Excerpt from my favourite back to school romcom, “You’ve Got Mail”:
BIRDIE: Yes. So, dearie, what have you decided to do?
KATHLEEN: Close. We're going to close.
BIRDIE: Close. Closing the store is the brave thing to do.
KATHLEEN: You are such a liar. But thank you.
BIRDIE: You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life. I know it doesn't feel like that. You feel like a big, fat failure now. But you're not. You are marching into the unknown, armed with...nothing.
1. Do your research. What can you charge?
2. Plan your design.
3. Get noticed. Play to your strengths. Find your theme.
4. Sweat equity. If you can do it yourself, you will save yourself money.
5. Be your guest. Leave a gift to inspire reciprocity.
On of the COVID gifts I have received was the gift of a 3 week summer vacation. Not since my maternity leave have I ever been allowed more than a two week vacation, and this was actually an unplanned event, as I had only intended to take one week, if that was even going to be possible. Months ago I had given away a week on the ward to free myself for emergency shifts, but instead our staffing in August was just fine. Also, I had asked Kelly, who kitty/housesat for me on March break if she would be interested, and she said she could!
At first, the irony weighed heavy, as there was a travel ban still in place, and the safest form of travel, camping had no directives until the end of June. It was June 22 that the online sites were going to open, and I started planning a vacation that would hopefully finally get us past Charlesvoix and Bas St Laurent to the beautiful Gaspé peninsula. I worked out a route that would take us through Mauricie Park, and would be a trip of a lifetime for us, focusing on hiking and zoos. The first itinerary looked like this:
FRI SAT home to Canada Mauricie Park 193 k
SUN MON via St Anne de Beaupre 196 k
TUE WED Sepaq Hautes Gorges 223 k
hike l'Acropole and White Pine mountain
THU FRI Tadoussac 114 k
Sepaq Marine Park
SAT SUN Metis-sur-mer 181 k
Reford Gardens
Sepaq Gaspésie Park Hike Chic choc, Mont Jacques Cartier, Mont St. Albert
MON TUE WED Canada Park Forillon 328
THU Percé
Sepaq Ile Bonaventure (gannett colony) 104k
FRI SAT Sepaq Miguasha
Baie de Chaleur
SUN MON Sepaq Park Bic 251k
TUE La Poc 155k
WED Levis 126k
Quebec Aquarium
THU Sepaq Yamaska Park 214k
Granby zoo
FRI home 100k
I was starting to get excited and booked us two places: one was tiny cute chalet at the Petit Miami in Metis-sur-mer that we had driven by 2-3 times in the past, and the second was a beautiful park that I would have stayed the week but I could only get one day, called Bic Park near Rimouski (muskrat in French), and the furthest east we would had ever been to date. When Canada parks figured it out, I would book Forillon, at the so-called Landsend, for one night, but I was beginning to worry. Instead of travelling slowly around the coast, with short drives, and long stays in natural settings, we were going to have to go were I could find a place to sleep, and I would have to leave without having every night prebooked, knowing that we might have to sleep in the car or drive back to Montreal in the end.
June 30th, we had hiked 15 k in a nearby park. We were going to be able to do some great hikes. Princess Pirate still had energy and went to get the mail. When she came to the back door, she burst into tears. She had twisted her ankle jumping off a construction gravel pile, and our trip was about to change. Four weeks in a walking boot and an ortho follow that was TBD. When we packed up the car, we had to debate whether or not to bring crutches, as she had not walked much beyond the perimeter of the yard by the day we left. PP insisted we take no ferries, and the time up the north coast of the peninsula was much faster than originally hoped, so it seemed that this trip was going to be up and around the coast for the first time. Cutting hikes and maybe having to return for an appointment in the middle made it clear that this was going to be more of driving vacation than a stay and play, so I started thinking about seeing some more details of the Bas St Laurent, with Kamouraska in mind from a book that had sat on my shelf for years that I took with me to read. The estuary islands looked interesting, but all required a ferry, so I had to put it on the backburner. Maybe Charlevoix could be possible if we had time after rounding the Gaspé, but we would have to backtrack to cross over at Quebec city to avoid the convenient ferry. On the Baie de Chaleur side, there was a Matapedia valley that was recommended, and if we had more time on the North shore, I wanted to show Rebecca La Malbaie and return to the detour route 362 through the picturesque Baie-St.-Paul.
Now that the trip is done, I can share the final itinerary. It was far more than I expected, and with a televisit confirming the cast could come off early in the second week, we made it around the peninsula, hiked in the Charlevoix (carefully), drove the Saguenay to Lac Saint Jean, and made it to the Mauricie park. I fell in love with parts of the green route, highway 132, and the system of roadstops that were everywhere!
On average a year in my 2013 car, I have driven the same distance as we did in the last 3 weeks; just over 7000 km.
Instead of 12 places, averaging 2 nights a place, we averaged 1 night a place, and stayed in 16 places. We had three days were we didn't know we were going to stay that night, and they all worked out beautifully. My favourite was meeting neighbours at the beach in St. Irenée and by noon we were on their parents' back deck. We circled back to La Pocatière because we were so happy there, and we stayed 3 days in Shawinigan to explore the park and finally stop moving for while!
We spent 9 days camping (4 days on a flat mattress, not recommended!, once on grass with a view of the St. Laurence), 5 in a hotel, 2 in a motel (so many look that they have gone under in COVID era) and 4 in tiny chalets (everything, from a shack to a mansion is called a chalet in the la belle province!).
We swam in 3 lakes, waded into the estuary, saw seals, whales, and porcupines, watched the tide come in and out, camped and hiked in some beautiful forests, and watched moonrises, planets, stars, comets and the milky way!
This is the food I packed to start:
SAT Sepaq Voltigeurs (Drummondville) for lunch
Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies
SUN Notre-Dame-du-Portage
Sepaq Bic Park
MON TUE Petit Miami chalet, Metis-sur-mer
Jardins des Metis/Reford Gardens
WED THU
Gaspé coast
Canada Forillon Park
FRI Chalet la Plage, Percé
SAT Auberge Coulée Douce Chalet, Causapscal
SUN Sepaq Lac Temiscouata
MON St Narcisse sur La Route des Monts Notre-Dame
Sepaq Bic Park bis
TUE Auberge Cap Martin in La Pocatière
THU Sepaq Grands Jardins
FRI Camping on our friend's dad's lawn, St. Irenée
SAT Saint Simeon minke whales
Petit Saguenay lunch, Baie Eternite hike
Lac St. Jean
THU
Nicolet boardwalk
On return to school September 9th , she was asked to give a short speech about our three week vacation. There was a list of some of the places we visited, a comment about not always knowing where we were going to sleep that night, and a lot about how much we loved the zoo, especially the safari train. I was able to hear the speech from the other room, but gave myself away laughing at her conclusion that loosely translated as : Three weeks in the same room as another person with no personal space can be pretty annoying!
