It's that sound again...as I awaken, I can hear it...the steady "plop"...the "pitter-patter" of rain. I'm calling it the "Nova Scotia Rooster" because it's the sound that I've been waking up to for days.
Staggering bleary-eyed out of my tent, I can see that everything is soaked...picnic table is wet, lantern is water-logged...there's a steady "mist" of rain. When Ed gets up, I make coffee in the back of the camper...a little shelter there. There are two puddles the size of Lake Superior to cross on the way to the bathroom. For most of the morning, I'm sitting in the Escape drinking coffee and watching CNN.
Around 11:00AM, Ed and I head in to Cheticamp for lunch. We stop at a little seafood restaurant for lunch. A tiny portion of fried clams, a beer and a piece of coconut cream pie set me back over $30.00 Canadian (Welcome to Tourist Country!). After lunch, we decide to drive through and visit the "sights" on Cheticamp Island...it's deserted and mostly barren...even gloomier in the rain.
There's no hiking today, so we head over to a local bar/restaurant, Le Gabriel, for a beer or two and use of their WiFi. Ed and I catch up on our blog posts, and I'm able to sort through emails and pay a few bills. We see that Le Gabriel has "local" music tonight at 7:00, so we decide to come back after dinner.
Back at camp, the rain lets up considerably, so we are able to grill a pork tenderloin marinated for a few days in Cuban mojo...a nice goes well with that. Still, I'm still feeling gloomy in this weather.
But...soon it's 7:00, and we're at Le Gabriel for music. It's somewhat of a disappointment since most of the music (Beatles medley, hits from the 60's and 70's, etc.) is not very "local". Still...we're inside where it's warm and dry...and the beer is good (if somewhat expensive). We meet two women from New Orleans up here camping on vacation. It's a chance to talk about our favorite places in "The Big Easy"...mostly restaurants (of course!).
Soon, it's 9:00 and the entertainment is over...time to head back to our wet camp. I have a beer at the soggy picnic table before heading off to bed.
Things have got to be better tomorrow.
Ed's Sidebar, Day 29:
Sometimes the measured day begins with midnight warmer than at noon, and just as damp. Cape Breton is a wilderness at any time of day. Clouds hang from the mountains here like millions of years ago. And this small bucket of mist that I inhale in the cone of my writing light is the life sum of dinosaurs, the moss beneath their feet.
In the salmon stream's rapids, boulders remain. They murmur, chirp and babble their centuries away. --On Fifth Avenue today, the decades also murmur, chirp and babble, but in a different kind of salmon stream.
We're going to get damn trench-foot here, sure as anything. That's what comes from living in the water too long like a fish. We look like some sorry asses from World War 1 huddled over journals in an age before Wi-Fi. Our socks are soaked through and through, our feet are cold. The fog closes in. Not even a sniper is stirring.
We've met four poets so far, and no CEOs. What are the odds? Hardly anyone reads poetry, much less claiming to be a poet. But everyone has the answers for how to run a country or a company. Armchair CEOs outnumber poets everywhere, but we meet poets and not CEOs. Maybe that's what camping is all about. So hello, Brenda, Allan, Anne, and Dave. Our here there is real life.
Some famous Acadian songs from the Le Gabriel Lounge in Cheticamp:
"Kansas City"
"Que Sera, Sera"
and Beatles medley.
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