[due to technical difficulties, this was not posted when it was written, which was roughly 9pm, October 20]

This is the last day of the Tour. I’ll be home tomorrow! I fell behind with my blog, but I had a wonderful house concert in Peterborough on Day 9 and one in Toronto, on Day 17 (hosted by the marvelous Sarah Hopen of STARCompany).

Most of the rest of the trip was visiting people and doing miscellaneous work projects here and there.

Now I’m on my way home and after 1.5 hours of white-knuckle driving in pouring rain and near zero visibility, I am safely ensconced in a motel room. Not the motel I was planning to stay in – no, the road was closed on the path indicated to me by the Interwebs, so I turned around and came to this motel, which shall remain nameless.

I’m fascinated by this motel room. Maybe because it’s my last day on the road and my first really no-name motel. And maybe because it just feels kind of miraculous that I made it here at all.

Things this motel room has:

• an abandoned cell phone charger
• a fan
• a train that passes nearby and blows its whistle
• a bottle of whiskey (I brought that)
• supper (improvised with the food I have left in my car at this point in the trip: a granola bar, an apple, almond butter (eaten off the blade of a butter knife) and a handful of walnuts
• wifi (sweet)
• windows that open
• a bathtub
• soap
• grey towels (I like a place that doesn’t even pretend to be able-or perhaps willing-to keep white towels white)
• fridge and microwave (I think I am atypical of this motel’s residents; I am not planning to stay for more than one night)
• a great pillow (I brought this, too)
• a TV (but at least it’s closed up in one of those cabinets so I don’t have to look at it).

• any sign of bedbugs (yay!)
• a security lock on the door (I have propped the room’s only chair under the door knob)
• shampoo or conditioner
• natural fibres in any of the linens, curtains, etc.
• good art