cue willie nelson.

had a fabulous weekend. the queen and i decided to head to grande cache to see what was up there. in short, a jail and some ugly housing that reminded me of suburban sprawl from the 80s. it was terrifyingly hideous. there must have been a historic town at some point, but it had clearly been demolished for the dubious honour of progress. the drive up was gorgeous, and i am sure there were some lovely natural sights around (the place is surrounded by parks) but we were so horrified by the ugly that we left as soon as we could and headed to nordegg, through jasper and the columbian icefields. jasper for lunch was lovely. it's the town i remember most from my childhood. we went to the tiny café for lunch and then for some fudge. fresh fudge is far beyond the usual old, hard confection. it's soft, pleasurable, creamy... anyway. you get the idea.

we stopped on highway 93 and took pictures like tourists. some ungulates, mount kitchener, old bridges... nordegg was exactly what we had hoped grande cache would be: tiny, historic, mountainous and filled with old bridges and abandoned cabooses (the queen got some lovely pictures of me in the caboose, with moss growing on the floor and up the walls - nature taking back. the beauty of decay was everywhere. i got stung by a wasp).

roadtripping together was really wonderful and we decided to do more of it. we have similar desires in terms of what to stop and see (old bridges, anything train-related), what to listen to, whether or not to talk (lots of silence, lovely), how often to stop and what to do. i like the royal driving, too. if you don't think it an oxymoron, the queen breaks the law safely.

being back at home is okay, but i am back in that space where i prefer to be on the road. this was my inner space for years - travel and explore. always on the ground, i have some desire to go abroad but more to explore my own backyard. canada's backyard is incredible. i constantly want to go north, east, west. it's never enough.

when my dad died, i tried to keep it up but i felt so tired, so wounded, so stuck, so lost. i drifted, but that is not the same as travelling. travelling is far more rewarding, more purposeful. so for the last ten years, even when i have travelled (florida, hawaii, northern bc, the rockies, moving to vancouver for a year), i feel an ache that some people describe as wanting to 'nest'. and having been through 18 months or so of therapy, maybe that's what is helping me to feel stable enough to want to set loose again. i am quite sure that finding the queen as a (travel) partner is also an influence. but i feel the inner foundation that a journey can grow on. i feel like taking it in, and sending out spores. little sistasage spores, floating through the troposphere, taking root in people as urges to be kind to oneself and others, especially cats. i like it.