Following up on my most recent blog post, here’s another slice of true life in the world of Chris.

Today is my wedding anniversary. Eleven years ago today, Isabelle and I tied the knot and have lived truly blessed lives since that day. I am very recognizant of the privileged life that I live, and I am eternally grateful for all of the abundance that I have in my life. But even a privileged life like mine isn’t always perfect, despite what social media may tell you. Here’s the brief rundown of our long-simmering trip to Cape Breton.

In early 2020, Isabelle and I started to plan out what we would do for our 9th anniversary later that year. We decided we were going to do something “simple” since we had big plans for our 10th anniversary in 2021. (You can read about how well that trip went here.) We decided that we wanted to visit Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and drive the world-famous Cabot Trail.

Our original 2020 trip was booked so that we would be on the road starting on September 30th and spend our anniversary, along with the next few days, visiting through Cape Breton. Plans got derailed a bit when my mother-in-law’s hip replacement surgery was rescheduled and overlapped with our trip. So we canceled trip #1 and rebooked it a few weeks later, in mid-October. As we all know, a little event came to bear in early 2020 that disrupted most people’s lives and plans for a considerable amount of time. It reared it’s ugly head again in the fall of 2020. Our province re-entered a full lockdown a week before our departure date. We were not allowed to leave, so cancelation of trip #2.

For our anniversary this year, we thought why not redo our failed 2020 trip and head to Cape Breton? We booked our Airbnb at Salty Rose’s & the Periwinkle Café and planned out our five day trip. But the Universe seems to have an issue with us going to Cape Breton. A week before we were scheduled to go, Mother Nature reared her ugly head and sent hurricane Fiona barreling through the Maritimes leaving destruction in it’s wake. Our trip was now up in the air.

Power outages were widespread across Nova Scotia, with Cape Breton hit particularly hard. Our Airbnb lost power and it was only scheduled to be restored two days before our stay. When we reached out, the kind folks at Salty Rose’s said they were hopeful that everything would be up and running and not impact our vacation. Power was restored earlier than anticipated, and we got the greenlight to go. Yay!

Flash forward to Friday morning. We had planned to be out the door by 8AM as we had a good 6-hour drive ahead of us to arrive at our destination. Again, Universe intercedes.

Isabelle woke around 5AM, feeling nauseous. Let’s just say we started the day off on a crappy note. We decided to hold off on our departure to see if she would feel better. Sometime after 11AM, she was feeling somewhat better, so we decided to hit the road, hopeful that the nausea would pass as the day progressed. Flash forward again to that evening. We are settled in at our Airbnb, but Isabelle has eaten a sum total of 1 banana and about 12 unsalted crackers all day. Her stomach issues continue to rear their ugly head. We eventually get to sleep (ish) around midnight, and I am awakened at 3AM to the sounds of my wife being sick to her stomach (for the first time in 20 years).

We’re nearly positive that this was food poisoning. The progression matches what happened to me last year to a T when I had food poisoning. And though she was feeling somewhat better after this, we knew that she would not be eating much for the next day or two, nor would she feel up to doing much. So, at 5:45AM, we packed up the car and drove the six hours back home, cutting short our vacation by four days.

While not the vacation we had intended, it is apparently the vacation that the Universe wanted us to have. I’m still off for the entire week ahead, and I’ll enjoy the time off, even if I am just at home. I still don’t know why we’re not meant to visit Cape Breton, but I’ll take a hint (finally). Maybe we’ll retry this whole thing someday, but not in the near future.