First We Quit Our Jobs Page 5
Suddenly, my road French came in handy. He must know kilometres; I scraped the back of my brain for the word for here. I was nearly sure it was either ici or oci. I gambled.
“Kilometres ici?” His blank look melted, and a torrent of rapid-fire French spewed toward me. Lost cause; I couldn’t think of the word for slow, even though it must have been a road word.
Then I barked “Arrêt!” stop! His look went from gusto to grim. He bent over and scratched “90” in the sand. Our friend had cycled ninety kilometers. Today? Since the beginning of time? We would never know.
We smiled, shrugged, and said, “Bon soir.” I was going to take this policy of being friendly to strangers under advisement, as my corporate counselors had always advised me.
The next day I learned some more road French. The speed limit in Canada doesn’t just “begin,” it “debuts.” Much classier, I thought. Now I could have asked the bicyclist where he had started. Foreign travel was so much fun!
* * *
The farther north we went, the more difficult it was to get radio reception. By the time we were in western Ontario, one of the big thrills was getting any radio reception at all, even if it was the lost and found report. We played tapes instead or let the scenery speak for itself. The few newspapers we came across seemed to have primarily local news that did not hold much interest for us. While the O.J. Simpson case had a head-lock on the press in the States, the Canadian full-page headlines concerned the trial of a young man accused of killing his wife and her sister. O.J. was all but invisible. Our interest in the news was in direct proportion to how hard it was to come by. We had a television set but rarely had reception, so we quickly fell out of the habit of tuning in for the morning or evening news reports. Our cellular phone didn’t work either, due to lack of reception or incompatible cellular services. (Another surprise about being in a foreign country.) We also didn’t have the correct telephone credit card with which to make international calls. It was astonishing how rapidly we were disconnected from the modern world.
In Kenora I picked the first loser campground. Ironically it was one of the few places we had reserved ahead. It was right on our way, located directly on a lake, and it looked good on paper. When we checked in, I failed to notice the cases of Bud stacked up against some of the permanently installed trailer pavilions. Vehicles were slotted in side by side, shoulder to shoulder. This was the kind of place we had dreaded when we first considered a motor home. Within minutes of our arrival, I started whistling that Roger Miller favorite, “King of the Road.” “Trailer for sale or rent. Rooms to let, fifty cents.” This was not the right place for us. For the first time it was also hot at night, and we had to turn on the air conditioner. At least that blocked the sound of someone else’s bad music. I half-expected my head to sprout hard plastic pink rollers and my sneakers to morph into mules. Too bad we had both quit smoking—this would have been the perfect place to practice blowing smoke rings. We walked down to see the pretty lake, but somehow the place gave us the creeps. In future, I vowed, I would not pick RV parks with the word trailer in the name. I’d rather try the A&P parking lot. We grilled a skirt steak marinated in garlic/chili paste, lemon, and soy. It eased our pain.
* * *
As we traveled, it had become sort of a game to look for bakeries. Everyplace we went, if we looked hard enough, we’d find a bake shop. Some specialized in sweet treats, in pastries, or in pies. Others had perfected doughnuts, crullers, and the like. And much to our delight, especially as we went north, hearty sourdough breads became the thing. Why weren’t these places featured in guidebooks, we wondered, along with restaurants and hotels? Wasn’t locating a toothsome brownie or a crusty roll important information for the weary traveler? We had in mind to suggest to the authorities that an international “B” symbol should be established—white against a blue field perhaps—to indicate their location in every town, just the way “H” denotes hospital. We loved good bread and were practically phobic about being stuck with air-injected, plastic-wrapped, spongy, tasteless loaves. In fact, we were so concerned about not being able to find good bread that Sandy brought along his bread-baking machine and a supply of sourdough starter. So far we’d had no need for either and felt a little silly about having them onboard. We generally hunted for a good loaf in the early morning, when they were freshest and we were likely to be able to snag a wild doughnut as well. Since I rarely ate breakfast, I left the doughnuts to Sandy.
But after a night in a trailer park, I woke up with a mean hunger for grease. At Robin’s, the Canadian version of Dunkin’, I tried the Baker’s Mistake. An excellent and indiscriminate potpourri of everything: chocolate, cherry, orange, and whatever else was left over, fried and glazed to perfection. Crunchy and sugary on the outside. Slightly greasy as I bit down. Soft and moist on the inside. A road delight for sure. I don’t know why, but I thought of the little diet diaries and pocket calorie counters sold at supermarket check-outs. I figured we’d better get out of that town fast before my trailer-park-babe persona stuck. I picked up some gum at the gas station.
* * *
On the highway to Winnipeg, cruising at a comfortable hundred clicks, about sixty-five miles per hour. Given our height in the RV seats and the level ground, we were able to see a great distance. I had measured the windshield and compared it with our car’s back home—it was a panoramic picture window of fifty-three square feet, compared with a porthole of thirteen. The views were astonishing. We were middle-aged (ugh) easy riders, devouring the road.
We also had our first successful mobile cellular e-mail experience—and just about exploded with excitement. All the pieces we had spent so much time, money, and energy putting together back home finally did what they were supposed to do. We had mail! Lots of mail to read. And all the mail we’d been writing and saving to send got sent. One of our friends coached us, on-line, about off-line composing and reading. It was so exciting to be cruising down the highway, the computer on my lap, flinging messages into space. Meantime this little international ride on the information superhighway probably cost us mucho dinero. But then, our upcoming night at Moose Mountain Provincial Park was about to run us eleven U.S. dollars. We thought that might balance out the phone bill.
Winnipeg (or Winterpeg, as one expat Canadian wag calls it) was very pretty. We were able to quickly find the refurbished old warehouse district, now filled with a glorious food market. It didn’t take long to fill up as many bags as we could carry with meats and cheeses, fruit, bread, and all kinds of veggies. The unknown loomed ahead, and who knew when or where we might find real parmegiano-reggiano, Brie, or cervelat salami again, right? We stocked up on fresh garlic, as a talisman against bad food. Every nook of the refrigerator was put to use storing these gems of civilization.
After that fruitful stop in cosmopolitan Winnipeg, we were off on Route 1 across the plains of Manitoba. What a beautiful surprise. I had pictured endless vistas of flat dullness that we would want to get through as quickly as possible. Instead, the fields were magnificent carpets, huge squares of yellow, sage green, bold green, blue, and white, making up in multiples for the flatness. It was a 360-degree checkerboard. Helpful signs told us they were growing canola, wheat, barley, strawberries, raspberries, and corn. There were lots of mature trees clustered around farmhouses. Off in the distance Sandy spotted giant loaves of bread. I thought he was just configuring his next sourdough masterpiece, but no—there they were. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be loaf-shaped hay mounds. Odd but scenic, and I’m sure there was a reason for them.
Instead of finding the plains boring, I became enchanted with the grain pool elevators that appeared as landmarks along the highway. Most were painted barn red or gray. Wooden, several stories high, each had what appeared to be a silo-type structure attached to a vertically elongated barn or two. Every town had one with its name painted, proudly announcing our location. The radio reported local crop and livestock prices. As we cruised along the divided four-lane road, we
were bombarded by battalions of dragonflies that seemed to be trying to cross the road. Instead, they landed up in profile on our very large buslike windshield. They thunk-thunk-thunked against us as they drifted across in swarms. These insect squadrons transformed themselves into something Jackson Pollock would have been proud of.
I took time out from copiloting to do some sit-ups, make lunch, or get us a soda. I learned how to turn the generator on while we were moving so I could microwave popped corn as a snack. From time to time I’d flop down onto the couch and do a little reading. When I drove, Sandy kept the cockpit supplied with diet Cokes, jellybeans, and anything else the captain required.
The road was soothing, almost hypnotic. The slightest hill became a “feature” giving us an even better view. We stopped at a roadside truck farm that sold peaches, nectarines, and cherries. Big signs all over the truck and the table boasted B.C. FRUITS. I hoped that indicated British Columbia and not edible antiquities. The fruit man cut little bits for us to sample. They all tasted wonderful, but we went for the cherries—the biggest, sweetest things I’d ever had. We could eat them only singly since each one filled up our mouths. As our teeth popped the skin, the warm sweet flesh rolled over the tongue, offering up its sugary delights. Rolling along on our summer vacation, we felt that life was just a bowl of cherries after all.
* * *
Tip: Don’t ever tell your hairdresser you won’t be around for four months for another cut. They really take the opportunity to scalp you. In my case I looked like a furry tennis ball—really attractive. And don’t believe what they say about it growing back. Mine shrank every time I washed it. Every day I could feel it getting reeled back into my skull.
Roman Holiday
Bastille Day. Bang, bang. Regina (rhymes with vagina) is a classic cow town and sprang up at us out of nowhere. Abruptly, it was just full-blown there. One minute we were driving Canada Highway 1 through barley fields, and suddenly ungainly swan-necked streetlamps lined the highway. Behind them a 1970s-era city appeared. Regina didn’t hold any obvious charms for us since we had all the salami we needed. Slipping through it quickly, moving in and out on the main roads—Victoria and Albert—we continued on our way up toward Saskatoon. I loved the place in advance because of its name.
Time rubberized. The trip was making me aware of the silliness of the concept of bite-size time. Time was big. When we nibbled away at it, chiseling out this appointment, that meeting, another lunch date, we had made it small. Now, when we didn’t have to parcel it out, time very quickly began to stretch. One afternoon we shopped for postcards. The clerk handed us our change, smiled, and wished us a good weekend. As we walked out of the store, our grins turned to laughter. A good weekend? That meant it must be Friday, we reasoned together. Who knew? Who cared? The division of time into weeks and weekends was an invention we no longer had to live with. I savored that childlike sensation of having a delicious, endless summer ahead.
Boundaries became even less clear as the days themselves lengthened as we went north. Light rarely left us now. We had plenty of time to take a bike ride or walk after dinner, before it got dark. The time zone changes as we went west further increased our sensation that time was no longer a hard fact. Time changed literally, and time changed within us. Our clocks and watches were useless and unnecessary. Their purpose was supplanted by instinct. We quit keeping time. In return, time no longer held us hostage. We ate when we became hungry, not when the clock struck an hour. We slept when we were tired, not when it was dark. And what wonderful sleep it was. No replaying business dramas to keep me from succumbing; no upset stomachs to get Sandy up. As weekends and weekdays blended, our rhythms smoothed out. I no longer had to balance several four-hour nights during the week, when work anxieties kept me up, with a twelve-hour Friday or Saturday night. It seemed I had been a sleep bulimic, bingeing and purging on rest time. Now I consistently slept between eight and nine peaceful hours each night. Sandy settled in at eight.
Only the bigger time, the seasons, mattered. It was summer, and we were at liberty. Morning, noon, and night, and the hours and minutes we chopped them into, didn’t mean much at all. We were learning to take bigger bites. The flavors lasted longer.
* * *
One afternoon the sky seemed to be rolling evil weather toward us. The buttercup-colored canola fields turned psychedelic yellow as steel storm clouds rimmed the northwestern sky. Looking at the map, our first instinct was to go to the Native heritage park called Wanuskewin, “place to find peace.” We slipped off the highway and out of time. Few cars were parked in the lot. Distinctly different from the cultivated land we had been seeing, the landscape looked barren and uninspiring to me. I wondered why the First Nations, as Canadians call Native peoples, thought it special. What secrets could this place of no apparent beauty or even identity possibly hold?
An orientation film was just beginning in the auditorium. We were the only visitors. The narrator, in a mesmerizing voice, whispered, “Wanuskewin,” and told of people coming to this spot for six thousand years to herd buffalo and make winter camp.
“Wanuskewin.”
The people weren’t farmers, they were hunters. It was an ideal place to hunt the animals because of a hidden drop-off in the earth.
“Wanuskewin.”
Many beasts were brought together by clever hunters, who then created a disturbance.
“Wanuskewin.”
The animals would instinctively run in the direction of what appeared to be open land.
“Wanuskewin.”
Instead they went to their deaths over the edge of the buffalo jump.
“Wanuskewin.”
This place became sacred to the people, the narrator said, for providing food, clothing, and shelter, all of which the people created from the buffalo. Background voices kept repeating “Wanuskewin” like a mantra. By the time the film was over, I thought I felt a little rumbling of hooves. Outside, the sky still dark, I tried to imagine this emptiness filled with men, women, children, and animals. Warren, a young Cree guide, talked with us. His face was like those in the film: smooth, brown, and wide. He explained that each of the four trails laid out for the public explained a different aspect of the lives of the people who lived here and their relationship to the buffalo, the land, and nature. We followed the trails while the storm went elsewhere. Life as a Plains Indian had not been easy. We wandered around for a short time before heading back to the Sue and the late twentieth century.
* * *
In a guidebook we’d read about a Mennonite restaurant in Saskatoon and thought to try it, looking for a fix of butter-drenched noodles and enormous platters of whoopie pies. But the place was closed because of a family death. We hunted for something else that we might not be able to fix for ourselves, doubting with every sophisticated New York prejudice that anything good enough was likely to be found this far from anywhere. In fact we found a busy Vietnamese restaurant and dined sublimely on spring rolls, rib bits, and a tangy hot pot for about seventeen American dollars. It was a delicious cosmopolitan meal, priced right, with free parking and spaces big enough for an RV. If we hadn’t been too full, we could have eaten our doubting words.
Not far away we found a campsite at the Gordon Howe Municipal Park, where we caught part of a fastball game. We arrived well into the first game, so the kind, smiling ticket taker waved us through. “Enjoy it!” she called after us, as she turned to continue telling her girlfriend the details of her date the previous evening with a guy she called Lucky Lenny.
As we took our seats, two local youth teams were giving it their all. The smack when the bat hit a ball dead-on brought cheers from the bleachers filled with sisters, brothers, parents, and grandparents. Two other teams, warming up for the next game, played a lazy catch in the field behind us. When the next game began, we realized that sitting in the bleachers had somehow made us hungry again. It was not hard to scare up a couple of ice cream cones, which we devoured walking back to the Sue. That night, as we were fal
ling asleep, we were serenaded by a concert across the river. All in all, it was just how summer is supposed to be.
* * *
Saskatoon had been as lovely as the name sounded. Leaving it behind, we continued driving a roughly diagonal northwesterly path across Canada. We had accustomed ourselves to RV living with an aptitude that surprised us. Our world seemed perfectly contained. Living in the RV turned out to be more than just okay, it was grand. I wondered why it was so much fun. Then it dawned on me. It was like playing house. When we were kids, we used to play house in Bennett Park, where a big rock was our “house.” Deep gray, shaped like a turtled Niña, Pinta, or Santa María, it was amazingly complete. Everyone could tell the front from the back by the pitch of the rock—a deep crevice running along one side served as a good place to sit down or a place where meals, courtesy of the Bungalow Bar and Good Humor, could be taken. Afterward, if you were really pooped, you could stretch out along the rear curve and have a nap. Now, forty years later, we traveled along in our land yacht, cruising highways and byways for daily adventure. There was a dreamlike quality to the ease of our lives as we played house in this compact universe. The border between fantasy and reality grew hazier, and I wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. True, I felt guilty from time to time that life wasn’t painful enough, that there wasn’t enough tormenting me, and that the angst that had driven me for so many years might perish. But then there would be another beautiful vista to share with Sandy, or a pleasantly exhausting bike ride, or we’d be surrounded by the rich earthy smell of pine woods—and we’d continue happily playing.
Yet we were about to abandon ship. On one of the many evenings back home spent map gazing, it seemed obvious that we would want a break from being in the RV. In the way that one projects about the unfamiliar by using what one knows, we had come to the conclusion that after three weeks and three thousand miles in an RV, we would surely want to spend a couple of nights in a real bed, with a real bathroom, in a real hotel. We’d pointed to the spot on the map named Edmonton and decided that, since it looked to be the last outpost of civilization we’d see for a while, this was the place to decamp. We read about the FantasyLand Hotel in the West Edmonton Mall. Although the jungle, pirate, and other theme rooms seemed a bit over the top, it sounded like a good location. The parking lot would clearly be able to handle a motor home—an important consideration. Envisioning a sort of attenuated last supper event, complete with king-size bed, full-length bathtub, room service, and all the shopping we could handle, we booked two nights. Though not particularly antsy at this point to leave the Sue, we pictured romance, relaxation, and rapid retrieval of e-mail.