The spa

(I've got to wrap up this canoe trip story, my boss is going to get on my case as this blog falls behind the latest blog-crazes for Wii and pantsless chainsmoking.)

Then, we drove to the spa. You are not supposed to take pictures of the inside of the spa, but I sneaked this one (above). I love the spa so much. I love to sit in the hot tubs. When I do this, I become very, very happy and am filled with love for humanity. Which is kind of ironic, given the spa's viking theme.

Tomog turns 1.2 Million

Happy Birthday Tom! It seems like just yesterday that you developed lungs and slithered from the primordial ooze onto dry land, flapping your now-useless fins as you went, but here we are and you are over 1 million years old! Way to go.

My French Specialty

We had to take a "foreign language" in high school. This meant like 2 years of language course but, because the language-learning in U.S. schools for the most part like, just rolls off you like water off a duck's back, the language you are studying remains "foreign" forever. Maybe it's because you never speak the language outside of class. I chose French despite my Dad's insistence that Spanish was a better choice. Like all of Dad's suggestions, I rejected this out of hand at the time, but about 10 years later realized that he had a good point--my chances of ever using Spanish were much greater than my chances of ever using French. Spanish is often a requirement in job ads--in the NYC area, French never seems to be.

Also in college, 4 semesters of French. Upon arrival at college, despite the 2 years of French in high school, which I passed, I placed via entrance exam into the absolute beginner French class and learned again to say, "je m'apelle YSA."

After this stunning success at language learning, upon finishing my French requirement in college I set out to also learn German, a glorious adventure that dear reader may remember from former happy and foreign times.

Once I got out of that college requirement, I never expected to use French, or to have to say "je m'apelle YSA" ever again. Then I began to vacation in Quebec.

(This is all by way of explaining what the guide at Le Domaine said when we turned in the canoe.)

At first, the whole Quebec--Canada--bilingualism thing seemed, well, funny--like big high school French class, where I could memorize one silly sentence and crack up CC. Like when I told her that I was learning one sentence in all the world's languages (instead of learning all of one or two of the world's languages, this would be more efficient and international.) It is "Here comes a horse."

(My Mom has the same strategy for language learning. Her sentence is "That beautiful woman passing by is my cousin Jean.")

Then one day we saw a horse coming our way in Mt. Royal Park! I noted with grave dignity, "Un cheval es enroute."

But recently, the whole Quebec--Canada--Everyone-here-is-speaking-French-and-I-don'- know-what-they're-saying,-except-that-it's-about-the sun--thing doesn't make me laugh about horses and cabbages (Les Choux), it makes me want to take remedial French, like, tomorrow.

From the whole German experience, I developed the ability to control my facial expressions so that it seems like I very much understand conversations I'm supposedly having in German, even when I have no clue what the person is saying. (Because what's worse than having bad German is when people find out how bad your German is.) Now I use this when French comes on the scene.

But I know enough French to often understand what CC is saying, though it usually takes me about 10 seconds to dredge up the verbs covered in dust from the depths of my brain.

The result is frequently that me, CC and someone else are all having a conversation in French. (Well, CC and the person are talking in French, and I am standing there seeming that I understand everything they are saying and in fact, am not panicking.) CC says something to the person. I get the basic topic of what she says. Then, I get an idea for something to say myself, feel happy that maybe I am understanding the French after all, and say to the person in English the exact thing that CC has just said in French, realizing (because of the brain delay) as it comes out of my mouth and the person looks on politely, that CC has just made this exact point in French.

I have come to think of this as my French specialty.

Anyway, so we turned in the canoe and the guide asked how the trip was, and CC told her all about the beaver river, the rocks, dragging the canoe because there wasn't enough water, etc. Then I told her the exact same thing in English.

She just smiled and nodded. (Picture to meet a long-ago request by Tom--see, they really call it Poulet Frit Kentucky. French cheers to Fontaine comme Fontaine!)

Coop of Terror coming soon to a theater near you

Before we move on to the exciting conclusion of "My Vacation: The Dissertation-Length Blog Project" here is an excerpt from a soon-to-be released horror movie Coop of Terror that will probably resonate with many readers of this blog. Be warned: it is very scary.

Canoe trip devolves into long hike on logging road

Back to more posting about my vacation.

The canoe route we'd chosen was a circle. As the helpful guide pointed out to us, there was a way to skip about half of the loop by canoing down a lake and then walking on a logging road back to where we'd left the car. After some tense moments apparently lost in the creek below the Lake of Stimulus, which CC overcame with her compass skills, we turned toward the spa.

We left the canoe beached at a campsite on the lake and walked for 3 hours on this road. During that time, we saw one car (sadly heading the other way).

The road (pictured) was pretty intense. The scenery was homogeneous. If you spun around in place and then stopped, you might not remember which direction you'd come from.

The one sign of humans (besides the road itself) we found was a discarded porno mag in the weeds. Hmm.

Upon reaching the car, I was attacked by 15 mosquitos, which all bit my legs at once. This was the most intense mosquito biting that I had ever experienced, but CC seemed alarmingly unconcerned about the bloodsucking cloud surrounding my legs, a clue that Canada is a hard-core place where a lot of mosquitos live. (She often drops hints, in a similar way, about how cold it is in Canada. Like how she can't understand that we in NJ haven't had a frost yet but can already buy apples from the orchard near our house. In Quebec, the apple harvest goes up for sale after the first frost. That's because, dear reader, the first frost is in June.)

Then we drove for 30 min, picked up the canoe, headed back with the canoe on the car on the logging road and after driving for about an hour and a half, reached Le Domaine and camped for the night, in the rain, outside of the canoe rental office.

Oh, and during the night a tent pole snapped. We though, naturally, it was an ax murderer/bear attacking. But it was only the tent breaking.

Shana Tova everyone!

Bring on the bears

Small break from long story: Here is some advice circa 1992 for all you dissertation writers out there, from my 9th grade English teacher.

Ms. Best (Advising 9th grade English class about how to and how not to write an essay):

"Bring on the bears. If you're going to bring on the bears, bring on the bears. Don't bring on all the little dancing trolls first."

Canoeing to the spa, part II

So we were on the water by about 4 pm the first day, setting us well behind schedule. The alarm went off at 6 am the next morning, so that we could get in a 12-hour day in order to catch up.

Vacation, like I said.

All was going well until we reached a portage and had a big fight over how to carry the canoe up a hill. By mid-afternoon, we had reached the small creek section of the trip. Ahead was about 3 km of rapids, beaver dams and marsh.

The lady at Le Domaine had warned us about this section since the water was low and the rapids might be impassable (if there's no water, rapids are just rocks that you can't canoe over). But she didn't warn us enough. (Or maybe she did--the warning was in French. What's French for "five million beaver dams"?)

It took 5 hours for us to travel about 3 km up the creek. We had to literally carry the canoe over the rocks. This often meant taking all the gear out of the canoe first and leaving it perched on rocks in the midst of the stream. It could have also easily entailed smashing a huge hole in the bottom of the canoe, but somehow we managed to get it out of there in one piece.

Some of these rapids had portages (walking trails) around them, but perhaps due to big emotional blow-up on the day's first portage, we almost always forewent these in favor of our dragging-canoe-on-rocks technique.

As it grew dark, we realized we'd have to camp on the creek somewhere and abandon our plan to make it out of the creek and into the next big lake that day. There was only one campsite for mile around--that at the Lake of Stimulus (Lac du Stimulus) which could have also been named 'Mosquito-Infested Marsh of Stimulus'. When we finally reached it, it began to rain. While unloading the canoe, we sighted the World's Largest Leech (red-spotted) heading for our ankles. On shore, we discovered no picnic table. We couldn't drink the lake water due to nearby beavers, which could give us beaver fever, and had to sit in the dirt. Our food got all muddy. Then: We had to eat muddy smores. There was no stimulus, or at least, no good stimulus.

The next day I woke up, left the tent and saw a moose run off into the Lake of Stimulus. That was pretty cool.

But aside from the moose, despair set in. We would have to do a 20-hour day to make up the lost time. We had miles and miles of canoing and muddy food eating ahead of us.

But then, CC won my undying love forever by saying, 'Why don't we forget about the rest of the trip and go to the spa?'

These pictures (above, below) were taken after we had decided to bag the rest of the trip in favor of the spa. Note that the rain finally stopped. Happy times ensued.

But, oh reader, how would intrepid canoers get to the spa with only one day of vacation left? We were many miles from anything remotely spa-like. The nearest shower was at Le Domaine, two day's canoe and an hour's car ride away.

How was your vacation?

When people ask me, 'how was your vacation?' it is hard to explain, concisely, that it was a wonderful experience, full of fun times, passionate romance and great stories, but that during much of it, I longed to cry, sleep and/or hide in a bush. Oh, and that I saw a moose.

(Mom (upon hearing the news): You are the first person in our family to see a moose.)

I did cry during part of it, actually. (Not the moose part.)

Anyway, so this may take a few posts. It started like this. Exhausted from teaching all summer and moving, CC and I set out on a 12-hour drive to Quebec to canoe-camp. Though we used words like "vacation" and "relax" when we arrived in the enormous La réserve faunique La Vérendrye we selected a 60 km canoe route that would require us to canoe about 20 km per day (that's 10 miles).

CC: 20 km is what experts do, if they are going for a workout.
Me (on second canoe-camping trip, ever.): OK.

You can put your canoe right in the lake at Le Domaine (which rents canoes and serves all other needs you might have, being just about the only town in the reserves 1,000 plus square km). That's easier than driving for an hour, much of it on an unpaved logging road, to put the canoe in a remote lake. Which is what we did, naturally, since neither of us had ever put a canoe on a car before.

(Next time: portage of despair and lake of stimulus.)