Hittin' the road....finding old friends

When all the goodbyes had been said and wishes for a Happy Honeymoon,

Tom and I left Toronto and set out on the second leg of our adventure.

We had flown to Toronto and then rented a car to drive the 4,500 miles home.

Off into the farmlands of Ontario with it's beautiful stone houses

and barns. Our first stop was in Bancroft on the Madawaska river.

This was the view behind our motel...

We were making our way up to the Haliburton area.

There was some really pretty little towns along the way...

 Pickers heaven!

Now, Tom hasn't been to his old cottage in 35 years, so when we set out to

find it we discovered after a day of looking for Moore Lake,

that there's actually TWO Moore Lakes in the same general vicinity.

But sometimes getting lost can be a good thing.

You see, I had an very good old friend who I shared a house with

for a year in Victoria. I was there for her first child's birth and together we

shared the burdens and joys of single parenthood.

 At one point she moved to Calgary to become a nurse and I moved to Toronto

for a summer. We would connect by email a few times a year and I knew she

had moved to Ontario to run a little cottage resort but I had no clue

where it was, only the name of it.

So there we are driving along this random byway and all of a

sudden I see it...

I tell Tom "STOP! That's Fran's place!"

We get out, I knock on the door and there we are.

Two old friends together through a random act of coincidence.

Fran and her husband Tom bought this place a few years back

and are livin' the dream.

They have a few little cottages, boats, ATVs and snowmobiles for the winter.

We settled in down by the lake in the evening...

 Catching up on each others lives by the Rumshack...

This is where Fran and (her husband)Tom and neighbours from the lake come and sit

and discuss the political policies of the world, solve said problems

and pave the way for the next bright ideas...

AKA...Happy Hour!

Here Tom gets some advice from one of the family pooches...

One of the neighbours chiming in as well...

It felt as if no time at all had passed between us as we sat in the comfort

of each others company.

We spoke of each others milestones in life, where we've been

and where we hope to go.

One thing is for sure...some friends, no matter what the distance in miles,

will always be close to your heart.

After a night of fine food, wine, memories and stories old and new,

we woke early to hit the road again.

Armed with the proper directions on how to get to the RIGHT Moore Lake,

we drove off feeling the magic of serendipity.

A definition of the word is as follows:

Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; a "fortunate mistake".

How true.

Till next time dear friend!

When we got to Toms old cottage country, things had changed a bit.

This place used to house the little store where Tom and his family would take the boat to...

There was a little restaurant, video arcade and boat rentals... 

 Unfortunately none of that was there anymore and we couldn't

access the other side of the lake by the boat we had hoped to rent.

Toms dad built the cottage himself and the family has so many

fond memories of these times.

 In Ontario, cottage life is a culture.

Everyone has stories of the summer at the cottage.

It's an institution and families carry on many traditions through

the generations.

Sadly though, when Toms family moved to B.C, the cottage world was left behind.

 But not the memories.

 Those are deeply rooted into your soul.

They are the smells of wet canvas, the feel of the playing cards in your

hands while the summer storm passes through, the smell of the bbq.

Your first time taking the boat out on your own, those little perch and bass

you caught, fireflies in jars, shooting stars over the lake.

The long drive up and the sleepy road home again on Sunday.

Tom brought some of his dads ashes to scatter at the lake.

It was good to leave a bit of him at the place they loved so much.

 

 

"Now the summer days are through
You pass through places
And places pass through you
But you carry them with you
On the soles of your travelling shoes"

 

(The Be Good Tanyas)