Montreal: Late October. And probably the last story. (But very well-illustrated.)

Our week in the Eastern Townships had been a chilly one. We celebrated my birthday in Knowlton under six inches of heavy wet snow; the next day we went on to North Hatley, where snow took down powerlines and our B and B was dark and cold for hours. (But beautiful. With a gorgeous attic room, a Truman Capote-look-alike making us fabulous breakfasts of eggs and fresh asparagus and fruit and delicate pastries, and a big bed with the best feather pillows I've ever slept on.)

Now we were in Montreal for one more week, and everything had warmed up. It was late October, nearly Halloween, and the weather was gloriously blue and gold.



We had been to Montreal so many times by this point that we no longer needed the Ulysses Guide; we knew what we wanted to do. The Museum of Beaux-Arts. Dinner along Duluth Street, where all the little ethnic restaurants are. (Bring your own wine.) (Which we kept forgetting to do.)

A trip to Marche Jean-Talon, to ogle, if not eat, the fruits and vegetables. A hockey game! And a hike up Parc du Mont Royal.

We started up the mountain on a day that could not have been more gorgeous. The trees along the road were brilliant gold in the bright sunshine; the sun warmed up into the 70s, and it felt more like summer than late fall.

Parc du Mont Royal is in the middle of the city, on top of a high steep hill--it is really a stretch to call it a mountain. The hilltop is heavily wooded and criss-crossed with dozens of intersecting trails. Not all of them are marked. Actually, hardly any of them are.

But we had been up the mountain many times, and we knew exactly where we were going. We walked up the wide road along with dozens of other hikers and bicyclists, through the trees, the grade getting steeper and steeper the higher we went.

At the top, we stopped and looked.

And wiped the sweat from our brow. We had tied our rainjackets around our waists and I was regretting the extra clothing, regretting not wearing shorts. The plastic of the Helly Hansen left me damp and sweaty around my middle.

We lay down in the grass and stared up at the blue sky. Shut our eyes against the sun. Opened them again. A few autumn leaves glided lazily down.


And just like that, while we watched the sky, there was a shift.

It was subtle. It's hard to describe. But it happened. A shift in the weather. The feel changed; the leaves that had been floating so gently suddenly began to swirl. Clouds scudded in, dimming the brilliant blue. Doug said, "Now it's fall."

We got up, brushed the leaves from our backs, shivered. We hiked over to the chalet, to the path back down, and looked out over the city. The sky already looked autumnal, ominous, almost like it was courting snow.

It had become hazy and Novembery.

"We'd better get back down," Doug said. "I think it's going to rain."

We walked to the top of the wooden stairs. They were roped off. They were being repaired. "Use another route," the sign said. But we didn't know any other route. I heard rustling in the leaves: rain!

We plunged into the woods, followed some people who were following a trail. Was this the right way? We weren't sure. We knew where the city was--down the hill and to our right. But the trail twisted and turned, and we didn't know if we were going deeper into the woods, or were headed in the right direction.

The trail grew wet, and slick. The people up ahead somehow disappeared. As long as we were headed down, I felt pretty confident, but then the trail began to climb again. We felt despair. "We're lost, we're soaked, we're going to have to spend the night on this mountain!"

"Just keep walking."

We walked for an hour. I shivered in the damp, but I figured the park wasn't that big; the trail had to lead us out eventually, even if we weren't sure where. Unless, of course, we were on one of those cross-country ski loops.

But just as all good things come to an end, it's also true that bad times don't last. The trail ended abruptly, sending us out onto a busy paved road, cars zipping around curves at high speeds. But there was a wide shoulder, and we could see the city stretching out below us, and we could even tell where we were. We hiked down the road, inhaling fumes, getting wetter and wetter, rolling our eyes at the ignominious way our beautiful and bucolic day was ending.

My feet were aching, my legs were trembling from hiking the steep decline. But eventually we found ourselves at Rue Sherbrooke, and it wasn't too long after that that we found ourselves sitting in the warmth, a flatbread pizza ordered, a couple of beers in front of us on the wooden table.

It was like a miracle.

Warmth, and rest, and food, and drink--they are all more satisfying when you earn them, even if you earn them merely by getting lost in the woods.

We lifted our glasses in a toast. "To survival. And to noticing the precise moment when the world shifts from summer to fall."