On the Coast of Quebec

Percé, Quebec

This appears to be a tourist destination. They do scuba diving, sea kayaking, take you to catch lobsters, offer deep sea fishing (mackerel and cod), whale watching or catching salmon on the incoming salmon runs (this time of year).

We're planning to take an excursion out to a National park island in the morning to see seal colonies and hike eight miles around the island to see the world's largest Gannet (seabird) nesting grounds. I'm a sucker for the world's largest anything. We'll take water and a picnic lunch.

I have my eye on a restaurant here that serves codfish tongues cooked in sea urchin butter. That comes with a salad, a Quebec cheese plate, coffee and a selection from the dessert cart.

We have an almost perfect RV park. We're on the ocean with a great view of an iconic rock formation. Our site is almost level and we have good satellite TV reception and strong wireless phone service. We have electric, water, sewer and free and fast Wi-Fi. Le Wi-Fi is precious.

Soon we'll be back in New Brunswick and then on to Prince Edward Island. We have friends in PEI and hope to connect with them to play some doubles tennis. We want to do the Cape Breton peninsula in Nova Scotia and then take a six hour ferry to the Province called "Newfoundland and Labrador". Canadians refer to the big island where 94% of the Province population lives as Newfoundland. That's where we're going. Labrador is the remote western area on the Canadian mainland above Quebec. The Labrador part of the Province just too far for me. Maybe in my next life.

After we drive 300 miles across the Newfoundland part of "Newfoundland and Labrador" we'll take a 15 hour ferry ride back from St. Johns to Nova Scotia and visit other tennis friends there if we can make a connection. Then on to more tennis friends in Maine and on to Arkansas, backtracking to North Carolina to see the grandchildren...about 5,000 more miles and to get back to Sarasota no later than December 1st....That's today's plan...

Father's Day 2010

Percé, Quebec

Between childhood, boyhood,
adolescence
& manhood (maturity) there
should be sharp lines drawn w/
Tests, deaths, feats, rites
stories, songs, & judgments

The Lizard King

On Father's day I want to pay homage to a really great father. I was lucky to have a job as a college professor when Ken was young, so we had some great adventures on long camping trips out West and in Canada. Once he got covered with leeches in a Canadian stream. It was like African Queen on steroids.

He is a father with seven oak leaf clusters. We learned to SCUBA dive together. I was worried about bringing him back when I lost track of him at age 16 on a 110 foot deep night drift dive in the Gulf Stream off Palm Beach and his light stick disappeared , but he turned up like a bad penny and saved me an awkward explanation to Mrs. Phred..

His name is Ken and he is my son, a electric guitar player, master soccer coach, poet and minor genius. He never got into trouble growing up ( I told him what my father taught me: don't get caught).

His favorite joke is "Have you lost some weight?" If you say yes he says, "Turn around, you'll find it." Another of his favorites is "What's green and flies over Russia?" The answer of course, is "Snotzies".

But then I may be remembering more infantile humor before Ken became an attorney and teacher and mature protector of my seven lovely and talented grandchildren.

Unfortunately all my analog pictures of young Ken are in storage back in Tampa. Maybe I'll scan some of those in this winter. Every Dad should be so lucky.