A Fat Purple Fig

Stocked up with rolls and snacks from our untouched meal trays, we find our way to the rental car zone at Jamaica Circle, Queens. ‘Ok, Kitty,‘ I announce, ‘we are about to drive through New York City. Brace yourself.‘ Aaaand, we are off, in our trusty white Corolla (now on the top of the list of cars I like best).

I miss a turn here, and a lane there, but remain nonplussed. They key is to remain calm, drive slowly, and see wrong turns as but an exciting extension of the vehicular journey. ‘Quick! Take a picture,’ I say, as we approach Whitestone Bridge, ‘this is a huge flex for me.‘

‘It actually is,‘ Kitty agrees, making me feel unexpectedly gratified. We FaceTime Mary, and show her the Manhattan skyline across the East River.

Kitty is an expert navigator, announcing lane choices and upcoming turns, as she curates our soundtrack. I agree that Delta Goodrem is an excellent choice for a little Aussie flavour in the Big Apple. We sing as the traffic thins out, and the landscape changes; metropolitan to suburban, signage to greenery, on the Interstate 486. We laugh at ‘BJ’s‘, because we are not mature. The trucks are as commonplace as ever.

‘Just get a bigger wheel, buddy,‘ Kitty giggles, ‘then you won’t need two.‘

We drive through Westchester county, and briefly through Connecticut, before targeting a little town called Armonk, just off the interstate, where we accidentally find a smashing supermarket called DeCicco & Sons. Supermarkets are fun in other countries. We marvel at the Halloween display and the pickles, and at people being American. Armed with vitamin water and Saltines, we stop on the way out of town to ‘ahhh‘ at the scenery, and notice the American flags staked throughout the cemetery.

Kitty may be a passenger, but she is queen of the car, with a steady flow of quips and comments.

‘Settle down, boys.‘
‘You’ve got a blinker, mate.’
‘Someone’s in a hurry!‘

We sing. Kitty switches her tone and the way she holds the notes, in the manner of someone who has talent, and has forgotten to be self-conscious. I love the steady stream of classics – Kelly Clarkson, the Plain White T’s, Coldplay – as we pass signs for Fishkill and Poughkeepsie and Watervliet, which has Kitty in stitches. She will respond, ‘not as good as Watervliet!‘ for all future town-name mentions.

Scrolling on her mobile, she provides a steady stream of conversational fodder. ‘Ashley Tisdale named her baby after a planet,‘ she announces. We run through the possibilities, giggling at ‘Uranus’. ‘It’s Jupiter,‘ she confirms.

Kitty searches on Wotif for somewhere to stay. ‘Filter by ‘Parking’ and sort them from ‘Low Price to High,’‘ I advise. ‘I sort everything I ever buy from ‘Low Price to High,’‘ she laughs. I want to stay at Lake Placid, because I mistakenly think it is the setting of a horror film with the same name, but it is too far away. Albany is closer, but too expensive, so we settle on Lake George, just outside Saratoga Springs. We watch ‘Court Cam’ in our motel, which has a vending machine and towels folded into patterns.

The next morning, we drive to the lake for a coffee, but everything is closed, so we enter ‘Quebec City’ into Maps, and get on the road.

‘Take a photo of one of those sheriff-badge highways signs,‘ I instruct. ‘Yes, ma’am,‘ Kitty replies, awaiting her moment. We listen to Three Wooden Crosses, by Randy Travis.

And that preacher whispered, “Can’t you see the Promised Land?”
As he laid his blood-stained bible in that hooker’s hand.

We wonder how Mary’s Lee will interpret us, because of the sheer number of things we enjoy sarcastically. Don’t get me wrong, we really enjoy watching Dance Moms and listening to Jesus, Take the Wheel but not in the way you might expect, if you didn’t know any better.

Fall is a beautiful season. A whole lotta colour can exist in a single tree, and we are full of admiration for the scenery. The foliage looks American somehow, and Canadian too, with its rows of firs. We try to work out which animals have produced the occasional roadkill on the shoulder. Kitty investigates local wildlife and lists them; woodchucks, red foxes, cottontail rabbits, wild turkeys, red-tailed hawks, kestrels, American goldfinches, the bobolink.

‘How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood,‘ I laugh.

Kitty researches the bobolink, and discovers that it makes a 20,000km annual round trip to South America, travelling the equivalent of 4-5 times the circumference of the earth in its lifetime. We are suitably impressed.

We stop at Peru for fuel, and a McDonald’s coffee. The main street, ‘Bear Swamp Road’, is lined with pictures of ‘Local Heroes’ who have joined the military, and there is an American flag posted in every second garden. At Maccas, the coffee is in a pot, and every food item has its calories listed on the sign above the counter. It’s busy, and everyone knows everyone. We take photos of the items on the order board, as Kitty relents and orders a Quarter Pounder with Cheese Bacon meal, with a Sweet Tea & Lemonade. ‘The bacon tastes weird,‘ she frowns in the car, ‘and so does the cheese.‘

‘I hope you don’t regret it,‘ I say, munching on a Saltine.

I tell Kitty about ‘Desert Island Discs‘. ‘Only one book?!‘ she wails. Having barely turned a page through school, she is now the family’s second-most-prolific reader. ‘Kingdom of Ash,‘ she declares. The songs are tougher to cull, so she is momentarily quiet. ‘Rise Up‘ makes the list, as does ‘Rescue‘ and ‘So Cold‘. She sings them beside me. I am intermittently almost-tearful.

We soon see a sign for Champlain, and squeal, ‘it’s so French!‘, followed by another for Canadian Customs. The lines of cars at the border come into view soon after, beside an inverted ‘United States of America’. We are excited and nervous. Kitty plays a commemorative track for the crossing. ‘C’mon, Mum, you know what this is,‘ she implores. It is familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

‘It’s the Transformers theme song!‘ she announces. Of course, how silly of me.

Stray Kids’ ‘Mix Tape 2’ is playing as we approach the window. A great choice. The attendant takes our passports and rapid-fires his questions:

‘Whose car is this?‘
‘Any tobacco or alcohol?‘
‘Where are you going?‘
‘Any weapons?‘
‘What are you looking forward to doing?‘
‘How many nights are you staying?‘

…before passing us through with an, ‘Enjoy your stay.‘ And, just like that, we are in Canada.

It looks less Canadian than New York State somehow, flatter and less-picturesque. ‘I wanna see a mountie.‘ Kitty declares. We like the signs: location-graphics, a moose, Canadian-red arrows.

We listen to a steady stream of country music tracks, full of heartbreak, home towns, putting down roots…and new trucks.

I need one she ain’t climbed up in
That ain’t played her favorite songs
Need some glass that we ain’t fogged up
That her bare feet ain’t been on

‘Do you want to listen to my French songs?‘ Kitty asks. And, just like that, we are listening to Sexion d’Assaut’s ‘Ma direction’. A few French tracks later, she pauses, and states, ‘oh, wait…this one is Italian.‘

She is an enigma.

We are wide-eyed as we cross the Saint Lawrence River on Pont Pierre-Laporte, the longest suspension bridge in Canada, and drive along Bd Champlain, which runs alongside the Samuel-De Champlain Promenade, a 6.8km ode to successfully blending natural and man-made beauty.

We pass an oval where an American-football team is training, and turn onto the Grande Allée, where we marvel at the architectural beauty of the buildings, old and stately. As we turn off, the roads narrow considerably, and we slow to a crawl as we navigate the sharp turns.

At long last, we find what we are looking for – a charming building on Av. Sainte-Geneviève, with tall windows, an iron balcony, and hanging flower baskets framing its front door.

The soundtrack draws to a close.

If you’re looking for us, we will be here, at the B&B de la Fontaine, in Old Quebec.