It’s that time of year when I start planning to leave this frozen rock of a province I call home and venture diagonally to a much nicer rock of a province. I do the same thing every freaking year. I think about driving or flying into the US or Central/Western Canada. I find a great deal, then grumble about the surcharges.

WTF is an airport improvement fee?

Pffth. I then scale it back. Maybe I’ll drive — Maine? New Brunswick? Cape Breton? I start looking at accommodations and come to the conclusion that two nights anywhere else = a week in Cavendish, PEI.

So off to PEI I go, returning with a bagful of books, pottery, soap, and kitchen goodies.

There’s another component to this. It’s not just the cost, though that is certainly a determining factor. If I wanted to go to to Maine, I’d just loosen the purse strings and go.

I just want the same damn vacation I’ve been having for the last four years. I want the soap. I want the pottery. I want the kitchen goodies. And any excuse to buy books.

More than anything, I want that sense that I’m AWAY. I want the sense that there’s a lone bridge that separates me from the rest of North America, and when I want to go home the only thing I have to do is get in the car and cross the bridge.

I also commit myself to writing or reading while on vacation. This never happens. My first week-long vacation and I took my laptop and about 5 books. Read one book. Wrote noting. Lesson learned. I’m an active vacationer who gets up, pours coffee down her throat and takes off.

I also like going ALONE. Call me anti-social, but there’s nothing more annoying than dragging someone somewhere they don’t want to go (or being the drag-ee) or playing the “What do you want to do?/I don’t know, what do you want to do?” game. My third visit wasn’t solo, and while it wasn’t a bad experience, I felt like I had made a mistake in inviting the person to come along with me. They were in MY HAPPY PLACE, and while they made me happy most of the time, I knew well before the trip that I should have just booked somewhere else.

So off I’ll go again. I’ll take pictures of the same places. I’ll do my evening walks on the same trail. I’ll go fox-spotting at sunset. Then, next year, I’ll start all over again.

Half the fun is trying to find this spot year after year.