The original entry

I am in Halifax right now. I have used my tent for a sum total of two nights. Then Kate and I packed it up. It was freezing. I could see my breath. In June. Canada is unnatural!

When people ask me about this trip, the weather is often what I relate immediately. I suspect that you had the misfortune of having this foundational trip during a surprise cold snap. At least it plays into comedic expectations for our northerly neighbor.

The people on the trip were unfailingly lovely to you and Kate's family, which is a stereotype you were pleased to have confirmed. You were so nervous that you would bungle the trip--and you nearly did a few times--that the presence of almost universally friendly people soothed you.

We were at a really nice campsite in Cape Breton. I will have tons of great pictures when I get back.

Oh, my dear sweet boy. You don't. Despite your photography class, you load your camera wrong, and the film does not advance, something you do not realize until you are 26 pictures in on a roll that should only have had room for 24.

I regret still those wasted pictures, what you would have shown. It is among the top three regrets you have about this trip, which you otherwise regard with a hazy fondness for years.

We saw whales. Well, we hunted then, just without the killing part. But we have pictures and video of them.

To be fair, you did have pictures of these. You had gray humps barely rising out of gray water. It is the nature of these things.

That boat trip was possibly the sickest you have ever been, though less so the second time, as you saw no whales the first, and the company had a guarantee.

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Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled and gifted. He is capable of crossing one eye, raising one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings. He likes when you comment.