On Driving

A sure sign of age is when the most mundane activities wears you out. Like, climbing more than five flights of stairs at a time. Or driving for more than five hours in a row.

When I was a young driver, it was nothing for me to buckle up and drive, non-stop, to Toronto. The first time that I drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake, on my own, I didn't get out of my car until I pulled into the hotel parking lot. Negotiating GTA rush-hour traffic, the drive took nearly seven hours.

I met up with my friends right away and went out for dinner and drinks. I didn't slow down until it was time for bed.

PEI, 2008

When our kids were young, from 2006 to 2008, DW and I would pack the kids into their car seats after dinner. They would be in their pajamas, and we would tuck their blankets around them, give them their pillows, and then we would drive, through the night, to our vacation in Prince Edward Island.

The kids would be asleep halfway between home and Montreal.

I would get a little sleepy, just before dawn, and we would make our first official stop (stopping for fuel didn't count) in Hartland, New Brunswick, where we would pick up a coffee and stretch our legs. The kids would be up, but shortly after we resumed our driving—me still behind the wheel—the girls would drift off to sleep again.

We would make a second stop, for breakfast, in Fredericton. More coffee. More stretching.

The final leg, to our rental cottage, near Cavendish Beach, would be non-stop, save for bathroom breaks. DW and I would unpack the car, and our 13-hour to 15-hour trek would be done.

And I would sleep until dinner.

I can't do that anymore.

This year, for our family vacation, we spent a few days at a cottage on the south shore of Nova Scotia, somewhere between the resort town of Chester and the historic town of Lunenburg. It's typically a 14-and-a-half-hour journey—roughly the same as our PEI drive.

But I'm now 10 years older than I was the last time I drove to The Gentle Island, and non-stop driving is not something I can deal with anymore. We decided to take two days to make the journey.

On our first day, we headed to Québec City, choosing to stay in an economy hotel on the Lévis side of the St. Lawrence. Our plan was to check in before dinner, take the ferry to Old Québec, wander the historic streets, and get back to our hotel at a decent hour, to get a good night's sleep.

The second day of our road trip, after all, was still going to take about 10 hours.

When we arrived at the ferry terminal, it took a long time to find a place to park, but we managed to get a place that was right along the river. Where the nose of our vehicle faced, we had an unobstructed view of the Chateau Frontenac, high atop the escarpment. I left my tripod in the back of our SUV, thinking that I would take some fabulous night shots before we returned to the hotel.

While we were purchasing our ferry tickets, we learned that the ferries would stop their service between 9:00 and 10:30 because there was a fireworks display that evening. We were pleased, but that meant that we would have very little time to spend in the old city before we would have to cross back to Lévis, in order to see the show from the south shore.

Like, an hour and a half before we had to jump back on the ferry.

We found a lovely pizzeria on the corner of Rue St-Paul and Rue Sault-au-Matelot. The service was so-so but the food and atmosphere was great. And our meals were prepared quickly--that's the important bit.

To play it safe, we took the second-last ferry back to Lévis. I was afraid that the last boat would be packed, or worse, would have some sort of difficulty and not run at all. We were back in time to spend some time at the Fontaine du Quai Paquet park, where the fountains danced to multi-coloured lights, and the girls were able to suss out a nice dessert shop.

The fireworks were spectacular. (I'll share more, tomorrow, in Wordless Wednesday.)

Unfortunately, because the fireworks went on until almost 11, and because, being me, I had to process some of my photos, I didn't get to bed until after midnight.

But we were on a schedule, and that meant we were back on the road by 7:30 the next morning.

Fuel stops and bathroom breaks were our only stops until Fredericton, where we had a quick lunch at an Asian restaurant, and then back on the road.

A stop at the Nova Scotia tourist information centre, just before Amherst, for maps and stretching.

A stop at Sobey's, in Upper Tantallon, for groceries, and the final leg, to Western Shore, to our rental cottage, where the four of us unpacked the car and got settled. I fired up the barbeque and cooked our dinner, and we played games until bedtime.

I slept until 11 the next morning and was sluggish until after lunch.

There were days when we spent a few hours in our vehicle, driving from place to place. We had another long day, driving from our Nova Scotia cottage to Moncton, New Brunswick, where we stayed for one night before continuing on to our second cottage rental, in Barachois, east of Shediac. At least it was only a 20-minute drive between these two sites.

Our New Brunswick cottage was supposed to be restful, with little to no driving. But we went on a couple of longish treks, to Hopewell Rocks and to Amherst, Nova Scotia (we really loved that province). Each of those drives left me tired at the end of them (luckily, I had a deck overlooking the Northumberland Strait to recline upon and sip a cool brew).

Our return trip was another long one, with a seven-and-a-half-hour drive back to Québec City, where we stayed overnight, and a drive back home.

I'm so glad we had four days of rest between returning home and returning to work, as I needed it to recover. Long drives are no longer for me.

But isn't it the stops along the way that make a trip worthwhile?