I never seem to have much luck when it comes to changing my location. I have a vision of the final destination and a action plan to make it happen but like all great strategies it never seems to survive contact with the enemy. I have never made the same mistake more then once but this just leaves me in awe of the sheer number of ways a trip can go wrong. I’d just admit defeat and stop going anywhere but based on my luck the ceiling to my apartment would pick that day to fall down.
The first big trip I ever really took on my own was to visit a friend who had flown into Toronto from Calgary and was staying downtown. My Dad was going to his office at 401 and Steeles so he was just going to drop me off on the Sheppard subway line and I would ride to Union Station. This would seem like a fool-proof plan which makes it all the more outlandish that in so many ways it was a disaster. I now know, for instance, that the Toronto subway doesn’t run on Sundays until 9 AM. This would have been helpful information as I was dropped off about 2 hours prior to opening. By the time I got back to the parking lot my father was gone. “This is fine, I’m on Younge Street. I’ll just take the bus.” I foolishly thought to myself. Apparently this particular Sunday was to play host to a large charity run whose route consisted mainly of Younge Street. The bus had to take an alternate route and when the driver tried to re-join Younge the friendly Metro Toronto Police officer thought that since runners were streaming past perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. I’m not sure if you have ever seen a bus make a three point on crowded and narrow Toronto streets but then again neither have I. To this day I remain convinced the bus was longer then the street was wide but somehow the driver managed to make a 97 point turn and find an alternate route. By this time the subway was open so I got off at the next station and continued the journey underground. As I came out of Union Station who did I see but the pack of runners who had driven me from Younge St in the first place. Apparently I could have run downtown faster. There was still the problem of heading west on Front rather then east but I did arrive at my destination alive.
Several years later I was ready to try journeying again. I decided to stick close to home and head one town over to see my cousin race in Guelph. My mother had to told me the race was being held at the Guelph jail but what she failed to mention was the fact it was at the old Guelph jail, not the current one. This meant the address I had looked up on the Guelph city website was pretty useless (though I did get a good look at the Guelph superior court house so if I ever have to face trial I know where I’m going). Due to lack of familiarity with the Kitchener bus terminal location and procedures I missed my intended bus so even if I had known the correct location I was too late to see the race anyway. After quite a while of wandering around Guelph I consigned myself to the fact I had no idea where I was going, called my sister and had her get my uncle to pick me up. On a cheerier note my cousin Kaitlyn has gone on to have a successful NCAA track career so my lack of support at the old Guelph jail doesn’t seem to have done lasting damage.
What follows is a cautionary tale about self-esteem and how vitally important it is. I drove to a friend’s birthday party in Hamilton where I really only knew a handful of people besides the honouree. The theme was 1920s so everyone was wearing silly clothes and had a good time but as parties tend to do it went quite late. For the only other person at the party besides the birthday girl I would call a friend the last Go Train had already left so he was stranded. I offered to give him a ride despite the fact he lived in Etobicoke which is the exact wrong direction. By the time we got to his house I needed gas but I decided to simply get some before getting back on the QEW and heading for home. I dropped him off and started looking for a gas station. He lived quite a ways north on Islington Ave where I had never been before and I got myself hopelessly lost. He lived much further up Islington then I had remembered from only a few minutes earlier and several times was within a few moments of highway only to convince myself I must be going the wrong way and turn around. I left Hamilton around 2 AM, arrived in Toronto about 2:45, didn’t leave the city until nearly 4. I arrived home about 5 AM after a harrowing trip across the skyway which taught me the important of pulling over for a nap after being awake for nearly 24 hours. After a well deserved rest I consulted a map to discover if I had just trusted myself I would have been home the first try rather then the 9th.
My final harrowing journey happened only a few weeks ago while I was spending the weekend in Tobermory with some friends. Everyone wanted to go to the beach and while I wanted to do that as well I wasn’t about to head up the Bruce Peninsula without either some hiking or canoing. As a compromise I suggested we paddle to the beach which seemed to suit several people fine. The others would drive the van and meet us there. We consulted the satellite map hanging from the cottage wall and determined we needed to paddle west out of Waner Bay into Lake Huron, south past the mouth of next bay, finally turning east and heading to the end of Dorcas Bay where the beach was located. I estimated it to be about 4 km which really isn’t that far in a canoe (or in my case a kayak. Two of us had kayaks and two were in a canoe). As is the way with things real life never quite reflects the map and we ended up paddling across the mouth of Dorcas Bay and only after we stopped to take to a wonderfully leathery woman on the point did we discover we had come much too far. Dorcas Bay is much longer on the south side (about twice as long in fact) and because we had come too far we had to paddle into bay against the wind rather then slightly with it. These mistakes made the total distance more like 8 km and of course we still had to get back to the cottage. We had intended to lash the canoe to the roof of the van and simply drive back but a lack of things to tie to on the canoe made that impossible. Finally I decided to paddle back solo which if this hadn’t been one of the worst canoes ever made wouldn’t have been so bad. i did make it back okay but as I was on my way out of Dorcas Bay something very odd happened. I paddled past two boats that were lashed together and the crews enjoying a couple of beers and each other’s company. This in itself wasn’t odd but as I came by they asked “Are you a narc?”. I responded “If I was a narc don’t you think they’d have given me an engine?” which the floating happy hour found amusing. I didn’t think much of it until one of the boats past me later and the driver was wearing a shirt that said DEA. I was now thoroughly confused. Had I stumbled on a corporate retreat and they were wondering if I was part of the group? Was it a joke shirt like those FBI shirts you see at the mall? Were they drug dealers in the best disguise ever? Or was it some kind of bizarre reverse sting looking to out people posing as US law enforcement? As these thoughts were running through my head I was painfully aware the DEA had no jurisdiction as I had just run aground on Canadian soil and had to get out in the cold water and push. Their little party had been within actual spitting distance of Canada and had they tried to arrest me they would have found a lifejacket, a spare paddle and a sunburn. Nothing all that nefarious.
If all of this insanity can happen to me within a few hundred kilometres of home just imagine what will happen when I am unleashed on the world.