There’s nothing like swimming in salt water, but I do love the feeling of lake water, too. The water in the Adirondacks was beautiful, so fresh and clean. And a few days earlier, we were in Woodstock, diving into a swimming hole / bucket of ice cold water. Both felt wonderful. But unlike sea water, I find it disconcerting that you can’t see the bottom of lakes. I imagine snakes and leaches all around me. I imagine coming nose to nose with a trout. “Swimming in fresh water has its challenges, because you don’t have the buoyancy you have in the sea,” I can hear my Dad saying. He swims for hours in the sea, always has done. One day, I’d like to swim a major distance, be it lake, sea or ocean. I’d enjoy the challenge, and the feeling of being an amphibian for a day.

Our first road trip was two weeks after Jason and I met. We rented a car in Florence and drove through Tuscany and Umbria for a few days. We barely knew each other, and with no radio in the car, we threw ourselves in at the deep end. We didn’t talk all that much, and it wasn’t lost on either of us how natural it felt to be quiet together. In the years that followed, we drove through Western Canada, California, Baja and Mexico. And when I say we drove, I mean Jason drove and I co-piloted. I’m hopeless with a map, so I actually didn’t even do that. I’d listen to music, (Frank Sinatra took us through the Rockies) tidy my thoughts and cuticles, and take in the scenery. To this day, we talk very little in the car, only the car is far from quiet. With three children in the back, snacking, eye-spying, bickering, whining, kicking, crying, and drowning out Jason’s yacht rock with their iPads, our car is not what it used to be. Road trips en famille are equal parts adventure and ordeal. There are the tedious, monotonous, pull-your-hair-out stretches. “Are we there yet?” “I need to pee!” “I feel car sick.” But the pay offs — spontaneous swims, exquisite scenery, unpredictability, adventure, and bonkers, loud, beautiful, messy hours all together — make it worth it. I admire families who travel across the country –– our destinations are never more than a day away –– and who camp along the way. That’s a whole other level of challenge. Maybe one day we’ll be up for it. Maybe one day, when more than one in the pack has a driver’s license!

We are exploring Upstate New York this week, and we began our road trip at the Letchworth State Park. It really is a pretty place, with acres and acres of trails and three dramatic waterfalls. As we climbed up to the falls, we came across three Indian women in saris the colour of spices. They looked so beautiful, and so out of place in a sea of gortex and New Balance trainers. I couldn’t help but snap a photo.

The lovely people who own Gaspard on Queen Street told me about the Inis Meáin Restaurant & Suites in the Aran Islands, and one look sent it to the top of my ‘places I want to go’ list. The island itself, “a raw limestone slab in the wild Atlantic” looks breathtaking, and the suites, spartan and beautifully considered, look like somewhere you go to read, breath and reflect. I hear the food at the restaurant is simple, fresh and exquisite. Really, let’s go. And let’s buy a lot of very beautiful jumpers while we’re there.