A Cigarette in Bed; or a Cookie, for Non-Smokers

It was a very gloom-and-doom weekend at the island, at least as much as an island on the border of Ontario and Quebec can be gloom-doomy. Allow me for a moment to be more specific: The sky spent a lot of time pissing down rain.

One bad omen was a horrible accident that had happened on the 400S the morning we departed for the island; a tractor trailer and a small car collided, spilling 400 litres of diesel on the highway and killing at least one person. The cars on the highway crept along for four kilometres, which took approximately one hour and forty-five minutes to clear. People were getting out of their cars, walking up and down the highway. Cars took a half hour to catch up with some of the walking temporary non-passengers. It was a sad sight when we finally could see it. By that time, there was no longer a ‘teetering’ tractor trailer balanced on the center guardrail as the traffic reports had suggested. Just a kind of banged up looking transport truck, a severely messed up guardrail, and a burned-out shell of a Mazda which had been cut apart to pull someone out. Horrifying.

After what became a staggering nine-hour drive, we arrived at Tee Lake. By this point I had re-read about a quarter of Timequake and remembered for about the fiftieth time why I have this affinity for the late Kurt Vonnegut’s twisted cynicism. And yes, the piss-rain. We braved the weather, though. The lot of us:

  • Took a billion pictures of frogs (even at one point seeing one frog eat another… wtf)
  • Saw the incredible mountains and lakes from a lookout point in Ville-Marie and on the drive to it
  • Drove all the way to Algonquin and saw some beautiful scenery but no moose (good thing Miklos loves to drive so!)
  • Light-painted to our hearts’ content on the dock by night after the lake had further filled itself with almost a foot of the previous night’s precipitation.

It was only on the last night that my body was eaten to bits by vicious Quebecois mosquitoes. Fine holiday fun, regardless of dreary weather. And after a giant drive home, we’ve got two more days before we head up to my family’s cottage, which I’ve not seen in a year. I’m excited. Hopefully less rain, yes?

About Nikki

I've been writing since I was in kindergarten where I Crayola-markered an epic tale of a tiger and a balloon on a stack of lined papers folded into a booklet and stapled along the edge (carefully, and by my teacher). I love DIY, sewing, folksy music, animals and getting out to look at and listen to nature.
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