The long and short

Lost Innocence

Well as it stands now, I'm fully returned from my trip. So you need not worry about any plot twists concerning any variation of me dying in any number of ditches between Ontario and Newfoundland. Though I'm not going to start this with final words, I'm days behind in my writing because I was exercising time as best as I could and always was too tired to fiddle with a laptop when I parked at the end of the day. So this will be a recollection of many days all in one big burst of space. If you've already read this many pages of my work (god help you) then I wager you won't mind one more big one. Also, I've been spelling decide wrong. Maybe I'll go back and fix those? I'll flip a coin.

As it was when we left off I had just had seven and a half drinks before going to bed in my hotel room, watching a very poorly acted eastern soap opera for entertainment before I fell asleep. I woke up to weather that had no place any time in the forecast for days, and curse that I'm so hungover for it. It's nearly eleven when I finally get myself out, though I feel sick. I have a small breakfast and ask if the lady working the small shop can tell me anything about the length of Gros Morne for a day hike. She must have sized me up and found me wanting because she went on to say it's really dangerous and you'd need to leave the base by eight in the morning at least. I said "that sounds like a challenge!" aiming it at her and she said, "it is!" but she meant the mountain, then continuing on about the climb. Swing and a miss. The Gros Morne visitor centre fills me in more, there's another cute nice girl working here who's really helpful and I didn't reek this time. I found myself looking in her eyes too, god damn it, stop that. I hope I drop that when I leave the East. Arriving ten minutes later at the start of the trail I start packing a bunch of stuff before heading off.

The hangover does not bode well but I continue my fight against it. Dehydration and wooziness isn't a good combo for a exhausting hike, but I'm glad all my muscles have had time to grow back from the time on the Tablelands. The path leading to the mountain base is only a foot wide but well constructed, and the scenery is really nice. I'm breaking into the hike and out of my hangover as I grow closer but I still struggle. I reach the point of no return where it advises to turn back at this point if the last bit phased you in the slightest, and tries to dissuade you from the climb with hazard and possible death warnings painted all over the sign. I love it when signs do that.

The climb was less stressful than the Tablelands by far, but was slightly less exhilarating as I had a very odd standard set for myself because of it. There was a actual general path to climb here, people are commonly walking around here, and I have no reason to rush. From the bottom these climbs always look so damn easy. You look up the slope and think, yeah that looks like a twenty minute climb. The truth reveals itself quickly enough though I suppose. The view only got better the higher I climbed, though the weather that was supposed to rule the day stood unsure of itself in the distance as if it were an actor that had forgotten it's next line on stage. My shirt comes off because I'm absolutely drenched in my own sweat and it's just hot and windy enough for it to be comfortable. Something about the plain effort of all my muscles towards the task of climbing makes the time pass in no time at all. I even manage to catch up with a older couple that left the parking lot ten minutes sooner than I had. They're from Ontario too, Richard and Pat, around fifty eight years old. Man, I need to step up my game. Between odd rest stops that are different between our groups I stay a small bit behind them, still in no hurry. They pace faster across flatter parts, but I climb vertically faster. The mountain presents itself nicely before I'm on top, but the flatness once there eliminates most of the view. A rain cloud is drawing near, it will either hit directly as I'm on top of the mountain or barely graze it. Still I feel a great sense of accomplishment.

The walk goes down from here, I'm glad I did the path climbing the steep part first before the weather turned. Something I might not have done if that girl in the visitor centre hadn't recommended it. I have a small lunch and talk with the couple as I feast on beef jerky greedily. The one storm cloud grazed us, looks like we're in the clear for now. The walk continues and they get way further ahead because I stop every half minute to take pictures, and even run into a small family of Rock Ptarmigan barely off the path. They're sort of like wild mountain chickens would probably be the easiest way to describe them without you having to look. Continuing further down the trail the weather finally remembers it's role in the play and bursts out onto the stage, overly aware that it missed it's queue. I'm beyond far away from my vehicle but I pick up my pace in the rain. I pass the Ontario couple and wish them well if I don't catch them any time later, something about hard rain makes me want to run down the path. Water pools all over the small route, with few surfacing rocks standing as small pathways across. The rain and wind beats harder against my bare chest as I press further down the trail as the fastest safe pace I can strike. My glasses are tainted with all sorts of obstructions from the rain, mostly blocking all my vision except for most immediate rock pathways, which is all I need. My jeans and feet are completely drenched, I'm ridiculously far from my vehicle, the rain isn't showing any signs of letting up and I know that I should feel completely miserable right now. But as it rains harder still, and as the sound of lightning rumbles in the distance, I'm completely lost in the moment. I am halted at a time or another by catching up with other groups heading down the mountain but am soon let past. The rain settles briefly and I stop abruptly stop in my tracks in a small straight away as a young adult moose that hasn't grown it's horns fully stands in the middle of the path twenty feet ahead. What is with this province?

He was heading down the path the same direction I was and I stay where I am, not wanting to startle him. As always it's another moment when you almost want to ruin it by stopping and getting as many pictures or videos as you can, but I prefer the purity and don't want to throw it away. I think back to all the horror stories of how much they can fuck you up as well, taking care to consider that I'm a fair distance away. He looks at me briefly  and continues with a silent profoundness around the bend of the path and off the trail. I watch him sink into the brush and continue for a small bit before I come out into a smaller clearing and start taking a small breather. I'd been running down for a good while, and then I saw two other hikers down a further side of the path resting off trail and said hi between breaths. A small conversation about the turn of the weather happens and there's a small silence. My glasses have a mostly obscured vision and I have nothing dry to wipe them with. I can almost make them out but I'm not sure if I want to gamble with it. I'm about to ask when he beats me to the punch. "Are you Mike from the ferry?"

It's Dave and Maya from the ferry from four or five days ago, what in the hell are the odds in that?! As they were about to go up the steep path up the mountain it began to pour so they came this way instead and ran into me. We ask each other about our trips so far, each lamenting the continually poor weather. I call him Matt, because he looks like a Matt, hours later I feel like a dick when I remember his his actual name. Passing on the path I shake hands with him and his girlfriend, glad I could see them again. He says that he'll see me in Saint Johns and I say if we run into each other there we need to trade information or something because it's getting uncanny. Sure enough as they told me, there was what I'm assuming was a female adult moose and a young moose fifteen feet off the path slightly further down. What is with this province? I record of them a bit because the rain has stopped for the time but the group I passed far earlier has caught up between the three mooses and couple I stopped for on the way down. I continue down, hitting my same sequence as before as the rain comes down anew. Barring the rest of what was quite some time, I was at the base, and after the prior more maintained path leading to the base of the mountain was at the parking lot again. I let Richard and Pat's son know how far they probably are behind me, as it looks like he's been waiting awhile before I jump into dry clothes and head off.

The rain worsens, some of the hardest rain I've had driving before. At this point I can't help but feel horrible for Dave and Maya who are not only climbing the mountain in this but camping on top at a site they reserved. I come up the the outwardly poor looking restuarant shack where I got my hearty breakfast before and decide to eat there, hoping the rain dies down a bit. I have a moose burger platter and a beer. The moose is quite comparable to beef, but with something a bit more... Moosey? The beer is supposed to be made of the water from an iceberg or something, not sure how much I believe that, but it's not bad at all. I drive as far as I can without getting too tired while heading for my next hiking spot for tomorrow. My legs are aching but not in ruin like with the Tablelands, the weather continues to call for rain but each day clears for a small opening. Knowing this, I plan to be in  each area and waiting for the key time to do a hike. My clothes from the hike are wet and smelly and I have no way of drying them.

The next day I'm waiting in a small town in a Tim Hortons eating two breakfast sandwiches a doughnut and having a icecap waiting for the opening in the sky to come into existence, and it does. I need some directions for the next place as its less well known and a local resident walking down the side of the road is more than happy to give it to me and then some. I don't want to be rude but he keeps talking and traffic keeps swerving around me. This is only extended when he calls me "my love" (as newfies use in their sentences from time to time) before he caught himself and started apologizing and explaining its common use in the East and the lack of homosexual intention he had for me. Oh man. ANYWAYS, his directions were good and before I knew it I was heading down the Alexander Murray trail. I was taking today's walk a lot easier on myself, casually birding, working on my psshing technique. There was a really cool sounding bird I recorded to ask Scott about later, and I finally found a white throated sparrow in my binoculars. Been trying to find that bugger even when I was in Ontario. Then a saw a few more, rub it in why don't yah? Curse my inability to find even the most common birds! The walk was really nice, what can you say beyond the good views and calmness? There was a stupid amount of stairs but the whole thing was a joke compared to the day before so I took it with ease. Though later the sky went overcast and shunned a bit on the good view it didn't rain so I was glad. Later on past the top a group of Rock Ptarmigans flew out of the shrubs right next to me and scared the shit out of me. Towards the ending of the hike I heard faint folkish music and wondered what I'd find on my return to the parking lot.

The parking lot next to mine was full and surrounding a small fenced off area where a older guy was playing guitar songs and singing about god while hooked up to a amplifier station. Oh god. The thing was, no one was in the fenced off area except for him. Once he finished his last song he started going onto the full proclamation of the god's good word and into the full religious rant. The best part was that when the crowd of people in their vehicles got excited about what he was saying they'd all honk in applause. Oh god. I was mostly packing up my vehicle and getting ready to leave but I caught the full wind of it, and he went into another song where he was saying a lot of stuff about Jesus and God and ahhhhh god, no morrrrreeee. I had honestly no clue it was Sunday before that, and Sunday hasn't had any religious association for me in years and I'd like to keep it that way. The drive now was to a further way East, close to Bonavista, a small town called Keeles where there's odd indents in the rock formations that people haven't been able to find out how they got there called the devil's footprints (since they are almost hoof like in appearance). I pass through many small towns and villages, pass another moose, almost always having a view of the ocean.

 I finally arrive in the town and park near to where the indents should be, but I won't be able to see them until morning. A man from a nearby house comes out, I'm worried he won't want me to park there, but like with much of the rest of Newfoundland there isn't even enough room in many places to pull off the road to park.  He's extremely nice and talkative, I forget how it came about but he went into a big miraculous story of how he got the house for only 500$ but the story turned sadder. The town used to have 200 consistent year round inhabitants but had been widdled down to a mere 35 by now because government regulations on fishing laws and such in areas. In truth the government had tried to move the people that remained out but those who remained wouldn't budge. It's not hard to see why they wouldn't want to move, the town is extremely small but the area is really nice, but it's so far from anything and with no gas station. He tells me all about it as we stare out across the open water and dark skies with wind pushing towards us, waves splashing against rocks and sand on the beach. It feels like a shame that politics can ruin such beautiful places, and time will rid the last people who live there almost certainly when no more move in. I thank him for the conversation and briefly look out further across the ocean as he goes in before going back into my vehicle. I play guitar as it gets darker, the sound resonates well in my vehicle, I let the darkness from the outside and the sadness from the story meet together in the air through my strings.

In the morning I observe the indents, they're underwhelming but very interesting and this was on the way any ways. I feel glad I heard that story, and for coming around here. I wish the best for this place as I drive out, waving a goodbye the man I talked to last night as I pass him. He likes to talk a bit too much, today's weather is supposed to be nice and I have a lot of ground to cover.

I pass through Bonavista and hit up a restaurant, the meal is huge, and at a good price. I was prepared for some toast and eggs but the amount of ham caught me surprise. Big, greasy, cooked, slabs. Paradise.





 I hit up a Puffin spotting location in a town further away later on, they're extremely cute and everywhere with a bunch of seagulls hanging out with them too. I look into a island a bit further past the closer one I'm observing and see a torrent of puffins and gulls swirling in the air together all around. It's absolute chaos, unison and madness, and such a treat to watch. After watching them for at least half an hour I head off to my next hiking destination, Skerwink trail. Once again I want to say more to create a better image of the trip but it's all things I've said. The trail ran along the ocean gave a great view, with a few rock isles and on whole the trail was really nice. I did some more birding, but it was really too late in the day as always to do any good birding. A golden retriever that belonged to no one on the 5.6 km trail started having a habit of following me. I got asked by multiple groups if he was mine. He'd dash along cliff edges and into the thicket with a strong sense of familiarity, clearly having the time of his life. He'd stop by random groups and relax time to time, always accepting being pet but not accepting food, but he'd always catch up to me no matter how much distance I created. After hiking Gros Morne or the Tablelands in extreme conditions it's hard to make an interesting story of what was just a really pleasant hike, but I was glad to have done it. I decided to make the final push for St John's.

I made it, the traffic was really odd. The slow lane was commonly at 120 kmph, the fast at 140. But Saint John's showed up and yeah. It's kind of just a town. There's a street full of nothing but bars that lives in infamy I'm sure someone with berate me for not going to, but this town is pretty much like my home town albeit just much damn further away. People are boorish, either on cell phones or doing jobs they hate with none of the charm or happiness I felt almost everywhere else. I might be able to rent a hotel and bar hop, but honestly why would you bar hop by yourself? I don't like going to bars with friends at home, so I don't like going by myself obviously. I look upon the city sort of vacantly while in a A&W looking out the window at what feels out of place on Newfoundland to me. I question what to do with myself. Good weather is assured in a few days, but really I've already hit up all the major places I wanted to and more. I'm tired of waiting through the rain, and all the exciting adventures have already been lived out. My last destinations were mostly bird watching oriented ones, and I dread the notion of a sixteen hour ferry. Besides, I can't bird watch in rain, or go camping, or do anything but wait it out, and now there's no extra places to drive to in the mean time. I feel lonely and tired of putting up with weather as a consistent inconvenience I have to plan around. If I leave now I'll arrive back even sooner than I did on my BC trip which I got berated on shortness to the point people didn't believe I had gone at all minus my photographic evidence. But I've also done a lot more than on my BC trip, and talked to more people. I know the truth of what I want to do, but I don't want to face it, convinced it will make me weak. I relapse and breath out, I decide I need to live being honest with myself and not being afraid of feeling weak. It's time to go home.

It's almost 7:00pm when I cast out of St John's, by 2:00am I'm mostly across the island. I catch the ferry the next morning, having set my alarm early to get to the ferry I have no reservation for. Half hour after parking outside the ferry we're filed in, the timing continues to work through chaos in my favour. The rain pours hard, as if it knows I'm leaving and is displeased that I'm tired of it's games. The ferry doesn't have the adventurous souls I saw on the way over, heading to a new place for adventure and new experiences. Just odd couples and families, it's pouring out and I can't play guitar on the sun deck, but I pick a main stairwell that's out of the way enough and play for awhile. I have people who stick around, or talk, it feels great to know people aren't just not bothered by my music but they like it. I improv songs about things like adventure, to homesickness and friends. Later I run into the man who gave me a 5$ busking tip on the trip over(on par with the highest tip I've ever gotten). He thought I was going stay longer when I said I hadn't set a time limit for myself and on the way over, I admitted I thought so to, but was frank in saying you can only spend so much time by yourself and I'd already run out of things I immediately wanted to do. He seemed to understand that. I drove out of the ship seven and a half hours later into rain, ate a big dinner at a restaurant with two cups of coffee and drove till 2:00am and fell asleep as I touched the pillow. At 10:45pm the next day, after braving hard rain in Toronto and driving past all those assholes in Quebec, I pulled into my house. Everyone's asleep, I pour the small amount of whiskey I purposely left for myself before leaving, just enough for one drink. I lean back in my familiar chair in my room, finally having had a shower for the first time in four or five days. I look past my monitor, still leaning back in my chair, having the first sip and looking out into the rain and darkness outside my window.

I did it.

I feel relieved, I'm still the person I was when I went to BC. I'm capable of things that are exciting and terrifying and new. I'm still capable of feeling so many ways I haven't felt in such a long time that I wondered if I could feel them at all. The future stands as having no clear choices, but I know there's absolutely no point in trying to make sense of it. If I learned anything from everyone I met it's that there's never any clear choices or solutions, just the one's that we make for ourselves. Just as this trip was my solution for my growing fears of myself, no certainty, only a hope. How could I ever explain to someone why the hell I'd drive halfway across a country and do so many things, only to be by myself in the end? Now I feel completely unsure of what to do with myself, having had plans that have no basis to be carried out now. I have a lot of things to think about but I'm not worried. So long as I keep my stubborn spirit, I can weave anything out my life through whatever reason or madness presents itself as the way. I'm Michael Matys.

So closes the this written chapter of my life. If you read it all, I hope you enjoyed yourself, and thanks for joining me.

Trip awards / Statistics

Nicest person I met: Dave
Favorite Part: Tablelands idiot hike/descent
Most eaten food: Hamburger and fries
Longest time without showering: 4-5 days
Highlight meal: Bonavista restaurant breakfast
Most acholic drinks: 7.5
Worst canadian award: Me for driving all the way out East and having no seafood at all
Favourite bird: Atlantic puffin
Worst part: Pizza Delight
Man, you've always been the guy award: Michael Harasym


Music awards

Move aside city and colour award: Matthew Mayfield
I love this but what the hell am I listening to? award: Yeah yeah yeahs
Oh god the nostalgia award: NOFX
That guitar work is AMAZING award: Rodreigo Y Gabriela
Doesn't use words except for love and heart in song award: HIM


I have one last special thanks to impart, I don't know where I'd be without you. You were always there when I needed you. No matter what mood I was in you'd always be there for me. Caring, warm and loving.


















                                                                             

                                                                            DEBB!!!!!
Also thanks to my supportive friends and family who constantly worried more than I did about the possible loss of my life or limbs.