Enshrined within the familiarity of suburbia, passing the whole of the sunny morning indoors – catching up on reading, writing and arithmetic. I’m too comfortable in these suburban surroundings.
And unexpectedly elated that my rental car is parked up on it’s own driveway, in the middle of a scene ready-made for a soap opera comedy-drama. Or a David Lynch film.
As I draw the curtains open, I can sense twitching blinds in the bungalows around me. What tales – what spectacle and hidden tension – these residential Newfoundland streets must hold … I’ll never know.
Affairs resolved to as best as my intentions will allow, I take off at midday, for a slightly banal journey west along the Trans Canada Highway – evident by the fact that the highlight is stopping at the halfway point, at a plastic iceberg next to a streetlamp and some bunting.
Why I’m pulling over to see an iceberg rooted to a grass verge outside a roadside diner, when I saw real ones only a few days ago, is beyond me.
While I’m here, I take advantage of the bathroom facilities in the darkened saloon bar – which is full of an odd mix of wily truck drivers and virtuous winnebago sightseers, all staring blankly upwards at TV screens showing ice hockey.
There are stories within these walls. And possibly out the back, too. I don’t hang around to find out.
Approaching Corner Brook is where the scenery starts becoming alluring again. Mountains rising up around me, the road twisting a course through troughs and valleys. Long-distance lorries struggling for air on the ever-steeper inclines, crawling along the highway, four way flashers on. I breeze past them on cruise control.
Down and around Corner Brook downtown and out the other side, to another suburban setting; this time on a mountainside, overlooking the lake and the paper mill, which is busy sending continuous smoke signals to the scenery.
My chalet loft apartment is another perfect residential bolthole, somewhere to nurture my sightseer anonymity.
To encourage this further, I head down the hill to Sobeys, to pick up a microwave meal and a Nanaimo bar. I’m a hardcore expeditioner, I am, toughing it out in the most challenging of circumstances and surroundings – suburban gridlock in the parking lot. Takes me five minutes to get out!
Back at my studio, a terrace balcony in the warm early-evening sun is a welcome place to take a cold beer. If only I wasn’t constantly being watched on by Angry Birds – glued to a tree on the other side of the garden.
And no wonder they’re pissed … there’s no outdoor furniture.
I sit cross-legged for a while, before the sun goes down and cramp sets in.
An Outside World 