So, we have been on the road since last week and have now arrived in Florida. We left Toronto on Monday and arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia on the same day; then it was off to Charleston, South Carolina; and now we find ourselves in Orlando, Florida. Astute people will notice a connection there that it took me a bit to put together.

We were wandering around Charleston during the week and Harper and I were sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of the hotel, having a wonderful father/daughter conversation, when Tracey approached from her own walk. “See that church?” she said, pointing to a church across the street from us. “That was where the Charleston shooting happened.”

We were staying about 25 yards from where a mass shooting happened in 2015. There it was; a beautiful church where something absolutely horrific happened. I immediately went silent, lost in thought, and the macabre nature of our road trip started to come into view.