Before Thirty

Skydiving and Stargazing

BLAKE

If there's one thing I've come to appreciate about Gwen, it's that you can never truly predict what'll get up to next. Even with our trip stops planned, the woman attracts trouble like no one I've ever met before. Her nickname should be Captain of Chaos.

But if I'm completely honest, one of the things I love about being a doctor, and about working in remote locations, is that no two days are exactly the same. When I left the DRC and got off the plane in Vancouver, I was burnt out from the stress that comes from never knowing exactly would land in front of us. Bullets. A body. Colleagues as mass casualties. 

To regroup, I assumed I needed peace and quiet and to keep things as predictable as possible. Bore myself into better mental health. A slower more consistent pace led me to the mature bus trip. Then I met Gwen—the opposite of what I believed I needed.

With Gwen, the unknown isn't stressful. It is—dare I say it—a joy.

She bursts through the door of the hotel room and skids to a halt. "You're not going to believe this," she says.

It's true, I probably won't. Whatever it is. This is how many of her strangest tales begin. As an extrovert, Gwen has talked to all kinds of people on our trip. There is literally no way I can guess what she's going to say next.

"At the tourist information booth, this pilot was there asking whether they'd heard of anyone looking for a last minute adventure. He'd just had a cancellation for his flight tonight. At dusk."

She stares at me as though waiting for me to immediately jump up and yell 'yes' in response to her enthusiasm. If she doesn't understand that isn't me as this point, I have no idea what to tell her.

On the couch, I take a bite of my apple and wait for her to drop whatever bomb is coming next. If she was anyone else, I'd assume this casual encounter at the tourist center would be a simple sunset flight across the prairies. Picturesque. Extravagant but normal.

But there's something about how much she's buzzing that tells me whatever she hasn't revealed is where the real excitement lies. At least for her.

"Okay," I say, when she seems to need something from me before she continues.

She seems to be weighing something in her mind, and she bites the inside of her cheek.

"And?" I ask.

"We'd camp out in the prairies overnight. It wouldn't just be us, though. So, it's not like romantic or anything." She waves her hands as though to ward off the thought.

"You want me to go?" I ask.

She frowns. "Oh, well, I just thought..." She drops her bag by the island in the kitchen. "A plane ride could be dangerous."

I stifle a laugh. Unless the pilot is unskilled or the plane is poorly maintained, our car trip presents more risks than her planned plane ride.

"I just met him at the tourist information booth. He could be anyone."

I take another bite of my apple, and I consider her second argument a little more closely. "The plane is landing somewhere in the prairies, and you're camping out there... In what?"

"A tent? I didn't actually ask. Maybe it's open-air camping. It's summer. How cold can it get?"

We're in northern Saskatchewan, so the nights aren't exactly balmy, which she'd know if she thought about it for a moment.

"We don't have any camping stuff."

"All provided for," she says, waving away my concern.

Something isn't adding up here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. She knows all the details are taken care of, but she doesn't know where they're sleeping. Actually, that's totally Gwen. If he told her she didn't have to worry about anything, she'd literally worry about nothing. Endearing and completely naïve.