Road-tripping

The last day of our road-trip ended with a little stress as I struggled to find a hotel late in the night. Not quite finished our shopping and wanting to take advantage of the duty free limits we were one more night on the road. Driving with the camper, I am never tempted to speed the way I do in my little Mazda zoom zoom zoom car, but when the cop with lights flashing came up in my rearview mirror,  I instinctively checked my speedometer and started to pull over. He flew by. I wasn't his prey. Something far ahead had sent him gunning. As I watched him drive away I was awarded a memory from a road-trip long ago. I'm pretty sure it was the Summer of 1979. I was the same age as the ladies are now, just going into Grade 6. Mom, Dad, my brother Miles and my sister Hilary, all heading across Canada to soak up the sites. And we did. There wasn't a museum, parliament building or Catholic Church that we didn't tour, visit or photograph. Province to province across the TransCanada Highway, experiencing what my father felt every Canadian child should - our land from sea to shining sea.
When we hit Port Elgin, New Brunswick we were starting to feel the stress of the cramped van and the long days of driving. My father did all the driving and it must have been exhausting to not get a break. My mother had just as hard a time as passenger. The stress of navigating your way across Canada weighs pretty heavy.
It was late in the night on that stretch of the highway when the RCMP officer pulled as over. I can remember Mom giving Dad heck for speeding and my dad saying he wasn't. The police officer came to the side of the car and asked my father if he knew why he was being pulled over. My father, always the gentleman, said, " I don't believe I was speeding sir." And the officer said, " I see you are from out of town. What brings you all this way? Do you have friends in town?"  Dad replied, "No we were just passing through, enjoying the sites along the way."   The officer informed Dad that the annual parade was the following day and as was the history of the parade, an out of town guest was appointed Grand Marshal and given the key to the City. We were to be the Grand Marshal Family. For my father who spent his life trying to give us moments, this must have felt like quite a coup. The ultimate Canadiana experience. It didn't get much better than this. We obviously accepted and were given a police escort into town where we were treated to a lobster dinner maritime style. The next day it was all business as we had to judge the parade after riding front and center on the Grand Marshal float ( which I believe was horse and cart?). We totally flubbed it up and ended up picking people who had never won before. I am sure the town still talks about the year those coast folk came and sent everything topsy turvy. But what a memory. As was the way of my Dad, he got to know the locals, and even had the local realtor showing him houses and had us dreaming of the maritime life.
 When we got home there was mail from Port Elgin, New Brunswick ,
A Certificate making us honorary citizens of the town and a copy of the local paper with a write up on the parade. I'm not sure what happened to that paperwork but I'm making a note to send an email off and find out if I can get a copy of that newspaper article. Canadiana.

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