outside. Decency demanded a bit of a foray into the snowbanks behind the yurt, and practicality demanded a suitably sturdy tree, so what with one thing and another there was some falling over, some getting covered in snow and an inexplicable coat-hood full of twigs that ended up back in the sleeping bag. It would not be true to say that I slept well.

The fabulous Valerie did sleep well however and by nineish in the morning she had produced coffee, bacon, eggs and toast. She also had a plan for the day that involved two short hikes and a scenic drive.

The hikes were on the only two trails clear enough to walk in the winter, others were available but only accessible with snow shoes or cross-country skis, neither of which we had. So, we trampled about learning about logging and wildlife on the easy-peasy trails for kids, the ones that have a display of this and that here and there along the route to con you that you're not really walking very far.

Further from the roads and camp grounds are proper back-country trails, for people who walk for days with their camps on their backs, and signed portages for those strange souls who tour the region by canoe, carrying both camp and canoe from lake to lake.

 We cruised the road looking for moose. I really want a photo of a moose but it's a bit early in the year. Apparently they appear by the roadsides in spring to lick the salt water from the gutters and replace the salt they've lost over the winter. We may have to go back at the right time for moose-spotting, but happily enough saw lots of deer this time, along with odd weaselly things with nice faces called pine martins (which sound like a bird to me) lots of red squirrels, blue and grey jays, massive ravens, wild turkeys and and some sort of grouse. That's quite a lot of wildlife for a London kid. No bears either, apparently bear country is a bit further from civilisation than we were, although you could buy bear bells in the park shop. Which reminded me of the bells and pepper joke. Which nobody had heard. Which surprised me.

Supper of Chicken Algonquin (leeks, garlic, mushies, tomatoes and coriander) another amazing sunset and an evening on red wine and I was
determined to sleep well before the dog-sledding day. But middle-aged ladies don't have bladders that behave well so there were more snowbank and twig related shenanigans before the night was over. Practise helped though, and a sleeping bag without snow in it made for a better night in general...

Dogsledding in Algonquin? Me? You must be joking.

Been months, I know. I only seem to write when I go places, don't seem to have perfected the 'had an idea today' form of blogging. The good news is that I went somewhere this week, the even better news is that the doc says I can get back in a truck because I'm officially recovered. So, Trucking In English may be about trucking again quite soon. I'm in the midst of refresher lessons and job applications, it will be interesting to find out just how much the North American freight industry wants a slightly rusty driver.

In the meantime, winter adventures.

It's a four hour drive from Kitchener to the eastern gate of Algonquin Park,but four middle-aged women with badly packed stuff, who've decided to stop off on the way for groceries and booze, can make it last all day. Valerie is the hardy soul, who backpacks all over everywhere and canoes the back county for fun. The trip is her idea and she knows all about coleman stoves and has the sort of car that accommodates the sort of camping gear that people who camp properly tend to accumulate. Valerie is sure that anyone can love the great outdoors once she has dragged them there. She has arranged a yurt by way of accommodation and has assured us that it will be warm and comfortable. Since we are talking Northern Ontario in a Canadian winter, the words 'warm' and 'comfortable' could well be relative terms.

Barb grooms dogs for a living, Karen manages a huge region for the Parkinson Society, and you know me. Our ages range from 48 to 60 and we will spend 3 nights in this yurt in a semi-closed campground
which, Valerie advises, has clean and inviting showers. It will not be like camping at all really. We will hike on day 1 and go dog sledding on day 2. What was I thinking?  Well actually, what I was thinking was 'if I can survive this, the doc might be right about me being better enough for trucking purposes and even if it's awful I'll be able to write about it'.

The yurt was indeed more comfortable than real camping. It was insulated, had a heater and some lighting and bunk beds.

Outside, in our little bay in the campground, were a couple of picnic tables, a fire pit and a covered bit that would house a barbecue in the summer. The snow had been ploughed back into banks on either side. Walking two yards through the trees behind us took us out onto a little beach and the frozen lake. The sun had been out for a few days so although the roadway through the campground had been roughly ploughed, it was now solid ice. A short walk along the ice in one direction took us to the smelly, camping-type loos. A long walk or short drive along the ice the other way took us to the 'comfort station', a remarkably cozy little complex of loos, showers and laundry facilities. It did look rather as though we were't really roughing it at all. There were a few other yurts about and a lot of empty camping spots, although on our way to and from the showers we did spot a couple of tents and a magnificent igloo. Even Valerie shivered.

We settled in, unpacked the booze (organising a small 'bar' in the snow) and took lawn chairs out onto the lake to watch the sunset with glasses of wine and bottles of beer in hand. Well, the others did. I had trouble with the knack of slamming your chair into a flat bit snow so that it stays level when you sit on it. Each time I sat down with a drink to enjoy the wintery niceness, one or other chair leg would sink into the snow sending me rolling off in a random set of directions to do upended turtle impressions. The ladies were most impressed that, on each occasion, I managed to spill nary a drop.

No sign of June either...

The Skyline Drive is part of the Shenandoah National Park. There are campsites, cabins, nature trails and information points, you could spend a month there quite happily. The road runs along the Ridge bit of the Blue Ridge Mountains and bends and curls about for just over 100 miles and contains 75 lookout points where you can pull off the road, gawp and take photos. It took all day to drive, but we weren’t complaining. Happening to drive it as the trees were turning colour in that part of the world (Canada’s ‘fall colour’ season has been and gone) every bend brought a new orange carpet to look at. We quickly realised that stopping at each lookout would mean extending our journey by a day or two and became a bit selective.

There were deer. Apparently there are bears too, but we had no pickanick basket, so they left us alone. Hundreds of people drove and walked and there was no noise, no litter. Occasional signs advising us not to feed the wildlife (and giving sensible explanations why) were the only evidence of a truly remarkable workforce of rangers and researchers who appear to maintain the park safely for sharing between us and the real inhabitants. We had paid $15 to get in, this would have been the same had we wanted to camp for a week or just drive through, and I am happily convinced that we got our money’s worth. It made our awful foggy night drive on the way down worth it in the end; we knew there were mountains here. A glorious day, impeded only slightly by my truly terrible Laurel and Hardy impressions.

And then it was just about the last leg home. A night somewhere obscure and hilly in Pennsylvania and back into New York State, onto the toll road I90 and following signs for the border. The Canadian jobsworth quizzed us in routine manner, She didn’t care where we’d been or what we’d been up to. ‘Where do you live? How long have you been away? Are you importing any goods? Welcome to Canada.’ And we were home.

I like home. Kilometres, litres, French translations, Tim Horton’s coffee, resentful cat. A grand expedition suddenly over. When we first discussed the totally insane prospect of taking a wedding cake to Florida I thought it might be a bit of a fun wheeze. Then I thought it was impossible. Then I thought I’d do my best and see what happened. What happened was one of those journeys that make life worth living. I can’t thank Cherry and Ron enough for their brilliant hospitality.

Twelve days and 5,000 kms. The car needs a bit of a clean and my habit of nibbling trail mix on long hauls means the inside rather resembles a birdcage. But it’s evidence that we made it, so I’m reluctant to remove all traces of a grand adventure. I do have my NASA coffee cup though, to remind me on the very back-to-normal days that we went somewhere extraordinary. It is the most perfect piece of design I have ever owned. It may only be a coffee cup but it is engineered down to the last detail, to deposit the coffee in your mouth while on the move, as opposed to down your clothing or all over the car. I suppose that sort of thing matters in space.

I have my book too. It’s a wonderful read, I challenge anyone to get to Chapter 2 without making plans to visit Savannah. Or, in my case, revisit. What else has changed? Well, I managed the driving hours without collapse, maybe I’m strong enough to get back to trucking sometime soon. That would be nice.