Special operation “Honeymoon”

Last summer I was so busy with work, volunteering, car events and other unexpected things in my life that I missed the entire camping season. Our camping gear hasn’t moved from the shelf in the closet even once. Compensation in the form of some adventure was needed badly.

It was the middle of August, when I was driving the lengthy 50 km from the office to my home and chatting with Natty – it was my communication time to make traffic less annoying. Natty was looking for some vacation to entertain her mother, who had to visit Canada for a month. I suggested to join them and organize a road trip to the East Coast (or, as it’s called in Canada, the Maritimes). The idea wasn’t too bad, but instead of the far east we decided to go to the far west. The next month was spent planning our trip to The Canadian Rockies. Again, I was almost constantly busy, so once a day Natty was catching me to review our plan, or book a hotel, or decide on a car, etc. To be fair, she did an excellent job on planning the route. If I was assigned the planning, our trip could be way more chaotic.

Two weeks before departure, when all hotels (hostels and airBnB’s) were booked, I started to panic. At this moment we figured out that Natty’s mother could not come with us, and we switched all of our bookings to one room only. I had some concern with the prospect of staying for 24 hours a day for a week in constant presence of Natty and my teenage daughter. Here I have to explain that Natty and I are very close friends for a very long time, but our vision on the majority of things in life is almost opposite. We were travelling together for a weekend dozens of times, but every time we could escape from each other by selecting different activities. Here, this wasn’t an option – a trip included driving in the same car, sleeping in the same room and walking on the same trail.

Thinking of this, I came to an interesting conclusion. Usually, right after wedding people are going on a honeymoon, where they spend some time together, isolated from friends and family and with no way to escape.
- Natty, I think that Honeymoons should be planned prior to weddings.
- What do you mean? People usually continue the celebration of their wedding on a honeymoon.
- Right! However, it makes more sense to isolate two people for a week before marriage and if their relationship survives, proceed with a wedding.

From that moment our trip got the code name “Honeymoon”. Funnily enough, the most popular band on the radio in AB was Honeymoon Suite. And one of the items on our map was Honeymoon Lake, which was symbolically closed when we got to it.

Anyway, on a summer-like day in the end of September, I finished working and headed from the office to Natty’s house to leave my car there. The registration to our flight was about to start. Natty was calling me every 5 minutes to express her feelings about me being late. The traffic was pretty bad and we still had to get to the airport in Hamilton after leaving the car in Burlington.
However, the flight was delayed, so we got to the airport early rather than late. Our vacation started!