I’ve lost someone. I’ve lost someone I want back so very badly. Not far from the dairy town is a small place called Picadilly that, for a landmark, has a mountain by the same name. This is her home. The Picadilly Road wraps around the mountain like I feel she winds around my heart. I’d like to tell you about part of my trip walking from Alma to Picadilly, some 50 km give or take a few, to see this special someone off.
Most of the walking behind me on the highway, I changed into my running shorts and began a jog of the Negro Bk. Road. The weight my clothes added to the hydration pack made it swing more than I liked so I tightened things with my thumbs as I ran. I ran past the Whaeghlenbrauh farm without stopping to talk to the farmer in the field along his dirt road. This is the last residence on the road for a long stretch, and I ran on under early afternoon shade from the tall maples along the road.
The ascent began in earnest when I turned on to the Thompson Road. This was the beginning of the least certain part of the trek. All I had to go on was my memory of the aerial photo on Google maps I’d studied. It’s an even less traveled road as was apparent from the grade and water runouts. I gained a couple of hundred meters of elevation over the stretch of this climb before dropping off into a clearcut and down over a cliff to meet the Law Road. Not far from there is where the Urney Road meets the Picadilly road.
After the descent and walk through the nearly dry riverbed, past a pond, along some tended trails, and on to the Law Road, I walked on dirt, a stretch of pavement on the Urney Road, and then back to dirt on the Picadilly road.
As I was walking the road that would take me to her farewell, I was wondering all along what I was going to say, and what to write for a farewell on the card in my pack. The pebbles had accumulated in my shoes, and when the Picadilly road turned to pavement again, I stopped and rested. I snacked, drank and changed into acceptable visiting clothes again. At this spot is where she and I had done a snowshoe trek the previous Christmas holiday. There was nowhere comfortable to settle in to writing a card so I carried on.
The road gets more densely populated the closer you are to town, as roads do, and It wasn’t long before I was flanked by close mown grass shoulders. When I realized I was within view of the farewell festivities, I set down on a nice grassy shoulder looking into the valley, my back to the mountain, and set to focus on the card. I had made it and could make out the children playing on the road at the party.
I wrote about journey, experience and sharing them, since this is what was on my mind. What a rich experience to be in all the places you would only see at high speed, places you would not have seen at all, were surprised to learn you could navigate.
It feels remarkable to connect to places by a different route. It also is remarkable to do so at the human pace. Those for whom ‘super-human’ comes to mind, you need just ask an old-timer about walking treks. Do bring a compass like I did, just in case.
