I like traffic lights

We went on our annual summer trip 6 hours away to MIL-land. It was fun. There was a lot of lake time and ponies to feed. We drove.

The blithe road trip is such a great Canadian fixture I can barely confess the transformation I have undergone to be in this place of hating it. We drove up the night before our first holiday to avoid the traffic. The road trip is torture for me. I used to get right into the high speeds, junk food, rest stops and 'sense of freedom'.

Now it is all sense of dread. The recognition that this trip is the most dangerous thing we do with our family. Testing the odds and driving holiday weekends when everyone is crazy, kids hot and yappy, 'pushing it' and, yesterday, rubbernecking at a roadside forest fire!

1km on, a sight out of my minds eye, a family vehicle flipped. I understand a 9 year old boy was thrown clear. There but for the grace of god...

I traveled a lot by car as a child. My dad was always the one helping some guy out of a drift in Wells Grey Park in the pitch dark of nighttime December. I know of a dozen gas stations that sell headlamps for early 80's Caprice Classics. I sigh knowingly at overheats, poor devils. It used to be all good. Go see Granny.

I hope I can get there again with a decent measure of careful on the side. In the meanwhile I am grateful my husband is as good a driver as he is. That he shares the driving to be smart.

I'll tell you I am so enjoying people cutting in front of me at 40km/hr. Cross-town traffic never looked so good!

Travelogue Two: By Mistake

We went to my mother in law's farm in the Okanagan, the lake country. Last year I learned that the invitation is not one of visiting but an invitation to holiday in proximity. Odd. I attempted to accommodate. Why do people even go on holiday is something I ask nearly every time I go somewhere with p-man. Who knew our Withnail moments would stay with us up to this point?

There were many highlights, no doubt. We went to the beach learning to swim in the easy waters of Kalamalka; so much simpler, safer, than our regular trips towards water's edge along neighbourhood sections of the Pacific. Fun. At the farm feeding the ponies a couple times was fun, sure. Tromping the woods nearby a couple times fun, sure.

But 3 nights, 4 days... I think it was too long.

Do you think? There is no right number right? It is simply inevitable. About two-thirds through the jumping on the bed will becomes abhorrent and a parent will ask, I will ask, why do people even go on holiday?

P-man suggests it is to remind themselves of the comforts of home.

Travelogue One: Road Trippy won't leave me

There is an stretch of road between the Coquihalla toll booth south to Hope BC that is the penultimate of beautiful.

The mountains mix rock and treed slope in a proportion so sublime as to remove any manner of annoyance to the provincial tourism slogan, Super, Natural British Columbia. Winding the road downhill towards the comforts of journey's end; a whirring effortless glide into the valley and over the bend to where the Fraser River will symbolize home. We saw 8pm on the clock. Two spent travelers nestled in car seats; at last silent was the slumbering. The light lay low there as the peaks grew shorter and slighter round each corner. Leaving something behind to be home again.

Blue skies of summer day dying in to the coral kiss of a seaside sunset more familiar from the shore than the mountain tops. Light soft yellow, a darkening of each trunk of every tree in the thousands. Giving dimension to the smallest features in the broadest landscape it seems imaginable.

***

We're back after a pleasant holiday. More to come.

You Can Dance If You Want To

(You go ahead... I'll mind your purse.)

We returned from my friend's fundraising event. It was held in a hall I have driven by innumerable times wondering "what goes on in there?" I need wonder no longer. NDP fundraisers. Whoo!

We arrived after the speeches, the dinner, the live sex show. We missed almost all of the good stuff, except this. Prior to this evening I was unaware of my taste for the sounds of a youth marimba ensemble. Now I am more self-aware. Thanks, NDP!

In terms of Movember, I am pleased to announce my moustache has my face resembling the hind portion of a chihuahua. Thatk goodness for breath mints.

PMO