The weekend was eventful in its uneventfulness. On Friday I took the bus back home, where John picked me up from the station and took me to his new house. It’s a pretty swanky place, with beautiful hardwood floors all around and a modern kitchen. We dropped off Dan before going to the cottage, which ended up being a two hour detour, and in all I spent about eleven hours traveling that day. John’s aged Ford Explorer, with its permanently flashing brake and engine warning lights, its odd clicking sounds while turing, and its massive shudders when traveling above 120 kph, had a new problem. A connection inside the steering wheel had fallen loose and the horn would sound randomly and sporadically whenever John made a turn. Unfortunately, John lives in Chinatown, and the horn would go off in the busiest streets possible. John would shake his wheel, veering us from one lane to another, in an attempt to turn the horn off, giving us crazy glances from pedestrians. Needless to say, I was quite embarrassed, being given the opportunity to ride shotgun. At one point in the trip, each vibration of the SUV had caused the horn to sound in lengthy intervals of staccato honks, and we ended up taking out the horn fuse from the fusebox.
The cottage sits directly on a beach, so there’s always a breeze coming off the shore, and the temperature is perfect in the summer. It actually cools down considerably at night, and we ended up building a fire and toasting some marshmallows under the black sky on Saturday. Lake Huron stretches out on the beach horizon, and the water, while white and foamy on shore, becomes a strong, vivid blue when looked at from a distance. The pale sky meets the water in a perfect line, forming a brilliant gradient of blue hues with tiny boats bobbing up and down in the distance.
Cottage time was spent lounging around, playing Euchre or Rummoli, watching movies or playing some PS2. At one point, I fell asleep lying on the beach, with the warmth of the sun on my body and the sound of gentle waves in my ears.
For me, each visit at this cottage is marked by the set of cousins who are there as well. There are five bedrooms, one with three beds and one with two beds, so accommodations are usually plentiful, although sometimes there’s so much family up there that people end up sleeping on couches. John, Julia, Grandma, and I were the only ones there for the majority of the weekend, although Heather came up for a day and a half, now separated from her husband, with her two beautiful daughters Jenny and Becky. I can really tell that Heather loves her children, a pleasant surprise from the so-common neglectful parents nowadays.
I left John’s at around 11:45 pm yesterday, took the midnight bus here, and arrived around 5:00 am, in time to talk to Jackee for a bit before going to bed.
