For the first time in almost four weeks, nine weeks, really, when you count the weeks of preparing for this trip, I am taking it easy, if you call getting the Defender repaired, repairing things like my tents, washing and grooming the dogs, researching campsites for the next two weeks, restocking, organizing my supplies, etc., taking it easy. This morning, I should have the Defender back and on the road again by 10:00, heading toward Algonquin National Park in Ontario, where we will spend the night on beautiful Cedar Lake. From there, it will be on to a Provincial Park in the Iroquois Falls area, then on to Fushimi Provincial Park, where Sonntag and I spent one absolutrly glorious evening on our way back from Alaska in 2000, then Sleeping Giant Provincial Park near Thunder Bay, and finally Lake Bukemiga at the end of the road as far north as one can drive in Ontario. After a day or so there, we will point the Defender in the same direction as the geese we have seen have been heading, and follow them to DC, where we will settle in for the long cold winter. (Some of those poor geese will not be as fortunate.)
These few days at Mt Tremblant have been a marvelous walk in the past for me, somewhere in time. I first came here in 1973, just months after I got my first dog, Montag, and my first four-wheel drive, an International Harvester Scout II. They were followed respectively by Sonntag and Kessie, and Leben and Erde, and a Jeep CJ-7 and the Defender 90, all of whom/which made it up here one time or another. The mountain here remained pretty much the same until 1995, when Invawest bought the resort and transformed it into a world-class resort that rivals anything else in the world. In the little village of St Jovite, where my host, Andre Latour, lives, the stores here rival anything we have in DC, especially the grocery and hardware stores, the cafes and restaurants, and the speciality boutiques.I forewent the chance to go to the unbelievable Swedish spa here, which I visited before, so as not to leave the dogs, rule #2.
Andre suggested that I stay for a few days more, but the lure of the road is pulling me back onto it, and I suspect we will leave this morning (Thursday) if all is well with the Defender when i pick it up in an hour. If I am certain of one thing as I leave, however, it is that had I not lost those early two weeks, we would have been on our way to Alaska now. But all things considered, things turned out for the best after all, so far anyway. But we'll see.
Ed
No comments:
Post a Comment