Post Labor Day I usually experience a mild September glow as the evenings grow cooler, the days shorter, and the experiences of the summer fade into the blur of personal history.

Howard and I thought that in the summer just past, our first as full-time Florida residents, we’d miss a bit of the fabled Florida heat and humidity by planning a mid-August trip to Newfoundland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia. Certainly, this would be an area where cool would prevail. So in addition to tee shirts and a few pair of shorts, we packed sweaters, sweat shirts, and jeans to see us through. We landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as the thermometer hit 95 (well, really it hit 33 Celsius but that comes out in the 95 range Fahrenheit). The same day Miami was 87. So much for careful planning! On the bright side, we came home with a bunch of sweatshirts and jeans that were still clean.

The trip we were taking was a planned tour with some 40 participants, a bus, a tour guide-the whole works. Howard and I have done our share of independent travel, both separately and together, but we’ve also discovered the advantages of listening to a guide rather than trying to read and interpret multiple roadside signs. And it’s kind of nice to arrive at the end of the day, hop through the shower while the bags are being delivered, and head to a dinner that’s either pre-selected or has limited choice-the standard on most group tours. While there’s a risk of the “If it’s Tuesday, it’s Belgium” syndrome, in this case our destinations were each distinctive. Tuesday was Cornerbrook, Newfoundland; Wednesday was Plum Point; Thursday, L’Anse Au Clair. And with a 10-hour crossing of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton on the “Bras d’Or” train, and ferry boat excursions across the Cabot Straight and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it was a trip we’ll not soon forget.

On other tours we’ve taken, by sheer statistical probability, we’ve met other gay or lesbian fellow travelers. On this trip it quickly became obvious that, while there were a few singles that teamed with us as the “odd man out” contingent, the score of straights vs. gays was 40 to 2. Fortunately, all our fellow travelers, despite a median age of near 80, were experienced travelers, cordial, and some were genuinely friendly. One woman, however, had a loud penetrating voice that caught up with you no matter where you sat in the bus and by the end of the trip all 41 fellow travelers were totally familiar with her arthritis problems and medications, her menopausal symptoms of days long gone, and the struggles of selling real estate in a small Pennsylvania town.

The tour director, an energetic smile-oriented Nova Scotia woman, was unfortunately vaccinated with a needle from the old RCA Victor days and couldn’t shut up. The bus seemed to be outfitted with “surround sound” and there was no way to escape her unending supply of superfluous information. After all, who really cares whether the tire shop on a nondescript corner in Plum Point, Newfoundland (population 1,000), used to be a small shop, but now, since the sons of the original owner are in charge, it has grown to its current impressive size. To her credit, however, she was very knowledgeable, not only in the history and culture of the area, but in the flora and fauna as well. We did see moose and whales, bald eagles and puffins, plus new and interesting flowers and berries galore. We also had our fill of cod and Atlantic salmon and regretted that the lobster season was over.

But being the only two gays among 40 straights produced some interesting experiences. At the first night get acquainted dinner, while most of my tablemates were in the buffet line, the woman sitting across from me asked, “How did you three men get away from your wives?” I responded quite honestly that I had never previously seen the man on my left and I had no information on his marital status; but as far as Howard and I were concerned, we live together in Ft. Lauderdale and had no wives to bring. I could have been glib and said that I did bring my wife along and he’s at the buffet table, but it didn’t seem the right time to get into who’s top and who’s bottom, who’s butch and who’s fem, and what part of each of us is wife or husband. I felt that for opening night that would have been strictly TMI-too much information.

One morning I wore a new tee shirt with a logo of “GLCC of South Florida” on the chest. I was immediately questioned by a fellow traveler what the logo stood for, so I explained that GLCC was the abbreviation for the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida and that the shirt was a recognition of my volunteer service with the organization. Later in the trip, the same questioner, a retired dentist from California, asked why I’d selected Ft. Lauderdale for retirement. I explained that Ft. Lauderdale has the largest concentration of gay seniors on the East Coast and that there was a steady stream of friends from Washington, DC, and Rehoboth Beach, DE, relocating to Ft. Lauderdale. That makes it a comfortable place for us to live. There were no further questions.

By the time we concluded the trip, Howard had concluded that he’d had his fill of straights for the year. Which made me question whether we, in our rainbow colored cocoon, have become heterophobic or was our experience more like the person who speaks English as a second language? We had to be careful in our speech and expression to fit the hetero mode and after 15 days we were exhausted from the process.