Empty Places

 I don't know why it is that, given the option, I would rather avoid a place where there are crowds, even very small ones. It's not that I don't like humans - my career choices in education and shopkeeping meant I was constantly dealing with them - it's more that places just seem more pleasant, more interesting, more open and visible in their absence.

So in the days when we went travelling I liked to be as alone as possible. Visiting Niagara wasn't my choice but, in the event, because it was late September, a month which most of the tourists felt was likely to be too cold for such visits, the place was relatively deserted. The falls were, as a result, spectacular - and the temperature reached 21C.

There is, of course, a down-side to everything, because those Canadian tourists were often right. So we twice crossed the Rockies and Cascades in early October when the first snows were falling, and on the second occasion only just made it across into Washington State before the passes were closed. Some of the classic sites were also inaccessible, but this didn't bother me as the up-side was that those that were open were almost deserted.

Travelling in late season also meant that the places where we stayed were usually very quiet, though the down-side of this was that the service wasn't quite what one would expect by Canada's high standards.

One of the things - and there are many - which I envy the Canadians is the size and relative low population density of their country. We've done several 'road trips' in Canada, a form of recreation I would never have considered on the UK's crowded roads, and have thoroughly enjoyed sitting back in large, comfortable SUVs surveying the passing scenery. I'm not sure that, with changing attitudes towards travel, I would want to do the same again: next time I go I would like to choose one spectacular, very lonely place, stay there, and soak up its atmosphere.