Jaunt

 "You can take me anywhere the wind blows

Right into the great unknown

We can throw our hands up out the window

This is what we live for..."

American Authors, "What We Live For"

Kathy has already done her own writeup of the not-so-little road trip we took yesterday. She opened with this: 

"Well, today was the day I decided I needed to clear the pipes on the side chick, as well as my own, since we've both stagnated on road tripping over the last few months and needed a good blasting out of the carbon in our lungs."

The "side chick" is her car, in case you were confused. But I can relate. I felt like I'd spent the last six months or so in a bog, and I was waking up half a year stagnant. A blast was more than welcome, and a blast was what we had.

We had no plans this time beyond the imperative: water.  To that end, we made a meander to the familiar shoreline of Lake Huron at Goderich.

This town has been called "the prettiest in Canada" and while I'm not sure I'd go that far, it really is a lovely place. Its central business district is unique in this province:

We were feeling peckish by this point and Googled up places to eat. We picked out Goderich Harbour Restaurant, a.k.a. "The Old Saltie" This is our kind of place: a local favourite strongly reminiscent  for me of the Fish n' Fry Inn in Midland. If anything, the food was even better, and even better value! One generous fish piece and LOTS of delicious fries: $12.83 (be aware they charge for condiments). Or $9.96 if you're a Legion member. Memorable. We've been really quite astonishingly lucky in our restaurant choices on these trips, but I attribute that to our attitude. I don't think we've ever explicitly discussed this but it's almost like for just a day we live in these places we visit. That's why you'll often find, amongst the pictures of tourist attractions,  other pictures of local parks the tourists don't generally bother with. And when it comes to meals, we apprecite the local institutions over bland national chains.

Road trips with Kathy involve a healthy helping of estrogen. Besides my road-trekking pardner and her side chick, we also bring Gertie the Google GPS lady with us to aid Ken in his navigational responsibilities. . It's a good thing Gertie wasn't driving, because in that octagonal town square (town octagon?) above,  she drunkenly decided we were about 200m from where we actually were, and started spitting out rapid-fire recalculations as we rotated what may as well be a giant roundabout. I rebooted her and she sobered up eventually

Another common feature we enjoy on this trips: history. Along to scratch that itch came the Tiger Dunlop tomb.

Dr. William "Tiger" Dunlop (1792-1848) founded Goderich and sought to found another town, "Gairbraid", close by. He's buried there today with some of his family. By all accounts, the man -- whose appetites for alcohol and snuff were legendary, and who was apparently one of the all time Great Wits -- would probably detest his peaceful surroundings today. But we appreciated them, at least as much as we could without pre-donning bug spray: 

Lovely view here from the top of the ridge:

From here we pressed on north. Before we hit Kincardine, I spotted a sign announcing the Point Clark Lighthouse. Lighthouses being one of Kathy's things, it forced a detour to one she hadn't seen before:

I think we all know where the real bright light is

This was just a lovely place to sit and watch the waves roll in. Not for the first time or the last did I marvel over the air, which just feels more like AIR up there. It's remarkable how it just flushes out all the winter/city fustiness. You know you're "right here, now" when you're noticing your breathing and how every breath is a little tiny joy.

I think I need to live up here somewhere. You know, for my health. Didn't doctors used to prescribe the seaside, or the desert, or mountain air? Why not the shores of the Great Lakes? 

In Kincardine, we walked the pier again:

Another lighthouse...

From here we jutted inland to Paisley and Walkerton before our penultimate stop in Hanover. This, too, was familiar and special to us: one of the stops on our first road trek, in 2020. On that trip, I captured what to this day is my favourite image of Kathy:

Yesterday rom a different angle:

That left us about 90 minutes from Waterloo and supper: at Jack's Family Restaurant in St Jacob's, about a four minute drive from my front door. This is ranked in the top ten percent of food service establishments on the planet. It also happens to be where I first met Kathy in 2016.  The menu is huge and I have never had a meal there that was anything less than stellar.  We both had hot sandwiches: hers was turkey and mine was hamburger. I haven't had a hot hamburger sandwich (or a cold hamburger sandwich, for that matter) in many years, but it used to be a staple of my child-wannabe-adulthood. You see, hot hamburger sandwiches are what eight year old boys order if they want to appear grownup while still having something like a burger. 

Of course, they've tripled or quadrupled in price since then. But it was a great and filling meal, the end of a great and fulfilling day.

Thank you, hon, as always, for the company, the laughter (at Gertie's soused and Ken's sober antics) and the love. Adventure becomes us. Bigger one on tap later this year...stay tuned.