Beach to Beach the Queen of Meech

It was Saturday morning, 10 degrees Centigrade, windy, and the water was choppy.

Not ideal conditions, but this was the window of opportunity. Sandwiched between commitments last weekend in New York City and the next weekend in Toronto, I was here and Kristin was helping me fulfil this summer’s goal to swim Beach to Beach at Meech.

We drove separately to the deserted O’Brien Beach parking lot, put some clothes in my car and then drove in her car to Blanchette Beach parking lot. On the way to the other beach, we left water, Gatorade and cheese strings in a bag near the boat dock we’d pass at 1,000 metres. We figured we’d be taking a long time, and we’d be hungry.

I had my car key pinned to my bathing suit.

At 9:10 a.m. we entered the water at Blanchette and began swimming. Kristin pulled "floatie buoy", the red flotation device she’d given me for my birthday a few years ago, to enable me to even consider swimming in a lake. (Actually, in the waves, floatie buoy appeared to be pulling her.) I could wear it and hang on and rest if necessary – to save her having to rescue me. And I was wearing my other great support – without whom none of this would be possible – my thick, tattered, pink and black wetsuit purchased from the TriRudy rental collection after my first Try a Tri.

Through the waves we chugged along to the boat dock, and then kept going, to keep warm. The amazing thing about that swim was the variety – the waves got higher, the sun came out and then hid, the water was clear and then cloudy, we saw the fronts of all the cottages we’d driven past on the road.

It was so exciting to see the lifeguard chair of O’Brien Beach in the distance, and then the lifeguards huddled in fleece on the picnic table. There were no swimmers in the water or on the sand either. The lifeguards asked where we came from.

When I’d considered doing this, I’d envisaged a restful swim in glass-like water, on a sweltering hot day, with lots of rest stops. That’s the way Kristin had done it a few years earlier, and the way she’s proposed it to me. It had to be a weekend day, because in any case, I’d be too slow to do it before work.

But the way it actually happened turned out to be an even more wonderful challenge. I get motion sick in cars, but when I began to get woozy and throw up a bit from the waves, I felt like Marilyn Bell and Vickie Keith, not the swimmer wannabe that I was. What an amazing feeling to have progressed to this.

I was over the moon the first time I was able to swim around the island from Blanchette last year. I couldn’t imagine swimming any further.

I think Kristin was even more excited than I was for me, because she remembers the quivering, hyperventilating, bowl of jelly I was the first time I dipped my timid toes in Meech Lake and panted my way to the birch trees a hundred metres along the shore. Then I had to rest on a rock before the swim back. She remembers when my swimming to the red boathouse was an impossible goal.

And I remember her accomplishing a Try a Tri and thinking that was the pinnacle. Yet this summer she did an Olympic Tri and I did Meech Beach to Beach.

Time to make goals for next year! This is so much fun.

Weeeee love New Yawkkkkkk!

"I’ll have to turn off the engine," said the bus driver. "New York City has very stiff anti-idling laws."

We had already heard about the "no-talking-on-cellphones" law for when you’re crossing the street. Nevertheless, everyone crosses on red lights, including blind people with canes and parents with children!

It was exactly 4 p.m. Thursday; and we were waiting for our escort to return to the Travac Tours bus with our Sheraton Manhattan room keys.

The trip from Ottawa to New York City on our mother-daughter trip had taken exactly nine hours from our 7 a.m. departure, including an hour for lunch at Denny’s at noon.

The bus was full, with a surprising age range of men, women and children.

En route Travac escort Elaine Hickey doled out home-made muffins, bottles of water, and offered candies – and a steady banter about what to see and New York trivia. She handed out pamphlets, booklets and discount coupons, and showed a New York tourism movie, as well as a regular Hollywood movie.

Once in the city, we were on our own, and Naomi and I headed right to the discount same-day theatre ticket kiosk on Broadway and bought the last two tickets to Tony Award-winning "Avenue Q", described as "Sesame Street on crack".

The second day we lined up again for tickets to the "Drowsy Chaperone". It’s an experience to be in those long, snaking ticket lines.

Avenue Q is an adult puppet show, where the actors hold the puppets but are visible themselves.

We didn’t get seats together, so we switched seats at intermission to see the view from opposite sides. The show contains such memorable songs as:

"You’re a little bit racist"
"The Internet is for porn"
"There’s a fine fine line between love and a waste of time"
and "It sucks to be me."


In the evening street hawker/comedians promote late night comedy clubs for after theatre; but we didn’t try any.


So many food options. We had dinner the first night at Zen Palace, a vegan, vegetarian chain, but we both couldn’t stomach the zenmaki, a combination of string bean, carrot and soy ham wrapped sushi style in sesame nori.

Blossom, an upscale vegan restaurant in Chelsea was much better.

We had breakfast at Ellen’s Stardust Diner down the street from our hotel, where the singing waitstaff perform on an ear-shattering sound system and the wall has photos of the "Miss Subways" beauty queens from the 1940s.

Walking down the street, we saw a truck parked with a giant blow-up rat in the back of it. We found out later that the rat is placed where "undocumented" workers are doing construction work.

Then in the pouring rain we took a city tour Friday of all of Manhattan, included with our package, and learned a lot about the city.

When we stopped at Trump Tower for a bathroom break, we actually encountered The Donald himself with his bodyguards in the lobby. We took his photo and added it to our celebrity collection, with Angela Lansbury from the sidewalk on Broadway.

Saturday morning the rain finally stopped and we spent a breathtaking morning in beautiful Central Park, a few blocks walk from the hotel. So European-like, with rowboats on the pond, violinists playing underneath historic carved archways, and runners, dog walkers and strollers enjoying this natural paradise. We liked it so much, we returned Sunday morning as well and hated to leave.


Saturday afternoon and evening visits with Naomi’s friends working four jobs and living in tiny accommodations gave us a look at what it’s really like to live and work in New York City and pursue a career in theatre.

There is competition for everything in New York, not just for theatre roles. If you don’t like the prices at a restaurant or store, you can usually find what you’re looking for at the price you want to pay.

Early in the trip we had walked out of an overpriced diner, and then found Pick a Bagel down the street on 7th Avenue that offered twice as much food for half the price. We returned to Pick a Bagel a second time on our way to Central Park.

The bus left New York City at 1 p.m., Sunday, with a rest stop three hours later, and a buffet dinner stop at Plainsville Farms turkey restaurant in Cicero, N.Y., followed by a stop at the Duty Free. We arrived back in Ottawa at exactly 10 p.m. as promised.

As laden-down tour members assembled their purchase receipts and shopping bags for Customs, I realized that what we were bringing back was intangible. We had spent all our money on theatre tickets, and food, and the memories and digital photos were our carry-on.