Travel has changed since I drove across the country so frequently many years ago. I used to email in advance, and then just show up. Or, at the most, I would call from the highway to guarantee occupancy, and then come to town to find the person waiting.
In the days of cell phones, people merely say call when you arrive. They rely on me having mobile communication every bit as much as they do, and while I carry a laptop, which on its limited battery could pull in wireless, it is difficult to find wireless along the highway. Emailing in advance has been working on this trip, but if I were to do it again, I think I would get a cell phone just for the ease.
Navigation has changed for me as well. I have misplaced most of my old maps—they are likely somewhere around the cabin and at the house in Winnipeg—so I had to pick up a few maps on the road and use Google Maps on my laptop. I would wait until the streets grew complex, and then I would check the laptop for the turnings I had saved in its memory. If I ventured off the map, it had nothing to offer me, but luckily for the most part, I could use it. Because I am losing some of my near-sightedness because of age, most maps are more than difficult to read and I was introduced to the hassle of driving while peering over the reading glasses I was using to read my map.
I’d been to my friend’s place in Montreal before, so I picked through the torn tarmac of the Montreal freeways to Westmount and was soon knocking on her door. My other good friend, who I rarely see because I am not in Montreal anymore, had a work engagement so I missed seeing her. These trips are difficult to coordinate that way.
Back in Montreal at the end of my trip, we went out to buy food and I began what would turn out to be a fruitless search for vegetarian tourtiere. 
The veggie meat pie can only be bought in Quebec, as far as I know, although it escaped me. The following day we noodled around the apartment and talked, and then went out in the evening to see Phantom of the Paradise, a 1974 Brian de Palma movie I’d seen in the late seventies or early eighties. I’d told my friend about it, and then while we were talking about how 
it was hugely popular in Winnipeg and Paris and a flop elsewhere, she found online that it was playing.
We met up with her friends and soon we were all watching in wonder and horror as a grim parade of grotesqueries and nuttiness crossed the screen. The theatre was nearly empty but the few who were there seemed appreciative if their laughter was any indication.
After the film we walked for almost an hour back home in the humid breezes of the summer night. It was perfect walking weather and before long we were asleep and, in my case at least, anticipating the drive to the cabin the next day.
