We were scheduled to leave our campsite in Algonquin provincial park on Wednesday morning, but the blackflies were so bad on Tuesday night that we would have run away on Wednesday even if we’d been booked in for another week.

We packed up as fast as we could, had a cup of something hot, took a quick shower, and headed towards Toronto. I followed Mila and Christina’s camper van with my car, and just as I was starting to really, really want something to eat, they turned onto a side road and pulled over at a wide spot.

On one side of the road was a very closed-up house with a for sale sign in front, opposite was what we presumed to be that house’s lake access. It looked like a great place for a picnic.

Lovely, non?

So we set ourselves up with a very informal picnic

of bread, cheese, watermelon, and leftover cold coffee.

Something was more interesting to Chico than was our lunch…

The Canada Geese fled the dock when we arrived, but didn’t go too far.

Thus fortified, we carried on to the big city.

Through long ago connections in a far away corner of northern India, Mila knows a young family of Tibetan immigrants living on the northwestern edge of the Toronto area, and their house was our first stop.

I’m going to mangle the spellings of these kind folks names, but here goes….Tinley is the dad, his wife is Kuchee and I never did learn their little boy’s name, but he was fascinated by Chico. I explained to Tinley that Chico isn’t used to little kids and Tinley explained to his son in Tibetan that he couldn’t touch Chico, and he didn’t. But he watched him. From as close as he could get.

That little boy was so good, and so was Chico (who felt secure lying between my legs).

He called Chico how-ow, which I presume is what dogs say in Tibetan.