sure, every few years we went on a big family trip to places like florida, california, british columbia, alberta and in my late teen years parts of europe when my dad was working in czechoslovakia. whenever we went on a trip my mom would buy my brother and i a journal to keep; to write about our trip. we collected post cards and brochure from the places we went to and every night wrote about where and what we had done that day. i am so thankful for that because still to this day i have those journals and those memories.
but more important than these big trips were the small ones - every year we went somewhere or explored some new places in ontario - even if it was a day trip. it was exciting to hop in the car and head off somewhere we haven't been before or even to a place we went regularly like the forks of the credit, bellfountain and flapjacks for dinner - i doubt many people know where that even is. look at that picture - did you even know that existed in ontario? or we would go apple picking on that little orchard on leslie south of stouffville side road. to go to the nation's capital, or the big nickel, or leemington (home of heintz ketchup), or the twelve o'clock lodge, going for a drive to picton and trying to find a friend's farm house and even the road trip with my aunt and cousins to find mines of gold and silver in the land of the silver birch, home of the beaver...
oddly enough, and i think i can talk for my brother too - one of our favorite things was going for a saturday night into downtown toronto. even into my teens (when parents aren't supposed to be cool or you didn't want to hang out with them) we went as a family into toronto - and my brother and i would ask to go. the night started with a drive into the city, dinner at licks that was on the second floor of a building where you looked down the exciting lights of downtown toronto - the sam the record man spinning records (maybe that is why i worked at sams for almost 10 years off and on), a&a records, honest eds. then we were on to the world's biggest bookstore which is literally that - two storeys of books that used to be a bowling alley. we were allowed to pick out one or two new books that my parents would buy for us. then on the way home we would beg to listen to the golden oldies on ckfm with don daynard while we drove up yonge street gazing out the car window and the busy streets, flashing lights and as we got closer and closer to thornhill the darkness of the once upon a time outskirts of the city. rockin robin, runaround sue, crimson and clover, smoke gets in your eyes, jailhouse rock, hey jude - songs of yet an even more simpler time before computers, ipods, cdplayers, microwaves, cell phones .......
fast forward to life today. we still do this as adults both my brother and i. my brother and his family just moved to victoria last week - he has been stationed at cfb esquimalt. when we were saying goodbye in his driveway in north bay he remembered something that he had to give me before he left. he passed along his backroads of ontario books to me. he tells me that he included some notes in the books on places they have been to. i see that our childhood has rubbed off on us both. we have rubbed off on our spouses as well because they too like to just hop in a car for a road trip. or they just put up with our quirkiness :)so i look back on the things in life that i love to do and that mean the most to me and it includes that aspect of adventure, exploration and being in the outdoors. both my brother and i love it - and to write and read (gee i wonder where all that came from) i used go on driving adventures with my best friends growing up once we had our driver's licenses. our parents would probably have killed us to know the places we went in their vehicles instead of going to the movies or out with friends for dinner. we found a weird neighbourhood with a house adorned with an upside down star of david, and huge mansions in the middle of no where north of where we lived. we even skipped school one day so we could go on a day trip in grade 12 (so mom and dad if you are reading this, it is all your fault for teaching and instilling in me that sense of adventure and exploration)
to jump in the car and go somewhere i have never been fulfills me, even if i don't find anything. it is so easy to do too - you don't have to go far. just drive down a road you have never been down before. i have done that - for years i have passed mossy stonecrop road on highway 11 north of washago. so coming home from my ob appointment one day - 8 months pregnant at that - i turned down it; granted it was pretty lackluster, not one mossy stonecrop did i see, nor did it go much further than a kilometre but i have now been down that road and next time maybe i will try a different one.
so i challenge you to hop in the car and drive aimlessly down roads you have never been. take a different way home. pack a lunch and the kids or your spouse or a friend and pick a town on the ontario map that jumps off the page at you and go for it. stop at a waterfall or rock cut you pass every day. and if on the way the kids say are we there yet? say yes and get out to take a look around - after all you don't have a destination on an adventure ....
- simply me -
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