Not All Who Wander Are Lost – But Some of Us Might Be… - July 1, 2017
(Note from Jan. I actually enjoyed this day. And Laur always OKs my stories before I share them.)
When I brought my hubs his coffee on Wednesday morning at around 6 am, having earlier brought him his orange juice and variety of good things like cranberry extract, acidophilus, vitamin D, B-12, baby aspirin, and iron, he looked at me with a Cheshire cat grin and said, “I’ve got a possible bike ride for us today.”
Because we’ve been married 40 years, I can read his body language and hear what he’s really saying. For Laurence to be propped up in bed at 6 am – he usually sleeps until his coffee is cold – with his laptop on his lap – that means he is keyed up. When he says “possible ride,” I know that means an “exploratory” bike ride which means trails that go no where, mud, finding a housing development where an important historical site used to be, and lots of train tracks to haul our bikes over.
I said, “Great. Let’s do it!” Although Laur was awake at 6, I knew we wouldn’t be leaving until 9 am. Plenty of time for me to get my morning jog-walk in and do my usual things – eat my bran buds, read my morning devotional on gmail, check out the obituaries, and see if my kids had posted anything on facebook. (Yes, this is what retired seniors do.) And I truly wanted to go for three reasons. 1. I like riding my trust old Raleigh Portage. 2. Doing BodyPump and swimming at GoodLife is a lot of work. 3. My fitbit (Fitty) doesn’t reward me for going to GoodLife, but it does for cycling because I tie it to my shoe and spin my legs, even when going downhill!
Off we went biking at 9 am – with a warning to Laur. “We have to be back by 11:15 – we need time to shave and shower and get a Tim’s before heading out.” We were meeting up with Laur’s brother Robin and our sis-in-law Colleen in Brantford for lunch at 1 pm.
And the ride was pretty much what I had anticipated. Our trail disappeared a number of times and we had to backtrack. I teetered off my bike into some sludge. We had to do a number of detours because the trail described on the internet was likely posted when AltaVista was the ‘go-to” search engine. And yes, there were train tracks. As I was struggling to get my bike over a spaghetti supper of tracks, Laur looked up and said, “Hmmm. There’s a train coming. “WHAT!?” “Don’t worry, it’s coming slowly.” GAH! All of a sudden, I couldn’t move – not my bike and not me. Laur came back and got my bike. Priorities. 😊
Back at 11:15 – in one piece and without picking up ticks, as far as we could tell – a real concern when you are in the “bush” of St. Catharines. As well as showering myself, I had to shower my running shoes and Fitty. But, I got my 10,000 steps in!
The QEW highway was really slow going in the opposite direction and Laur warned me, “We may need to go home by a different route.” I didn’t respond. I’m pretty much like a cat in a carrying cage when we’re driving in the car on the highway – howling and convulsing. But we got there right on time – 1 pm - and had a very enjoyable time with our sibs.
At around 3:30 pm we parted ways, but not until Laur had asked his brother Robin about an alternate route back to St. Catharines. Robin gave Laur a lot of road numbers which – being a numbers-phobe and a senior – Laur promptly forgot. What he did remember was that Robin said, “If you end up at the Reserve, you’ve gone too far.” The only Reserve I know of is the one near Belleville where my Mom has her mechanic, and goes to get her gas. Yes, we’d have gone too far if we made it to Tyendinega.
We did end up driving through one of the Six Nations Reserves and Laur was delighted to share what he knew about the history of these Indigenous peoples. Specifically, about non-natives having houses on native land. And well he should know. One of the manses his family lived it, when he was a kid, was one of those houses on the Tyendinega reserve!
At one point I said, “Are we backtracking?!” But that didn’t mean much because I have no sense of direction. At one point Laur said, “Huh!” What that means is “I have no idea where I am and sure wish I had a map.” It would be pointing out the obvious to say, “But you’ve got Google maps on your cell-phone! In fact, you could have checked the QEW before leaving to see if the traffic jam had resolved.” But we can barely use it as a phone and a camera, let alone the other thousand things it can do for us.
Laur doesn’t mind being something-close-to-being-lost when it’s a country drive. He finds every old home, barn, field and wind turbine absolutely fascinating. I’d normally have my head in a book but the book I brought with me was impenetrable. Partly because of the topic – an historical fiction about the American civil war – and partly because with all the twisty and hilly roads, I was getting a little car sick.
Finally, we came to a sign that said “Pelham.” I begged, “Does that mean we’re going to be home anytime soon?” We’d already been on the off-roads for two hours; Brantford is only one hour by the QEW and the 403. “Half an hour, Jannie. Half an hour. Now here is something interesting about Pelham…”
Before we left the restaurant, Laur had had two glasses of water and many cups of tea. All of a sudden, the need for a fast, direct route home set in and he was able to find the 406. As we drove on to the bridge over the QEW I noted how few cars there were and how quickly they were going. (Ahem!) Hey, I could have been nastier. I could have started talking about the Grand River (which we followed along at one point) or the Niagara Falls (which surprisingly we didn’t detour past.)
We got home in two and a half hours later – only an hour and a half more than the trip there. It was around six and we normally eat at five. (Yes, we are retired seniors.) I was very hungry and super tired, so supper was a massive stir-fry of all the leftovers in the fridge. Yes, you can stir fry lettuce.
I flopped down on the couch after supper to check my email. Fitty had sent me a request! It wrote something like “Jan, I see you are consistently meeting your target of 10,000 steps per day. Perhaps it’s time to increase it to 15,000? Also, I see that you do most of your exercise in the morning. Wouldn’t you like to be more active in the afternoon?”
Well, I guess I could have biked home from Brantford along the 403 and QEW, and probably would have got there before Laurence…
When I brought my hubs his coffee on Wednesday morning at around 6 am, having earlier brought him his orange juice and variety of good things like cranberry extract, acidophilus, vitamin D, B-12, baby aspirin, and iron, he looked at me with a Cheshire cat grin and said, “I’ve got a possible bike ride for us today.”
Because we’ve been married 40 years, I can read his body language and hear what he’s really saying. For Laurence to be propped up in bed at 6 am – he usually sleeps until his coffee is cold – with his laptop on his lap – that means he is keyed up. When he says “possible ride,” I know that means an “exploratory” bike ride which means trails that go no where, mud, finding a housing development where an important historical site used to be, and lots of train tracks to haul our bikes over.
I said, “Great. Let’s do it!” Although Laur was awake at 6, I knew we wouldn’t be leaving until 9 am. Plenty of time for me to get my morning jog-walk in and do my usual things – eat my bran buds, read my morning devotional on gmail, check out the obituaries, and see if my kids had posted anything on facebook. (Yes, this is what retired seniors do.) And I truly wanted to go for three reasons. 1. I like riding my trust old Raleigh Portage. 2. Doing BodyPump and swimming at GoodLife is a lot of work. 3. My fitbit (Fitty) doesn’t reward me for going to GoodLife, but it does for cycling because I tie it to my shoe and spin my legs, even when going downhill!
Off we went biking at 9 am – with a warning to Laur. “We have to be back by 11:15 – we need time to shave and shower and get a Tim’s before heading out.” We were meeting up with Laur’s brother Robin and our sis-in-law Colleen in Brantford for lunch at 1 pm.
And the ride was pretty much what I had anticipated. Our trail disappeared a number of times and we had to backtrack. I teetered off my bike into some sludge. We had to do a number of detours because the trail described on the internet was likely posted when AltaVista was the ‘go-to” search engine. And yes, there were train tracks. As I was struggling to get my bike over a spaghetti supper of tracks, Laur looked up and said, “Hmmm. There’s a train coming. “WHAT!?” “Don’t worry, it’s coming slowly.” GAH! All of a sudden, I couldn’t move – not my bike and not me. Laur came back and got my bike. Priorities. 😊
Back at 11:15 – in one piece and without picking up ticks, as far as we could tell – a real concern when you are in the “bush” of St. Catharines. As well as showering myself, I had to shower my running shoes and Fitty. But, I got my 10,000 steps in!
The QEW highway was really slow going in the opposite direction and Laur warned me, “We may need to go home by a different route.” I didn’t respond. I’m pretty much like a cat in a carrying cage when we’re driving in the car on the highway – howling and convulsing. But we got there right on time – 1 pm - and had a very enjoyable time with our sibs.
At around 3:30 pm we parted ways, but not until Laur had asked his brother Robin about an alternate route back to St. Catharines. Robin gave Laur a lot of road numbers which – being a numbers-phobe and a senior – Laur promptly forgot. What he did remember was that Robin said, “If you end up at the Reserve, you’ve gone too far.” The only Reserve I know of is the one near Belleville where my Mom has her mechanic, and goes to get her gas. Yes, we’d have gone too far if we made it to Tyendinega.
We did end up driving through one of the Six Nations Reserves and Laur was delighted to share what he knew about the history of these Indigenous peoples. Specifically, about non-natives having houses on native land. And well he should know. One of the manses his family lived it, when he was a kid, was one of those houses on the Tyendinega reserve!
At one point I said, “Are we backtracking?!” But that didn’t mean much because I have no sense of direction. At one point Laur said, “Huh!” What that means is “I have no idea where I am and sure wish I had a map.” It would be pointing out the obvious to say, “But you’ve got Google maps on your cell-phone! In fact, you could have checked the QEW before leaving to see if the traffic jam had resolved.” But we can barely use it as a phone and a camera, let alone the other thousand things it can do for us.
Laur doesn’t mind being something-close-to-being-lost when it’s a country drive. He finds every old home, barn, field and wind turbine absolutely fascinating. I’d normally have my head in a book but the book I brought with me was impenetrable. Partly because of the topic – an historical fiction about the American civil war – and partly because with all the twisty and hilly roads, I was getting a little car sick.
Finally, we came to a sign that said “Pelham.” I begged, “Does that mean we’re going to be home anytime soon?” We’d already been on the off-roads for two hours; Brantford is only one hour by the QEW and the 403. “Half an hour, Jannie. Half an hour. Now here is something interesting about Pelham…”
Before we left the restaurant, Laur had had two glasses of water and many cups of tea. All of a sudden, the need for a fast, direct route home set in and he was able to find the 406. As we drove on to the bridge over the QEW I noted how few cars there were and how quickly they were going. (Ahem!) Hey, I could have been nastier. I could have started talking about the Grand River (which we followed along at one point) or the Niagara Falls (which surprisingly we didn’t detour past.)
We got home in two and a half hours later – only an hour and a half more than the trip there. It was around six and we normally eat at five. (Yes, we are retired seniors.) I was very hungry and super tired, so supper was a massive stir-fry of all the leftovers in the fridge. Yes, you can stir fry lettuce.
I flopped down on the couch after supper to check my email. Fitty had sent me a request! It wrote something like “Jan, I see you are consistently meeting your target of 10,000 steps per day. Perhaps it’s time to increase it to 15,000? Also, I see that you do most of your exercise in the morning. Wouldn’t you like to be more active in the afternoon?”
Well, I guess I could have biked home from Brantford along the 403 and QEW, and probably would have got there before Laurence…