It had been a long day in the campground and at the parking lot.

I’d been sent to a larger campground after Labor Day weekend, and even with a golf cart to drive around in, it was a lot of ground to cover. By the end of each day, I was tired. It was the end of the day now, and I was ready to cook and eat dinner, then crawl into bed with a book and get some rest, but I still had to do the day’s last check of the campground.

It was only Thursday, so the campground was mostly empty, which was ok with me. The fewer campers I found during my last drive-through, the less work I had to do. Alas, I saw a small motor home parked on site #27, the very last space before I completed my rounds. Ok, I could do this! All I had to do was fill out the camping permit and have them sign, and I was home free.

The couple on site #27 was lovely. They were Canadians, French Canadians, from Quebec. As I walked up to the campsite, I saw the woman was holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. She laughed and told me in her beautiful accent that it was happy hour.

Although I was worn out, we ended up talking for quite a while about Quebec and the upcoming National Forest hunting season and the bear who’d been in the campground the previous week. Our conversation was so pleasant, and it was a joy to spend some time with people who were just plain nice.

After they signed their camping permit, I went to my own campsite where I made myself some dinner. As I ate my beans and rice, I thought about the next morning’s breakfast. I was out of eggs, and I was out of milk, so I was facing another breakfast of just-add-water pancakes. Don’t get me wrong, I love pancakes. I LOVE pancakes, especially when I don’t have to cook them and especially when I don’t have to clean the crusty pancake batter off the bowl. But even I have my pancake limits, and I’d already eaten pancakes two mornings in a row.

Just about that time I saw the nice French-Canadian lady walking my way. She was holding a little bottle, half full of a golden fluid. She approached the picnic table where I was sitting and told me she had something for me. She said in the glass bottle was maple syrup, special maple syrup from the region in Canada where she lived. She said she and her husband had more than they could use and wanted me to have the surplus.

I must have thanked her twenty times. That lovely golden syrup was exactly what I needed to get me excited about the pancakes I would be eating for the next couple of days. And lord, was it delicious! Eating that syrup was like eating golden Canadian sunshine delivered by an angel with a most lovely accent.