Thursday, October 26, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Just a few more days in Canada
Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord day and night.
We could have gone anywhere for dinner. But how could we resist the Catch 22 Lobster Bar, not far from the Confederation Bridge once we left Prince Edward Island? I loved the book. And we loved the food too, seafood platters x 2 along with a tasty New Brunswick IPA and iced tea. Our reservation was lost, but Marlene cared for us like we were her two long lost sons.
How far is it from that Confederation Bridge back to Urbana, Illinois? We stayed in Canada as long as we could, for most of the 2,607 kilometers from PEI to Urbana. 25 hours of driving, which we split into Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Civilized. Sane. And fun, although coming home is never the same as leaving.
Marc and I are better friends than we were before. We’re better friends than we’ve ever been. Front facing our differences – the way we spend our time, the way we sleep, how we look at the world – that was wonderful, actually.
In rainy Quebec City we took an elevator to the top floor of the Fairmont Le Chateau Fronenac, perhaps the “most photographed hotel in the world.” We did not spend $579 on a room. Instead we got a large seafood pizza and ate it in our much less expensive room, and watched Sunday night football.
We drove through Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto and Detroit over our last four days, and we looked for something to take us into those downtowns, and then get out again. In Quebec City we spent a couple of Monday morning hours at the Aquarium of Quebec. Later that day in Montreal we found the Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, a parking place and a cool hotel lobby full of four busloads of hockey fans.
But why stay in Montreal? We chose a two lane road through the sunset scenery driving southwest and found a place in Kingston, along Lake Ontario. A little tired of seafood, we ate steak at Denny’s. Not bad.
Sick of seafood???
He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade.
On our trip we touched on Lakes Huron, Erie, Michigan and Ontario, along with the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Northumberland Strait, countless harbors on Cape Breton Island, Penobscot Bay in Maine, Niagara Falls, the Hudson and East Rivers in New York, and of course … the Atlantic Ocean.
Quebec claims 250,000 lakes within its borders. Canada counts two million lakes across its vast northland, the most lakes of any country in the world. Marc and I learned to scuba dive twenty or so years ago. Part of me wants to explore every one of those thousands of lakes, in person, underwater. But I won’t be getting to that part of my bucket list.
Driving to Toronto we found a beach at Cobourg, proclaimed Ontario’s Feel Good Town by its mayor. We ate food, watched seagulls eat their own food, admired the lighthouse, felt the Ontarian breezes, didn’t much want to leave. And everywhere we go, the trees with all their fall colors nourish our senses.
Then on to the Emerald City, Toronto, miles and miles of glass upon glass, at last a needle to pierce the sky, so beautiful!
Bento boxes at downtown’s St. Lawrence Market – we got most of the food, the pigeons got the rest. We found cheese and olives, wine and fancy salami to eat with our sweethearts. We are almost home.
Tuesday night, drive carefully across the border at Port Huron, then down to Utica, Michigan and a lovely motel room with a long couch to stretch out on. Baseball playoffs in the evening, pool in the morning, a long drive south alongside countless auto supply and construction factories for Cadillac, Ford, GM, Jeep … so many men and women on strike. The UAW has $500 a week for the strikers, but not for more than eight weeks.
We are back in the USA. We caught a photo of the odometer for our trip about twenty miles from home: 4444.4 miles. From Austin and back, the mileage was nearly 7000 miles. Our car, our 2015 white Prius Persona, treated us so well.
I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it was already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I come to establish peace upon the earth? No, I tell you!
God does not promise us a rose garden, but on our trip Marc and I felt covered day after day after day.
God bless us, every one.
(Romans 6, Psalm 1, Philippians 3, Luke 12)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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