Next stop was Bancroft, where I had booked a Harvest Host at Kismet Farms in Dung, Ontario. Yes, Dung. The farm’s mailing address is Dung, ON, but when you key it into Google, nothing shows up (no wonder, the shame of it all). But it is Dung nonetheless.
Driving has been stressful, particularly going down hills. You’re not supposed to ride the brakes, but this is an extremely heavy truck barrelling down a Canadian backroad hill, and it’s a tad freaky. First thing: as you’re cresting the hilltop, make sure you’re already going slower than you might think. Then, click on the tow-haul, which slows down the rate at which the truck shifts up a gear. Then, shift into manual, and gear down. Okay, that’s all very well and good. But, once you’re at the bottom of the hill, it’s time to get back into gear and speed up to the speed limit. Which is where the fun really begins. I don’t if it’s my rig, or Ford trucks in general, or just that it’s new, but when I try to move the gear shift back from Manual to Drive, invariably it shifts into Neutral before I can pop it back into Drive (all while having palpitations and terror sweats). One time, on the highway in Quebec, it actually jumped to Reverse for a nano-second – dear God, my 60+ heart.
So this trip to Dung through the Canadian Shield was a doozy, and I was glad to make it to Bancroft (Dung is a suburb of Bancroft it seems). Kismet Farm couldn’t receive me until 6pm, so I had time to kill in Bancroft. Unfortunately the local gallery was closed, so No Frills, Shoppers, and Timmies it was.
But the reason I’m an idiot? I have a friend from high school, whom I’ve only seen once since returning from Scotland. Recently he & his partner Jen moved from London and set up a bed & breakfast in Bancroft. Did it occur to me to let them know I was in town? To let them know I had 90 minutes to kill that afternoon? That I was going to be again killing time the next morning at the Tim Hortons? No, of course it didn’t. Instead, I sat, bored, reading a magazine and eating timbits. It was a full 4 weeks later before it hit me – why hadn’t I called Pete? Doh.