During the final two days of the trip, we tried to determine what it is that we both were experiencing – a now-familiar feeling we’ve had at the end of each of our trips. We’re happy to be coming home, yet there’s a sadness to ending our adventurous life on the road. We concluded that it’s primarily a feeling of wistfulness (yearning or longing) with a touch of bittersweet (contrasting emotions of sadness and pleasure). And overall, it leaves us with a sense of satisfaction with the adventure just concluded.
As we look back on this summer’s travels, we’ve again found joy in all that we’ve experienced – we learned of new history (Nordic explorations, New World battles and conflicts, recent fishing moratoriums with massive implications) and new cultures (company towns for resource extraction industries, fishing communities, and former fishing communities transformed). We met up with old friends, made new friends, found long lost family members, and were inspired by the awesome landscape of Atlantic Canada. We hiked deep into much of that landscape, we played a bit of our own music, and we listened to and learned about the music of our host country and the provinces we traveled through.
We don’t know what’s next, but there’s certainly more adventure waiting for us out there (and we arrived home with a pocketful of CA$ that we’ll have to do something with, right?). For the next few months, we’ll enjoy Vermont, hang with friends, ski, play more music and start thinking about what’s next…
