On the Road Again, Again

My husband and I were away this past week, this time even further from home and for a little longer than we were gone our last trip. Three nights, lots of excitement, lots of doing the right amount of nothing. Wandering, exploring, being spontaneous.

It was glorious.

We booked a hotel and a car a few days after returning from St. Jacobs last month and didn’t do much planning until a week before we left. Neither of us like an overly detailed itinerary, preferring the freedom and flexibility to equip ourselves with a general idea of what we’d ideally hit and otherwise see where each day takes us. This has traditionally been how I travel (which is kind of funny given how rigid and scheduled I keep my everyday life), and after years in which complicated medical issues required me to carefully manage all the variables, finally defaulting back to a more leisurely approach is like discovering the joy of laidback wonder all over again.

Last Wednesday morning, we loaded ourselves and our accoutrements into our rental (a sporty Dodge Charger) and headed north, meandering our way to Huntsville. It was a disgustingly hot day in the middle of a heat wave of the in-the-armpit-of-the-devil variety, and we stopped twice—once for lunch, once to tour a picturesque town whose name totally escapes me. By the time we checked in at our hotel, it was late afternoon and still sauna-like outside.

We’d reserved an accessible room in an establishment that’s part of a major international chain. Our relatively limited experience traveling with my chair has taught us that trading charm for guaranteed grab bars is the way to go. And I mean, who can beat a free continental breakfast complete with the obligatory waffle station? Our hotel in May was over-the-top wheelchair friendly, which set our expectations admittedly high. It was kind of disappointing, then, that there was a key accessibility feature missing in our room at this one. I tried to resolve the issue with the front desk. No luck. Pretty frustrating, but I decided not to die on that hill. I’m also deciding not to dwell on it here because I have limited time and lots of good stuff to report, such as the fact that there was a Dairy Queen a mere two-minute walk away. Three nights staying next to a DQ = three of my favourite DQ treat, the magnificent ice-cream sandwich. By our departure date, we were well on our way to becoming regulars.

Inaccessible “accessible” room aside, the trip was, indeed, a real success. The highlight was just as I’d anticipated it would be: Algonquin Park. Although I could’ve convinced myself that I was satisfied with just driving through, looking for moose and taking it all in, I didn’t need to activate my silver-lining-seeking superpower since the park houses an accessible art gallery, two accessible museums, and, best of all, three accessible trails. To top that off, while I was buying crests (once a Girl Guide, always a Girl Guide) at the gift store in the Algonquin Logging Museum, the volunteer at the front desk asked if I wanted to borrow an all-terrain wheelchair. That’d be a resounding “YES PLEASE,” good sir. It took some getting used to, and we had to contend with swarms of insects determined to eat us alive, but my husband and I completed the trail behind the museum using the big-wheeled beauty.

I’m now at the point of fatigue/lack of focus I inevitably reach when writing a blog post about an experience that was full and busy and warrants lots of space and attention, so I’ll quickly summarize the rest of the trip before escaping my apartment to go grab some overpriced fro yo (not as satisfying as DQ, but it’ll have to do). Lakes, museums, beaches. Little towns. A scenic drive, two breweries. Random conversations with friendly strangers. Schitt’s Creek tourism and a stop at an epic fabric store while en route back to Toronto.

And, of course, arriving home both happy to sink into a routine that’s become satisfying in its own right and looking forward to our next adventures, a few of them already booked, a few others in the preliminary planning stages.