Though there is certainly some truth to what I have said - that our zeal for commotion has become an irrepressible ambition - our enthusiasm is partly strategic; namely, to shorten the first day's jaunt to Pennsylvania. Apart from that abbreviation, if we were to behave strictly in accordance with rationality and tempered emotion then of course there'd be no urgency whatever. This current paroxysm is perhaps amusing in that we suffered the same spasm several days before our return to Canada last April. All of which merely proves that a) we are inveterate vagabonds; and, b) we adore both our summer and winter resorts. And let's face it, at our age, what are we saving it for! It's not as though we're too busy! Time is racing...
When we landed upon this hiccup in our agenda the alteration was immediate and precipitous. Remarkably the first place we tried to book in Gananoque was sold out (we're guessing there is a wedding or convention in the works) but we were able to secure what sounds to be a comfortable suite at the historic Gananoque Inn.
We're familiar with the place, having lunched there once. It is close to many of the Town's main tourist attractions, in particular the boat tour launches and waterfront shops and restaurants. If there is any reliability to weather forecasts we should enjoy a sunny, cool autumn day tomorrow. Not a bad way to begin our journey. In the end we shave about two hours from the anticipated travel.
This modest transmogrification instantly accelerated other issues, including stuffing more contents into the sedan, unplugging certain of the household appliances, contemplating the disposition of remaining foodstuffs, pushing some bags, packages and cases closer to the front door of the apartment, and re-thinking one's apparel and related last-minute laundry necessity. All too absorbing for words! The exercise illustrates the expediency of having alerted ourselves weeks earlier to the detail of all that we must remember to bring - things like an extra pair of glasses, sleep mask, knives, scanner and various technological items secreted within the bookcase and elsewhere (mobile speakers, video camera, sport watch and the like). When one's trajectory is modified it is easy to become derailed and to suffer the admittedly trifling but nonetheless annoying consequences of oversight!
Eliminating the needless anxiety of waiting is never an unwelcome corrolary in my books! I am shamefully impatient even though I often abuse the condition by asking myself, What's the rush? In defence it must be conceded that at this late hour we are all but gone in any event. The dénouement of the summer sojourn is upon us! Though I don't deceive myself to imagine that traveling to Florida on the well-worn and dare I say hackneyed routes is anything approaching going to camp for the first time, I nonetheless inspire myself to believe the vista of the Shenandoah Valley for example will be remarkable, that the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tennessee will be breathtaking, that the site of the Atlantic Ocean on A1A will reawaken happy thoughts. And even if all that were for some impossible reason to fail to incentivize then surely there must be discoverable in life's desultory passage another source of artistry. I accept the proposition that we travel but the suburbs of our own mind but I am not as a result about to capitulate entirely to a cloistered existence.
HORATIO
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine, and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1
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