The Road Less Travelled.

What came first: the chicken or racism?

London, ON – The fog hangs like a veil as we drive like an arrow through the nothingness.

Having been here before, I know tremendous beauty lies behind it; we must only move beyond this early hour.

Three baby turkeys make us slalom more than the roads’ hips as we make our way past parted-out car hoods propped against crooked trees. They have been spray-painted with slogans like “Make America Great Again” and “TRUMP!” Looking at the industries folded into many of these valleys, it’s easy to see these are areas most vulnerable to some of the current government’s policies.

I can only hang my head.

A church sign, meanwhile, says it represents “a separation between church and hate,” but it’s a message missed by too many these days. Still, it restores a modicum of hope.

Beyond the 10-hour drive home, we still need to pick up our car in downtown Toronto and return the rental to Pearson International Airport, 30 minutes away. Again, thanks, Porter.

Naturally, we have arrived in Toronto just in time to be greeted by roads clogged like pipes as traffic pours into the city for the afternoon’s Blue Jays baseball game.

So tired. So much for vacation.

Vitals:

• Time: 10 hours, five minutes
• Distance: 782.6 kms
• Weather: Foggy, breaking to sun, with intermittent sprinkles of rain
• States/Province: Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario
• Wildlife: None

Porter Fail.

Religion tends to be a little fuzzy for me.

Breezewood, PA – The peak-lined sky shimmers, translucent like vellum, layered and folded-over in Pennsylvania’s mountains, adding a depth to the panorama rising before us.

At the corners, the sky narrows in, smudging in depths of charcoal.

It’s a surreal evening on the roads.

That’s right: the roads.

After a week in D.C., we received an email alert two hours prior to our Porter Airlines flight home we had been cancelled until Monday. Yes, two-and-a-half days from now. No explanation: just cancelled. Hotels in the American capital aren’t cheap.

Looking for answers, we called the long-distance number, which doesn’t appear to work in the U.S., despite the airline servicing several American cities. Still no explanation.

Do I look angry?

We had gone for one last wander through the city – up to Embassy Row, and to Washington National Cathedral, which suffered more than $34 million in damages from a 2011 earthquake that affected the eastern seaboard – but now found ourselves on our way to Reagan National Airport to rent a car.

Our taxi driver repeatedly got lost, and twice nearly had his tires spiked trying to navigate the parking garage. I watched the clock tock toward six o’clock, thinking of the road ahead.

Meanwhile, neo-Nazis clashed with protesters two hours away, leaving a woman and two police officers dead. Get me out of this country.

We had debated driving through the night, but with the skyline’s teeth now melted into black, the winding tape before us whispering to be prudent.

Hello, unexpectedly, Pennsylvania.

Thank you for having us.

Vitals:

• Time: Two hours, six minutes.
• Distance: 200.8 kms
• Weather: Sun, rain, fog, nightfall.
• States: Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania
• Wildlife: None

No Words.

Duck, Duck, USA.

Memorial Day.

Washington D.C. – Cicadas rub wings to their legs, adding a sonic electricity to the lush gardens serving as feather boas to the grand dames of historic houses surrounding historic Dupont Circle.

It’s a liveliness lost for most of a day spent reflective, awed and as silent as the marble and stone memorials dotting the city. Emerging at an angle from the earth, the Vietnam Memorial reads like the black pages of a phone book. Such gravitas: so many names and so much youth lost in the jungles of a country where I made very different memories.

Later, bells ring out over Arlington National Cemetery, which gleams like a perfectly arranged smile in the early morning light. A single red bouquet breaks up the repetition, like having something stuck between its teeth.

Changing of the guard has taken place here since 1937, and sentinels’ boots now clack with precision in the pin-drop silence facing the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Lincoln, Martin Luther King, FDR, Jefferson. The National Korean War Monument, with its ghost-like sculptures of faces haggard by war, seem to seep through the foliage. It’s one of the most evocative memorials I’ve experienced.

Finally, the Holocaust Museum and the Air and Space Museum.

I’ve taken more than 41,000 steps today and have still seen more memorials than I’ve taken steps.

No doubt I’ll remember both tomorrow.

I, Spy.

When the museum itself is art.

Washington D.C. – A light rain falls like a cooling mister (when the missus is away). It’s a welcome break from D.C.’s typical August heat.

In fact, the air along Massachusetts Avenue is filled with pungent aromas that whisk you away to the tropics. While the humidity has not yet awoken, you know it’s not far off. And yet, much of yesterday’s yoga gear and running shorts have been replaced by finely tailored Brooks Brothers suits and patterned dresses. For many, it’s back to the work week.

Arriving at the International Spy Museum, I’m tasked with remembering a cover identify as I slink between exhibits of ciphers, poison pens and props from the James Bond franchise: spies, real and imagined, surround us in the city most notorious for them in the world.

I passed the exit interview, but have no illusions: I would not make a good spy.

(Or would I?)

Making my way to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery after a veggie burger at City Tap House, the rains rise, smelling like a violent sea. Between an exhibit of glossy images of John F. Kennedy hang gritty portraits of war by Tim Hetherington. Folk art toys dance with plastic-wrapped arcade games ready to be unveiled for a future exhibit. Should they still be operational, the noise in these gilded halls will be deafening.

Sculptures appear to dissolve into the air. The artist breathed essence into breasts, soft in life, yet hardened in marble. Youth has been captured for an eternity: she is, as then, unknown – not aged, but unforgotten.

Around a corner, Sylvia Plath’s childhood ponytail wraps around sheets of her words and sketches in ink, bled onto pink paper. Never a fan, I become one.

Following the pixelated path home through the sky’s deceit, homeless men rise from blankets tucked into the corners, tapping on smart phones nicer than mine.

This is a connected era. Plath’s typewriter absorbed enough pain.

D.C. in Silence.

Give me a 'capitol' W.

Washington D.C. – The streets remain dormant on Sunday morning: my only companion is the fetid stench of trash day as I make my way down Connecticut Avenue.

It’s early, though, and the pavement of this historic city is as yet unpainted by footsteps. That will soon change.

It’s like President Trump (which still feels strange to type) has taken everyone with him on his 17-day vacation. (Or, they’ve run away, exhausted by the early days of his tenure.)

Or, perhaps everyone is at church – apart from those less fortunate, lying supine on benches lining the parks’ boundaries. While it’s still comfortable out, you know the humidity is parked around the corner, engine running.

The National Museum of American History, hit at the heat of day with crowds of cellphones snapping, is a bit of a disappointment. I must have missed some of the most interesting exhibits. Perhaps I had just tired of no longer having solitude.

At the Newseum, however, silence.

Visitors stare at the antenna that stood atop the north tower of the World Trade Center prior to 9/11. Only the tinny, looped newscast echoes, replaying the horrors of the day.

So ingrained, they do anyway.