Larry drove me up to his home town Cobleskill NY from Shreveport in Louisiana. His sister Ginny was there and we camped our way northwards in a grey VW bug with a big U-Haul box on the roofrack.
Then Sherry Porter, twins Dottie and Dale Moffett and Aussie Jonathan Kneebone arrived In Cobleskill and I hopped into Sherry’s red VW bug (also with a big roofrack).
We roared off to Montreal, Ottawa (where we spotted Indira Ghandi on a state visit).
On to Kitchener/Waterloo, Sault St Marie and the Lake of the Woods, Quetico National Park.
We hired canoes and camping kit and paddled off for a planned two nights on the lake. We rushed back the next day with our tails between our legs after being attacked by clouds of no-see-ems on the water by day and a zillion mozzies in our tent by night! Beautiful, though.
We spent one night in a converted railroad station. The track had been ripped up and the route was now a hiking/biking trail.
One night we stayed with friends. It was Friday and we were off to the pub. “I’ll Drive!” I shouted excitedly and foolishly (we were expressly banned from driving as exchange students). Reverse – BANG – oops! Thank goodness for huge metal fenders on Ford F250 pickup trucks! Damn! Embarrassing! Poor Sherry’s dubdub! Whatanidiot! Not like I could pay to fix it! Sherry was an absolute star about it – she was a star about everything. She was a genuine superstar was Sherry Porter Steele.
Once we stayed in an old railway station where the track had been pulled up and turned into a walking and bike trail. Sometimes we simply pulled over and made ourselves comfortable in a quiet clearing off-road.
Me, Dottie, Dale & Kneebone acting Aussie.
On to Manitoba, then south back to the USA into Minnesota – drove over the small Mississippi near its source, and on to Dubuque, Iowa.
Over the years I would occasionally think ‘Must look up Dottie one day.’ Eventually I found – in the newspaper of her hometown Ardmore, Oklahoma – her obituary! Died suddenly at age fifty. Damn!
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Indira Ghandi’s visit to Canada was surely more dignified than Mahatma Ghandi’s to England in 1931. Listen to this little pompous Pom acting arrogant and condescending:
See here:
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