Sitting here eating my Camembert cheese staring out at the trees it occured to me that one never quite knows what one is going to get on a home exchange! It's a leap of faith based on a few pictures, countless e-mails with potential home exchange partners, and lots and lots of planning.
When we decided to send Skyler to summer camp in Maine I thought, "Easy! Everyone wants to come to southern California. Finding a home exchange not too far from there will be a snap!" I was not about to send my child thousands of miles away withouth being within arms reach, at least for his first summer at camp. Call me overprotective but it was one of the requirements for sending him...no budging on this point! So, expanding home exchange queries in ever widening concentric circles from southern Maine I soon realized that this would be more difficult than I first thought. In this down-economy I got lots of replies such as, "Sorry, we have to work this summer.", and, "We can't travel this year." from many prospective exchange partners. Others clearly wanted to avoid southern California like the plague..."We have NO plans to travel to California, ever", "We don't go to cities", "We always choose travel destinations in the countryside". OK.
Finally, after widening my circle to Quebec I found someone who wanted to come to California! Francoise and her husband had spend the previous summer in Santa Monica "going to the beaches and cooking good food" and they were excited to explore the beaches in southern Los Angeles County down into Orange County. They had a beautiful cabin in the woods of the Laurentians near Mont Tremblant that looked like a fantastic place for my husband and I to unwind and enjoy some peace and quite. Although it was a seven hour drive to Maine it was within an acceptable distance to us so we made the agreement and bought our airline tickets!
So now, here I sit in a beautiful "bois rond" chalet in the woods of southern Quebec, eating my Camembert cheese, and wondering what to do with all of this time on my hands. I've already read three books, it's raining outside, and my husband is pacing up and down like a caged rat! Yesterday, five people were struck by lightning so I'm afraid to go kayaking on the lake.
This reminds me a little of another home trade we did to Thailand. We had a magnificent home, a full-time maid, a 60 foot swimming pool and a dog. About 6 days before we were to leave the monsoon season arrived literally in an instant. We were out kayaking through the mangrove swamps looking at ancient caves and cave paintings with a guide and we saw a gray wall of water coming towards us from upstream. It moved forward and we paddled into it - it didn't stop raining for the rest of our time there. Even a trip to Tesco for supplies was a grip-the steering-wheel-and-break-out-into-a-cold-sweat adventure...between the muddy sludge washing over the road in rivers, flooded intersections, and scooters careening everywhere it was a miracle to get home alive. The water came up all the way to the back gate and the pool and jacuzzi overflowed...
This time though, it is so quiet I can hear my heart beating and I'm not sure what to do next! Being from LA one cannot say, "There's nothing to do," because that is always an outright lie. There is so much to do that it's often hard to choose WHAT to do - maybe I'm just out of my element here but this is going to take more work than I thought! Hiking? Signs warn of wolves...Kayaking? yes, but I'm afraid of lightning with this weather...Maybe I'll bake cookies and pretend I'm Laura Ingalls...yeah, that'll be fun.
