The open road
Best friends Angie Arsenault and Chelsea Moulins on last leg of cross-Canada trip
Angie Arsenault and Chelsea Moulins found two constants when travelling Canada. “Truck stops and Tim Hortons,” said the best friends before erupting into laughter. The duo is making their way back to Prince Edward Island after an epic cross-Canada adventure in what Arsenault lovingly calls the ‘Matrix Motel’. “We always like to go on road trips, so we decided to take a big one,” said Arsenault via Bluetooth Friday morning as she navigated their way east through Ontario. “Neither one of us saw Canada, cross-country road-trip style, so why not?” That was at Christmas. The response since has been mixed. “They thought we were crazy,” she said, adding the emails, inbox Facebook messages and texts about their trip is “enough to fill a book.” There was no agenda, no set schedule, only the freedom of the open road. The Matrix Motel, also known as Mama Matrix, would serve as their home on wheels, from where they’d see this country and, at night, beneath its stars, sleep. On March 24, with a full tank of gas, a map and giddy with excitement, they set off.
They’ve gotten lost, first just mere hours into their trip, in New Brunswick. There’s been rough weather, with a storm at the offset and, Thursday night, in Ontario. Saskatchewan, both say, was tricky, with ice-covered roads, no salt, no sand, and nowhere to stop for hundreds of kilometres.
Dozens of selfies, many with a selfie stick Moulins assured was purchased only to get a better view of the Rockies, have been taken and a blog, via Twitter (@ angee_pants and @c_moulins), has documented the adventure — the good, the bad and the ridiculously funny, all with the hashtag #CC2016.
“Coming from you, live, inside a snowball,” Arsenault wrote during Thursday’s storm, along with a photo of the car’s snowcovered windows. Truck stops have been among the highlights, with their hot showers, good food, free places to park and sleep, and more luxury than anticipated. “Their change rooms, the showers are amazing, better than some of the hotels we’ve stayed at,” quipped Arsenault.
The trip hasn’t been without its surprises. One was an Easter Day visit with friends in Keswick, Ont., and another saw Arsenault reconnecting with an old flame she hadn’t seen in 25 years. “There have been so many wow moments,” said Moulins. “I knew there were mountains and how beautiful they were, but driving around them you see it for yourself and realize how small you feel.” Along the way there’s been laughter, sleeplessness, lots of coffee, some wine, challenges, chatter, friendships rekindled and others made. “We have done the craziest things to keep ourselves entertained — karaoke, we wrote our own song, we’ve made fun of signage along the way, struggled with pronunciation at so many area names,” said Arsenault. “At one point we were stopped, so we got out of the car and started dancing in the middle of the highway.” And they have yet to hear every song of their road-trip playlist. When they arrive in Summerside Sunday or early Monday, Mama Matrix will be 12,000 kilometres older and a little worse for the wear.
There will be dirty laundry and, what Moulins can’t wait for, sleep to catch up on. Both say it has been an incredible adventure, the memories too many to count. But, would they do it again? “Absolutely,” they say in unison. “We are planning our next trip already.”