I blame it on L-Pooh. She the companion of my misspent teens, who upon our first meeting in the back seat of a car driving aimlessly around the small town I grew up in, announced she felt sick and proceeded to puke on my lap. We’ve been best pals ever since.

She also introduced me to Stephen King, who keeps a gothic house with bat-winged gates in Bangor, Maine. Literary snobs will sniff and shake their heads but let me tell ya, the guy’s got a way with words. Lots of words. He’s incredibly prolific and with six months of writing a blog under my belt, I have new appreciation for the work involved. He’s scared the crap out of me more times than I can count. I spent the night after reading Pet Semetary with all the lights in my apartment ablaze and still shudder when I see cherubic blond toddlers.

Is it still called stalking if you don’t meet the subject of the stalk, er, visit? His house is everything I hoped but alas, the King has left the building. Apparently he and Tabitha head south for the winter so I stand for a picture, Stephen King hard cover in hand, with The Dog by my side, smiling a foolish fan smile in front of the house. It was so worth it L-Pooh.

If Bangor is a blue collar town, Bar Harbour is its white collar alter ego. About an hour outside of Bangor, Bar Harbour, or Bah Hahbah to the locals, is upscale quaint. We arrive in town to discover the cruise ship fleet has disgorged its human cargo at the pier. The streets are flooded with LL Bean-wearing tourists, credit cards in hand, snatching up authentic “made in China” Bah Hahbah paraphernalia.

The Hahbah and town are lovely but less attractive when the streets are overrun by tourists shopping for that perfect tacky souvenir. Tourist towns (yes that includes Penticton) exude a kind of sadness when the season ends. It’s like the post New Year’s Eve party clean-up — a great time was had by all, but hey, who put a cigarette butt in the punch bowl.

With home and native land in the rear view mirror, we play that Canadian game of gas price comparison. You know the one, where you look at the posted gas rate and mutter and curse as you convert gallons to litres and U.S. $ to Cdn $ and figure out our southern neighbours pay around sixty cents a litre. Even with the yucky exchange rate (good timing Meanderers) it’s a win win.

Leaving the explosion of Maine’s fall colours behind, we head for the Kennedy’s stomping grounds on old Cape Cod. For getting from point A to point B quickly, there is nothing like the mighty interstate highways. Picture the Trans-Canada on steroids, cutting through major centres with ten lane choices and exit and entry ramps spewing traffic on and off.

Now picture the Meanderers pulling their 10,000 pound home through Boston and environs at rush hour on a Friday, the Dude’s white-knuckles gleaming as the Dame provides running commentary on signage and lane changes, while GPS Gertrude’s robotic voice adds 30 minutes to our travel time at regular intervals. To say Boston area traffic is bad is like saying Charlie Sheen enjoys a cocktail or two.

Our route takes us through the centre of Boston, where we wistfully note landmarks in the skyline from a previous visit before plunging into a multi-laned tunnel through which traffic is proceeding at less than a walking pace, mile after dark mile. Please, dear Lord, don’t let there be a terrorist attack now. We emerge from the darkness 45 minutes later, having covered about eight miles, into an endless stream of honking horns, lane-switching, crawling traffic that continues all the way to the Cape.

Traffic is so bad on the Cape drivers are encouraged to use the break down lanes on the side to bypass traffic and get to their exits. Apparently breaking down is verboten during rush hour.

We arrive in darkness, after a stop at Mickey D’s for sustenance, to find the campground office closed. Luckily we phoned ahead and the thoughtful site managers have taped an envelope on the office door with a gate pass and instructions to get to our site. The Dude is catatonic from the drive, PTDD, post traumatic driving disorder.

Now we’ve all heard the tale of Plymouth Rock, the pilgrims cross the ocean, land at the rock and voila America is born. Without them there would be no Black Friday shopping folks. Think about it.

The truth is less romantic. The Pilgrims landed at Provincetown on the tip of the Cape, stayed for about five weeks before finding its swamps and dunes less than hospitable, and headed across the bay for Plymouth.

Having recently finished a book about the Pilgrims’ journey and subsequent travails, the Dude is eager (for those who know the Dude, mildly interested would be a better choice of words) to visit Provincetown down the road. We have arrived during what is apparently festival weekend on the Cape. An Oyster festival is in progress in Wellfleet, a tiny town of narrow winding streets and lanes, lush gardens and a mix of permanent and “from away” residents. (From away is a term we learn applies to anybody not here for at least two hundred years).

Who knew oysters were so popular. Our campground hostess advises that the little festival started years ago with a few people from town getting together to shuck oysters, drink beer and trade tales about the big one that got away (which would make sense if oysters could actually move, but I digress).

The festival is now the equivalent of a large outdoor concert with foodies from all over Massachusetts and nearby states descending on the area to slurp oysters, wear knitted watch caps and watch competitive oyster shucking on the main stage.
But today it’s all about Provincetown. Sand dunes, dotted with scrubby pine trees, surround the town encroaching on the highway. Get rid of the townsfolk and the sand would take over the town in short order. I think I know why the Pilgrims left for Plymouth.

On this weekend, women have taken over the town. A lot of women with short hair, sturdy boots and t-shirts emblazoned with city logos. Some travel in packs of five or six but most walk, arms linked, window shopping along the street. We have arrived during Women’s Week, one of the largest lesbian festivals in the USA. The mood is festive and P-Town (as it is called) is bursting at the seams with raucous lesbians bellied up to the bars at every drinking establishment in town, of which there are many. We spend the afternoon perusing the shops before The Dude, intimidated by the estrogen levels, suggests we push on to find a quieter place to eat drink and be merry.

Combine Women’s Week and Wellsfleet’s Oyster Festival on a small coastal highway and you have a recipe for traffic gridlock on the Cape’s main thoroughfare. If this is what it’s like in the Fall summer must be a masochist’s wet dream. After quick deke off the highway along country lanes so narrow two vehicles cannot pass, we spot a restaurant and pull our diesel beast into the parking lot.

The candy cotton pink exterior and signage advising us we are at a Boulangerie/Bistro do not tell the whole story. The place is packed with festival-goers hoping to avoid the traffic. The owner sniffs haughtily in a French accent when informed we don’ have reservations before scuttling up a tiny table near the bar. The Dude begins to have misgivings even before we open the bistro menu expecting to find café prices. “Tabernac,” is all he can get out when he sees the full-on French menu with the various bits and bobs of animal parts the French love to eat and the accompanying prices, which he immediately begins converting to Canadian money.

Taking pity on the Dude’s glazed look the server brings him a biere and reading glasses before advising us of the fixed prix menu, which is the life preserver the Dude is looking for to avoid melting our credit card or having to head out in the gridlock awaiting us. Sometimes you gotta listen to your inner Pilgrim.

Next…Nice to meet you, Mr. President

A while back the Dame made light of my strategy to make my way through Quebec without speaking the language by “shouting Rene Levesque” in any situation I deem questionable.

It’s a technique I’ve developed over years of travel. When trying to communicate with someone when there are only two choices, those being English and the native tongue, you are essentially exchanging gibberish with a stranger. Who knows, the person may actually be spouting gibberish. The first rule of travel is to never knowingly put yourself in a dicey situation.. Talking gibberish with a stranger in a foreign land is dicey,

Now, those that know her are aware of the Dame’s propensity for exaggeration. The name needn’t be shouted, at least not at first, but should instead be delivered in a firm, clear, distinctive voice.

“Rene Levesque.”

Try it.

Nothing to it, right?

The best thing is my technique works anywhere. Merely go online and Google significant people in whatever country you’re travelling in: i.e. In Cuba say “Che Guevara”; in Russian it could be Nikita Kruschev, in Brazil simply “Pele.” This invariably stops the other person in their tracks. They stare at you inquisitively, often saying only a single word in reply. Here in Quebec they might say “Pardeau”, or some such gibberish. To which you reply “Rene Levesque” with slightly more urgency. On the third repetition the foreigner backs away smiling kindly and you are no longer talking gibberish with a stranger.

Take the other day for instance. I awake with a dull pain in my lower back. Immediately thinking kidney stone, and remembering the sharp pain that is sure to follow, I inform the Dame a trip to the “urgences” department is in order. I sense things might not go well when a disembodied voice booms through the crowded waiting room calling “My Kale Mal-o-ney”, followed by a lot of gibberish.

In short order I find myself strapped to the floor in a wheel chair in a senior’s home bus in transit to another hospital. Shouting “Rene Levesque” only spurs the driver on to greater speed. After a lot of gibberish at this second location I am wheeled upstairs and shunted through a round machine and then pushed to a second room where a young French woman swabs my torso in jelly and begins moving a mouse over my body. I think she’s saying ultra sound but I can’t be sure.

After an hour or two of convalescing on a cot in the hospital hallway an English-speaking gastro arrives with a diagnosis. Pancreatitis, he says, before launching into an interrogation about my personal life. He wants to know how much I drink. It’s about this time I’m wishing he only spoke French. Who knew six or seven beer a day is hard on the pancreas?

In short order, I find myself sharing a hospital room with two French ladies of advanced years, one of whom yells something that sounds like “why” but could be “oui” at 30 second intervals. I am deprived a food by a sign saying “ajeune” on my bedside table and punctured with needles attached to not one but two intravenous bags.

Have you ever had to pee every half hour attached to a pole by a needle sticking into your vein? The final indignity is when Rene Levesque reappears in this report. What else do you say to a gorgeous Francophone nurse who is talking to you in gibberish while indicating with her hands that the instrument she is holding must be inserted in your bum. I don’t even have a working bum but how do you tell somebody that in gibberish.

This was clearly a questionable encounter and I responded with a rousing string of “Rene Leveque’s”. Instead of backing away the nurse pressed forward. For the moment a stand-off. I’ll leave it to your imagination on whether Monsieur Mal-o-ney eventually bent over.

Rain and Taiga jackets – the quintessential West Coast duo. When The Dude and Dame moved to the South Okanagan desert we smugly put the Taigas away in a downstairs closet as relics from our previous sodden life.

In an abundance of caution we packed them in the Grey Ghost for those “occasional rain showers in the fall.” Rain, like falling snow, is different each time; soft drizzles, steady downpours, cloudbursts, driving rain – you get the picture.

I have a new one to add to the repertoire, torrential monsoon, occurring only under the following circumstances: a) you are packing up to leave your campsite, b) you have left your awning out c) you have just remarked what lovely weather you’ve been experiencing.

Rain drumming on the skin of the RV is normally a soothing sound as we sit snugly inside, electric fireplace glowing in the corner. But when the sound becomes an ominous pounding, accompanied by an automated warning message blaring from CBC radio about tornado and extreme weather warnings in the area, (and we all know tornadoes are programmed to find RV parks) Plan B springs into action.
‘Wait, maybe things will improve.’

Turns out Plan B works and we head out two hours later towards Port Perry to avoid the weather now blowing towards our original planned stop at Wasaga Beach, and for a free parking lot overnighter at The Blue Heron Casino. Free overnight camping is a point of pride for long term RV’ers. Websites dedicated to the inner Scrooge abound. As most of you know, The Dude loves nothing better than a good poker game and is inherently cheap, so this stop is right up his alley.

The rhythm of constant travel has resulted in travel Alzheimer’s – the inability to determine what day it is.

The Dame has a special connection to Ontario; her “Pops” lived and passed here. He would have appreciated the irony of the Meanderers driving through a torrential downpour on Sunday to visit his resting place in the tiny, toney village of Kettleby, past brick mansions on vast estates, crisscrossing the countryside to find flowers to bring to the grave and the Dame’s contentment that we had overcome adversity to pay our respects on Father’s Day – except apparently Father’s Day is this week…

I blame it on the rain.

One-night stands, hooking up. Salacious phrases that mean something completely different in our world.

After our hasty retreat from Thunder Bay and the “the dead-end incident” we were left without a plan, which in our world is an everyday thing. Seat of the pants would best describe our travel routine.

This is where the one-night stand comes in, no un-hitching the trailer, just park that sucker, pull out the slides and you’re set for the night. No fuss, no muss and in the morning you’re gone. Nipigon, our choice for a one-night stand and a great dinner overlooking the river at the Edgewater, gotta love those Tripadvisor recommendations. We make a quick stop at the Travel Info centre (who knew these things existed!)

We arrive in Wawa, odd name, nice town and the home of the famous 28-foot metal Goose, unfortunately in a state of decline inspiring fund-raising drives to “buy a feather, save the Goose”. Only in Canada, eh.

But it’s really the other story of Wawa and Ontario that needs to be told, of the horrors that the guide books don’t tell you about.

Skeeters, mozzies, colourful descriptors for these tiny terrors, but in truth they should be called Demon blood-suckers.

Life in B.C. has left the Maloneys ill-prepared–sipping wine on our deck in summers past, lazily waving off the occasional wasp or black fly, our Prairie visitors sitting in wonder, covered in netting. “Where are the mosquitoes,” they exclaim, “Is this heaven?”

As we set up camp in Wawa, those years of smug complacency come back to haunt us. The Dame is quickly surrounded by a cloud of voracious demons and she begins the skeeter dance. Walk two paces, wave your left hand frantically, walk one pace, wave your right hand frantically, slap at your left leg, then right, and swat at your forehead and the back of your neck several times. Such fun really.

Moquitoes are cunning, open the door a crack and the ten sentinels waiting outside quickly fly in to wreak havoc. Bottles of anti-itch sticks and creams litter the trailer. Spray bottles of OFF and Deep Woods Off fill the cupboards. The Dame has taken to wearing a clip-on OFF personal protector on her belt. A sort-of mosquito repellant condom if you will.

The Dog has other issues, we are in tick country and his rather large head and nose are a magnet for the blood-drinking drillers. At one point a large bubble forms on his back, a tick enjoying prime Golden Doodle snacking.
But other than that things are going well.

Okay I admit it, I was wrong. I had pictured Saskatoon as this outpost in the middle of blowing wheat fields, where kindly farm people in green ‘Riders’ jackets roamed the streets, exchanging pleasantries about the weather.

Saskatoon is happening. Split down the middle by the mighty Saskatchewan River, the city has fantastic walk/bike trails running the length of the city and has even installed an all-season outdoor gym in case you get the urge to stop and put in 15 minutes of cross-fit training. The 3 D’s cycled from the “Gordon Howe campground” (no Gordie nicknames here please, he is an icon in these parts) to the downtown center with The Dog happily taking point. Flat trails, water views, funky art installations, where are the wheat fields!!

And the food! They have great restaurants and pubs filled with trendy bearded hipsters sipping craft beers with a side of cauliflower fritters and Duck sliders. Where is the meatloaf and mashed potatoes?

Traveling takes a toll on a girl’s toes and The Dog’s famously curly locks. Saskatoon had our backs. A shop downtown specializing in braided cornrows, with a sketchy facade and a collection of mounted wigs everywhere you looked, was the first stop for a pedicure emergency. Job done, toes buffed, painted and sassy-looking, it was The Dog’s turn. A couple of pounds of fur later, his head resembling a gone to seed dandelion stalk, The Dog emerges from the salon.

Little secret here, I love museums. I love pulling back the curtain on what was, on how much has changed in a relatively short period of time. We spent an afternoon at the Western Development Museum, a comprehensive look at the Saskatchewan of old and some of the crazy inventions that came out of this province. (Anyone care to drive a wind-powered car that reached 3 km/hour at top speed, or one that has a giant barrel on the roof filled with straw gas?!)

I should have known Saskatoon would be cool. My brother, always a trend-setter, has lived here for ten years, coyly down-playing the city, “it’s okay” he always says. Now I know why, it’s been a clever ploy to keep others away, to keep the city his.

Fare thee well Saskatoon, your secrets are safe with us. Now we’re off to find some farmers and wheat fields.