The adventure really begins

May 3, 2011 The Real Adventure begins
It really starts on election day, May 2 2011. We are packing for 10 weeks in Cape Breton. We have been preparing for this since last Fall. We had decided to buy 100,000 sq ft from brother-in-law Michael Schinzig last October to build a summer chalet in Cape Breton on Bras d’Or Lake near St Peter’s. Why something so crazy at our ages? Maybe that’s why we want to do something so crazy, because we are our ages. I really do want to see whether or not I can physically do the labour involved in building a house. I want to know a house from footings to gable peak. And Deborah wants to come back to Cape Breton to be near family. And it’s beautiful. And we have the time. And we still can. And it’s fun.
So, we load up the ancient Carfagnini trailer graciously given to us by papa Mario with several hundred pounds of IKEA kitchen cabinets, a 12 seater table from Raman Nayar, tools, mixed household items and, why do I think this came to me in a dream, a heavy-duty hydraulic jack.
We pull out of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue at 5 am to avoid rush-hour traffic and start swaying along with our load of Swedish ideas into the dark dawn, learning how it rides as we go along. It’s heavy. I am anxious that either our 240,000km Subaru or our 1970s trailer will let us down. As bad as worrying about our ancient bodies letting us down. Impossible, right? I am right to be worried but my head is a giddy as a teenager. Oh, teenage life! How I love you now with some money in my pocket.
It feels like I am nineteen again doing something a bit crazy in an old car.
We cruise along, getting up to a steady 100 kph in bright weather all the way into New Brunswick. No hitches. Eating our beef sandwiches and chewing our celery and carrots, two earnest seniors on their way to their destiny. To break the journey we are booked in for a night in a luxury B and B, a meal in a first-class restaurant and an easy drive to finish off the trip tomorrow. You see what a difference money makes to being an ado? You can’t expect this to be a tale of unmitigated demented suffering, King Lear and Mrs Lear driving off a cliff into a storm.
Our stopover is at the Carriage House B and B, surrounded by New Brunswick’s imperial architecture. Magnificent houses, all different, all spread out on large rectangles. If I liked the British army I would feel quite nostalgic here.
20 kms from Fredericton I see rubber in my rearview mirror being fired all across the highway. Like a gun going off. I stop to inspect. Our number plate has been blown off and one back light has exploded. Worse, one tyre has been shredded spitting rubber and metal stripping all over the highway. I valiantly send Deborah back to look for our license plate but realize that it probably now looks like our tyre: shredded. Smugly I take off the spare and take out my heavy-duty hydraulic jack to show Deborah how smart I am. I checked all the tyres and inflated to maxima two days ago. But the spare is flat and the weight of a rack of IKEA kitchen cabinets is cruel to a flat tyre. What is to be done?
Debroah volunteers to stay on the highway guarding the IKEA kitchen and I take off into town, amazed at how well the car drives without its IKEA burden. Where to go in Fredericton? A tyre discount place! Please, dear, what can I do about this? It’s an emergency : my wife is out on the highway defending our kitchen. To note that people take their time here and nothings done without at least a little chat. One new tyre later I get back on the highway.
Meanwhile Deborah is being solicited by young and old who aren’t sure if they’re more interested in her majesty or in her trailer. The new tyre doesn’t quite clear the ground. The trailer tilts. We are both hanging on to prevent it crashing onto the tarmac. Miraculously the tyre slips over the four bolts and I able to reallocate my jack to get the weight up over the hitch.
Finally, a 19th century room, a 21st century restaurant (The Blue Room), a pint of Picaroon Pale Ale, a bottle of 2009 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and the day finishes in hot water and moral triumph.