Is there a road trips where everything ever goes according to plan?
Ummmm, nope. Some go even better.
The car that wouldn't lock
My cousin and I had decided to head to Gaspésie together, which sounded like a perfectly simple idea. Two women. We playfully called ourselves Thelma and Louise. A rental car. A few days on the road. Beautiful scenery. Good food. Lots of photography. And, as it turned out, a surprising amount of therapy.
We were barely into Quebec when the universe gave us our first little sign that this was not going to be your average road trip. I was driving the rental car. One of those keyless-start situations. We had just crossed into Quebec when we decided to pull over, stretch our legs and grab a few snacks.
And, as fate would have it, we had just received a phone call from the car rental company.
“Is everything okay with the car? Are you finding everything to your liking? ”
“Yes!” we confidently assured them. “Everything was absolutely fine.”
Until we stopped for snacks and tried to lock it. Nothing.
We pressed buttons. We tried the door handle. We pressed more buttons. We looked at each other. We tried again.
Nothing.
Now, because neither of us is particularly interested in being defeated by a vehicle, we took the key fob apart. Yup! We sure did. And we discovered the little emergency key hidden inside and, for a brief moment, felt like we had cracked the case. Except... We couldn't figure out where the emergency key was supposed to go.
At this point, I’m pretty sure we were both beginning to question whether we were actually qualified to leave the province. And then, suddenly, it hit me.
I looked at the gear shift. Looked at my cousin and said: “Oh.!!! Maybe I should put it in PARK? ”
Of course the car wouldn't lock. OOPS!!
We laughed until we cried. And that, dear reader, pretty much set the tone for the entire trip.
Because somewhere between Moncton and Percé, this stopped being just a road trip. It became one of those trips where two women talk about everything. We laughed. We cried. We unpacked things. We called each other out. We gave each other unsolicited advice. We were each others therapist.
And we did it against one of the most spectacular backdrops in Eastern Canada.
The Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec.
View from Bonaventure Island, part of Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé National Park (Parc national de l’Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé).
