Whiling away at the Want-n-While... Saturday

Cap'n Vino and Professor Plonk scooped me up at the Grotto mid-day, squished myself, golf clubs, luggage, brief cases and big bag o' books into the 'Ark', thus maxing out its capacity.

And we embarked. Let the journey begin!

And five minutes later we were arrested by the lure of lunchables and feasted on super subs at Mr Sub.

And then we re-embarked. Let the journey really begin!

And five minutes later we came to a standstill on the 407 and paid premium fare for the privilege of being stuck in only the finest traffic jam on only the finest toll highway to ever be sold out from under us to the profiteering pals of the Harris government.

We made the best of it.

Three hours later and we're finally inching down the narrow winding 1.2 KM laneway of the remote Want-N-While family cottage; the only human habitat on the shores of modest Kelsey Lake. The path was navigated artfully by Captain Vino and with much grace but for the incident of the crossing of a very slight wooden-beam bridge that had both his heart and fingers positively fluttery.

The place was marvelous with very large wrap-around sun room and deck and obligatory down-slope to fire pit, beach and dock plus a windmill of unknown purpose and no less than seven boats of the paddle, row, canoe and kayak varieties. No engines.

Best feature: No TV's. Hallelujah!

A consultation with the owner regarding the operation of the generator, propane and gravity-feed-water systems and we're unpacked in no time - including Captain Vino and Professor Plonk's construction of the Great Wall of Liquor - the contents of five cases of wine and spirits. Five cases, people. For one week. If you're starting to think they have a problem I'll testify that it's more to do with chronic generosity then alcoholism.

Nevertheless I manage to uncover a few missing links in the Booze-spectrum - namely champagne (strictly for breakfasts of course), sour apple liqueur and Drambui. And thus we're out navigating the labyrinth laneway again, making for the nearest town that can furnish such core supplies - oh - and perhaps some din-din and some groceries too.

The Burkes Falls Outskirts Restaurant proved a place of significant note. When in Burkes Falls you definitely must be sure to keep an eye out for this gem and, if at all possible, given your schedule, take the opportunity to avoid it like the black death.

To be fair, although it may have seemed like a three hour wait for our dinner, it was probably more like two hours and forty minutes or so. Both CV and I ordered the fish and chips but he demanded a soup starter as well despite my loud and ardent poo-pooing of such ghastly fare. Of course the monumental wait had me eating humble soup in due time.

The waitress finally blamed the delay on their waiting for the fish to thaw and took back our tiny emptied drinking glasses, returning them with a modicum of pop within and explaining that the first refill was free on account of them running out of normal-sized glasses.

My guess is that they were sitting around unwashed and all their problems had ultimately to do with them lacking a normal sized staff.

Very oddly, the scape-goat fishes were delivered well before Professor Plonk's plate o' pork, peas and potatoes. He luckily had avoided starvation via a lackluster salad - or rather - all of it but the blackened cinders that were offered in substitution for croutons. The pork was dry. The potatoes, touted as 'mashed' were merely shards of plain old potatoes over-boiled and whacked to pieces.

The mysteriously petrified french fries were precisely the second-worst I'd ever encountered in my life with the gold medal going to those once served to me ice-cold, fresh from the refrigerator of a deeply misguided chip truck operation in Tobago's tourist district.

We hadn't the time or the stomach to stick around another couple hours and discover what fascinating horrors they might have in store in the way of coffee or dessert and instead hit the only open variety store to gorge on ice-cream cones. I had the Rolo flavor ice cream. Oh my god. Rolo ice cream. Purely orgasmic. Pure heaven. And just as transcending was this:

The sun long set below the clear sky, we killed all the lights and stumbled down to the dock to lie on our backs agog at the visible universe with the great arcing bands of star-cloud that is the spiral galaxy we cling to, the fierce sparkle of neighboring Venus, the steady patrol of faint satellites and nearer still, a dozen or so flitting meteoric entries.

Much too few are these moments.
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