Today is the first official day of summer vacation 2016 (for Those Johnston Kids)! Mama and I have to mostly work this summer, but there is still a ton of fun on the way. Blogging was so much fun last year, that we’ve decided to keep track of our warm season activities here again.

What better way to get started than by helping Papa wash the relatively new truck? Our faithful Subaru Forester was retired in the fall, and replaced with a Ram 1500 pick-up. A truck will be immensely useful for towing, building a house at Neyaashiinigmiing, and hauling simply tons of adventure toys. Trucks are not typically great on fuel economy though, so we went all the way to Quebec to find a truck with an EcoDiesel engine. We now have more utility than we had with the Forester, and the mileage is about 50% better!

Most importantly for a long hot summer of adventure: the AC works 100% better than non-working AC!

We settled uneasily into our new patterns of school and work.  September for me was broken up by a pair of trips to the woods. One was a camping trip for to learn legal stuff and the other was a camping trip to teach outdoor stuff. The culmination was the Wilderness Traverse Adventure race, to be held in the first weekend of October. Between the demands of school and the summer expedition, I haven’t had a chance to race all year. I was looking forward to the Wilderness Traverse, even more so because it was the last local race of the non-frozen season. In anticipation of the race, I even bought a new mountain bike to replace the one stolen from the car in Vancouver.

Friday, October 2nd, I ducked out of school early and loaded up the trailer with gear for the weekend. I kept my clothes, new bike,  and other expensive bits in the car with me. I was travelling on my own but planned to meet my teammates at the race. Having the trailer was a huge help. Normally, we find accommodations at a motel some distance from the race start, then lose valuable sleep time travelling between the race headquarters the night before, motel, and morning race start. We end up paying for a bed and then barely use it.

With the trailer, it was all going to be different. I was going to set up camp in parking lot of race headquarters and attend the race briefing in my bathrobe. My alarm was going to go off 15 minutes before race start and I was going to hit snooze. Post-race, I was going to strip out of my dirty clothes on the finish line and step into my trailer for well-deserved nap.

Naturally, it didn’t work out that way, because that wouldn’t make a good story.

About 4 PM, as I was stopping and going with rush hour traffic on the 401, I was rear-ended by a cargo van. I had just slowed to a stop behind a little polluting VW Passat TDI, when the van plowed into the trailer without even a squeal of brakes. As I was pushed forward, I jumped on the brakes, but that wasn’t quite enough to stop me from tapping the bumper of the Passat. My first thought was, “Damn it, I’m going to be late.”

The trailer was trashed, with the cargo van embedded into the back of it. The entire trailer box was pushed forward, where it sort of wrapped around the propane tank that was bolted to the frame. The walls had been pushed out by the compression and door swung open, showing the splintered woodwork inside. The driver of the van was quite apologetic, as well he should have been. “I only looked down for a second,” he said, holding his cell phone. Dummy.

The Passat was hardly touched, it seemed. My front bumper had caved in, but his bumper only showed two little spots from my license plate. As I began to exchange information with the van driver, the driver of the Passat joined us, then a fourth guy. As it turned out, the van had stopped so fast (because, you know, I was in the way) that the Pontiac behind it had plowed into the van as well.

The Passat got off easy, thanks to my attempts to brake. The trailer was a big shock absorber for me; if the van had hit the car at that speed, it would have been ugly for both of us. As it was, the damage to the van was limited as well. The Pontiac got the worst of it because it drove into a line of 3 vehicles and a trailer. That kind of mass isn’t going to move.

Did I mention that we were in the centre lane of the 401 Express? 5-0 showed up pretty quickly, but not before clouds of tow trucks, buzzing around us like flies. The smell of a 4-car pileup is like carrion to that lot. They were mightily disappointed when only the Pontiac needed a tow.

While we waited for the police to take down all our info, I sat in the car and listened to the radio. The traffic news was reporting delays on the 401, due to a multiple car collision westbound at the Allan offramp. That’s like fame, right? I was going over plans in my head, trying to figure out how I would sort out the traffic mess, ditch the busted-ass trailer and still make it to the race. Sitting there though, I started to notice an odd tingling sensation in my back, just below my shoulder blades. By the time were finally given the go-ahead to proceed to the Traffic Collision Reporting Centre, the tingling had become a tightness that discouraged me from bending too much. By the time we arrived at the TCRC, the tightness had graduated to good old-fashioned hurt. There was no getting around it – racing was out.

Well, I won’t bore you with the rest. I spent the next 5 or 6 hours at the TCRC, making reports, having pictures taken, and talking to the insurance company. The good news is that it wasn’t my fault, so our losses ought to be covered. The bad news is that our trailer, noble and sturdy home of our 2015 summer cross-Canada expedition, was no more. I salvaged my gear from the shattered remains and bid Chez Johnston a sad farewell. Next year, we’ll tent it.

I had to get back to school on August 31, but Those Johnston Kids didn’t. Grade schools didn’t start until after Labour Day and that left us without any sort of child care for the week. The corrupt daycare that they were in last year refused to take them back, despite having room, because we didn’t pay them over the summer when the kids were travelling. I understand the need to keep the daycare full in order to cover expenses, but that’s just extortionate.

So we all went to law school together. They only had to sit through the one class on Mondays. The kids were invited into the class to listen in, but declined, preferring to sit out in the quiet sun room with their books and handhelds. My professor came out to meet them on the break and they were uncharacteristically mute. I felt like the guy in that old Warner Brothers singing frog cartoon.

It wasn’t until Tuesday, September 1 that we discovered that the car had been robbed in the driveway Sunday night, mere hours after we arrived home at 10 PM. Someone had quietly opened the doors grabbed a few things and ran. The crook stole our ashtray and the $3 in change in contained, the power inverter (but not the required power cord), a bin full of books, another bag of children’s books and, as we realized later, our camera. The camera wasn’t worth anything, being just a 10-year-old point and shoot with a broken case, but it contained all of our vacation photos. Sigh. I was saddened at the theft of the camera, but annoyed by the theft of the ashtray. Do you know how hard those things are to replace?

This happens fairly regularly in our neighbourhood. There is some ass who periodically enters vehicles that the owners have forgotten to lock at night and makes off with whatever odds and ends might be negotiable. We’ve never had anything of great value taken, but one of these days I will set up an infrared camera and catch the crook once and for all. Or sew up a costume and devote my life to fighting crime under cover of darkness.

In the meantime, pending vigilantism, we put up some signs in the windows of the house and car, offering a reward for the return of the camera and vacation photos. We got no response from the thief, but over the next few days commiserating neighbours dropped by to ask about the crime and share stories about their own losses. Finally, towards the end of the week, Mama heard a rumour from one that a dog-walker had found a number of discarded items that could be ours. He offered to pass along our address and we crossed our fingers.

Then it just got weird. The kids found the ashtray on their way to school, at the end of the street. The bag of books was found a block away on the lawn of a family whose kids went to the same public school as ours. They had heard through the grapevine about our loss and connected the dots. Then, about 10 days after the theft, the bin itself was dropped off by someone – not a the dog-walker – who found it cast aside as well. In it were all the worthless and/or useless electronics, including our camera!

Sunday, August 30. 1 day before the start of school.

We woke up early in our Holiday Inn Express suite, less for the urgency of getting home in a timely fashion than for the free breakfast buffet. It was the usual uninspired mix of dry cereals, muffins, yogurt, and sterilized fruit that populates all breakfast buffets, but it was made more exciting by a do-it-yourself waffle machine. The waffles I made looked like mutant ping-pong paddles, but Those Johnston Kids ate them anyway. I don’t eat breakfast so I just waited and watched the Russians at the next table.

Their group was comprised of one really old guy in a shirt that Magnum P.I. might have worn, one young guy, and twin blonde women in their late teens. None of them look related, with the exception of the twins. They were dressed at 8 AM as if their first stop was going to be a night club. I was fascinated but that mystery remained unsolved. We took a couple of muffins and hit the road.

I would like to say that we had an uneventful trip home, but it is never that easy. In order to satisfy the narrative arc we’ve come to expect, the heroes have to face adversity before we believe in them. Otherwise it’s not a story. Challenges have to be met, the protagonists seemingly overcome, then comes the retribution and victory to close out the tale. So our asses were adversarialized.

Somewhere east of Montreal, our trailer blew another tire. The tires had less than 5000 KM on them, so I was a little nonplussed. It’s also a strange coincidence that our tire blew in the home stretch again. This time we were ready though. We had a decent spare, already inflated, a tire iron, and a jack. Of course I had to empty the car to get at the tools, but that wasn’t too bad. It looked like we were setting up a yard sale on the side of the highway.

As I was starting the tire change, another car pulled up behind us. A smiling fireplug of a man got out and asked if we needed help – in French. Language practice time! I explained that my French was poor and that we would have to speak slowly. He agreed and set in assisting with the repair, which was mostly watching me carefully to make sure that I did it right. I didn’t mind. It was nice to have company anyway. We smalltalked as best we could in our pigeon dialects. He told me that he was a mechanic.

I’m not sure why he stopped; I think he was just being a good Samaritan for a family on the road. After a while, I noticed his wife dozing in their car. I apologized for delaying her and thanked her for the assistance as well, which she accepted graciously. When we were done, I told the fellow (whose name I scandalously did not get) that I didn’t have any money on me, but I would like to give him a cake. Why did I want to give him a cake, he asked? I thought hard about the question then realized I had confused gâteau, cake, with cadeau, gift. No, no, I corrected myself, a gift.

I explained that we were autochtones, Aboriginal, and gave him a sage bundle that I had picked in the Cypress Hills. I told him that it was medicine. Medicine, he asked? Well, not true medicine, I replied, medicine for your heart. He understood and accepted it solemnly. It was really quite a moving exchange. We all got back on the road, happy with the encounter for our own reasons. I think it was good for the kids to see adults, strangers, helping each other just because it was the right thing to do.

We blew through Montreal, and completely bypassed Ottawa. Our next goal was Fitzroy Provincial Park in Ontario. That was where Baby Girl had forgotten her wallet in the camp store a couple of weeks earlier. It seemed like a long time ago. Around 4 PM we groaned up to the campground and manoeuvered into the parking lot. The wallet was recovered with nothing at all missing. The vacation souvenir fund was intact. I’ll be honest though: I bought all the souvenirs anyway. Those Johnston Kids have to save for university.

And that was about it. The 5 hour drive from Fitzroy to home was punctuated by really biblical rain on the 401, but that only slowed us down. Nothing was going to stop the homebound train. We pulled into our own driveway around 10 PM on Sunday night. With school in the morning I only took enough time to empty the car of electronics and other costly sundries before calling it a night. The dirty laundry, books, and rocks could wait until morning.

Our leg east added another 5780 kilometers to our previous mark of 14 840, bringing our summer total distance travelled to 20 620 kilometers! Holy cow.

August 29, we were actually fed, showered and on the road before well before 9 AM (AST), which was a first for us. We had few plans except to get the hell home, each of us for our own reasons. Short Pants accepted the destination with his typical sangfroid – he’s a pretty good traveler for all his disappointing lack of confidence in my navigation skills. Baby Girl was positively radiant at the prospect of going home for reals. She lives very much in the moment. She’s enjoyed each activity of the summer at it’s time, but has never stopped missing home, her pets, and Mama, not in that order.

Phantom of the Opera and lots of conversation carried us out of Cape Breton pretty quickly. While we were manifestly intent on getting home quickly, I did agree to a short diversion to the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy. The Rocks are dramatic sea-sculpted formations carved out of the red sandstone cliffs by the year-round weathering of the Fundy tides. The rocks have been formed into arches, caves and giant mushrooms.

There was a nominal charge to enter the park. We paid about $20 for the three of us then raced our way down the path towards the water. It was fun to get some exercise. The tide was just going out as we started our walk along the shore. Tourists were wading in thigh deep water to inspect the rocks. As an experiment, we left a large rock at the waterline to mark the level. An hour later, on our way back, the watery places where the tourists had been wading was high and dry, and our marker rock was standing alone on a wide beach. We did some quick calculations to figure that the water had dropped about a meter in 45 minutes. Cool!

Well after that, it was just a car chase as we made our way north through New Brunswick and into Quebec. We had to cover as much ground as possible if we were going to be back in Toronto for school on Monday. As dusk approached we found ourselves across the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City in the ville of Levis. We found ourselves accommodations at an outpost of the ever-popular Holiday Inn Express. Those Johnston Kids settled in for some quality time with Treehouse on cable while I ordered pizza and salad from a local place that delivered.

We picked at our food and hit the hay early. Too much driving is exhausting.

It was overcast and still on Thursday. It threatened to turn ugly all day, but never really turned that corner. Nonetheless, we hunkered down, not wanting to be caught out if the heavens should open. It didn’t suck to not drive anywhere for a day anyway. We spent a quiet day around the cottage, but there was one notable event.

I received an generic email from the administration at Osgoode Hall Law School, welcoming students back to school, with a reminder that classes started on Monday. Monday. That is August 31st, 3 days later. I recovered my spleen from where I had spat it and logged into the Oz website to check the schedule. It was legit. Osgoode decided to start classes early because Labour Day was so late this year. This necessitated a dramatic rethink of our travel plans.

We had planned to stay at the cottage until Saturday, then meander home over the course of 5 or 6 days, with several stops along the way. That was all off the table now. We would leave on Saturday and put the hammer down. I expected that we wouldn’t get home until Monday evening, but that would only mean one missed class for me, so it was acceptable. The other problem we faced was childcare for Those Johnston Kids while I was at school and Mama at work, but we could deal with that later.

Friday was sunny, windy, and our last full day in Cape Breton. I had promised the kids that we would return to Point Michaud for more boogie boarding, so that was our plan for the morning. First, though, I had to have a leaky tire fixed. We’d been having trouble with one wheel that wouldn’t hold air for more than a few days. Rather than take the care to Canadian Tire and endure their inevitable and costly administrations, I went to a small local auto repair. The mechanic looked at immediately and within 15 minutes we were on our way with a newly patched tire, $15 all in. Canadian Tire could take a lesson (or several) in customer service.

The weather was fine at Point Michaud, but more importantly the surf was up and reliable. The teenage instructors were willing to take the kids out for a proper lesson. They were a cash only business, so I paid for the class with a handful of coins from the car change cup big enough to pull down their baggy shorts. Short Pants was pleased to wear a wetsuit even though the water was remarkably even warmer than it had been on Wednesday. I rented a surfboard and joined Those Johnston Kids and their instructor in the Atlantic. They can be a handful.

We did not learn how to surf but the wee ones were pretty thrilled to ride waves in to shore on their boards. The instructor was earnest, but a bit flustered. She was very young and was probably more used to teaching attentive adults than willful merchildren. While she tried to teach one surfing basics, I would shove the other down a likely wave and watch the ensuing hilarity.

That was plenty good enough for Baby Girl who shrieked and cackled all the way to shore with every ride but never managed to get to more than her hands and knees on the board. I barely improved on my previous attempts at surfing but did get up to a reliable kneel and could steer reasonably well. On the downside, repeatedly throwing my naked chest on the rubberized deck of the board to catch a wave had the effect of painfully pulling out my chest hair. That must be why surfers are always boyishly smooth-chested.

Short Pants was the most successful of us all. As they called us in to return the boards, I looked up to see him riding a small wave into the shallows, perfectly stable with his arms down at his sides. He looked almost bored at how easy it was.

Back at the cottage, we spent the evening packing and prepping for an early departure. OMG, school starts on Monday!

I learned through a third party (Mama) that Baby Girl had lost her wallet. She had been afraid to tell me that it was gone. That was unfortunate because if she had told me sooner we might have recovered it immediately. She seemed pretty certain that she had left it at the camp store at Fitzroy Provincial Park, our first stop on the road east from home. It immediately brought to mind our misadventure with our pack containing her camera in Riding Mountain National Park. I called Fitzroy as soon as it was open and described the wallet and contents. Happily, it had been recovered and was even intact with contents. They agreed to hold on to it until we passed through again. Our trip is almost thematic in its repetition of things lost and found.

I had an interesting experience last week, as we sat in the parlour of Rita’s Tea Room in Big Pond, Cape Breton. Short Pants asked about the ‘big CDs’ on the walls, leading me to try to explain what a platinum record was. Of course, I went into the Bell and the history of the phonograph, wax cylinders, plastic disks at 78 rpm, electromagnetic induction, master disks and vinyl pressing. Naturally that led to the explanation that platinum and gold records actually weren’t, with the exception of the gold record included with the Voyager spacecraft, now on its way out of the heliosphere. Then the clam chowder came and I ran out of time to finish the lesson.

Road trips have come a long way from automotive record players, and binders of CDs. On our trip I carried about 300 albums of music on a very small USB thumbdrive. Not that it was necessary. Kids like familiarity and repetition, and Those Johnston Kids are no different. If something is good to listen to, it will be good to listen to again, and again, and again. Despite the plethora of music available in our collection, in many different genres, we really only listened to 3 recordings, with the occasional diversion mandated for my sanity.

As we drove west, the Imagine Dragons were in heavy rotation (funny choice of words, isn’t it?). There’s that one lyric from Radioactive, that goes “don’t make my system blow”, that the kids always sing as “don’t break my sisters toes”. That’s only funny the first 30 or so times you hear it though.

After we picked up Mama and were moving through BC, they discovered Stompin’ Tom. That album got played pretty much non-stop from Vancouver, when we picked up Alison, back to Ontario. Alison was not a Stompin’ Tom fan especially before the trip, and still isn’t, but at least now she knows all the words. It was neat to visit or pass through many of the places that Stompin’ Tom sang about.

As we headed east from Toronto, Those Johnston Kids discovered The Phantom of the Opera. They are now ready to perform any of the singing roles in the British production. Baby Girl would like to play the Phantom herself. She didn’t much take to the role of Christine, but belts out the Phantom’s verses with verve.

The weather on Wednesday was happily a bit better. It was a mix of clouds and sun with the blend favouring the daystar. Baby Girl had been agitating for a chance to try surfing at the world famous (?) Point Michaud beach, so it seemed like a good day to try it out. I took an utterly ineffectual surfing lesson there a few years back. After about 6 hours in the water the best I had managed was about 3 seconds on my feet, although I wouldn’t call it standing so much as falling terribly slowly. It is astonishing even to me that I can ride a unicycle, and keep a boat upright in anything short of a tsunami, but can’t stand on a surfboard. All my talent is obviously in my ass.

Nevertheless, the surf beckoned, so off we went. As we drove, I became aware of a curious odour in the car. At first it was just a whiff, a scented tendril that tickled at the back of the nose, but it grew in strength as the car warmed up in the sun until it was a full bore olfactory insult. It was the smell of a ripe cheese, or the socks of a teenage boy. It was body odour freshened up with a hint of old seaweed. It was the contents of a sealed race bag that you discover rotting forgotten in the back of your car. Naturally I blamed Those Johnston Kids and castigated their lack of foot hygiene and general affinity for dirt. They protested ineffectually.

We discovered the actual culprit when we arrived at the beach and piled out of the reeking car. As I pulling our swimwear out of the back, I realized that the rank stank was emanating from our trunks. We had hung them to dry after our kayak on Monday, but they still smelled terrible. Something dark and monstrous lives in the cold water of the Bras D’Or, and it smells like parmigiano. It couldn’t be helped though, so we put on the rotten suits anyway. Short Pants complained bitterly, but isn’t into skinny-dipping. Yet.

In the parking lot at the Point Michaud beach, there is a small hut that houses the lifeguards and surfing instructors. You can arrange a lesson, or just rent equipment, at exceedingly reasonable rates. On this day, they didn’t recommend a surfing lesson because the wind was blowing up choppy, unpredictable surf. They did rent us boogie boards, a metre-long oval of painted foam, for a mere $5 per hour. The staff were very friendly, but they may have just wanted to get the strange cheese-smelling people out of the close little shack.

Those Johnston Kids are legendary for their seal-like ability to swim in anything short of solid water, but Short Pants isn’t much of an eater and is skinny like a rez dog. I don’t know where he gets it. While Baby Girl was immersed before we boys even hit the water, Short Pants found the water entirely too cold for his liking. I think maybe he was having an off day because he was showing symptoms of a head cold as well. After a few forays into the Atlantic up to his waist, he finally gave it up as unreasonable and went to sunbathe instead. That meant lying fully dressed on a towel in the sun. Practical if not traditional.

Baby Girl and I in the waves, some of which were respectably large. Things got a lot more fun when she finally caught a wave with her board and surfed it into shore on her belly. We spent two hours in the water with nary a break until even I started to get chilly. She would never admit such a weakness.

On our way back to the cottage we stopped at the dock in the tiny village of L’Ardoise, which is apparently not pronounced in French as you would expect. It’s pronounced in English, with a heavy east coast accent. That’s not very specific, I realise, but whatever pronunciation you come up with based on my description will be closer than the French. We went there to buy live lobsters for Granfa. He loves him some ocean-dwelling arthropods. Lobsters were out of season in the area, but there is a fishing company there that has some in tanks all summer. I don’t know if fishers save them from their catch during open season, or if they ship them from areas where the season is open. Probably the latter. Live lobsters are pretty easy to transport on ice because they just go dormant. Anyway, we picked up 3, one each for Granfa, Bobby, and Baby Girl. I don’t mind lobster, but I wasn’t in the mood for all the live-killing and tearing apart required. I think Short Pants was on the same page as me, but Baby Girl was already whispering “kill, kill, kill, kill” under her breath like Jason.

Back at the cottage, Granfa fussed about in a pleased fashion, getting ready for a lobster dinner, the kids GameBoyed themselves silly, and I took a nap. You know those dreams when you’re being chased by zombie raptors? I hate those.

Come dinnertime, Granfa covered the table with plastic and newspaper and taught Baby Girl how to disassemble a lobster. It was like watching a biology class dissection. I participated long enough to secure Short Pants a set of empty claws. We put them on the deck to dry out and ate our leftover spaghetti with relish.