I wake before my alarm goes off to confront two troubling realities: I haven’t packed, and I’m still a little drunk from the night before.

“Scooter on road” – TransCanada Highway, New Brunswick

I wake before my alarm goes off to confront two troubling realities: I haven’t packed, and I’m still a little drunk from the night before. My host parents are already awake, walking back and forth in the kitchen upstairs. Finally, Serge, the husband, yells down that we’re leaving at six. I yell back that I’ll be ready and close my eyes for a moment to reflect. My alarm goes off.

We leave, my scooter strapped into the back of the pickup with two-by-fours and nylon straps. I sit crushed in the cab behind the front seats on a fold-out seat without a belt. Pauline gives me a cushion shaped like a turtle and I collapse in a restless, sleep-like state.

A few hours later we arrive at St-Siméon, a small, windy town on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway where I will take the ferry. Serge and I wrestle the scooter out of the back of the truck and reattach the mirrors. Pauline gives me two submarine sandwiches filled with crouton, a pork paste that looks like pre-chewed bacon. We say our goodbyes and they drive off. When I embark on the ferry and park, one of the attendants points out that my rear tire is flat. Upon closer inspection I notice a large screw nearly completely inserted in the back. For some reason I almost expected this.

The air is thick with salt. I go upstairs and into the observation deck. There is a lot of outdoor seating, a bar, and a restaurant. I order a coffee and baked beans. Everyone else is talking as if they’ve known each other for years. It looks like a normal diner, round stools in a ‘U’ with a neatly aproned waitress taking orders in the middle, except that the windows look out onto the pale blue waters of the river churning white. I ask how long the trip is going to take. It’s an hour.

“Old Couple” – Pauline and Serge at St-Simeon

Before I leave the ferry, I push the screw in a bit and an attendant fills the tire as much as he can with an air compressor. I’m lucky. On the other side of the third stop sign there’s a tire shop. They take my bike into the garage and wedge a thin tube of rubber into the puncture hole, and then melt it down with an acetylene torch. The whole operation takes ten minutes and costs five dollars.

I stop for lunch before leaving Rivière-du-Loup. They serve coffee in a fancy glass with a pedestal and everyone there and the wind is coming off of the St. Lawrence in a fury. There must be a provincial by-election because the placards are up, promising independence for Quebec “maintenant”.

I get into New Brunswick sometime around 5 or 6. I stop at a cheap-looking motel off the highway. The owner or manager looks like she just had a kid and keeps scolding a sheepish German Shepherd into another room behind the office. She speaks French with an Acadian accent and then switches into English.

The room is sparse and looks like it would be a very bad place to be on drugs. A thin string of neon lights chases the bottom of the overhang and buzzes incessantly. The sanitary band on the toilet has obviously been reused and half of the outlets and light switches don’t work. The sky darkens and it starts to rain a little bit.

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