The vacation is officially over, alas.
4 Comments Published by katitude on Tuesday, September 02, 2008 at 7:19 p.m..
Yes, it's true. I go back to work tomorrow.
Well, technically I was back to work last week, but I don't really count two staff meetings that I zoned out of really working.
The kidlets are back tomorrow; that's working.
And I'm really looking forward to it. Honest.
****
The road trip is often on my mind. Since I've been back, people have asked "did you have fun?", "are you relaxed?", or some variation on that theme.
Short answer:
No.
Longer answer:
It wasn't that kind of vacation.
Fun is Vegas and blogger gatherings. Relaxation is remote northern cottages.
A five-week motorcycle road trip is an experience, a challenge. I re-learned that I can do anything, and that the specter of on-coming middle age is not nearly as big as I perceived it to be. I discovered that even while one is physically cold/wet/tired/miserable, there is still room for awe and wonder. I regained a sense of perspective. I lined up all the things that give me stress and threw them all in the mental file folder called "Fuck It".
It's funny, out of all the folks who asked about the vacation, only one asked the right question: are you happy now?
Yep.
****
My nephew and his wife just bought a cottage in Northern Ontario, where I spent the Labour Day Weekend. It is water-access only, has no cell service, no electricity, no running water other than that which gravity supplies from the tank up on the hill, and a cozy little one-holer for all your biological evacuation needs.
It also has a wood-fired sauna and a propane-powered beer fridge down by the dock. It's on a quiet lake where most of the shoreline is still Crown Land and so can't be sold for development. There are fish in lake and they are still edible.
Perfection.
I saw bears and bald eagles. I swam and played with my great-nephew. I sat on the dock and watched the light change from a killer sunset to a myriad stars of a cloudless night.
The bazillion mosquito bites I got and dealing with the traffic on the way home was a small price to pay for this:
Well, technically I was back to work last week, but I don't really count two staff meetings that I zoned out of really working.
The kidlets are back tomorrow; that's working.
And I'm really looking forward to it. Honest.
****
The road trip is often on my mind. Since I've been back, people have asked "did you have fun?", "are you relaxed?", or some variation on that theme.
Short answer:
No.
Longer answer:
It wasn't that kind of vacation.
Fun is Vegas and blogger gatherings. Relaxation is remote northern cottages.
A five-week motorcycle road trip is an experience, a challenge. I re-learned that I can do anything, and that the specter of on-coming middle age is not nearly as big as I perceived it to be. I discovered that even while one is physically cold/wet/tired/miserable, there is still room for awe and wonder. I regained a sense of perspective. I lined up all the things that give me stress and threw them all in the mental file folder called "Fuck It".
It's funny, out of all the folks who asked about the vacation, only one asked the right question: are you happy now?
Yep.
****
My nephew and his wife just bought a cottage in Northern Ontario, where I spent the Labour Day Weekend. It is water-access only, has no cell service, no electricity, no running water other than that which gravity supplies from the tank up on the hill, and a cozy little one-holer for all your biological evacuation needs.
It also has a wood-fired sauna and a propane-powered beer fridge down by the dock. It's on a quiet lake where most of the shoreline is still Crown Land and so can't be sold for development. There are fish in lake and they are still edible.
Perfection.
I saw bears and bald eagles. I swam and played with my great-nephew. I sat on the dock and watched the light change from a killer sunset to a myriad stars of a cloudless night.
The bazillion mosquito bites I got and dealing with the traffic on the way home was a small price to pay for this:
I start my first day in the classroom tomorrow, albeit as a student teacher, and I'm also really looking forward to it.
Long motorcycle rides seem to be 90% talking to yourself in your helmet--not necessarily fun, but the perfect way to figure things out for yourself.
Boat-only cabin with a wood sauna and beer fridge? Heaven.
Those are awesome pics . . . great attitude Kat.
You couldn't have posted pics like that at the beginning of the summer, so I'd actually be motivated to get off my ass and head out to Algonquin for a weekend? Noooooooooooo! :)
Funny, I was going to ask if it was worth the ride through the prairies...
When I"m exhausted and bitching about my latest climbing trip and how sore I am, people ask why I do it. You nailed it. A trip like that isn't for relaxation, it's a challenge, but one thing I"ve noticed is ultimately I'm a LOT happier, eventually, after one of those trips than even if I take the "relaxation" trips.