On Burroed Time

Bayou blues

2011-02-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

As I sit here on a February morning at my home computer, which is parked in front of an expansive window, I find myself thinking of Betty’s RV Park in Abbeville, La.
It’s high on my list of “Places we’d rather be right now” as I sit mesmerized by the falling snowflakes.
It’s not supposed to be like this, not here, at this time of year. The daffodil crowns are six inches above the ground and finding themselves surrounded by snow, instead of spring sunshine. But we are no exception to what has been happening across North America this winter. Weather has been unusual and now it’s our turn.
And those groundhogs, with their silly shadows, don’t know a thing about weather patterns.
We have been home since Dec. 15, and since that date, I have tried to think of a way to wind up our blog. I thought I’d write more about the trip, filling in some of the details, but as yet, I haven’t found the passion to do that.
Our 18-week journey was the ultimate escape of our life to date. We simply left our lives and hit the road, an appealing thought this morning even though we’d have to haul Harley through some snow to get to the ferry. But even though we dreamed we could leave all responsibilities on our front step and pull out, we knew we’d carry much of it with us — and we did.
We have two daughters and a son-in-law and although they are in their mid-20s, they do need us now and again. Skype helped immensely with that but sometimes the girls were unwilling to discuss some of the bigger things in life in a virtual face-to-face setting. It wasn’t until we were home that one of them broke off her engagement, and came to us for support over the Christmas season.
We knew we would return to our everyday life, and work, as property managers here on Pender Island. The work has been steady for Ian, sometimes a good thing. But on other days, the winter depression he has always fought seems to win the battle. Doctors are again part of his life, hoping to regulate the brain chemicals he lacks.
I — and there is a reason this is the first time I have used the first person on a blog entry — too have been busily seeing doctors. When we were in Quebec in September, my cousin Brian died after a long battle with kidney cancer. A little further down the road, we learned his younger sister had announced she would be having a kidney containing a tumour removed, an operation that took place in January.
When in Quebec, I spoke with Brian’s wife who told me this all started a few years ago with a simple sore back, nothing really at the start, but persistent until it reached the point that it was more than simple.
Part way through our trip, we talked about long days driving in our truck and about the mattress on our bed in the trailer, whether it was the culprit. After a month at home, sleeping in our own bed, we knew any mattress had little to do with this so I went to the doctor.
The surgery to remove my right kidney, which encompasses an almost-certainly cancerous tumour, is scheduled for March 29. The cancer is fully contained in the kidney and rated as stage one, making for a wonderful prognosis. My doctor was surprised that I didn’t think two cousins with kidney cancer qualified as a strong family history, that is until Ian pointed out there were 46 of us in my generation. My doctor was surprised at how many first cousins I have.
And bless the advent of the social media. My eldest brother set up a sub-group on Facebook of the Gauley family (my mother’s maiden name) so I could let other cousins know my diagnosis. Many of them have gone to their doctors, seeking an ultrasound or CT scan of their kidneys.
And they all know I still would say I have a bit of a sore back, not enough to even take a Tylenol.
It wasn’t until we put the word out to our American friends, some made during this journey, that we thought of one of the major differences between our two countries. My surgery is not an insurance matter and not a financial matter in this home. As a Canadian, I need the surgery and will have it, covered by national medicare that is available to all. This is not a political discussion, simply a fact of Canadian life.
The kidney cancer, even cured, will affect my ability to obtain private insurance for coverage in the United States on future trips. I believe I will be able to get it, but it will cost more. And still, we talk of our next trip and are so thankful we set out on our “big” journey when we did — thankful that Manon, my cousin Brian’s wife, told me about his simple sore back; thankful that we had such a healthy, happy trip exploring all kinds of new-to-us places in our own vast country and the United States; thankful that we had reached a point in our lives that we could make this trip; thankful that we said (to a degree) to hell with money, we’re going.
And after this surgery is done and finished, I have no doubt we’ll say to hell with money, again.
So, how are things going at Betty’s? Off to Touchet’s for the music and food on Saturday? Is there still room for us?

Cane, now able

2011-02-23T12:13:00.000-08:00

No one wants to take an unwanted companion along on a long voyage but MS was coming along, whether Ian and Vicki wanted it to, or not.
So, it was best to work MS into what little plan we had for this trip. And sometimes, luck plays a large part in the planning.
In Vicki’s case, Lady Luck reared her head just over a year ago when a chance encounter at a Montana motel’s complimentary breakfast brought a device called a WalkAide into our lives. The woman enthusiastically sang the praises of a similar device she had found in the U.S., and put hers on her leg to illustrate just how important it was. This woman, whose name Vicki never did learn, had limped badly in that distinctive MS way into the room and when she put the device on her leg, she got up and walked away, straight as an arrow.
Vicki and Ian were driving back from a Winnipeg wedding, and the heat was doing its usual damage for Vicki. She’d already been using a cane for the better part of a year and with the added heat, was thinking the long-hoped-for trip around Canada and the U.S. was plainly no longer possible. The way things were in August 2009, both Ian and Vicki felt it would simply be too difficult to manage the trip we have enjoyed so much.
Weeks later, Vicki found Island Orthotics in Victoria sold the WalkAide, which through computer and electronic magic, compensates for the foot drop that plagues many MS patients. Since then, there has been no cane and she walks where she wants, when she wants.
As soon as Vicki and Ian knew the WalkAide was working, the trip was being planned.
Initial thoughts of the big ramble came after a too-young friend died over two years ago, when we realized we’d reached an age where we should think about making some of our dreams materialize. At that point, we bought our trailer because we knew one thing was certain with Vicki’s MS and travel. She has to have her medication, a form of beta-interferon, and it must be refrigerated. It seems silly but the trailer grew around a small refrigerator, which started the trip with five months of that prescription safely tucked away.
The fridge was nearly half-filled with Vicki’s drugs alone. There is always the fear the fridge might fail so a 12-volt cooler, that can work off the truck’s electrical system, was purchased just in case.
Vicki injects her drugs once a week, on Friday nights. That means Saturday often can be a less-than-ideal day for her as the drug takes affect. She rarely plans to do anything important on a Saturday because it may or may not happen.
On a Saturday, Vicki spent six hours traipsing up and down the hills and stairs of Quebec City, quite possibly the least MS-friendly city there is.
Yes, she was tired at the end of the day, but not ridiculously so. Yes, her WalkAide was firmly strapped to her right leg, contributing to every step. No, there was no cane helping her walk. Just over a year ago, she would have told you a day like that was not possible. And she would have been right.
MS is still an unwelcome companion. It makes plans tentative. Since spontaneity was one of the goals of this trip, that’s less of an issue. We may have thought we were going to travel 500 kilometres one day, but at the first sign of any discomfort in the passenger seat, Ian was looking for a campground. Some of those 500 kilometres may have passed rapidly on the back of Vicki’s eyelids as naps could be frequent. Sometimes there were more stops made so legs could be stretched out with a walk to alleviate some cramping before we were back in the truck. Or the day may have started later than we’d anticipated since a long sleep was needed.
But we made our trip.

Blue highways surprise

2011-01-17T10:21:00.000-08:00

Charles Kuralt of PBS and NPR once famously said that the U.S. interstate highway system makes it possible to travel across America without seeing anything.
That’s a little harsh. The never-ending clusters of McDonalds, Burger Kings and gas stations that crouch at every intersection are not nothing. In fact in many ways, too many perhaps, they are the flavour of America.
Following the lead of our literary and literate hero, William Least Heat-Moon, we prefer smaller roads, the Blue Highways of the Missouri author’s book. But only sometimes.
Our predilection for the road less travelled has sometimes led us into more adventure than we might have wanted. Consider SoCal.
We arrived in Southern California, cruising past Palm Beach and Palm Desert expecting blue skies, bright sun and George Hamilton working on his tan. Instead it was hard to tell the colour of the sky, the sun was orange and fuscia through the sepia haze that passes for air, and as for George, well it’s hard to get a tan through the Haz-Mat uniform residents need to stay here long-term.
So when we had a chance to escape the valley and pass through the San Bernadino forest, that sounded like a good option. Following a small (by California standards) highway, we headed to the trees and — we thought — a breath of fresh air.
What we got instead were a lot of gulps — perhaps gasps is closer — as we inched our way up a mountainside, hauling Harley in ever-narrowing concentric circles as we scaled the San Bernadino MOUNTAINS, not just the forest as it said demurely in our map book.
Bridge after bridge on the way up — did we mention Ian hates bridges — followed by harrowing hairpin turns on the way down, with Harley (our trailer) vying with our truck for the lead in this race to the bottom. After finally escaping our alpine ambuscade we found ourselves in a desert wasteland. In a state with a population equal to that of Canada, who knew there could be so much empty space, this within 60 miles of Los Angeles. Given its inaccessibility and lack of agricultural use, the land seems worthless, which probably means it’s about $1 million an acre. California real estate prices are a little high.
We also had a secondary-highway thrill with our GPS. The loyal Cupcake, back in our lives after a brief banishment in favor of Skippy, her male counterpart, led us down a small road in Nova Scotia toward the desired small highway. Our preference for small roads was tested by Cupcake’s choice, as pavement gradually narrowed, wavered, then disappeared altogether.
The gravel road we were now on also narrowed and petered out, leaving a narrow dirt track that led us to the edge of the desired highway. All that stood between us and continuing our trip was a steel barrier and a four-foot ditch. As we sat on the narrow track and looked at the vehicles whizzing by, we pondered technology — and how we were going to turn around.
As we followed the same road out that we had taken to find the barrier, a fellow who had watched us curiously as we went toward the highway stared in amazement — or perhaps amusement — as we returned.
Cupcake is a valuable asset at times, but also contributes to our adventures. Her cheerful “You have reached your destination,” usually results in a careful, sometimes frantic search, for our true destination, which could be half a block away. Likewise her insistence on taking major highways unless instructed otherwise, and her preference for routes through the heart of cities makes for exciting journeys, particularly with Harley in tow. Changing lanes is an adventure in itself.
And the one area where we stuck to the main roads was in West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, where even along the interstates civilization is scarce. Take Kent, Texas. Please.
Kent is two gas stations, one on each exit off I-10, with the westbound lane’s version manned by a young woman with a stud in her tongue. It would seem her social prospects might be limited in the community, in redneck rural Texas, flavored with the ever-present west wind, but it’s her call. But the prospect of a life spent in such a venue was a little daunting.
Secondary roads are fine if you have choices, but if that’s your only route out of town, life might be a little lonely.

Any Portland in a storm

2011-01-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

Urban camping in Portland, Ore., involves listening to the Freak Mountain Ramblers

“It reminds me of Oakland when they had that earthquake,” Ian said as we rolled into Portland, Ore. down the concrete highway under another layer of roadway above us.
“You know, when the layers collapsed on the cars ...” he continued.
“Thanks for that, honey,” Vicki muttered.
We never have been fond of Portland because our trips have simply been to get through that concrete jungle. But this time we were stopping to park outside the house of friends Peggy and Brian, who call Portland home but spend half their year on Pender Island.
When they said we could park in front of their duplex, they weren’t kidding. There we were, camping on the street, and parked right next to their idle fibreglass RV, a Scamp fifth wheel. When Vicki asked if we might have cops pounding on the door in the middle of the night, since we had sprawled an extension cord across the sidewalk to the house for power, they just laughed. Their Scamp has been sitting there for six months or more without a peep from anyone.
So we moved in, quite happily, for a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, despite the threatened deluge and high winds.
Friday night disappeared into a lovely meal at their dining table, followed by too many bottles of red wine.
Saturday was a pre-arranged visit with other fibreglass RVers, Kathie and Dave, whom we met at something called the Northern Oregon Gathering, where fibreglass people get together to compare notes on their mini-camping experiences. They knew we’d love going to Powell’s bookstore, a Portland institution.
This used bookstore covers a full city block and is five storeys high. The most difficult part of shopping here is trying to keep our purchases to less than a truckload. After all, it is a small trailer.
We returned to their home, coincidentally not too far from where we had set up camp, and sat down to a lovely meal with Donna, another of our little fibreglass family. We caught them up on our Friday lunch in Eugene, Ore. on the way through with four more fibreglass folk — Dennis, Charlene, Bob and Adonna.
With everyone, there was much time spent recapping highlights, and lowlights, of our voyage. But each and every one wanted to know the same thing. The question came in different forms, anything from a hint as to how we were doing after that much time together to the point-blank question, “Did you ever just want to get away from each other for a while?”
Not sure they believed our assurances that a small trailer, with the two of us in it, is just a fine place to be, all the time. Sure, we’ve worked out the logistics of Ian sitting in one corner while Vicki is cooking, or never opening the bathroom door to come out without asking if all is clear first.
And all were looking at their partner, wondering if they could do it.
We just keep assuring people you can find your own way to handle it. We can’t write a handbook detailing how it’s done because it depends on the individuals, and their individual relationships.
It was nice to spend some time with people who know us, and share our trailer experiences.
And Peggy and Brian proved they know us well when Sunday evening they suggested an outing to Laurelthirst Public House. It’s a small neighbourhood bar known for its music, and according to our hosts, its people watching. It’s rapidly become part of their weekend routine since they found it out a month or so ago.
Off we went to check out this Portland icon, since Sunday at 6 p.m. the Freak Mountain Ramblers take the stage. There’s no cover charge but a hat is passed, or more accurately an empty draft jug is floated around the room, above the dancers heads, not that there’s a dance floor.
The old hippies, joined by some youngsters thinking they were born in the wrong era, are out in force, with the four of us choosing our favourite dancers among them. Long grey hair was the coif of the moment, male or female, and dancers were moving just like we did in the ‘70s, each to his or her own spirit although there was no sign or smell of anything illegal being served up.
It was a dance-like-nobody-can-see-you, sing-like-nobody-can-hear-you kind of crowd, and old enough to appreciate the band’s set lasting from 6-8 p.m.
And man, was it fun!
Ian and Vicki naively thought that would be the end of Portland surprises but Peggy and Brian had one more up their sleeves. Off we went, not very far, to Kennedy School, as done over by the McMenamin brothers.
The school, built in 1915, was renovated the McMenamins and reopened in 1997. The idea is to carry on the school’s position as a hub in the neighbourhood but in a different way. It offers hotel accommodation, even though you’re sleeping in what was a classroom. You get standard hotel features such as king and queen beds, a phone and a private bathroom but you’ll also be looking at chalkboards and cloakrooms. Your overnight room rate, $125-$145, includes access to the on-site movie theatre and soaking pool.
Some of the classrooms, not to mention the gym, are enjoying a second life as restaurants or meeting, wedding and event space.
And Kennedy School in Portland isn’t the only location to have benefitted from the McMenamin touch. They operate a total of eight hotels in facilities ranging from a Edgefield, the former county poor farm in Troutdale, Ore.; Grand Lodge, a former Masonic and Eastern Star facility built in 1923 in Forest Grove, Ore., near the Tillamook State Forest; three buildings in Portland, another old school in Bend, plus the Olympic Club in Centralia, Wash.
We headed in to Boiler Room for some pizza, calzones and drinks. When we left, we were trying to convince Brian to start a company, hire us and have the annual Christmas party at Kennedy School, complete with a night’s accommodations.
And then we went home with our generous hosts to camp once more on their quiet street.

Oh my darlin', oh my darlin'

2011-01-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

You see all kinds of marriages in an RV park. And you know what kind it is within minutes of the happy or unhappy couple pulling in to stop.
They park their RV, and then you know.
On a recent Friday, the North Dakota truck towing a 20-something foot trailer rolled in. Before it came to its final halt, the surrounding campers thought we knew what was before us.
“Oh honey, a little more ahead.”
“Like this, sweetie?”
“No, a bit more to the left, pumpkin.”
And so on.
It wasn’t until the rig was set up and unhitched that we all saw the light.
He had removed one propane tank, telling “Cupcake” that he was going to have it filled, here in the park, and tied it securely into the back of his truck.
A discussion ensued, with his wife saying there wasn’t much in the other tank so why not fill them both?
“Oh, good idea, sweetie.”
So he disconnected the other tank, untied the secured tank already in the back of the truck, lynched them both together and went back to report in through the screen door, “They’re all ready. You should have as much hot water as you need now.”
“Oh thank you sweetums,” floated out through the screen.
But then he leaned closer in, and said, “That light is on. It means the pilot didn’t light. You won’t have any hot water now. But just push that button and it should light.”
The whole park knew it wouldn’t light without a propane supply but it was few minutes before he said, “It’s not lighting.”
There was silence.
Then, “Well how stupid am I?” she said. “The tanks aren’t connected,” followed by a high-pitch almost teenage giggle coming from the senior citizen wife.
He, presumably married for some time, took the question to be rhetorical and joined in.
“Well,” he said, “how stupid am I!?!?!?!?
“You’re really stupid,” she said, no giggle evident.
And that sums up that marriage.

California, trees and nuts

2011-01-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

Did Ian mention his fondness for bridges?
The Golden Gate in particular?
After a sunny sojourn in San Francisco it was back on the road north — this time on Highway 101 across the bridge yet again, this time in the rain and hordes of traffic toward California wine country. Our trip took us through the Sonoma Valley, the less famous but equally wine-blessed sister valley to the Napa, then on.
There was little time for wine tasting, as Ian has been the solo driver thus far on the trip and also has been the solo wine drinker for far longer than that. In the interests of sobriety, it was decided we would keep on going even though the vote on the issue was 1-1. Apparently in the democracy of marriage, some votes carry more weight than others.
The state is one of sharp contrasts, with densely populated urban areas interspersed with huge areas that seem almost empty as we speed along the highway that snakes north through the mountains, playing peek-a-boo with the ocean and the flowing mountain streams, then switching to a narrow corridor of towering evergreens altogether too reminiscent of the canyons of concrete that dominate the urban settings now behind us.
It was also along this stretch that we saw one of the eccentrics for which California is so justly famous. As we approached along the rainy road, a figure ahead, clad in a tuque, ski jacket and carrying a backpack burst into a lively jig in the middle of the lane of what we thought was our lane. With canvas sneakers bouncing and hopping, and arms waving, the bearded walker saluted our passing in a pas de deux alone. California indeed.
And so to the mightiest of these corridors, the Avenue of the Redwoods, with their massive branches lacing their fingers together and their enormous trunks emphasizing the insignificance of man. Shrugging off the steady rain from overhead and waltzing in place in an on-and-off courtship with the autumn wind, the mighty trees seem to bless us as we pass, as if wishing us a safe journey home, and to our everyday lives.
But not yet.
The road takes us north to Crescent City, then it’s on to Grant’s Pass, the I-5 and Oregon where our companions will be far less wooden and far more human — friends are why we do this.

Frisky in 'Frisco

2010-12-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

Clang, clang, clang goes the trolley as we left our hearts in San Francisco.
The northern California city, offering up so many familiar song phrases or views from television shows and movies, lived up to that reputation and then some — the impossibly steep street for the car chase in the movie Bullit. Alcatraz out on the island. People hanging off the sides of cable cars as they chug uphill, blocking the flat intersection at the top as new riders clamber aboard.
But Ian managed to refrain from tucking a flower into his hair for the day.
Once again, we rode a Grayline tour bus, at this time of year nearly empty of tourists ready to listen to Ken Washington give his history of the city he calls home, a spiel he has given for 30 years now. But the bus looked familiar, causing Vicki to get that confused look on her face, until Ian said, “It’s the same bus as runs from Victoria to Sooke.” So it is.
The 3 1/2-hour tour takes in everything from city parks to the Golden Gate Bridge, with a brief summary of its suicide count. It’s somewhere over 1,700 so far, although speculation is a couple of hundred more have died by jumping off its railings but their bodies have never been found. Washington chuckles as he relates how police foiled one attempt when an officer brandished his weapon and told the would-be jumper, “If you jump, I’m going to shoot you.” She climbed down.
The city’s neighbourhoods are intriguing in their similarities and differences, all at the same time. A lawn mower in San Francisco must belong to the city because homeowners have no need. Houses reach to the sidewalk front and back, with grass nearly non-existent and dogs looking perturbed as they walk at the end of a leash.
The houses built since the fire following the 1906 earthquake appear to be joined structures until our guide points out the mandatory one-inch gap as a fire guard between structures. Should fire break out in one home, firefighters first aim the water to the roof, where it will run down and fill the gap between the homes, thereby protecting the neighbours.
Neighbourhoods have been settled by Chinese, Japanese, German and Russian newcomers, all bringing a little of their own architecture to the row houses, giving each neighbourhood a flavour all its own, even though each covers a small area. All feature a large, central park since that is where people spend their outdoor leisure time.
Golden Gate Park, home to an aquarium and art gallery, is the premier showpiece, particularly since its half-mile by three-mile area was carved out of sand dunes. What grows there is a marvel of gardeners’ knowledge and effort.
To sit atop Twin Peaks and see the neighbourhoods below stretching to the sea beyond is to marvel at architecture in both homes and standout public buildings, as well as understand the perseverance necessary to carve a city out of steep hills.
It is populated with a people proud of their ability to deal with adverse weather. With a high of 65 degrees F on this day, many are bundled in puffy down-like jackets, with toques and scarves wrapped around their heads. Our guide points out that all are outside enjoying the sunshine.
This year the famous fog rolled into the harbour and blanketed the city in July.
It didn’t leave until mid-October. Wine lovers groaned to hear, as a result, there hasn’t been much of grape crop this season.
Then it’s off the bus, back on the cable car and home for a glass of wine. Australian.

The oven is toast

2010-12-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

The toaster oven committed suicide sometime yesterday.
We were rolling down the road, oblivious to her pain, when she must have jumped off the countertop and plunged that long drop to the floor of the trailer.
We didn’t hear a thing, just kept motoring down the highway and not until our lunch stop, when we opened the door to find her in pieces, did we realize what she had done.
We knew she had been suffering, since after a couple of earlier mishaps when we found her on the floor, somewhat mangled. She no longer toasted, only roasted, because her selection dial had taken a pounding some kilometres down the road, and just the other night we had to wait and wait and wait for her to produce enough heat to cook our bacon.
But we have to accept responsibility here as well. She counted on us to lift her gently off the counter and place her in a safe location on the floor, a chore we sometimes forgot as we packed up to hit the road.
The toaster oven isn’t the only thing to have taken a 25,000-kilometre pounding. Harley, hanging on to the back of the truck for all that distance, is showing some signs of wear and tear. Ian popped both the front and back windows out of the trailer back in Florida, then lined the cavities with a sort of plumbers putty before putting the windows back in place, all in an effort to keep us dry inside.
That was quite some time ago and leaks hadn’t been an issue. Of course, we hadn’t experienced more than a few showers either, that is until a day’s drive through Northern California plagued by downpours.
The front window, taking the force of the rain, had the nerve to leak, just a little, onto the couch cushions.
That window is now on Ian’s Pender honey-do list.
We’ll also pay some needed attention to the truck when we get home, primarily the windshield. A stone was thrown into it somewhere in the Fraser canyon on our first day out, straight into the front window, leaving the telltale mark. Not until Savannah, Ga. did the horizontal crack straight across Vicki’s passenger view start to appear.
There are other stone chips, too many to count now, eager to horn in on the action so a windshield replacement is also on Ian’s list.
Then, of course, there’s the dream list of what we’d like to do with Harley before our next outing. A sliding shelf, perhaps, for that new toaster oven on the wish list. Stronger fasteners for the hanging shoe bag we put inside the front door just last week.
All in all, there isn’t much that needs to be taken care of before the next trip. But we’ll sit around on rainy evenings at home, with a fire roaring in the stove, planning and scheming on when and how we can get away. And through it all, we’ll have more than a million memories to fuel our plans.

Attrack-tive campgrounds

2010-12-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

After four months, you’d think we know what to look for when shopping for a place to spend the night.
Notice we didn’t say campground, because by now, we’ve learned the difference between a campground and a RV park. Mostly, it’s asphalt, lots of it.
We have found that in U.S. state parks, they are fond of paving both the roadways and the campsites, but leaving the rest with plenty of grass and trees. Exceptions, of course, occur in the desert states where gravel and/or sand rule. Vegetation is little if any so a cactus gets to be pretty important feature.
When it comes to choosing a park, whether it’s a campground or an RV parkade, we try to keep in mind where we are. In Arizona, we didn’t expect much on the desert and just outside Phoenix, in an RV park in Buckeye, that’s exactly what we got. You pay to be able to park safely, use the washrooms, pool and laundry, and hook up water, electricity and maybe sewer. The park operators have put their money into contouring the existing sand/gravel and not much else.
In contrast, a similar setting in Bakersfield, Calif. at the Bakersfield Palms RV Resort offered up a paved parking area, patio stones just outside our door, a palmetto planted next to our site and a groomed gravel setting, plus pool, laundry and hot tub. Of course, we didn’t spend a moment longer than necessary outdoors in Bakersfield, or in Bakersfield at all for that matter.
Los Angeles air travels a long, long way. Bakersfield folk couldn’t understand why we thought there was an issue with the air. “It’s always like this,” they said, as our eyes watered and throats ached.
We had driven around Bakersfield because the place we had chosen from the Woodalls camping guide turned out to be about three metres from a four-lane highway. We, after four months on the road, were sure we could do better and found the Palms Resort way down the road. Surely it would be much quieter.
Didn’t even notice all those railway tracks. Luckily, we weren’t near a crossing so didn’t have to listen to whistles as we rocked and bucked with every train that passed.
Live and learn.
After that experience, we thought we’d go on the fibreglass RV web site to gather information about San Francisco-area campgrounds from those who know about travelling in tiny trailers. We received a handful of suggestions and ended up in the San Francisco RV Resort. As is typical of RV places, the pool, laundry and washrooms are very nice and there are miles of asphalt.
BUT the view out our bedroom window makes up for a lot of things. For one, we don’t hear the four-lane highway because it is drowned out by the roar of the surf. And the nice ladies at the front counter, pronouncing our little rig as very cute, decided we’d get their favourite spot backing onto the beach, even though we hadn’t paid the premium rate.
It doesn’t hurt to be cute.
So here we sit, surf roaring as we plan a day in San Francisco. From here, we’re able to take mass transit in to the big city, not worry about traffic or parking.
We’re happy with this spot, but we wouldn’t call it camping.
That’s for another night, somewhere else on our trip.

Shock rock

2010-12-04T21:01:00.000-08:00

When it comes to campgrounds, this one rocks.
It’s not lush or green or sparkling with water or any of the other things we look for in a campground, but City of Rocks in New Mexico is absolutely stunning.
The state campground is about 50 kilometers north of Deming, in the south central part of the state and after a day of wandering through the scrub brush wasteland of Texas and New Mexico, we weren’t sure what to expect.
What we got was a shock, a sprawling expanse of rocks standing on end, in strange formations, like an army of misshapen Mr. Potato Heads on the march. Wandering through the people-unfriendly yucca plants were dozens of jack-rabbits, long ears twitching and longer legs propelling them this way and that, much to the stunned amazement of a spellbound Sidney.
Just after pulling in we watched the setting sun kiss the rocks goodnight and next morning saw the sunrise show them in all their martial glory. While we settled for a conventional, serviced site, there are a score or more unserviced sites nestled in the rocks themselves, offering a unique camping experience for the traveller bored with the unreeling miles of desert scrub.
Freezing nights, even here, a stone’s throw from the border with Mexico, kept us in the southern part of the state, so we missed some of the state’s larger centres, such as Taos and Santa Fe, and the northern areas, which would have pushed us to the higher and potentially more treacherous I-40 as a conduit west to California.
But unless they are radically different from the southern regions, there is little to see, scenery wise, in this border state. Prisons, state and federal, pop up along the Interstate more often than rest areas, and highway signs counsel drivers not to pick up hitchhikers in those areas. Duh.
There seemed little in the way of agriculture or irrigation, and the sparse vegetation will only support a few cows, or occasionally sheep, per acre. The only thing that seemed in abundance was poverty and maybe state border patrol guards.
We encountered a blockade where guards, and patrol dogs, checked vehicles for unwanted passengers from Mexico, with the wall-less border, much to George W. Bush’s dismay, on the south side of the highway for much of our drive.
And the other abundant crop — rocks. But none like the City of Rocks.

It takes all kins

2010-12-02T18:31:00.000-08:00

Sean Avis, left, in Hubbards, N.S. and his Uncle Jerry in Summerdale, Ala.

We’re 22,000 kilometres into this trip, counting down the days we have left and finding out just how insignificant all this area traversed really is sometimes.
Our chief enjoyment on our travels has been the people we have met along the way. We’ve seen many sights, been stunned by the beauty and power of nature and marvelled at men’s imaginations in what they’ve constructed.
But the people ... they make the memories.
And now we have one more to add to the list, proving that the size of Canada and the mass of the United States doesn’t really amount to a hill of beans.
Way back in the early days of the trip, we wrote about the wonderful musical bunch of people we met in Hubbards, N.S. Since then we’ve told just about everyone we’ve met how much we enjoyed our sojourn there.
But we didn’t tell Jerry Avis, the consummate wanderer we met at Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, Ala. about those folks in Nova Scotia. Don’t know why we didn’t, particularly when Jerry said Nova Scotia was his home base in world travelling.
And two old journalists, to our shame, didn’t make connections on names. Granted, we’ve done most of this trip operating on first names but when we wrote about Hubbards, we went all the way back to that early journalism training and asked everyone for their full names.
So of course we knew the fellow who drew us so well into that group was named Sean Avis.
Got it yet?
When we posted that item on Jerry’s world voyaging, Sean saw it. So he e-mailed Uncle Jerry to comment on the amazing coincidence that he and his uncle had met the same travellers — us.
So, at 22,000 kilometres, Avis really does try harder, and it’s a small world after all.

A big, big, big disappointment

2010-12-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

Does size really matter?
Apparently it does in West Texas. Everything is big — big sky with not a cloud in it, but marked with white tailings from every jumbo jet cruising by; big highways with semis playing truck tag all day, often forgetting that little rigs are politely trying to share the pavement in the Canadian way; big cities in the eastern part of the state, leaving the west laid bare to the world, but for El Paso, big only in its sprawl of low-rise structures.
And bare it is. Little vegetation in all that high desert, few houses, small towns that add new meaning to the word poverty. Some towns are burdened with a name simply because there are two gas stations, one on either side of the interstate, the kind of place that when you stop, you thank the powers that be it isn’t your job to pump the gas nor your fate to live there for all your days.
It’s big prairie, as flat as any on the Canadian side of the border, with cattle occasionally coming into focus. The drivers know they’re out there somewhere because the highway is lined with relatively low fencing.
What is small is the vegetation. Few trees but scrub brush everywhere. In another time, it likely reduced soil erosion caused by a relentless wind. Now branches’ sole purpose seems to be to catch the ubiquitous white plastic grocery bags as they sail by. Canadians accustomed to recycling nearly everything are shocked when a restaurant meal is delivered on a plastic plate, with plastic cutlery for famed Texas barbecue. The drink cups are Styrofoam. Bring on the garbage bags. Why wash when you can throw it out?
And as an aside, famed Texas barbecue doesn’t deliver. Moe’s Original Bar B Que in North Carolina, following Alabama protocol, and a Louisiana version at Jason’s Diner in Port Allen, knock Texas on its ribs.
But west Texas has come across with a delightful state park jutting out of prairie. Balmorhea State Park, just outside the small town of the same name, promises an oasis and delivers. The pools formed by mineral springs appear as conventional swimming pools filled with water at a year-round 72-degree water (about 21C). Signs lining the pools explain how the springs form deep beneath the earth and how that water is captured for human use. They mention the man-made pool has a bottom that is a hard surface in some areas but is all natural in others. Developed during the Depression by the Work Progress Administration, the pools’ outflow forms a cienega, the Spanish term for a natural marsh.
Ian, who will flail his way out of any waterway when the suggestion is made of marine life swimming beneath him, is stunned to see a half-dozen large catfish making for his lily white toes as he sits on the pool’s steps.
He can swim quite fast.
As much as San Antonio captured our imagination in a big way, with the exception of one park, West Texas lost it.

A sad, sad part of our trip

2010-11-30T06:12:00.000-08:00

That's Luther in his usual place in Ian's lap, with Sidney relegated to the sidelines

Deep in the heart of Texas we are, and as we prepare to pack up and move along west, know that our hearts are breaking.
Our beloved Luther, one of the two black cats who set out with us on our odyssey, has been missing for almost a week here in San Antonio, and with time and winter starting to force our hand, we can await his return no longer.
If you had asked us on setting out if we were worried that one or both of the animals might go missing, we would have acknowledged the possibility. But having left another of our cats, Edward, while away on a six-week trip, we knew how lonely the animals get when ‘their’ people are not at hand.
We also would have suggested that Sidney, not Luther, would have been the likely choice to go AWOL — he’s done it twice before.
Instead, when we woke Thanksgiving morning in our American idyll, it was Luther who was missing.
Normally when we are camping each of the cats is leashed to the trailer with a 12-foot line. At night though, with the doors closed, we unhook them so that we and they are not constantly skipping rope as we shuffle about in our cosy space.
But on a hot Texas night, the outer door was open and the screen door, shut and latched, seeking any available breath of air for sleeping, was the only barrier. When we woke, Sidney was on the bed, marching over to demand a morning cuddle. Luther, unusually, was not there and we quickly learned why when we bolted from bed to find the screen door standing half open — how or when it happened is unclear.
And Luther, whose usual foray outside has been just onto the step of the trailer, was gone. It has been a week of slowly diminishing hope, of roaming the RV park, the neighbourhood, the adjacent golf course, businesses surrounding the park, and the nearby river valley. We left a notice with the local elementary school, seeking to enlist an army of local eyes and ears from that source. There have been no sightings, despite his bright purple collar and harness, and red, heart-shaped name tag.
Even a couple of men living under one of San Antonio’s bridges, were contacted. They did know of a stray, which they have been feeding after nursing it back to health after a leg injury, but it was not our guy.
Luther, shy, even timid, is less likely that the more social Sidney to find his way to a new home, but we can only hope that he does, or that a phone call comes alerting us to his presence — or his fate
Sadly it was only a couple of years ago that Luther’s sister, Martha, disappeared in the night after being run off by a dog running loose through our Pender Island neighborhood. There never was a sign of her.
Sidney, also a feral cat from Pender Island, was brought in to help Luther adjust to the loneliness and they soon became inseparable, sleeping coiled up together in a ball of pussycat, trading licks and bath time, and running the Feline 500 over our bed as dawn neared.
Now it is Sid’s turn to seek Luther in the usual haunts, to run from window to window in the trailer looking for his friend to return in the night, and to seek constant reassurance from us that we too are not going to disappear.
We try to comfort him, through our tears.

A river runs through it

2010-11-29T20:17:00.001-08:00

Remember the Alamo?
Well, no actually. If you go to San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo, you’ll come away remembering the River Walk.
The meandering San Antonio river, a creek really if all is told about it, is a mere four metres wide and only a metre or so deep. While it’s called a river, its volume speaks creek, so somewhere along the line there was a choice to be made.
Should the creek be diverted into a culvert, pave over it and let downtown grow? Or should the creek be managed and expanded so that it could flow all through downtown, and offer an oasis a level below the hustle and bustle of mid-city streets?
It is a haven that runs beneath downtown San Antonio so that office workers can retreat to a shaded, pleasant area on their breaks from a busy day. Tourists can wander for hours through restaurants and a variety of shops, plus gawk at historical architecture or take in a show seated on stone benches in the outdoor amphitheatre, across the river from the stone stage. Of course, you also can be housed in historic hotels that line the waterway.
Our tour guide told us to think of Venice, only clean. The river is drained once a year to facilitate a cleanup that nets whatever has been tossed over its banks — from shopping carts to clothing is carted away, the riverbed is cleaned and the water is permitted to flow again.
Imagine yourself as Robert Hugman in June of 1929, at the height of good times for America - for another four months. You put yourself before the movers and shakers of your city to show them a plan. It’s a chance to make a river out of a creek, a chance to build charm into your city and for practical purposes, a way to control flooding — and they take it.
It wasn’t until 1938 that money was found, through the Works Progress Administration, to begin building the young architect’s vision for his hometown. It’s thanks to Hugman there are unique wrought-iron staircases lining the walkway.
And just to make sure the business community bought into the project, Hugman moved his offices on the walks completion in 1941 down to the river even though some said he would be “drowned like a rat” within the year.
He wasn’t.
Casa Rio, the restaurant that opened next to his office in 1946, is still a going concern. The walkways lining the river curve beneath trees laden at this time of year with Christmas lights, and tourists meander along, buying this and that or eating here and there. The lights first come on every year with the holiday river parade, complete with decorated parade floats that really do float, a way to kick off the Yuletide season in splendor.
To get a feel of the river, there are both tour boats and water taxis plying its waters, giving Americans in a dry part of the country a feel for Venice, Italy.
Adjacent to the walk is La Villita, a thriving arts community whose very existence is tied to the River Walk. San Antonio’s first neighbourhood originally was primitive huts to house Spanish soldiers stationed at the Mission San Antonio Valera (the Alamo). After a flood in 1819, it was rebuilt with brick, adobe and stone houses.
Late in the 19th century, immigrants from Germany and France moved into the area and the existing architectural style reflects the cultural mixture of the area’s settlers. But the first part of the 20th century was not kind, and La Villita became the city’s slum.
In 1939, as the River Walk development began taking shape, Mayor Maury Maverick fought to preserve this part of San Antonio’s history. Maverick was one of those colourful Texans, first a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives and now known as the originator of the term “gobbledygook” for obscure and euphemistic bureaucratic language.
After four years of gobbledygook, he went back to the town of his birth to become its mayor.
La Villita houses 26 shops, art galleries and restaurants in those old buildings that run the gamut from palisado to Victorian houses. Visitors can feel their eye drawn from the displayed wares to the walls surrounding them.

A by-the-book tour

2010-11-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

The free ferry — David Hahn take notes — to Galveston.

For those of you who have been in our home, it may come as little surprise that much of our peripatetic wanderings on this trip through the U.S have been inspired by books.
Our dining room and bedroom are lined with books. They are piled on end tables and coffee tables and on the desk in the room that houses our computer, until at last Vicki cries, ‘Enough,’ and there is a cull. Well, a mini-cull at least.
For a long time Ian especially has had a passion for books by William Least-Heat Moon, a writer and English professor from Missouri who writes about travel in the U.S. in at least three of his books. The wanderlust of Jack Kerouac and Jonathan Raban have left an indelible imprint of travel on his brain, and sometimes Vicki gets dragged along.
But often she shares the enthusiasm: Savannah (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil); Charleston (Gone with the Wind, Cold Mountain and other books about the antebellum South); New Orleans (countless choices); Vicksburg (Bruce Catto’s history of the Civil War); and Galveston (Isaac’s Storm).
Each has been interesting and even exciting, with a sense of a dream come true. And so it went until we hit the Texas Gulf coast.
Isaac’s Storm is about a hurricane that levelled Galveston in 1900, a story of personal and professional tragedy for a meteorologist based in the Texas island city, and how the lessons learned there helped develop the fledgling science.
The Erik Larson book is a marvellous description of people caught in events beyond their understanding and control, and we arrived in Galveston, travelling on the free ferry to the island city, looking for some of that history and spirit. We knew the city had been ravaged two years ago by Hurricane Ike, but were sure there would be signs of progress.
Instead we found a city with 20 miles of magnificent Gulf coast on one side of the main road that cleaves the island, and a strip mall of back-lit signs, fast-food joints, and cheesy bars — anything to separate you from a buck — on the other.
The historic city, a block off the strip, was boarded up and derelict to a large extent. A cruise through the heart of downtown at 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon involved less traffic than Pender at ferry time, and fewer people than gather at the Driftwood on a sunny summer afternoon.
Unlike New Orleans, likewise hammered by Hurricane Katrina, there is no sense of urgency or outrage, and fewer signs of life. Even exiting the area on Friday morning there was almost no traffic on the road, and nobody around and about the houses-on-stilts, built for the potential 15-20 foot storm surge, that line the coast. The absence of people was almost surreal, even though the RV park we were staying in was jammed with snowbirds and tourists settling in for the winter.
If a book is written about Galveston and how it’s dealing with Ike, it looks as if it will have a much sadder ending than Isaac’s Storm.

All creatures great and small

2010-11-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

Our guys are indeed still with us

Meet Bain the seagull, the one in the centre

We left the cats behind in Mississippi.
They’re in Natchez State Park, hanging around campsite 45, not too far from the washroom.
Okay, they’re feral, as were our guys at one point, but when Vicki, sitting by a not-yet roaring campfire, heard a noise by the step into the trailer, her first thought was of the bag of cat food sitting on that step. She stomped on over, making noise, to scare whatever creature was at the food until the moment Ian said, “They have skunks here y’know.”
The stomping stopped.
But that’s when she noticed the little black furry guy heading under the trailer.
“You’re sure our guys are inside, right Ian?” she queried.
Yep, they were, and excited about it, too. They were bouncing off the windows trying to see the new guy in town, particularly when they heard Ian using that tone of voice, usually reserved for them, on another beast.
After some coaxing, we met the little black fellow and his companion, a lovely grey and white beauty. We met, but only at a distance. The next morning, the park ranger informed us they’ve been hanging around that area of the park for two or three years. Ian reluctantly left them behind but still holds a mental image of us, walking back into our Pender life and saying, “Look at the Mississippi souvenirs we brought home!”
Natchez State Park, at the south end of the Natchez Trace route, also was full of deer, right next to the signs warning campers to keep out of the bush since it is indeed hunting season. And those signs were next to the big trailer with three pickups parked out front, next to a smaller trailer holding the all-terrain vehicle. What did Bambi, shooed away by Vicki, think those guys were doing there? Having a poker tournament?
Animals, besides the ones inside our trailer, have been part of this trip all along. From the bears in Marathon, Ont., to the armadillos wandering through our campsite near Lake Charles, La., they are a consideration. Cooking dinner meant never leaving the camp stove until we were carrying the completed meal inside to eat. A few minutes later, we heard the raccoon, which had been hovering on the fringes of our light while we were cooking, clatter onto the stove just in case we’d left anything behind.
But one of our most distinctive creatures has to be Bain.
There we were, about to cross from Nova Scotia over to Prince Edward Island at the ferry terminal in Pictou. We were feeling right at home, sitting in a ferry lineup waiting for the NFL (Northumberland Ferry Lines) to let us board.
Partway through the boarding process, they had stopped loading vehicles - we’re at home with that, too - so Ian rolled down the window and asked if there was a problem.
“Nope,” they said. “We’re just ahead of schedule.”
As frequent users of BC Ferries, that we weren’t used to.
Then one ferry worker pointed to a couple of seagulls standing on the pavement a few feet ahead of our truck and said, “Have you met Bain?”
Uh. No.
Who’s Bain, we asked.
“Hey Bain, cm’ere,” the ferry worker said.
And the seagull came walking over. He comes when called.
He’s been hanging around for a few years, said our ferry guy. Now all the workers expect to see him and save tasty tidbits from last night’s dinner or a fishing trip to treat Bain.
And Bain expects this kind of treatment, quickly banishing any other gull brazen enough to think he’s getting some of the attention too.
Not bad for the smallest gull on the tarmac, eh?
The ferry worker confesses Bain is named after one of the guys on a local hockey team, “you know, the small guy who really isn’t big enough but just keeps getting in there, digging away, until he gets the puck.”
That’s Bain.
These guys make Bain their pet at work and although we carry our pets with us, Ian keeps trying to make more friends. With our enforced stay In Marathon, Ont., waiting for truck parts, Ian befriended a chipmunk. Not that he was difficult to befriend. He knew his way around a campsite and he wasn’t short on pulling out the cute moves when he needed them.
It wasn’t long before he had Ian eating out of his hand, and he was eating out of Ian’s hand. We’re brought along the Costco-sized bag of roasted almonds, good for our health and all, but with the haul Buckley scored (yep, Ian named him), we’re sure he’ll be in good health all winter.
His record, Ian proudly points out, is 11 almonds. That’s 11 of those nuts stuffed into his little cheeks as he waddled, face literally dragging on the ground, off to stash them in the bushes somewhere.
Isn’t that gluttony?
It’s a good thing the cats were on their leashes or they’d have taken care of Buckley getting any more attention.
Sidney tried to take care of a flock of ducks lining the pond behind our trailer in Cherokee, N.C. Off he charged, thinking a bird is a bird is a bird. Up until then, he’d only seen them out the back window as he was safely tucked into our bed. But when he decided they were just birds, in mid-charge he realized just how big they are.
He was back in the trailer in no time flat.
In this campground, they warn about the alligators in the pond 20-feet out back.
Our cats are inside.

It's coonass country

2010-11-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

At first, southwest Louisiana is a spooky place, where alligators and water moccasins patrol rural residential areas, where the windows have bars and the bars have no windows.
But that soon disappears when the people greet you with a grin and a grasp of the hand. Sure, the grin may be gap-toothed and the teeth in evidence may be stained by the ubiquitous cigarettes, or maybe a pinch of snoose jammed under a lip. But the grin is real and so is the friendly greeting behind it.
Just so long as you get a proper Cajun introduction.
The day after a Cajun jam session at Touchet’s bar near Abbeville, residents at Betty’s RV park were invited to a gumbo feast and music session at the Charon home of Dave Baudoin, a proud Cajun, and retired navy man.
Down the road the sugar cane harvest was in full swing, and in the moments before the gumbo was ready to be ravished, Ian and Jerry — from the trailer next door at Betty’s — hiked down the highway to see the operation in progress.
After a bit, they saw a harvester working in a field, and cut through a yard — no car in the driveway — to get a closer look. As they approached a water-filled ditch, there was a shout from next door and a Carhartt-clad figure marched through the brush.
“What y’all want?” said the man, hands and God knows what else jammed in his jacket pockets.
“Hi, I’m Jerry from Davenport, Iowa, and we just wanted to see that cane harvester in operation,” explained Ian’s companion, striding forward with hand outstretched.
“Why y’all wanna see that?” said the man, hands firmly still in his pockets.
“Not something we’ve seen before,” said Ian. “I’m from Canada, and we can’t grow sugar cane up there, or in Iowa either.”
The man then spit some of the juice leaking from the wad of tobacco in his mouth, squinted and — finally — grinned.
“Well, hi then. I’m Troy and folks along this road is pretty much family so we look out for each other. Folks said they seen you walking down the road and the only folks walking out here is either broke down or they’s been an accident,” he explained.
“But then walking into a yard, no call for that if you broke down or banged up so I had to find out.
“People see strangers walking around, well, they’re likely to have a gun on you and you’d never know.”
The pleasantries over, Troy then set out to tell what he could about sugar cane harvesting, including the fact that the tracked-machine used in the process came from Australia. However he couldn’t take anyone closer, he explained, because of the watery ditch.
“It don’t look like much but there’s quite a few water moccasins (poisonous snakes) in there and there’s a six-foot ’gator that patrols it pretty regular,” he said. “We pretty much leave it alone because the ’gator keeps down the other critters — coyotes and bobcats and wild dogs that run through here.”
Troy also explained some the hunting etiquette of the area.
“See that bob-wire fence over there,’ he said, waving at a side yard. “When there’s one strand like that, it means it’s OK to hunt the land. Two strands means you’d best ask permission.
“Now if you got three strands, you need permission and a family member with you, four strands means family members only and five strands mean private and family member or not, you liable to get your ass shot if somebody catch you in there.
“That’s the old way but there’s still some places back in the bayou where you’d best be able to count to five.”
Troy said the land in the area once belonged to his grandfather, who is enshrined in country music’s Hall of Fame in Nashville, in the Cajun section.
“They call it Cajun and Creole to be politically correct, but really down here we’re just a bunch of coonasses. (Wikipedia says that although many Cajuns use the word in regard to themselves, other Cajuns view the term as an ethnic slur against the Cajun people, especially when used by non-Cajuns. Socioeconomic factors appear to influence how Cajuns are likely to view the term: working-class Cajuns tend to regard the word "coonass" as a badge of ethnic pride; whereas middle- and upper-class Cajuns are more likely to regard the term as insulting or degrading, even when used by fellow Cajuns in reference to themselves). They can call us what they want, but we know we’re coonasses and that’s OK by us.”
Then it was time to head back for gumbo and some swamp-pop music.
We were careful to stick to the road.
The area is truly Cajun country; the evidence is everywhere, from the strong French accent that renders the Louisiana drawl even more incomprehensible to ears attuned to flat vowels of Canadian English, to the bilingual signs, the names attached to businesses and, more than anything else, to the music.
Music is everywhere, and all of it is flavoured by the Cajun influence — the squeezebox accordion, washboards, triangles and other percussion instruments, the French lyrics that surpass Ian’s high school French, 40 years back in the rear-view mirror, and except for a few words here and there, prove too much for Vicki, able to work in French while waiting tables as a university summer job.
And it seems everybody can play something and most of the musicians can play everything. Touchet’s Saturday jam was stalled for a while because many of the regular participants were working elsewhere that day.
Not to worry. A young woman was dispatched to collect her guitar-playing father’s electric bass. When it arrived, it was an unusual five-string model and the bassist-cum-guitarist was an even more unusual three-fingered performer, missing the little finger on his left hand.
The group began with the bassist, a drummer and a 15-year-old accordion phenom on the squeezebox. Then a vocalist came out of the crowd, singing initially with a cigarette in his mouth and a Bud in his hand.
After a few numbers, the drummer retired and another appeared from the crowd. The group missed not a beat.
The microphone stands are equipped with bottle holders. The original drummer made sure they stayed full, for all except the teen, Barrot Navarre, who had had enough and passed the accordion to the fellow who had first joined in playing triangle. The new accordion played proved even better than the young lad, who has only been playing for a year, rocking the house with a stormy blues number that had many of the snowbirds in the audience clapping in rhythm.
After a while the vocalist moved on to rhythm guitar, while another guitarist showed up to dazzle the crowd with virtuoso riffs and the accordionist retreated to play the drums, quite well, while the teen regained the squeezebox. And these are all guys with day jobs.
Not Navarre though. Still in school, he was at the session to gain experience playing before crowds as part of his music education, underwritten in part by a society dedicated to preserving Cajun culture and music. Not that it seems to need much preservation.
And friendly? The beer is $2.50 a pop at the bar and at about 5 p.m., bar owner ‘Red’ Touchet unveils a gumbo dinner for everyone in the building. Free.
Music to our ears.

Good time gal

2010-11-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

For a good time, call Betty at (337) 893-7057.
Really.
That’s Betty Bernard at Betty’s RV in Abbeville, La., and when our new friend, Jerry Avis at Rainbow Plantation, impressed upon us that calling Betty was one thing we had to do before we finished our trip, well, we e-mailed her (bettybernard@cox.net). It’s the modern way.
And that set us up for four days of non-stop fun in Abbeville, La., at Betty’s RV Park.
Now, truth be told, if we’d driven with no recommendation into Betty’s park, formerly her back yard until she took early retirement 11 years ago, we probably would have circled around and pulled out of there.
She’d tried a few other things to fill some retirement time, but nothing was feeding the need for people. She made a pad for a mobile home, but that wasn’t enough. Then she hit on the RV park idea, got a few customers and they just keep coming back, along with the people they’ve told all about it.
There’s a sign at the exit that says, “You’re caught in Betty’s web,” which describes the experience to a T. That’s why you can even get a T-shirt to that effect in Betty’s office. And it’s true. After four days, we’re singing Betty’s praises far and wide.
In all honesty, it’s not the place that’s the big attraction, as in so many scenic RV parks. It’s the people — first and foremost, Betty, plus the others she has attracted to her place.
The park has everything, as long as you’re driving or pulling a fully-equipped unit. Betty does not offer a public washroom (“I have no bathroom and showers, and I never will. There’s only me here so you know who’d be cleaning it. And I’m not going to clean toilets for people!”) so that rules out any form of a tent or very small trailer.
We, in our 17-feet of luxury, have a small washroom. Thanks be for that or we couldn’t have stayed at Betty’s. Granted, you could easily overlook our Harley in the tightly-parked row of trailers there, most of them 40-or-so feet long and looking like a bus with a few slides out here and there. The smaller of her guests’ units were only two or three times Harley’s size.
There’s a small separate parking lot where you can put the vehicle you tow, or in our case, the vehicle that tows us.
We were hugely outsized, but Ian has come to take these things well.
Betty, from the moment we were signing in, was planning our weekend. She started with the news that daily happy hour begins at 4:30 p.m. in the covered area that runs alongside her house. It’s said as though it’s a command performance but she’s quick to add, “if y’all want to” to all the things she has planned. Of course we wanted to check it out. Consequently, that’s how we got to Touchet’s Bar, listening to great Cajun music before they laid out a gumbo dinner at no cost to us. And Ian wasn’t whining about paying $2.50 for a beer.
What Betty does is draw you out of your rig. When you’re hauling a small house with you, you often don’t come outside to meet your campground neighbours. So Betty sets up happy hour and runs a park where you haven’t got any more room outside than the width of your awning. When she’s full, which she will be at Thanksgiving and Mardi Gras for sure, she can cram 17 rigs onto her fully graveled property. Everyone will have their own electrical and sewer connection, plus good water, but you can also reach out and touch your neighbours.
Might as well go to happy hour. By the time the first one is over, you know these people and know they’re ready to have fun. When it’s time to move on, we know we’ll be back sometime, as we welcome a goodbye hug from everyone we met.
Betty gets you into places you never would find on your own, where you meet her friends. Touchet’s is what Ian and Vicki think of as a very American bar. On the outside, it’s one of those buildings where the windows are covered over and decorating might have been a coat of paint.
But when you walk in, there’s only a fraction of a second where the look says, “Who are you?!?” before it’s, “Did Betty send you?” It’s the same reaction all over town. “Oh, you’re at Betty’s” is said in the same tone as, “Oh, you’re alright. C’mon in.”
Any thought of a full retirement isn’t on Betty’s agenda, as she runs an RV park by herself. She looks around the table at happy hour and says, “My family wouldn’t be able to come back (if I shut down.)”
And come back they do, year after year, and not for a measly week. Some are here for months at a time. It’s their winter home.
Jerry has us carrying the message that he’ll be along soon, for his annual visit.
It’s time to fall back into Betty’s web.

The grenouille grail and grille

2010-11-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has seen Vicki’s frog collection can imagine how she thought she’d unearthed the Holy Grail when she found the Frog Festival in Rayne, La.
Of course, that’s why Ian and Vicki were in a campground a mere 30 minutes away.
Rayne has been doing this for 38 years — a parade, crowning not only the Frog Queen but also Miss Tadpole, an arts and crafts show featuring everything from frog jewelry to plant stands, a midway with all the attached food vendors offering everything from cotton candy to boudin and other southern delicacies, including ironically frog’s legs, evening Cajun music and last but certainly not least, the frog-jumping contest.
But this is not merely a November weekend event. Rayne has murals whose numbers rival those of Chemainus, B.C., all containing at least one if not multiple frogs, plus at least two amphibian statues in town. The most notable of these is the tuxedo-clad frog, at least 12-feet high, with a body of burnished aluminium, deliberately not painted.
The sign beneath this fellow, who doffs his hat to travellers as they come off Interstate 10 and head into town, reads: “Sculpture of Monsieur Jacques, was created for display in August, 2006. For various reasons, the sculpture was left unpainted, or “skinless.” In this form, unity (of humanity) is represented by showing that underneath the colors of our flesh, we are all the same. Even though there are different skin colors, there is only one human flesh on Earth. “Not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for human beings, another kind of flesh for birds, and another for fish.”
1 Corinthians 15:39
Welcome to Rayne.
At the local fairgrounds, the crowd watches the competition for Frog Queen and Miss Tadpole before noon on Saturday, as a water-filled crate is parked near the stage. Tape has been laid out on the stage surface in a circle, with an X in the centre marking the starting point for jumping frogs.
All contestants for Frog Queen, including the newly crowned royalty, all sporting their finery and tiaras of varying sizes, are clutching very large frogs, holding them around the body and leaving their long pairs of legs dangling.
They’re ready.
The girls crouch around that X on the floor, holding their poised frogs to the floor, ready to jump. When the starter yells go, the first frog to make multiple leaps across the stage to cross the ringing circle of tape is the winner.
There are rules. The girls cannot touch their frogs once the race has begun, but they can encourage it to jump. The small frogs react well to the stomp of a spiky stiletto heel immediately behind them.
They leap.
There are so many contestants that heats are held in different categories: the senior royalty, the Miss Tadpole contestants, boys, teenage boys and finally the adults, both male and female.
Eventually, a winner is declared in each category.
The youngest competitors each compete individually, as it would be chaos to unleash not only a bunch of frogs but small children, all at the same time. The frog is allowed three leaps, at which point the stewards measure its effort.
The stewards also are called upon occasionally for a rapid, mad scramble to capture an escapee.
One of the Miss Tadpole crowd is unimpressed as she lowers her frog to the stage and ignores its jumping efforts as she concentrates on wiping all trace of its existence from her hands and onto her pretty dress.
Another seems bored with the whole process so drops her frog to the starting line from chest height, prompting the event announcer to ask her if she needed a parachute for that move.
Her stunned frog crawls his way along, making it impossible to measure the final length of this effort, since he never did leap three times.
It is hilarious, made all the more so when the crowd shows its competitive nature, urging one frog or another along.
But there is no cruelty to the animals.
The sign for the frog’s leg vendor can’t be seen from the stage and no one mentions it to the frog competitors.

Spreading trouble over oiled waters

2010-11-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

*This was the day we forgot to bring the camera. Our apologies.*

On a small sign in a restaurant window under the B in the BP logo for British Petroleum is printed the word Bitch, followed by Please.
People are unfailingly polite in Louisiana, with ready smiles and cheerful service, so it requires a little closer scrutiny to realize they also have a temper, one that fate has pushed to the limit.
There are smaller signs here and there, in restaurants or the front windows of seafood stores, urging you to buy Gulf seafood, saying that it is indeed fine and tasty and safe to eat, even after BP spilled oil all over these salt waters and marshes.
When we walk up to the window of a kiosk in the French Quarter of what we now know is pronounced N’Awlins, the vendor is on the phone, painstakingly explaining to a friend how to file a claim for loss of income to BP.
“I really didn’t think it would work or anythin’ but might as well file,” he says, with the ever-ready, gap-toothed smile, adding he received a cheque for $15,000 three days after filing.
He steers us to a city tour bus where our guide, Wanda, take us through the French Quarter and the above-ground cemeteries and other tourist highlights, but also spends one precious hour of a three-hour city circuit in the Lower 9th Ward, the city area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. As we drive through neighbourhoods where houses stand abandoned, holes punched through their roofs where residents sat waiting up to five days to be rescued, it’s difficult to believe it has been five years since the storm hit.
And Wanda is still mad: at the Army Corps of Engineers because the retaining walls — built in the 1930s to keep the canals from floodng — were not maintained according to original agreements; at politicians who dithered on how to help people; at FEMA for supplying trailers for the homeless — some trailers still in place — that unleashed such dangerous levels of formaldehyde that changes were made in trailer manufacturing; at the use of drywall made in China, since proven to be from compressed garbage and a health hazard, so that some of the dismal amount of new construction has had to be redone.
And it is a pathetic amount of rebuilding.
There were 180,000 residents of the Lower 9th Ward the day Katrina hit.
Today, there are 18,000 people living there, and no businesses exist in the area,
“It wasn’t Katrina, the storm, that did the damage here,” she says, a hint of steel in that southern drawl. “Katrina damaged the coast, those areas, so badly. Here, it was the walls breaching. It was the barges allowed to anchor in the canal that broke loose and punched holes in the walls.”
When she says Army Corps of Engineers, the venom is palpable.
And, she says, “If y’all are starting to blame the federal government, that’s not what we do here. We start with our mayor, who ended up in the insane asylum, and then we move on to our governor. She knew what was happening and she said she’d get back to us with decisions in a few days.”
Wanda talks of federal aid that was available — past tense. Residents could demolish what was left of their home and have it carted away. But that aid has ended so what is left standing is now the owner’s problem. In some areas there are more vacant lots than houses left standing, and Wanda points out this was a neighbourhood of houses very close together.
As you look at what’s left, you picture a family sitting on that roof, wet and hungry, and waiting, at times as long as five days.
As Canadians, at the time we wondered where the federal help was when it became painfully apparent people weren’t receiving assistance from their city or state.
As the Canadians among the 15 silent people on the bus, we wonder where the U.S. federal government is today.
But then Wanda takes a turn or two to show us the spirit of New Orleans, the spirit of individuals determined to stay. There is a house where the owner picked up a variety of musical instruments from the water, dried them out and displays them.
There is a street lined with brightly coloured houses, each a different colour but the same design, that were built specifically for musicians with the help of both musician Harry Connick Jr, and Habitat for Humanity.
There is the refurbished home of Fats Domino, with that big FD over the front door, showing where the then 77-year-old music icon waited with his family on his roof for rescue.
Around another corner are the “green” houses, built to energy-efficient standards with solar panels in evidence, that were designed and constructed under a program begun by actor Brad Pitt. Students from Iowa State University sit on curbs in the midst of ongoing construction, sketching the designs and innovative technology.
These houses are built one storey up in the air, on pylons that are sunk 30 feet into the ground, so that any future waters can swirl below without damaging the structure. Wanda points to a brand-new American flag in front of one home, which the homeowner raised when his new house was finished. It replaced the one flying the day the waters rose.
But she also points to the tombstone at the feet of the new flag, placed there to honour the homeowner’s daughter and wife, who fell into those swirling waters and drowned.
Bitch. Please.

Do not go gently ...

2010-11-11T18:18:00.000-08:00

If Jerry Avis ever ends up in a retirement home, he’ll be the guy telling the impossible travel stories, the ones that raise eyebrows and make everyone in listening distance think it must be the beginnings of dementia starting to show.
If Jerry has his way, you won’t ever see that picture.
From the day he retired, he’s been on the move — sometimes on a motorcycle in North America, sometimes on that other bike he keeps in Ireland for his European travels, sometimes as a volunteer in Africa and sometimes in his older, well-modified motorhome, the one he was camped in at Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, Ala.
He calls Nova Scotia home these days, particularly since he came limping back to Canada after a bad motorcycle accident a few years back in Europe. But the crutches are gone now and he’s off on his usual winter jaunt to warmer climes. The motorhome has its solar array and is ready for more remote camping in one desert or another, off with others who like boondocking (camping without pay) on U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands. The deal is you have permission to camp for 14 days, but Jerry points out there’s really nobody who monitors that. It’s the honour system.
Jerry also is an Escapee, belonging to a group of camping enthusiasts who run some of their own parks, thereby keeping the fees low, and get discounts at others. He opts for what they call dry camping, no water, sewer or electrical hookup. That costs him $5 a night at Rainbow Plantation, and to Jerry, that’s important.
He’s quick to point out he is not a wealthy man, not at all, but he is frugal and prudent. He is well versed on how long he can be away from Canada and still maintain Medicare coverage, pointing out that a two-year absence can be managed under special circumstances. He knows Mexico produces generic versions of many prescription drugs at a much lower cost and offers to check that out for us.
He knows a bargain when he sees one, so pays his Escapee membership every year. He also counts many Escapees as friends so is happy to stop off here for a few weeks and catch up with folks.
But he is frustrated with some of his fellow retirees, saying half the people who retired when he did are sitting in front of a television, rarely moving.
At 76, he thinks he’s got more than a few good years, and miles, left in him.
“If you just retire and sit there, don’t do anything,” he says with a smile, “the next thing you know you can’t do anything. It doesn’t do you any good.”
He is frustrated with everyone playing it safe. He tells people to just get up and do it, whether it’s volunteering in a foreign land or selling the house and moving into a motorhome to hit the road. Stop thinking you don’t have enough money to pull it off, and put your energy and brains into budgeting and finding a way to hit the road.
He’s not alone. Helen, who reluctantly calls an apartment in Kitchener, Ont., sort of home, points to the motorhome she and her husband used as a full-time residence for the last 15 years.
“I still call that home,” she says. They reluctantly rented an apartment to be nearer to family, but opted not to buy a condo. That was too permanent.
When you see those big, big rigs on the road, the ones that look like buses with a smaller vehicle in tow behind them, know that for many, many people those rigs are home, the only one they have these days.
Don’t rule out the smaller trailer or motorhome. It could be someone’s retirement villa too.
And check for a small insignia stuck on the rear, the one that marks them as Escapees. They love to welcome someone new to their club.

Singin' without our supper

2010-11-11T17:42:00.000-08:00

We knew when the first few bars of rollicking bluegrass sounded, there would be no dinner tonight.
After a confusing day of following the GPS directions to campgrounds that seemed not to exist, we rolled, travel-weary and in increasing darkness, into Rainbow Plantation in the wilds of rural Alabama — perhaps not where you want to hear banjos playing.
But at the campground desk, the hostess mentioned there was an ice cream social at the clubhouse, starting in about a half hour, with bluegrass and gospel to follow. After a quick set-up, we had to decide whether to check out the music or fry up the fresh jumbo Gulf shrimp we had picked up earlier to go with red rice and black beans for a southern feast.
Never having been to an ice-cream social, we let our curiosity get the better of us and set off for a bowl of ice cream and a brief listen before dinner.
But once the music started, we knew there would be no leaving early — and no dinner.
The musicians, collectively known as the Wayfarers, played a delightful selection of bluegrass, country and gospel tunes — without a banjo, in fact — that drew large applause from the collection of 70 or so RVers gathered on a Sunday evening.
Rainbow Plantation is one of eight or so Escapee RV parks, located mostly in the south, where travelling members get breaks on the cost of campsites, gain an instant social network, and catch up with old friends from previous visits here or at other Escapee parks.
The Wayfarers, a group of part-time musicians from nearby Daphne, are monthly regulars here during the high season, and are very well received by the crowd.
Steve Bauer, a body-shop estimator by day and a mandolin-guitar fiend by night, said the nucleus of the group has been together since about 2000 after they connected at the Eastern Shore Baptist Church.
“We all go to the same church and all played guitar and there was a woman at the church who wanted to sing, so we kind of got together and played for her and it worked out pretty well,” Bauer said.
“One of the fellows also played a banjo that we didn’t know about, and he brought a mandolin and taught me three chords — enough to play I Saw the Light — and we decided we liked it. Nobody listened to bluegrass then so we had to learn a lot about it and went to a few concerts and festivals and one or two guys taught me a few things and that’s how I learned the mandolin.”
Bauer said that at one festival there was a two-hour open mic session before the headliners performed, and the Wayfarers strutted their stuff for the crowd. The promoter liked them well enough to invite them back the next year as one of the featured groups.
“It just kind of grew from there,” Bauer said, with a shrug.
The group offers Bauer on mandolin and guitar; Kevin O’Hara, an insurance broker in real life, on guitar; and dentist Richie Parsons on dobro. All three share vocals, with Bauer featured most often. Larry Harmse, a cabinet maker and bassist, plays the strong but silent role.
“We had a banjo player too, until a couple of years ago, but without a banjo now we don’t do the true bluegrass stuff,” Bauer said. “But we do what we can do and a lot of people seem to like it.”
They must like it. In season — the winter months — the Wayfarers play two or three times a week. In the summer it slows down to a couple of times a month. The Wayfarers are also putting together a CD, which will be available soon — Bauer said hopefully — at www.wayfarersmusic.net
The group passes the hat through the RV crowd for a token payment — a $3 donation is suggested.
“We get about enough to pay for gas and strings, we don’t make any real money at it,” Bauer said. “But we really enjoy it. If I wasn’t getting paid I wouldn’t play as much, but I’d still be playing.”
And we’d never get our dinner.

Life's a beach

2010-11-09T12:19:00.001-08:00

Having spent day after summer day on the beach at Aylard Farm in East Sooke Park with little girls 20-some years ago, Vicki thought she knew a gorgeous beach when she saw one.
Having been to Long Beach in Tofino, whose name tells its story, or the vast expanse of Rathtrevor Beach in Parksville, she thought she knew her stuff.
Having left B.C. to sink her toes in the fine, golden sand of Hubbard’s Beach in Nova Scotia, she knew she still had the touch for lovely beaches on this trip.
But none of that prepared her for Florida.
For one thing, from a distance it looks like snow. The incredibly fine sand is that white.
And it doesn’t help that Highway 98 out of Pensacola is lined with snow fencing, reminiscent of that stretch of highway at Portage La Prairie, Man., except in this case the fencing is to keep the SAND drifts from overpowering the highway.
We stayed first at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, and frolicked like a couple of kids in the sand before leaping into the breakers, letting them push us where they would. Never had Vicki heard Ian say, “Let’s go swimming.” The man who hates to swim, while sinking into that powdery white sand, couldn’t resist the pull of the breakers.
And that sand makes lovely footing as you head through the surf, trying to swim a few strokes before the next wave tosses you about.
At St. Joseph, the sand, while very fine, fit what we think of as the usual beach colour scheme.
It wasn’t until we hit the shores of Grayton Beach State Park that we were almost fooled into entertaining the thought of snow.
But only almost.
Our disappointment to see the purple warning flag, indicating hazardous marine life, was huge. Our minds immediately leapt to sharks lurking in the frothy waves but the ranger quickly squelched that notion when he said, “Jelly fish.”
But don’t sell the small, transparent creatures short. Apparently they can deliver a sting that makes a towel flicked in a vicious rat’s tail seem preferable.
We stayed out of the water, but satisfied ourselves with hours sitting on the beach, watching the tide roll in with each breaker to tickle our toes.
If felt like a real vacation.

The heir, apparently

2010-11-09T07:59:00.001-08:00

In feudal times in Britain, estates were generally named after the feudal lord, a practice that continues with titled persons to this day in ‘The Old Country.’
Thinking that similar rules — droit de seigneur, serfs, tugging the forelock — are customs that should be revived in this country, we stopped in at Dutton, Ont., to see how lavish our reception would be.
Alas we were a trifle disappointed when all that happened was that a passerby on the highway — Chrysta — saw us trying to take a picture with the town sign in the background, and turned around to take the picture for us.
Trying to curry favour with the laird, no doubt.
There was not even the offer of a free round at Dutton Meadows Golf Club. Hrmph. However in the course of our visit, we found a local business for which Ian is particularly well suited and got a photo of him in a position of prominence.
Oh well, after all, what’s in a name?

Monochromatic history

2010-11-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

Black and white.
Colour of every kind dominates the gardens, whether they’re a front yard in Savannah, Ga., one of those side yards in old Charleston, S.C. or on the Magnolia Plantation outside Charleston, with its 500 acres of gardens.
But it’s all black and white, all about black and white. There are so few black people taking the tourist trolley tours of old Savannah or a lazy carriage ride around the Battery in Charleston that they stand out in a crowd.
Campgrounds might as well post white-only signs. The blacks you see on the grounds are working.
The introductory video at Magnolia Plantation points out that slaves were happy to work the 500 acres of gardens rather than plant rice, the gold of this low-country part of the south. It isn’t until a much later tour of the five remaining slave cabins that visitors realize selected slaves worked the gardens while others planted miles and miles of rice on the remaining 1,500 acres.
It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the plantation reduced to 500 acres, with free blacks staying to work in the gardens. The plantation house was moved in from the city since blacks had burned the original home to the ground.
As tourists walk through those five cabins, they come to a larger one, actually two cabins pushed together, that was the family home of Johnny Leach, the former head gardener, and Isaac Leach, the current head gardener. Isaac’s son, Jackson, also works in the gardens.
The family lived there, without indoor plumbing, until 1969. Four of the 13 Leach children left to go to college.
In Charleston, our carriage driver, with his degree in history, points out one street, paved in stones that came from England as ballast in the sailing ships that docked at the end of the road. This rough cobbled lane holds the first steps of the Africans brought to the south. Almost all of the millions were unloaded here, stumbling up to the market to be sold.
It is humbling.
Our guide on the slave cabin tour points out that all the southern cooking we have been enjoying, to excess, came from the Africans brought to this land. Rice, barbecue, collard greens, grits, pecan pie, and on and on. A lunch at Jestine’s Kitchen in Charleston dates back to the recipes of Jestine Matthews, a black woman who lived for 112 years, many of them cooking for Dana Berlin, the restaurant’s owner, and her family. Berlin, raised by Matthews, who passed away in 1997, opened the restaurant two years later.
It’s long-established recipes set the restaurant’s reputation. The pumpkin tart will linger in Ian’s memory while Vicki gives this restaurant the honour of serving the best pecan pie she has ever tasted.
The lineup for lunch is well along the block and so routine that the establishment has installed a large outdoor fans to keep waiting patrons more comfortable. We appreciate it on a 75-degree day and shudder to think of a few days before when we sweated through 90 degrees, with 98 per cent humidity, in Savannah. Locals tell us we should imagine 20 degrees hotter for a summer temperature.
We point out that our trailer doesn’t have air conditioning. They shudder.
And we think of the history of people working outdoors in that heat, and of those who work outdoors today.
It’s black and white.

Please sir, can I have some Moe?

2010-11-01T06:35:00.001-07:00

Fat Buddies is closed on Sunday.
Now, that threw a very large wrench in the works. Some of our new fibreglass RV friends, Ray and Cindy, live about 20 miles from our Cherokee campground so we wanted their local knowledge on where to find proper southern barbecue.
We’ve seen the TV shows where those barbecue cooks face off, each claiming the best barbecue in the U.S. Even without the benefit of smell, we knew from the visuals that this was something to try in the south.
But it wasn’t going to be at Fat Buddies in Waynesville, N.C.
So we rolled further down the highway to Asheville, N.C., heading for McDonalds’ free WiFi. Feeling obliged, we buy something to drink every time we find ourselves at the golden arches but we’re never there for the food.
We’re looking for barbecue, so while Vicki posted to the blog, Ian wandered off to solicit McDonalds eaters for a good place for barbecue.
First table he hit, he struck out. The four southern women weren’t from Asheville. One, from Texas, pointed out in a long drawl that we would have to eat pig, not said in the most complimentary tone, in this part of the country.
“In Texas, we barbecue be-ef,” she drawled.
Next table, more success.
The four men were indeed from Asheville and Ian’s question sparked a spirited discussion on where the best barbecue could be found. Then the talk turned to Sunday, and what would be open.
In this part of the country, many businesses shut down on Sunday, with some also closing up shop on Wednesday afternoon.
But at last, it was settled. Moes Original Bar B Que, just down Lodge Street, would be the one. A couple of gestures for directions plus the words “and by then you’ll be able to smell it” sent us on our way.
There was some confusion, of course, since there are many eateries in Asheville using Moe’s name, including Moe’s Southwest Grill, right next door to McDonalds. Turns out everyone seems to have an old barbecue recipe from some dead guy named Moe.
We followed the loose directions, which included a reference to “you’ll see the chimbley.”
It really is a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place, where you walk in and place your order at the front counter. Allison, the waitress working the till when we got there, was first astounded that we’d never had barbecue, and then quite willing to help the rookies.
The idea is to order a platter, which includes one kind of meat, two side orders and a hunk of melt-in-your-mouth corn bread, plus a drink. Ian opted for pulled pork, Vicki chose chicken. Then the discussion was whether the chicken should be on the bone. Vicki bowed to Allison’s superior knowledge.
The half chicken came on the bone, with side orders of slaw and cornbread dressing as Vicki had ordered. There was enough to keep her knoshing away for an hour or so.
Ian had opted for baked beans and collard greens, a new experience, with his pulled pork. Apparently he inhaled all of this because he quickly moved on to another meal, this time pork ribs with slaw and baked beans, already a favourite.
When we first sat down, a waitress hurried over to wash down our table, we thought, because there must have been children seated there earlier. By the time Ian hit those ribs, and one skittered out of his hands and down his shirt, we knew the table always looked like that after anyone ate.
This was not clean, neat eating. The fact that our food didn’t come with napkins but each table had its own roll of paper towel should have been a hint. This was drip- down-your-chin, dribble-off-your-wrists, slurp-up-barbecue-sauce kind of food.
It was wonderful.
By this time, we had become entertainment for the staff. They watched our every move, the looks of bliss on our faces, the uhms and ahs of each new taste. They were so entertained that they sent us waddling home with complimentary banana puddings for dessert.
Maybe, when we’re willing to eat again, we’ll find out they’re really good too.

Size matters

2010-10-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Sheryl plays like a dream; Nelson hurries to join the show

“It’s AH—HUGE. AH—HUGE!!!”
That was our introduction to Steve. He’d come over at Happy Holiday RV Village to introduce himself, pointing to a Casita, another of the fibreglass trailers at this Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia gathering in Cherokee, N.C.
Then he asked if he could see inside our 17-foot, wide-body Burro, otherwise known as Harley, since he’d never seen one.
He was the first of many wandering by, wanting to see our little home of nine weeks. It was a very welcoming crowd. We think they also wanted to see just what British Columbians were like. In both cases, we think they liked what they saw.
Steve, the class clown, quickly saw us as the butt of the jokes, not that we minded but somehow the weekend ended with Ian calling Vicki the Possum Queen. There were a lot of possum/roadkill jokes and since neither of us had even seen a possum until they started appearing, lying dead along the roadside a few days ago, some of the jokes were actually educational.
Both the trailer, a foot longer and a foot wider than his Casita, and Harley’s bathroom were the subjects of Steve’s “huge” comment. Those extra feet make a big difference in the feel of the space.
All we could think of was our family the week before, looking at Harley as a tiny little thing.
Everything’s relative.
Our neighbours for the weekend were in Casitas and Scamps, plus one 13-foot Burro, happy to see Harley roll in on Friday, the second day of the weekend gathering. By then, most campers had met each other, were wearing their name tags and knew this was a musical event.
Once Steve got over “huge” Harley, he wanted to know if we had any musical instruments aboard. Vicki’s flute came out, with her insisting that playing by ear was not something she does. She’s willing to try, but not any good at it.
By the time the group had gathered in a common room Friday evening, Steve was determined she would play with others. After one number, she knew she was way, way over her head.
So did Steve.
So did the others.
But all were very helpful, letting Vicki know keys and chords. And when all else failed, she sang if she knew the words.
It was great fun, and that’s what this group does. Many of the musicians use their fibreglass trailers to go from one music festival to another, weekend after weekend. This gathering had the extra bonus of almost all having the same type of trailer.
That’s almost all because some of the musicians kind of stumbled on the group. Jeff, strumming guitar and mandolin at various points, happened to be in the same park, in his stickey (a somewhat derogatory term used by the fibreglass crowd to describe conventionally built trailers). Suzette, on auto harp and vocals, came with her husband Chance, on guitar, to meet his long-lost cousin Nelson, on guitar, for the first time. She and Chance made reference each night to going home to the big house (a hotel) for the night. Nelson went back to his Scamp fifth wheel.
Sheryl, a master of the fiddle when she isn’t playing violin in a symphony, came along with husband Chris in their Scamp. John, on Banjo, calls a Casita his temporary home.
And then there’s Steve, who uses his Casita for his work as a musician and storyteller as he designs programs for schools, all skills he brought to this event as well, not to mention his play of multiple instruments. His case of harmonicas was put to good use but only after he’d dealt with the cookie crumbs left behind by his tribe of grandchildren. His jokes, many focusing on the possum or the Canadians, kept smiles on faces between bluegrass songs and tunes reflecting the roots of country music.
We have been to many gatherings in B.C., Washington and Oregon. All have focused on the trailers and what people have done to customize their rigs to make them work better for their needs. This was our first gathering where music took centre stage. And it was the first time these three states had gathered together.
It was also a really good time. Ray and Cindy did the work of organizing, while Steve took over class clown leadership. It was a successful combination.
Steve, a large, boisterous man, has eight children, some of whom think he was the model for the current entertainment of Larry the Cable Guy.
He told us of the wedding of one of his daughters, a woman who spent seven years as a nun and who Steve says is drill-sergeant material. When he found himself overcome by emotion as the moment neared to walk his petite daughter down the aisle, she looked up at her father and told him to suck it up, stop bawling and walk.
“Man up,” she said sternly. “Man up.”
Laughing, he says he did what he was told.
But after Steve made the Canadians the butt of many jokes, we kept telling him we could get him back. He didn’t know about the blog, but he did by the time he left Cherokee.
We promised him he’d be on it.

Lasting legacy of tough times

2010-10-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

The Great Depression, and this last recession, both generated some good things.
Skyline Drive, a national historic landmark leaving Front Royal, Va., and heading into Shenandoah National Park, is a prime example. The park exists because of the Great Depression. Since 1933, as a make-work project, through 1942, thousands of young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps worked to ready the parkland, developing its extensive trail system and overlooks at the magnificent viewpoints.
These days, there is much ongoing work, rebuilding the miles and miles of low stone walls that line the roadway, serving as barriers to ensure a wayward vehicle doesn’t make the long, long drop to wedge against a tree somewhere below. All are marked with signage saying Your Recovery Dollars at Work, in reference to government funds pumped into the faltering U.S. economy. Nearly $30 million of the dollars designed to jumpstart the U.S. economy have been earmarked for Shenandoah.
Leaving Front Royal, Va., drivers climb and climb some more to hit the Skyline Drive, eagerly paying the $15 toll to enter the national park. For the next 100 miles, drivers will stop again and again at the roadside pullouts, set up to maximize the views of far-off hillsides, multi-coloured in autumn, interspersed with valleys filled with farms and small communities.
Again and again, we comment on the roadway linking these viewpoints, saying the tree canopy is particularly beautiful as the sunlight sparkles its way through the leaves. Gusts of wind bring a shower of foliage down to the road. A glimpse off to the side reveals a forest with a canopy so thick there is little in the way of undergrowth below, just a carpet of brightly-coloured, newly-fallen leaves.
The national park comes to an end and the Blue Ridge Parkway, running along the ridge of the mountains, begins. Elevations of up to 3,600 feet bring cooler temperatures. The stonework of the Skyline Drive is gone, leaving one feeling abandoned to fate if making a wrong turn.
After hours of peering over the sides to the valleys below, we come down from the mountains at Roanoke, Va., as much because we like the sound of the city’s name as because of rave reviews from others who have made this trip.
The valleys, after driving the unpopulated areas above, offer a glimpse at everyday life.
It’s not much of a house in Virginia if it doesn’t boast white columns on the front facade.
And it probably is either white clapboard or red brick. There are lovely, manicured green lawns all around it. At this time of year, there will be an orange flame of a tree in the yard and a sweeping driveway leading up to the door.
On the same property, connected by similar colour scheme or additional driveway, there are other less-imposing abodes, smaller structures or mobile homes, likely housing family or farm workers.
Any town boasts many of these homes, possibly outnumbered by churches. Vicki’s Quebec upbringing says the largest, tallest church in town must be Catholic. Ian’s time in Victoria says it has to be Anglican.
Heaven forbid in Virginia.
Churches carry names but not denominations, although all are solidly Christian. Pastors are advertised on signage, as are upcoming events ranging from revival meetings to group breakfasts.
Every time a large building appears on another of the rolling green hillsides, it is indeed a place of worship.
Towns boast home cooking, from bakeries to BBQs. The area’s other religion, football, waits for it’s worshippers; Thursday night service is for the junior varsity, Friday it’s the varsity boys at high schools throughout the South, all surrounded by stands ready to seat half the town, cheering the kids on. Saturday the shrines shift to the college towns and Sunday, after church, it’s praise the Lord and pass the remote for NFL Sunday.

Happy holidaying

2010-10-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

The highway running a few hundred yards from the first campsite is deceptive.
You’d think all those motorcycles rolling for their piece of the Blue Ridge Parkway would be interfering noise to would-be campers. But those who chance it, and cross the bridge over Soco Creek into Happy Holiday RV Village, don’t regret it,
The rushing rapids of Soco Creek easily drown out any noise from traffic on Wolfetown Road in Cherokee, N.C., leaving campers lulled to sleep by murmuring waters. If you’re not lucky enough to get a site backing onto the creek, where fishermen ply their hobby daily in search of trout a foot long or better, maybe your site backs onto the small man-made lake called home by countless Canada geese and mallard ducks.
The 365 sites of the campground, which has been open on Cherokee land since the late 1960s, will be open all winter this year for the first time. The Cherokee this year have taken over management of the facility, after letting a lease lapse with another management group. That means opening year round and bringing the facility, which currently doesn’t boast WiFi or reliable cable service, up to grade.
“They have a lot of poop,” says campground manager Vicki Cucumber of the pest known as Canada geese. “There’s a grape seed extract spray and the geese don’t like the smell. So we’re going to try that, spray it on the grass because it won’t hurt anything.”
Cucumber also asks if we, as Canadians, could just take the geese home with us. We share some of the universal complaints about the animals.
Nestled between hills of the Smoky Mountains, Cherokee and this campground are a jumping off point for any number of activities from touring Biltmore, the enormous Vanderbilt home near Asheville, to cruising the world-renowned parkway. There’s golf nearby at the Sequoyah National golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., grandson of golfer Bobby Jones, and native golfer Notah Begay III. You can see Santa year-round at a local amusement park or take a side trip to a working grist mill and pioneer village. And at this time of years, the deciduous trees covering the hillsides are dressed in their most colourful best.
All this activity means the average guest at Happy Holiday RV Village isn’t an overnight camper.
“The majority stay, I would say, four days to a week,” Cucumber says. “They come to see the mountains, and they come to see the Indians.”
The area, including the small store at the RV Village office, is flooded with native crafts.
The campground keeps campers comfortable for a longer stay by offering three large shower and washroom buildings, plus a games room topped by a room that can be used for any sort of meeting. It means larger groups, such as a recent gathering of fibreglass RV owners, can gather and play at the facility.
One recent gathering brought 70 or so motorcyclists, all making a fundraising ride to support one of their own, stricken with multiple sclerosis. They hope to pay for his CCSVI surgery, a new, as yet unproven treatment for the disease.
In the future, Masons will gather here.
Locals support the campground by leaving their RVs in the same site for the season, some living as close as 40 miles away. While their fees allow them hookups to power, water and sewer, they are not permitted to build anything in place, as happens in some other campgrounds.
Cucumber, and the Cherokee who own the campground, hope the winter brings more campers. Offering half-price camping will be an incentive for some.
And come March 31, they will start the high season yet again, gearing up for a couple of bluegrass festivals among other things.
And then the small town of Cherokee will be chock full of tourists, keeping the economy humming.

From godly comes greedy

2010-10-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Amish country, it said on the map in the area surrounding Berlin, Millersburg, Sugarcreek and Walnut Creek, Ohio.
Even before we had seen it, we had images in our heads — horse and buggy clip-clopping down the highway, guided by a stoic driver unsmiling behind long, probably white, beard, as he goes about his business (turns out the road’s shoulders are extra wide and sloped to suit the rigs), men and women in distinctive clothing marking their religion and way of life (saw them walking placidly down the highway or side by side in town, seemingly oblivious to the repeated stares they generated), farmyards without mechanized equipment (eight heavy horses grazing in a field so knew what kind of farm it was) and harvests in the fields (a crop gathered into stooks is a solid hint.)
What we didn’t expect was all the kitsch.
While the Amish aim for the roadside dollar in a quiet way with signs for their hand-made furniture or farm produce, their neighbours capitalize in full American style for the dollar generated by the mystique of yesterday’s way of life.
The black silhouette of a horse-drawn buggy is everywhere, on everything from cheese to ice cream.
Every birdhouse sold at a craft fair is tagged as handmade, even though it looks remarkably similar to any wooden birdhouse sold anywhere. McDonalds has its golden arches towering over a couple of flower-filled buggies, not to mention its buggy parking sign. It’s any excuse to make a tourist town out of any village near an Amish farm.
It cheapens what was built on a people’s belief.
The Ohio countryside is beautiful, fertile land. It gathers attention all on its own but it’s the way merchants attempt to get travellers to stop and spend their money that cheapens a beautiful area.
From our perspective, the trouble with all this is that it works. Streets are clogged with tourists eager to take home a souvenir of their travels. Stores are clogged with merchants eager to help them with that.
We drive on, holding on to the image of the Amish going about their daily business as we go about ours.
 

Two's company, three's a crowd

2010-10-24T10:37:00.001-07:00

GPS

“Who is she?!?!?!?” Vicki yelped as we made that first left turn to leave her brother Warren’s subdivision.in Dexter, Mich.
It was her first words in the truck, as she purred “Turn left” that set Vicki off. Ian, sometime in their four days in Dexter for their nephew Ryan’s wedding, had changed the voice function on the Tom-Tom GPS system they borrowed for this trip. For some reason, after 13,000 kilometres, Ian had grown tired of the Miss Efficiency voice that had been cooing form the Tom-Tom.
Suddenly it was Tom-Tom as one of the Bond girls giving James instructions on how to please her.
Vicki just stared at the dashboard device. This hussy wasn’t going to be the third person on this trip.
Ian changed the voice function at the next gas stop. We call this guy Skippy, Vicki’s brother’s favourite salutation to all and sundry.
As we roll through the Irish Hills of Michigan, with autumn leaves everywhere and the abandoned resorts of summer lining the road, we contemplate the technology of this trip.
For one thing, there’s a laptop in the lap of the only passenger as the blog is written. It’s plugged into a inverter to use the DC power supplied by the running vehicle. The Tom-Tom sits on the console between the seats, next to the iPod Touch to provide our home CD roster when we tire of the available radio. (Country at the moment, we’ll tire soon.) The iPod plugs into the truck’s stereo system to provide good sound.
The laptop is the news source, a communication device for family and friends and sometimes a family reunion. Last night, in Vicki’s brother’s kitchen, their daughter Robyn, in Winnipeg, had a face-to-face Skype chat with her cousin, Keenan, seated at the island in the kitchen of his Michigan home.
In the trailer there’s more. The Bose docking station for the iPod Touch means wonderful music, something Vicki and Ian couldn’t travel without. Harley, the trailer, was originally equipped with mountings for a television. That’s gone, since Ian and Vicki don’t watch TV at home let alone on the road, leaving only an alien-looking antenna on Harley’s roof.
The convection/toaster oven means there might be a pork tenderloin roasted tomorrow night, or maybe we’ll cook up those Pop N Fresh biscuits for breakfast.
The cell phone parked in Vicki’s purse rarely rings and is put to use even less often. It really is only for emergencies and thankfully, there have been few as we hit the halfway point of this trip.
We wonder how we would have managed without all this nifty technology. We might not have been quite as comfortable and not in touch with friends and family, but we would have been rolling down another small highway between cornfields in Ohio, done with their work for this season.

Weeping at the wedding

2010-10-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

picture by Evan Martin

The groom knew his mother had chosen The Man You’ve Become as the song.
He’d heard it before, knew the lyrics (see below). He thought he was prepared for the sentimental moment, after dancing with his bride of a couple of hours, when he would take to the dance floor with his mother. He knew it would be a moment when he would feel for what he was leaving behind, when he would remember the hugs and kisses of a childhood when this woman put him before everything else.
He knew it would be emotional.
He didn’t know he would cry like an infant.
Nor did he realize half the people in the crowd would cry with him.
At an event that was planned down to the minute, it was completely spontaneous and unexpected.
Yes, the lyrics are tender and heart-wrenching but that wasn’t what prompted the flood of tears.
It was the moment each of those soon-to-be crying people realized his mother was singing as she swayed to the music in his awkward arms.
It was the moment when he looked down at this woman he towers above, hardly able to see more than the top of her head, and realized she was singing the words of this song to him.
She hadn’t planned it that way. The words just seemed to come naturally.
The father of the groom, seated at a table nearby, thought it was a touching moment until he swung around to point out to his sister that his wife was singing the words to their son.
The tears streaming down his sister’s cheeks put the father over the edge. He had maintained control until he realized his sister was crying. Looking around, desperately, he saw another sister-in-law weeping, and she was not alone.
That’s when he joined the rest.
It was an unexpected emotional moment in what had already been an emotional day. The bride wept tears of joy as she recited her vows and listened as the groom spoke his.
The parents of the bride were seen to wipe their eyes, a moment expected by all the guests.
But that mental image of mother singing one more tribute to her son as they danced will linger in guests’ minds for years to come.
Congratulations to our nephew, Ryan, and his bride, Erin, on the occasion of their wedding.
To Christine Martin, mother of the groom, thank you.

Lyrics: The Man You've Become - Molly Pasutti
Big wheels, hot wheels 
Little trucks and cars
 Skinned knees, climbing trees 
Wishing on the stars 
Moments may be lost somewhere in time
 But the sweetest memories are never left behind 
Now you’ve grown so fine
 And come so far…  
CHORUS 
I’m so proud of who you are 
The man you’ve become 
Thrilled to share your deepest joy 
To know you’ve found the one 
For the great things you will do 
I’ll be blessed ‘cause you’re my son
 But I’ll always see the boy 
In the man you’ve become

  School days, sleep-aways
 Driving all alone 
Phone calls, shopping malls
 Late coming home
 It was hard to know when to let you spread your wings 
When to let you go to face the challenges life brings 
But you’ve grown so fine
 And come so far…
  CHORUS

Ian's version of hell on earth

2010-10-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

We went from Boyd's Lake in Quebec to Hwy. 401 in Ontario

Ian swore he wasn’t going to drive that four-oh-one through Toronto.
He’d cross into the States at Cornwall, take the southern scenic route around Lake Ontario on the U.S. side.
That was before our trip started, before we knew we’d be heading out from Dunany, Que. on the Sunday of a long weekend. How bad could Toronto be?
At one point, Ian looked at the roadway stretching ahead of him and said, “I can see more cars from here that there are on Pender Island at any one time.”
It was a day where we went from the sublime to the ridiculous. Leaving Dunany at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, there was no one else on the twisting, winding country road. That meant we could crawl along at 40 kilometres an hour to ensure Sidney, the cat, didn’t spill his breakfast. That road had done him in on Friday night about a mile before we arrived at Vicki’s cousin’s place.
It was a sunny, very crisp fall morning, with leaves showing all their brilliant colours as we left near freezing temperatures for the warmer climes of southern Ontario. The cats basked in bright sunshine in their cat carrier, sleeping contentedly until we reached the asphalt jungle of Toronto.
The vast expanse of pavement is unimaginable to a Westerner. There isn’t anything like it in Vancouver or Calgary. There are up to 18 lanes of traffic, and even on a holiday long weekend, they’re full as vehicles tear along at 120 kilometres an hour or more, weaving in and out of various lanes.
There we were, permanently in the slow lane, tugging Harley along behind us.
We didn’t fit in.
Nor do we want to, ever.
The highrise office towers and residences that line the highway are impressive, especially when you realize this isn’t downtown Toronto you can see. It’s just part of the apparently never-ending sprawl that is now urban Toronto.
Since we were headed out the other side, beyond Hamilton, we also got a feel for just how far Toronto reaches. There was a time, in Vicki’s memory, when there was farmland between Toronto and Oakville, and again between Oakville and Hamilton.
Not any more.
We know people live happily in their neighbourhoods in the Toronto area, but to get away from home, to go anywhere, they have to tackle the asphalt jungle.
We’d rather live in the wilds than take on the city.

Cousins catch up

2010-10-15T09:00:00.001-07:00

Boyd's Lake, Dunany, Que.

Eight weeks into our trip, and 10 of Vicki’s cousins.
It’s kind of pathetic when you think that’s only a quarter of the tally. There are 40 people out there, first cousins to Vicki, all on her mother’s side. Her dad, thankfully, is an only child. Her mother’s eight siblings produced anywhere from two to 11 children each, hence the vast expanse of cousins.
The cousin part of the trip started with a fishing stop in Nipawin, Sask., when we met up with Vicki’s cousin Robyn Hamann, namesake for our daughter. Vicki and Robyn were each raised in smaller communities fringing Brownsburg, Que., went through school together, stood beside each other at their respective weddings. It’s been a long road, always together and means trips between B.C. and Robyn’s farm near Regina, Sask., as often as possible.
The next cousin, fittingly, was Robyn’s eldest brother, Glenn, now owner of the cottage where Vicki spent her childhood summers. Being in the “home” area means spending time with some of the other cousins. Billy, now grown up as William Gauley, and his sister Marion. Then there was a trip to Lachute to meet cousin Patricia Elliot, who Vicki only knew as a little kid way behind her in school. (Turns out it was only a few years but at the time an important few years.)
A day trip to Ottawa led us to more cousins, with Wendy, Bernice and Betty stealing some time out of their daily lives for us.
After Thanksgiving dinner on the Saturday of the long weekend, at a table with Glenn, Billy and Marion plus Vicki’s Auntie Mike (known by her childhood nickname because two of Vicki’s uncles married women named Dorothy), we rolled off to Welland, Ont. There lives Vicki’s Auntie Margaret, her mom’s twin sister. Margaret this summer moved into a suite in her son’s Barry’s house. There, Vicki connected with a cousin she hadn’t seen in 35 years. Barry, for a variety of reasons, hasn’t been close with many of the cousins, and as we left, he said how wonderful it was that we had reached out to be back in touch.
At his table, we ate Thanksgiving leftovers on the Monday with another of Margaret’s sons, Robbie, now known as Bob.
And somewhere in that couple of days, there was a trip to see Auntie Elva and Uncle Charlie, Vicki’s mom’s baby sister and her husband in St. Catharines, Ont.
We’re all very different people, leading quite different lives in different parts of the country and yet we can walk into a room and connect. After a few minutes we find something more than blood that we have in common. We find ground for friendship with cousins and with their spouses as we come to know them just a little better.
As we head down a windy, wet highway aiming for a ferry at Sombra, Ont. to cross the St. Clair River into Marine City, Mich., we think of the rest of the family we’ll see this weekend. We’ll be at Ryan Martin’s wedding to Erin Cozart in Dexter, Mich. He’s Vicki’s nephew, son of her brother Warren. We’ll see Warren’s family, her brother Ian and his family, plus her parents who are flying in from Sooke, B.C.
It’s been a Thanksgiving week in the middle of a trip all about family.
To the other 30 cousins, sorry we didn’t connect on this trip. Maybe next time.

Happy camping cats

2010-10-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

When we told people the two of us were going to spend four months together in 98 square feet of trailer, their eyebrows went up.
When we told them we were also taking our two cats, their eyebrows started doing the lambada.
Many people believe that, unlike dogs, cats are aloof, happy on their own, animals who only pay attention to their “owners” when their dish is empty or their litter needs changing. That’s never been true for the half-dozen cats we’ve shared in our married life, and it’s certainly not true of Luther and Sidney, our current travelling companions.
When we were considering our epic voyage, one of the questions was, “What do we do with the cats?”
But after a few minutes reflection, there really wasn’t any other choice. The animals regard us as part of their herd, sort of clumsy, stupid cats who don’t sleep the required 20 hours a day, and want to sleep when real cats are most active. Leaving them at home would have been cruel, and would have made us miserable.
Any regrets?
None . . . . well, hardly any.
Seven weeks in, the cats have settled into a routine. They go into their cat carrier reluctantly, but they do walk in, then settle down almost immediately and are asleep by the time we hit the highway.
The only exception is Sid. He has always engaged in an extended, very vocal and demonstrative puke session when we first leave home. Within the first kilometre he has blotted his copybook and soiled the towel in the bottom of the cat carrier in spectacular fashion, sending Luther crowding to the back of the enclosure with a look of distaste on his face.
Then we get to the ferry, change the towel, and Sid is as good as gold for the next however many kilometres of the trip.
Sid of course started our trip in his usual fashion. But imagine our surprise as we travelled from Winnipeg to LacLu. Two hours into the trip, we hit the winding Minaki road that takes us from the main highway to the lake. We heard the old familiar noises, Luther headed for the back of the cat carrier to get out of the way and Sid shared half-digested kibble with us once more.
That has not been the end of it and we can tell you every twisting road we’ve taken. But Sidney has always restrained himself to just one hurl per day, expressing his displeasure with our chosen roadway.
Fear not. This isn’t hurting him in any way, other than a few minutes of discomfort. Earlier this year, we worried about his drastic weight loss as he shifted from winter camp to spring hunter and lost four pounds.
Outdoor cats at home, they are now confined to the confines and immediate vicinity of the trailer with Sidney quickly regaining that lost weight, and then some. They have harnesses that are never removed, and 10-foot leashes that we attach to them and to the trailer whenever we are going in and out the door. Their outings are at the end of the leash and for Luther, extend as far as the front step. Sidney, a trifle more adventurous, is exploring on his leash with a human in tow, a guide and bodyguard combined.
The only other time the cats’ behaviour has been an issue has been at dawn. Sid, now two years old, started the expedition thinking that, like other cats, we should greet every new day with a feline Indy 500 around the trailer, from one end to the other and back again, with reckless disregard for life, limb and sleeping humans.
Luther, three years old but a sedate middle-age from birth, regards Sid as an aberrant teenager until the younger beast decides it’s time to switch from NASCAR to WWE and needs a wrestling partner – and Luther’s it.
But that’s only for a half-hour or so and only every few days, and when the fun’s over the cats are content to cuddle up against us on the bed, the single largest item in the trailer, and everyone catches a few more winks.
And what could be better, on the cold, damp nights we’ve waited through this fall in various parts of the country than a toasty electric heater, a good book and a cat curled up in your lap?

Back, again and again and again, to basics

2010-10-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

She’s been coming to the same beach cabin for 20 years, all the way from New York City, and plans to keep on doing it.
Others come from New Hampshire, and there are those, home grown, who come from Nova Scotia.
What they have in common is Inverness Beach Campground.
The 41 campsites and 41 cabins may not look like much but their view of open ocean plus three miles of Cape Breton beach at Inverness are plenty to get your attention.
Anything else, the MacLeod owners will do for you. The campsites are kept simple, deliberately, but offer water and electricity, plus WiFi. The cabins, while extremely well maintained, on the outside appear pretty basic, all cut from the same mould.
But a trip inside reveals utilitarian space, maximized by a decorator’s touch.
Anita MacLeod, one of 12 children, was raised on this place after her parents bought it in 1969.. Four of the siblings now operate this campground plus MacLeod Beach, with its 170 campsites, which was added to the roster in 1980, not to mention the MacLeod Inn for the non-campers. They’re a hospitable family and it shows.
Anita, a seamstress, makes all the draperies for the cottages, each of them different. She prides herself on natural fabrics, which she says clean much better. The cottages gleam, even toward the end of season as the MacLeods prepare to close in November.
Her brother, Ivan, points out that all it takes for their clean cottages to smell wonderful is to open a window on the ocean side and another on the back. The breeze blows through a scent like no other. And Anita points out they use natural cleaners.
The unassuming campground offers everything you might want: WiFi, laundry, tennis and basketball courts, a playground plus all that nature has to offer. Its clientele boasts returnees of many years, some of them with recognizable names, CBC radio host Shelagh Rogers among them. She once thought she might have to wear a floppy hat and sunglasses as a disguise until Anita pointed out all she need do is keep her mouth shut. It’s that voice and laugh that are recognizable.
Rogers also knows the place through author Alistair MacLeod, Anita’s cousin. Anita proudly points to a new book in the house, Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod, Alistair’s son.
“I think I have the best job in the world,” Anita says with a smile, although she admits all who work at this place, up to 20 in the summer months, are now looking forward to November. “My mother always got depressed at this time of year because she wouldn’t get to meet people for a while.”
People flock to the area because it is near the start of the Cabot Trail, world famous for its majestic scenery. Inverness Beach is a great place to park the trailer before making the Cabot Trail loop as a day trip.
But the second trail on which Inverness sits, the Ceilidh Trail, brings them back again and again for the music. The Rankin family calls Mabou, just down the road, home and two of the sisters operate the Red Shoe Pub, featuring of course Celtic music The tourist season winds up here with the Celtic Colours International Festival, Oct 8-16, as the leaves turn their brilliance on.
Anita points out there’s much more work to be done, even after the gates close. That’s when all the bookkeeping is sorted out, then it’s Christmas and before you know it, it”s February.
“We start taking reservations on the first of February,” she says with a smile. “Then it’s crazy. We’ll get hundreds of calls.”
They keep coming back.

Cookin' in the kitchen

2010-10-03T16:24:00.001-07:00

Kitchen party? In the kitchen?
Where we come from on the West Coast, wives complain when a house party crowd inevitably splits into male and female, with guys hanging out near the fridge and the women trying to be sociable in the living room.
But here, on the East Coast, we ended up at two kitchen parties in two days in Hubbards, N.S. and neither party was in the kitchen. One was in The Trellis Cafe and the other was a private affair where everyone gathered on the big front porch facing the ocean, marveling at the warmth of the first night of October.
Both nights were wonderful. A party, always, is made by its people and we met some great, fun, social, outgoing and most of all musical folks. A Maritime party means bring the instruments and they did. For some, it was 12 and six-string guitars, for others a variety of drums, another a teeny tiny squeeze box, and some wonderful voices, in all styles, ranges and harmonies. Out of pockets came a set of spoons and various shakers for percussion backup.
It was good fortune that brought us to this seaside hamlet, 50 kilometres out of Halifax. Vicki’s old friend, Andrew, who also holds Cushing cottage memories dear, insisted she visit his older sister Bonnie at her home in Hubbards.
Out came the maps to figure just where this hamlet is. Andrew insisted Bonnie would welcome us with open arms, which she did. But because it was her busiest day of the week as a piano teacher, she sandwiched us into her schedule using the local cafe, The Trellis, as a meeting place.
Once we figured out who the other was after an absence of 35 years or so, we were off and running. Bonnie’s enthusiasm for the home she has made with husband Bob McCuaig, where they raised their three children and where she nursed her mother until her death, is stronger than ever after 30 years. No regrets on moving from Montreal. Our chat is interrupted by her neighbours and friends stopping by to say hello.
She apologizes again and again for the fact she is busy and has to hurry home to more of her 40 or so piano students. She apologizes for the fact she is leaving the next evening for a wedding in Ottawa and cannot stay to show us a good time.
But she takes us to the campground, in town, and see us settled before rushing off. The campground, two-thirds full of permanent trailers that act as a cottage for their mostly-Halifax based owners, is not particularly our style but it has WiFi and laundry, and we’re in desperate need.
It also has us close to town and able to explore it easily so that evening we return to the Trellis for their usual Thursday evening open jam.
It’s a kitchen party.
Before long, they’re looking at us questioningly so when Ian starts taking pictures for the blog, he explains what we’re doing on our travels.
“Come on in, sit down,” someone says, and we’re part of the party.
When Earl McAllister stands to sing, and the guitar chords begin, Sean Avis puts his guitar down and says, “Close your eyes for this. C’mon, close them. It’ll all be clear in a minute.”
And he’s right because he’s seen this before.
“When it began, ooo, ahh, ooo, I can’t begin to knowin, but then I know it’s growing strong,” Earl sings, and we of the closed eyes are certain Neil Diamond has entered the crowded room.
Earl is well known locally for this routine. When he’s really serious about his performance, he dresses the part but tonight he’s in jeans and a shirt.
He’s not alone in holding the limelight. When Misha Mosher gets up, the house is quiet after her first note. Her bluesy voice commands attention and she gets it, whether she’s singing here or with Sean and James Nairn when they perform as Two Many Strings.
One after another, the women take a turn at singing the lead in some song they’ve enjoyed for years. Cindy Fahie likes to belt out Patsy Cline, her sister Susan Lethbridge, visiting from Flin Flon, Man., delivers a touching John Lennon tune written for Yoko Ono. Lethbridge sings it accompanied by her husband Brent on guitar when they realize that nice young couple, who have been sitting at a corner table for hours, are on their honeymoon.
The newlyweds will never forget this evening.
We learn later that this is an exceptional night when everyone seems to gel just perfectly. Carol Webb is flawless in her harmony and stirring when she sings lead. The guitar playing from Avis, Nairn, Pat Fahie, Gary Stephen and Dave Anderson accompany each other as each chooses a song to play.
They apologize that there isn’t the usual assortment of instruments. It’s just who happened to show up tonight.
We don’t see any need for apology. The music keeps us there until staff decide the night has to come to an end, long after the usual closing time.
But we’re heartened when Cindy approaches us as we get ready to leave.
She and Pat are having a house party the next night, and we’d be welcome if we’d like to come. She asks where we’re staying and then laughs. Her house is the yellow one — across the road from the campground.
So it’s not hard to find the next night when we meet more of their friends, and more musicians. Carol’s husband, Don, feels recovered sufficiently from bronchitis to join the party with his squeeze box.
Earlier in the day, we squeezed another visit with Bonnie into her tight schedule and told her how much fun we’d had the night before at the Trellis. As we described a voice or guitar playing, Bonnie, the small village resident, put names to our descriptions.
At the house party, Ian asked for names of all and sundry. They were quite keen to be on our blog.
And we were quite keen to have been included in their regular lives, if only for a couple of nights.
We’ll not forget Hubbards.

A fascinating bore

2010-10-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

They’ll call you dear, and with their kind of hospitality, they mean it.
We were warned by new Moncton friends, Theresa and Dennis, whom we first met on the Internet when talking about our fibreglass trailers, their’s an Outback and ours the Burro, that the salutation from anybody and everybody would be dear. It was one of the first things this formerly-Ontario couple noticed when they moved here.
It doesn’t matter how old anyone is in the exchange. That young woman –younger than our daughters – at the convenience store calls us dear as she gives the total for our purchases. It’s one way you know you’re in the Maritimes.
We had come to Moncton after a two-day stop in Saint John, a city that offers the tourist a great farmers’ market, the longest running in the country. It’s in the heart of the old downtown and operates six days a week, all but Sunday. The sights, sounds and smells catch your senses the minute you walk in the door. And the little bag of mixed fish and seafood for a chowder cooked up as a great dinner, not to mention the nearly-last corn on the cob of the season.
What Saint John does with spectacular thoroughness is show you the impossible, twice a day with unfailing regularity as the moon ensures the tide changes. At and around low tide, the Saint John River does what all rivers in this country do.
It flows downstream into the sea.
It’s a lovely sight, even in the dense morning fog that surrounded us for most of our two-day stay. Water tumbles and roils over rock long-since washed smooth and carves pathways around this island and that, as it follows its natural course. The white water is impressive but the tourists, disgorged at the railing from a steady stream of tour buses, taxis and private vehicles, begin to wonder why they’re here.
It’s when they come back for the hours surrounding the late afternoon’s high tide, when their buses and vehicles have been brought back to the same parking lot again, that they know why they came.
The white water of the morning pales in comparison since the afternoon waves are so much bigger, active and intense. But what defies all reason is these waves, this boiling current, is flowing up-river, away from the ocean.
While your brain follows the logic of a high, high tide – Bay of Fundy tides can reach 53 feet and are the highest in the world – meeting the flowing river with more than enough force to push it backward, your eyes remember what they saw this morning and say, “This can’t be.”
What humans find hard to understand is accepted by the animal kingdom. The cormorants perch on the islands, waiting for the waters to calm as the tide starts to turn yet again. It isn’t until there is some calmness that they descend to feed on fish caught up in the maelstrom and desperately trying to make it unscathed back to the ocean.
The harbour seals come in near the shore to feed undisturbed as things calm down, but not until the humans have had their fun with this tidal bore.
The jet boat operator promises thrill upon thrill on the ride as he takes one boatload after another out to rock and roll on impossible waters. He is quick to point out that all electronic equipment should be left dockside and while he dresses passengers in lovely slickers and pants, they are also warned to bring a change of clothes with them.
They will be soaked to the skin, and happy about it on a cool fall day, by the time they’re through. The boat operator, for all the world like a very young man getting his thrills and chills driving like a maniac, knows these waters so well that passengers will be frightened again and again that the large boat will lose its battle with current and turmoil, but it never does.
We watch and wait for the slack tide, wanting to see when these waters look no more harmless than a lake, when tide neither high nor low dominates and the waters are still.
The cormorants and seals feast on this time.
We head back to our campsite to feast on the farmers and fishers products.

Goodbye Mr. Chips

2010-09-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Casse Croute.
Coming down the south shore of the St. Lawrence River on Sunday, leaving the magic of Quebec City behind us, we found new wonders to behold. The river widens, spreading its broad brown waves in the stiff wind blowing from the east. By the time we stopped at a lookout in St. Roch des Aulnaies, Que., we knew the sea was near. The smell of salt air was all too familiar as a rare brief bout of homesickness hit.
And soon the brown murk of the St. Lawrence was split up the middle by a ribbon of blue tide.
We remembered our old Rudy dog, on arrival at the Tsawwassen ferry terminal outside Vancouver after a camping trip with our girls on the Prairies. When we opened the van door in the ferry lineup, Rudy’s head went back, with that long snout pointing straight up, sniffing the wind. Then her tail wagged.
Before leaving Quebec, we stopped at one more Casse Croute (Casser la croute means to have a snack, or have a bite to eat so basically it means Snack Bar). The roadside stands have kept us fueled all the way from Shawville, where we crossed over the Ottawa river from Ontario, but this one was different. For one thing, the frites (French fries) in Vicki’s home area are much better. For another, chou (coleslaw) is on every hot dog and hamburger that is ordered all dress (all dressed) where she hails from. At this last stop, the frites were patates, garni was all dress and there was no choux. A hot dog looks quite pathetic wrapped in lettuce. The taste was gone.
But their menu had the additions of the region — crevettes and petoncles (shrimp and scallops). The landscape was changing, both on and off the menu.
It wasn’t long until we turned south at Riviere du Loup to make our way to New Brunswick. The landscape suddenly changed to rolling hills as we headed for a night in Edmundston, every bit as French as any Quebec town but across the New Brunswick line.
Monday morning brought with it a beautiful scenic drive, much of it alongside the border with the state of Maine, as we headed south, then east to Fredericton and then south again to Saint John. The hills rolled, with signs pointing to the Canadian version of the Appalachian mountains, sporting their fall colours as the season progresses.
The moose warning signs along the four-lane highway, some of it fenced off, are effective. The signs are done to scale, with the car perched next to the looming moose, much taller than the smaller hunk of metal. The message is clear. Tangle with a moose and you’ll lose.
Smaller highways were left for side trips. One led to a stop in Grand Falls at, appropriately, the falls. Nothing to rival Niagara, the falls are a result of a weir in the St. John river and the river gorge that leads to falls and rapids, spilling over carved rock formations. Unlike Kakkabeka Falls in Ontario, there is no charge to view the falling water.
Rock alongside the highway appears like a cut through the shale we are familiar with at home in B.C., but this gleams, showing the mica it contains.
Another jaunt off the Trans Canada takes us to the Hartland Covered Bridge, the world’s longest at 1,282 feet (391 metres). A little patience as we wait our turn to travel across the one-lane structure, built in 1901 and covered in 1922, lands us on the other side in a rare patch of sunshine.
The national historic site, fittingly, saw the Olympic Torch carried through its portals for the 1988 Winter Games.
We decide maybe we won’t turn off into Nackawic, home of the world’s largest axe. So far, we’ve skipped out on many things that come with the world’s largest title attached to them. The covered bridge, the world’s longest, was exceptional.
Vicki thinks she remembers the covered bridge from a family trip made by car when she was four years old. Her only other memory comes from the Irving gas station signs, as we head into an Irving-dominated business area. On that childhood trip, she and her two brothers played a game in the backseat called Hit the Irving. At every Irving station, and there are many in the Maritimes, there was a race to hit the Irving, her older brother Ian, in the backseat. No doubt the game was conceived by her eldest brother, Warren.
Sorry brother Ian.
Husband Ian claims the game hasn’t changed.

Revved on des reves

2010-09-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Low cloud and and a shifting, shimmering mist veil the outline of old Quebec, like the curtain waiting to go up on a medieval play.
As the ferry from Levis draws closer, centuries-old buildings begin to take shape, shouldering aside the mist as they’ve done for more than 400 years. As the ferry docks, modern Old Quebec shows itself, stores that have served customers since before there was an America, now catering to U.S. tourists and offering Chinese-made Canadian kitch. And still the city is magical.
There are restaurants everywhere. One, just off the dock where we land, has its outdoor umbrellas folded up, their white tops and black wings tucked up like so many soggy bald eagles hunched against a West Coast winter.
Galleries, too, are around every corner, (we fell in love with a stunning exhibition of fall colour by Christian Bergeron but alas don’t have $3,000 to spend on a painting) and the winding, sometimes-cobbled streets make for many corners indeed, outnumbered only by the tourists, even on this soggy September day.
For anyone to whom history is more than a hated course in high school, Quebec City is a place apart, a permanent settlement since 1608, and a hotbed of political ferment since the English set up permanent camp in the neighbourhood in 1759.
It’s in the house where Montcalm lived, and where his troops rallied to stave off the English after their surprise appearance in the Plains of Abraham. It’s in the statues of Quebec heroes, from Samuel de Champlain to Maurice Duplessis, in the walls of the Citadel and the magnificent Chateau Frontenac standing proud above it all.
There is an efficient, bustling tourism bureau at the corner of rue Fort and rue Sainte-Anne that offers the visitor everything from guided walking tours to motorized tours, St. Lawrence river tours or local ghost tours. Helpful personel man multiple kiosks, ready to answer any question from dazed tourists.
On the streets, there is the magic of a ride in a caleche, with the guidance of sure hands on the reins from someone with a solid knowledge of the city and its history. At the corner, there are sure hands on a fiddle and a set of wooden spoons, as a musician stomps out the rhythm of traditional Quebecois music on a small sheet of plywood at his feet, competing briefly with the peal of cathedral bells as a wedding draws to a close next door.
When Ian feels this kind of magic, he also wants to move to the dream. It’s happened before, notably on a trip to Victoria to see relatives. And look where that landed us.
But we also recognize the limitations as we try to converse with anyone, about anything. We have managed to order food (a Speciale Quebecois for lunch, consisting of soup aux pois, tortiere and tarte au syrop d’erable — pea soup, French Canadian meat pie and maple syrup pie) but to progress beyond that involves much hand movement, facial expression and frustration on both sides. We could not work here.
But maybe a longer vacation could be managed. We saw apartments for rent in the old town for $650 per month, condos in redone centuries-old buildings on the market for $160,000. There are people anywhere in the world interested in house swapping, and Pender is not too shabby a spot to list on that market.
The old city brings up new dreams. We’ll sleep well tonight.

Hometown needs help

2010-09-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Vicki’s dad Vernon, too young to serve overseas in the Second World War, was old enough to sit on the steps of the Social Club at the centre of booming Brownsburg, an explosives and ammunition factory it’s main employer, and watch as busloads of women arrived in town, primarily from the Maritimes, to keep the plant working 24 hours a day.
Four generations of Vicki’s family have worked in that factory, making everything from ammunition to plastic combs with CIL, as the owner. Her great-grandfather, on the one day he didn’t carry his treasured pocket watch, died there in an accidental explosion, a rare but not impossible fact of life when dealing with explosives.
The plant, as it’s been known forever locally, is now part of Orica Canada, the world’s leading manufacturer of explosives, focusing on the mining industry. It, from all reports, is booming, keeping the town employment level up, with explosives the mainstay now, not ammunition.
In the past, when “the company” was booming, so was the town. Apparently not these days.
Brownsburg’s core looks like the town was actually the testing ground for the explosives manufactured just down the road. What was a handful of longtime businesses, in a block that boasted second-floor apartments to house some of the workers in the commercial core, no longer exists. When the town purchased the block, it was because it had deteriorated so badly it was condemned. It was torn down, with nothing to replace it.
The main intersection, which once boasted the one and only traffic light, now is controlled by four-way stop or arret signs, one of many such intersections in town. Across the main street was the Flamingo Hotel, a mainstay for some townspeople but it too met the wrecker’s ball. It is another vacant piece of land at that corner.
The town has a large sign up, with plans to replace these buildings, again with businesses on the ground level and residential above but the town, out of money, is seeking a partner in the project.
No one has come forward over the last few years so the town sits, looking bereft. This year’s summer work on sewers and water lines doesn’t improve appearances or function as drivers bounce through the old streets. The Social Club came down years ago, replaced by a small park now torn up for ongoing sewage and water works.
The town offers no reason to stop as cottagers head straight for their lakes to the north, and townspeople roll the few kilometres down the main road to Lachute to stock up on all their needs.
But it is clear the people who still live here are working in a prosperous environment and enjoy their homes. The houses are well-tended, brightly painted or covered in the field stone that torments the area farmers. Front porches are well used and covered in outdoor furniture. The local arena, named for the town’s only hockey player to reach the NHL, Gilles Lupien, is busy and now houses a small library at the front of the building. The Legion Hall next door is well tended and used. The largest building on the street once was the local English school, grades 1 through 11 in those days, which now is an apartment complex.
The depanneurs (the Quebec term for convenience store) are some of the few commercial outlets. The small grocery store still limps along, waiting for better times. Townspeople are served by a post office, a small pharmacy, a pizzeria, another restaurant and of course, a bar. And under Quebec law, the depanneurs and grocery stores can sell beer and wine.
Most of the Protestant churches have closed their doors, some with a For Sale sign up front, but the Catholic church, always the largest in a Quebec town, still thrives perched atop a hill.
At some point, maybe the politics will work itself out and the town will fill its coffers from taxes paid by all those who live there. Maybe then, work can begin on reconstructing Brownsburg’s once-thriving downtown core.

Camp-ing

2010-09-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

Just down river, we are told, people pay $6,000 to park their trailer from May to September in a campground within sight of the Carillion Dam, producing hydro-electric power for the Montreal area.
We have parked our Burro not in a park, but on private land that once belonged to Vicki’s grandparents. We are sitting a few feet from the water, lulled to sleep by small, lapping waves. The memories of this place, now owned by one of Vicki’s many cousins, are strong for both of us since we spent some of our honeymoon here as Vicki’s parents threw a party for all those people who couldn’t attend a wedding in Regina.
Large boats go by, usually seeming to be travelling together, but it’s actually a function of the dam. They have lined up and waited together to fill up the locks before the mechanism is set in motion to lift them from one level of the river to the virtual lake that now sits on the upper side of the dam.
When Vicki sees friends in the nearby towns, she can invite them over, saying, “We’re at the camp” and they’ll know to drive out on the river road, and turn toward the water when they get to St. Mungo’s United Church.
In the early ‘60s, Vicki’s grandparents bought two lots carved out of a farmer’s field. For the first few years of cottage life, there was a fence and gates to keep the dairy cows out. Her grandfather, tired of dealing with marina owners, bought the land so he could have his own dock for his small boat. Her grandmother, who was afraid to be out on the water and never set foot in the boat, saw no point in this and insisted a pine pre-fab cottage be put in place one weekend. It must have been rainy because for years there was one muddy boot print on the living room ceiling.
But neither grandparent was the sort to stay at a cottage so they turned to their only child, Vicki’s father, and said, “You’d better us it.” One bedroom was set aside for the grandparents, who almost never used it, another housed the three kids and Vicki’s parents took the last bedroom.
Use it they did. The weekend after school was let out every June, the family packed up and moved to the camp until Labour Day. The cottage is only a 20-minute drive from what was their home so Vicki’s Dad made only a slightly longer commute to Brownsburg’s CIL factory. Her mom, a lifelong non-swimmer, was left with her three young water rats diving into the river in early morning and not leaving it until nightfall. There never was a telephone in those days so she always wondered how she would summon help if needed. The kids knew that “pretending” they were in trouble in the water was simply not acceptable. Of course, that doesn’t mean they didn’t try it occasionally.
Vicki has vague memories of looking at the land and being told that the river, way over there on what is now the other side, was going to grow when the dam was completed and be at our doorstep. Hard to believe when you’re six years old but when it was time to move in, there was the promised river. The big rock she had her eye on, figuring she could climb that one many times, was long submerged.
As a new lake of sorts, the river continued to belch up some of the bits and pieces of the flooded land. Tree parts would float to the surface now and then, but since the river was used to transport pulp logs to a mill in Hawkesbury, Ont., up river and on the Ontario side, branches were the least of a boater’s worry. Those pulp logs would become water-logged, and sink first from one end, just bopping along the surface, and wipe out a motor’s prop in one hit.
As we grew older and took to water skiing, we knew that dead heads, those submerged demons, were unwanted companions. Boat and skier could be seriously injured in one encounter.
That shiny pine cottage, always known as the camp, doesn’t shine so brightly almost 50 years later. It has weathered the harsh winters, held its roof up during ridiculous snow loads and waited for its update each spring. For Vicki’s father, and now her cousin Glenn, it becomes another home to maintain. The front side, with its southern exposure, demands paint every year, the grass always will grow and need cutting, and the cedar trees need attention to broken limbs from a harsh winter.
Remains of one dock or another dot the shoreline as dock technology evolved to the point the current structure is removed every fall. It took years for property owners along the river to find structures that could be lifted out because no matter what they put into the water, if was there in the spring when the dam is opened to release an excess of water and the ice shifts, the dock could not take the battering. Ice destroys anything in its way so the cribbing structure filled with the endless supply of rocks that make up the river bed disappeared years ago. The concrete u-shape that housed the boat, protecting it from the wash of larger boats going up and down river, was ripped from its pinnings and lies askew on one side of the property.
Glenn’s dock will be removed sometime around Thanksgiving and spend the winter, protected on shore, to wait for another spring.
Vicki and Ian sit beside their Burro, greeting the rising sun downriver and later watch it set upriiver, he with some memories of the place, knowing she is caught in the past when she’s here, at least for a time.

Our burrow in our Burro

2010-09-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Think:
A large bathroom.
A small kitchen.
A reasonably grand entrance to a home.
Or all of the above in a pretty small trailer.
We’re calling 98 square feet home, have done so for nearly a month and have three more months planned. The weather has turned cold and wet in Marathon, Ont., where we’re stranded without a clutch and master cylinder for our truck, so we’re learning to live inside that 98-square-foot bubble.
Don’t forget the two cats getting underfoot, often tied to a cupboard door in case they make their way outside when the outside door opens.
Think:
Kitchen items from food storage to utensils to dishes.
Bathroom items stored away so the tiny alcove can function as toilet, sink and shower all in one.
Two wardrobes: one for summer temperatures and the other for near freezing.
Think:
A double bed, permanently in place where the space could have been a four-person dinette. We’d rather have a proper mattress than fiddle with a variety of cushions and make up a bed every night.
A couch across the front end of the trailer, which with the removal of one cushion and a little work, can become a two-person dinette. We rarely turn it into a dinette but prefer an extra-long couch that allows each of us to sit with our legs stretched out across the cushions. Invariably we each have a cat in our laps.
To make the tiny space workable took some thought. We’ve been out before in the trailer we call Harley (it’s vehicle identification number, before we brought it across the border from its previous U.S. home kept turning up in Ottawa as belonging to a motorcycle. Finally, it said trailer so we decided this is one trailer that really wants to be a big bike. Hence Harley).
Previous trips of a few weeks, once in snow, let us know we had to make every inch of storage work for us. We had stuffed this, that and the other thing in the open space under the bed. It’s now organized with two plastic under-bed storage bins that house whatever clothes aren’t suitable for this week’s weather.
The littler box, a necessary evil, is also under there in a little private corner but unfortunately it’s next to Ian’s CPAP machine. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he inhales more aroma than he cares to with his forced-air apparatus. A small bin of extra litter also is stashed under the bed, while the Costco-size box rides in the back of the truck as a refill.
What serve as supports for our bed, or would-be benches for a four-person dinette, also have storage under them but we’ve always found them difficult to access. Lying on your belly, after moving everything under the bed onto the top of the mattress, is a pain. Ian ordered two access panels from a marine supply shop to put on the outside of the trailer as alternative routes into those spaces. Unfortunately, by the time we hit the road, only one had arrived so Ian uses that access for storage of all the early setup items for the trailer plus some of his tools. Under the other seat, we have winter coats, hats and gloves that we hope we’ll not use on this trip. If it gets that cold, we’ll work up quite the sweat unloading everything from under the bed so we can open up the inside hatch to get the warm stuff out.
Beside the head of our bed, hanging from hooks attached to the wall, is a half-dozen pouches sewn together. Years ago it hung on the back of a door in Winnipeg and housed a variety of mittens and hats. Now it holds reading materials, journals, maps and serves as a great place to hang our glasses last thing at night.
Ian found a similar system made to attach to the visor in a vehicle. He fixed just inside our front door as a place to deposit keys, wallet and whatever else he finds in his pockets.
Under the couch is an open space where our feet sit if we’re using the area as a two-person dinette. Since it’s usually in the couch setup, that space is used to house assorted footwear, the computer bag and a Rubbermaid container full of our supply of prescription drugs and supplements. In this area are also what serve as two benches, again with storage bins underneath. It takes a little manoeuvring to get to them but extra canned goods, a propane camp stove for outdoor use, a cast-iron frying pan and a large pot plus a first-aid kit all reside there for occasional use.
The bathroom had become its own little nightmare until our enforced exile in Marathon when we found wall-mounted bars from which hang metal mesh baskets. We now have most of our assorted bathroom supplies in the baskets, easy to lift from their support bars and set on the bed when we each shower, wetting down that entire room.
Harley comes equipped with a three-burner propane stove and a three-way fridge, plus a few small cabinets, as its kitchen. We’ve added a small 12-volt cooler since Vicki requires a certain amount of space to keep her drugs for MS constantly cool. We also put a fairly large convection/toaster oven on what little counter space there is between the tiny kitchen sink and the stove top because it expands our culinary capabilities. Buttermilk biscuits for breakfast yesterday and lasagne for dinner tonight. If we’re set up somewhere for a few days, it is moved outside onto a small aluminium camp table.
Kitchen implements hang from 3M hooks on the walls and a magnetic spice rack clings to the tiny range hood.
On a previous three-week trip, we borrowed an iPod from friends and found it indispensable. Since we don’t have TV at home, we don’t miss it on the road but we do need music. Ian recently mounted a white wire shelf to hold the docking station that supplies speakers for our system.
To communicate with the outside world, we coughed up for a laptop that goes everywhere with us, often in search of WiFi. And when we find it, we’re in touch with the world. Family and friends can receive a phone call from us using a Skype program that allows us to call any phone in the U.S. or Canada for $3.99 a month. We check e-mails, head for Facebook and update our blog.
We also carry a little-used cell phone that we think of as emergency communications. It’s the one that rang one week after we left home to say that Vicki’s eldest brother had just had an unforeseen triple bypass. He’s doing well, and she talks to him often on Facebook.
Are there things we brought that we haven’t needed? Well, the cats’ playpen is going to a local thrift shop since they really don’t like it. That will please our 25-year-old daughters, who thought it meant their parents had lost all perspective on cats as pets. We had read about large enclosures for cats and found a playpen worked well after Ian made a top for it. Trouble was, they simply don’t like it. They are happier on their harnesses and rope.
Is there something we didn’t bring that we yearn for? Not yet, but as it dipped to freezing last night in Marathon, Ont., if it gets much colder, we could change our minds on that one.

Trouble bruin

2010-09-14T08:47:00.001-07:00

Don’t feed the bears.
After the sign advertising the campground, that’s the first sign you see at the Penn Lake Marathon Lions Campground. And since we’re within town limits, we wondered if it was really necessary.
That’s when someone told us about the 10 bears trapped in town last week.
Okay, we thought, so there’s a bit of a bear issue, what with the cold, wet weather that descended on this northern Ontario town of 4,000 people around Labour Day, and coincidentally with our unplanned, truck-repair arrival.
We heard last Thursday that just before we set up camp, a bear was spotted nosing around the bear-proof garbage container provided for campers. Not being totally stupid, we have not set up a garbage bag outside Harley for our use. Garbage has stayed inside the trailer until it is quickly taken away to the bear-proof bins, usually by Ian.
We have been comfortable here, as we approach our last night, and unconcerned, other than to make sure Sidney and Luther, our cats, don’t wander outside with only a little rope accompanying them. One of us has been on the end of those ropes for their occasional circuits.
We have bicycled into town more than once, to haunt Marathon Classic Coffee, a mall cafe that recently installed WiFi and has profited from that, mostly through us. Breakfast was lovely this morning as we sat with computer in front of us, updating all and sundry on our transportation woes.
We have walked into town, also more than once, to check on progress at Canadian Tire and today we made our way to the golf course. It’s evident there’s an addiction issue when Ian was spotted climbing a step ladder to get into the back of our truck, by now dangling on a hoist with its transmission lifted in the bowels of Canadian Tire.
We stuck our thumbs out, with clubs at side, on the main drag and quickly were rescued by a golfer, surely recognizing an addict when he saw one. He took us straight to the course, even though he had been headed off somewhere else when he picked us up.
We were walking out of the golf course, a Stanley Thompson-designed nine-hole affair that satisfied the addict quite nicely, when a couple we had seen golfing offered us a ride. They ever so nicely, in what we see as typical Marathon fashion, brought us right back to our campsite.
But maybe what we have seen as wonderful neighbourliness has actually been an unwillingness to find out in next week’s paper that we were mauled at the side of the road while waiting for someone to take pity on us.
“I’ve had eight bears trapped in my backyard,” said this latest good Samaritan, pointing out that 60 — did we hear right? that’s six-zero, she said? — have been snagged in live traps in Marathon this summer.
It seems a plan was hatched to deal with the bear problem at the local dump. That involved double fencing, which has successfully kept the bears out, of the dump anyway. Add to that a hot, dry summer — hard as that is to believe at the moment as we snuggle up in Harley with the heater blowing — and you’ve got hungry bears discovering their favourite restaurant has firmly closed its doors.
What else to do but look for a new establishment.
Our latest driver tells us she had one, which she referred to as a beast, that really didn’t want to end up in the live trap, the one that has taken up residence in her backyard. Imagine pointing out your patio to visitors, the lawn swing, and oh yes the bear trap.
But this brawny bruin was nuzzling around the trap and looking as if it would be drawn in by the bait when it got a whiff of the chicken stir-fry she was preparing at her stove, inside her kitchen. It made a beeline for the house almost as quickly as she dialed animal control. By the time they arrived, it had fled. Eventually it was trapped and quite unhappy about it, since apparently it had been through the trap-and-relocate experience once before, didn’t care for the enforced vacation and trundled home.
In other words, the bears are being moved out of town when they show themselves to be a problem and some of them are coming back, having found — as we have — that Marathon can be quite a hospitable place.

2010-09-11T11:58:00.000-07:00

The population may be small but the hearts are big.
Marathon, a small town of 3,800 clinging to the northern lip of mighty Lake Superior, is starting to hunch up its shoulders and turn its collar to the wind as the autumn blows cold, but there was nothing but warmth for us as we limped westward into town.
As we were heading out Thursday morning, our hitherto stalwart Ford Ranger bucked, balked and then refused to go, its clutch torn asunder. Cautiously we hobbled back to Marathon, 60 kilometres back the way we had come, and settled at Canadian Tire, the first repair shop we tried that was able to squeeze us in for a look. The bad news, the clutch was gone. Worse news, no clutch parts til Monday.
The Canadian Tire owner, Jamie Senese, said we could camp in Harley in his parking lot, but five days without services looked a bit grim. Instead we asked about a tow to the town’s campground, at the edge of a small lake.
“Take my truck,” he insisted. “Load up what you need and get set up. Then come on back and I’ll give you a ride back to the campground.”
Stopping for a few groceries on the way, we headed to Penn Lake Lion’s Campground and a lakeside, full-service camping spot, the nicest we have had since setting out. Then it was back to Canadian Tire to return the truck.
“Do you sell firewood?” Ian asked Senese. When the answer was no, Senese palavered with staff and locals about where wood might be available.
“If you just want some for tonight, I have some in my truck,” said a woman customer. “Bring your truck over and we’ll load it.”
Learning why we had no vehicle, she offered to load the wood in Senese’s truck – only to be dismayed when she realized she had the wrong vehicle with her. The wood was in her husband’s truck.
Senese then insisted we stop at his house en route to the campground to load up a supply of firewood, good for the night and more, before letting us off at our campsite and tearing off to make a movie date with his young son. Dinner would be later, he said, shrugging.
As we finished setting up, a vehicle stopped, then backed into our campsite. Suspecting it was a Lion’s Club member or official seeking camping fees, we were stunned to see the customer from Canadian Tire.
“We can’t have you stranded in Marathon and not look after you,” the woman said, laughing, as she and her husband unloaded a pile of firewood.
Not surprisingly, Senese’s Canadian Tire outlet last year won a company competition for good customer service, with the prize being use of a restored 1951 Chev panel van, or hearse, for eight months.
“Go ahead, take it for a spin,” Senese said, so Friday we hiked to the Canadian Tire store (about a 20-minute walk from the campground) and toured the town in grand style, even hauling fold-down bikes and fishing gear from our disabled truck to the campsite. Townspeople waved at us along the way.
Saturday, the weather turned cold and wet, but the town has left such a warm glow, the weather seems irrelevant.

2010-09-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

As Canadians, we have never seemed able to define ourselves adequately, wandering off into negative territory, comparing ourselves to others and saying what we are not.
Yet Terry Fox, a 21-year-old who would never grow much older, managed to define us more accurately in too few short months in 1980 than we have been able to since. He ran a marathon distance every day, for 143 days, as he tried to run across this vast land, beginning by dipping his only foot into the Atlantic Ocean at St. John’s, Nfld., and ending here, far short of his goal at the Pacific on the other side of the country. The monument to Fox sits high atop a hill just outside Thunder Bay, Ont., with a stunning view of Lake Superior, its sleeping giant of a hill a backdrop to the bronze statue of a young, determined man.
The monument is the focal point of a rest area on Highway 17, the Trans Canada in Ontario, indicated by a small road sign depicting a picnic table, the Ontario symbol for the thousands of rest areas along its highways. Luckily a larger sign referring to this tribute to Fox, who died on June 28, 1981, also indicates the turnoff.
We wander carefully tended pathways to reach the monument, passing under trees and down idyllic garden paths. Maybe the glorious setting fuels the impact of a monument, which reads in part that Fox changed how Canadians look at fundraising and how they go about searching out funds for a cause, in his case the cancer he could not beat.
As we drove along Canadian roadways these past weeks, we saw one young man, no support vehicle in sight, with a sign on his backpack saying he is walking across Canada. Another, spotted twice wheeling down the side of the road, backed by his crew hauling a U-haul trailer, is using his hands in a modified wheelchair to make his way across the country.
We know two young women who bicycled across the country last summer, all raising funds for one cause or another, all setting out with the expectation they will complete the trip.
Fox, the young man who started it all, finished in S?????, Ont., when the cancer that had already claimed one leg resurfaced to eventually take his life. As we look up to the statue, and we should be looking up, we wonder if he knows what he has accomplished. Does he know how many people, every September, take to Canadian roadways in every part of the nation, raising money for cancer research? Does he know a cure has yet to be found for what killed him? Does he know how many cancer survivors participate in those runs because research, fostered by the dollars Fox himself raised, has found ways to cure some? Does he know, so far, $500 million has been raised in more than 60 countries using his name?
The roadside tribute is fitting. It is a place to rest, and there is no hand extended, looking for a donation. That is left to each of us to ponder as we leave, and perhaps write a cheque later. Or maybe next August, when we first see publicity for the annual Terry Fox Run, twenty-some years after his untimely death, we sign the paperwork to enter the event and start raising our own pledges.
Or perhaps this particular disease is not the focus of our fundraising efforts, but we use the experience of Terrence Stanley Fox to raise funds for whatever cause inspires us.
And thanks to Terry Fox, those fundraising techniques are familiar territory to all Canadians.

Back to the future?

2010-09-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

It’s a time capsule perched atop the rocks overlooking LacLu, north and west a bit from Kenora, Ont.
Like a retrospective of Ian’s life, dating back 50 years, you can draw out a statement about his past from any of the long-time neighbours, owners of what were originally five cabins, sold off by the Canadian Pacific Railway after they had served their time as rental cottages for employees. Only one of the original log cabins remains, and that as a guest cabin next to what is now the owners’ main residence.
Other cabins have sprung up along the paths that wind upward from the docks at the lakeside below, some replacing rotted log structures, and others housing young adults who have come to call this their special place, alongside their now-aging parents. The peninsula, as yet accessible only by boat, bulges at the seams. One of the next generation, still young at 30 years old, is hatching a plan to build a road into the cabins, and to a lot where he hopes to build his permanent home. For now, he rents accommodations on the lake that was so important to him as a child that he had to find a way to work, live and volunteer as a firefighter here.
Ian and Vicki’s 25-year-old daughter, Robyn, who has called Winnipeg home for eight years now, settled in for a Labour Day weekend of cabin life, with its touch of sadness that the season is coming to an end, wanting to hear all the stories about her father, the ones she was “too young” to hear when last visiting.
Her fiance, new to that role as of last week when both sets of parents were in town to hear the news, flounders as a hockey fan trying to find his place in this new family which follows the Winnipeg Blue Bombers every step of the way in the Canadian Football League. And the others whose absence is felt: Ian’s arthritic sister with new knees and new shoulders found the trip impossible this time, and his mother, at 91, staying home in Winnipeg to help her daughter in her recovery. His niece and her husband of a year now claim the bedroom Ian built in the front porch almost 30 years ago for himself and Vicki, his new wife. Jennifer and Brian, with a wedding to attend in the city, graciously lent it out to the original occupants.
There are other treasures too: an old tackle box with the lure Ian used to catch his first fish; an old wooden boat, now dragged up on the bank, that 50 years ago was the sole means of access, oars and all, to the cabin.
Bob Roe, Ian’s brother-in-law, the constant behind all the upkeep and maintenance of a second home, the man who continues to pilot the boat across the lake almost every summer weekend, is here to shepherd the old family, in many ways newcomers, around the changes in the cabin.
We don’t hear the new stories, about parties and events that happened here over the last 20 years, the ones that are memorable for the friends here who graciously talk mostly of the old days when the cottage was a central part of our lives. We appreciate their kindness in making us feel like we belong still, and in not telling us of all the great times we missed here as we made our own memories there, on the West Coast.
We wait for the constants, and are thrilled by the laughing warble of the first loon, the screeching of the eagles overhead, unexpected chatter that turns out to be not a very loud squirrel but an otter calling to its pals for play, the chipmunk nattering that torments a new generation of dogs at the base of the trees and the distant rumble of CPR freights and the occasional VIA passenger train as they make their way down the other side of the lake.
The time capsule cottage still holds some of our memories: those carved ducks deposited here when there was no longer room for them on the coast, that special mug that was Vicki’s way back in a Toronto apartment leased while she was at Ryerson studying journalism, the cherished pair of fuzzy sleeping socks she left here on the last visit six years ago, tucked away in that same little spot at the foot of the bed. But there is also little trace of Vicki and Ian’s presence, or that of their then toddler girls, as new memories have moved in. As they should.
But on the Monday evening of the long weekend, when the rest of the family has gone “home” to Winnipeg, we spend a last evening enjoying our memories of a cherished place before we head off to our little Burro in the morning and resume the journey.

Im-pressed

2010-08-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

As time goes by ....
We think it was 1980, 30 years ago, when we packed up Ian’s Chev panel van with our deluxe camping equipment — a Coleman stove, some rudimentary dishes, a mattress and sleeping bags — to head out on the road.
We stayed at the Lions Campground in Neepawa, Man., for one night on that trip and tossed coins at the base of the weir on the Whitemud River, wishing for exactly what we’ve enjoyed all these years.
On this trip, we pulled in late on a Thursday evening. By Friday morning, we had some old friends to see.
One of them was the weir and with some coins, we did it all again.
Ian started his journalism career with the Neepawa Press, which still publishes today. In those days, Jack Huxley was the publisher and one of the owners who hired Ian straight out of Red River Community College in Winnipeg as a green reporter.
“You were the best reporter we ever had,” Jack said more than a few times over coffee at the Neepawa Golf Course. Ian blushed, protested and then simply gave up and enjoyed the praise.

Shell of a town

2010-08-28T12:39:00.001-07:00

The grain elevator, a silent sentinel that used to stand above every prairie town, has gone.
The tracks, once-gleaming links to the broad world beyond and patrolled decades ago by Ian’s grandfather, are pitted and rusted, with weeds sprouting between the decaying ties.
The school, the last draw the community might have for young families, closed its doors in June for the final time.
Bars cage the windows of the Shell Lake General Store, and playground equipment, uprooted and idle, lies on the empty lot where the town’s poolroom once stood.
While Shell Lake may not be dead, at the very least it’s on life support, its sluggish and thready pulse stirred only by the grey-haired newcomers who have opted for the small Saskatchewan town to enjoy its well-tended golf course, an adjunct to the Memorial Lake Regional Park that angles off the main road into the town.
Anita Weiers, mayor of the town of 185, said five houses were built last year, a landmark year for the village that has seen most of its young families head off.
“That’s a big building year for us, but young people with families, there’s not much here to hold them,” Weiers said. “Last year the government said we had to build a new (sewage) lagoon, and water treatment. Where are we supposed to get $600,000?
“We tried a lottery and a few other things that didn’t work out too well so we just had to add a sewer levy to the taxes. The taxes are higher here than in the city of Saskatoon.
“The only people to come here are those who retire here to be near the golf course, and most of them go away in the winter.”
The community has offered incentives to businesses to relocate or open up in the town, and even offered lots in the village for $1.
“What can you do?” Weiers said with a shrug. “You just do what you can and keep on keeping on.”
The visit to Shell Lake was our first to the town where Ian’s dad was born back in 1914.
“I recognize the name, but I’m not an old-timer here,” she said. “We just moved here in 1976.”
Then she remounted her bicycle and headed off down the broad main road. Traffic was not an issue.

Now that's a sausage

2010-08-28T12:37:00.001-07:00

We had just crossed the border into Saskatchewan, naturally, since that’s what the border signage says.
The logjam was a few hundred yards away, at the gas station at the junction of highway 3, 45 and 21, at Alcurve, Alta. Everybody going either way wants to fill up in Alberta, with its cheaper gas (89.9 cents a litre, a dime cheaper than in Saskatchewan.). We joined the lineup, filled up, got coffee and tea inside and came out to the ubiquitous sound of the car alarm.
They truly are everywhere.
We’ve travelled about four hours east of Edmonton, on the blue highways on the map, smaller and slower but interesting. Stopped at Mundare, Alta., a spot we’d never heard of but filled up with gas just across the road from the big sign saying Small Town...Big Heart.
The words were written under a huge kielbasa, or Ukranian sausage for those of you who haven’t spent time in the West. Mundare is the home of Stawnichy’s Meat Processing, makers of sausage among other things.
We don’t intend to travel Canada according to “the big” category: the giant decorated Ukranian egg in Vegreville, Alta., the big moose on the Trans Canada Highway in Moose Jaw, Sask., the giant nickel in Sudbury, Ont., the goose at Wawa, Ont., but the giant kielbasa in Alberta was an unexpected surprise.
We’ve not been this far north travelling across the Prairies before and true to what friends have long said, it’s very different this way. If you’re comparing this to southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, there are many more clusters of trees, rolling hills and roadside lakes. If you’re still dreaming of life at home on the West Coast, it’s quite flat and barren.
Wildlife doesn’t exactly abound but in the space of a few hours we’ve seen a coyote loping across the highway, a badger hunching close to the ground as it scurried for cover, and multiple skunks and porcupines on the losing end of a battle with traffic.
If our campground in Devon and what’s rolling down the road late on a Sunday afternoon are any indication, Albertans like their camping equipment BIG. We were the “poor folk” in Devon if wealth is measured by the foot. With the exception of a couple of tent trailers, we were the smallest among the hundreds there. Our camping neighbour, a visitor from Germany in a small Class C rental unit, commented on our size compared to the behemoths around us. “You’re doing your trip in a small trailer,” he said in his halting, but precise, English. “All the rest of them are very big.”
Having had six people for dinner on a Saturday night in the Devon campground, we’d say that yes, we are small, but very effective. Our guests toted their own lawn chairs, helped with dinner prep and had a good time.
That is, until about 10 p.m., when the rain started to fall. Then all headed for their respective homes, ours being the smallest.

Rita's Rx

2010-08-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

If you don’t think of your pharmacist as part of your medical care team, Rita Lyster says you should think again.
Lyster, owner, manager and pharmacist at Rita’s Apothecary and Home Healthcare Ltd. in Barrhead, Alta., has been educating her clients and customers in her philosophy as a pharmacist. She wants people to know she can dispense their prescriptions, package them in convenient plastic packets, take their blood pressure, give them injections and more.
As her business card says, she offers advice for life.
On a recent trip through her doors, she took one look at Vicki’s leg, diagnosed a fungus and came up with two over-the-counter remedies to be mixed together: one an anti-fungal and the other cortisone to help with any skin irritation. Bless her, things improved within 12 hours and she banished all thought of a long wait at a walk-in clinic.
She’s thrilled that as a pharmacist in Alberta she now has the power to issue her own prescriptions.
And she’s thrilled she’s her own boss while doing it. As a long-time employee for other pharmacies, she always felt she was dancing to their tune and not writing her own music in her own pharmacy.
She is one of five pharmacies serving a town of 4,500 people and is holding her own because she specializes in drugs. Her shelves hold over-the-counter remedies, supplements and orthotic items, the medical items common to any drugstore shelves, but you won’t see a bottle of shampoo or a bag of chips.
She is health oriented.
She has a new machine, dubbed Elvis for a reason none of her staff could really explain. She can package your daily doses in convenient plastic pouches, easy to rip apart and take one dose with you when you know you’ll be away from home.
She’s is hoping to land contracts with facilities such as care homes when they learn how easy and safe Elvis makes the dispensing process.
When she looks to the future, she’s also looking at her family. With three daughters, she thinks of her apothecary as a possible part of their future. Chelsea is in nurses’ training, Caitlin is following in mom’s footsteps and training as a pharmacist, and Caroline would be more than capable of running the business aspects of the pharmacy.
But Lyster is realistic and looks at all, or any, of that dreaming as only a possibility because her girls would do just what mom has done. They’ll formulate their own plan, act on it and make their dream come true.

Smoke gets in your eyes

2010-08-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

Tourists line the side of Highway 16, the Yellowhead route through the Canadian Rockies, frantically snapping pictures of the big-horn sheep grazing at the side of the road.
The shutter clicks are frantic because the sheep, about three metres away, are about the only fodder for photographers. Normally, the pictures would be of one mountain peak after another but on this day the roadside markers saying Mt. Robson, elevation 3,954 metres, were useful only to a leg-crossed dog.
The markers point off somewhere indecipherable in the smoke. A forest fire near Williams Lake, B.C., is belching smoke faster than anyone could anticipate and fire officials are bracing for a cold front coming through, preceded by 60 km an hour winds.
Remarkably, we drove through the Rockies in one day without seeing a single mountain peak. Luckily, we’ve made this trip many times and seen many peaks, yet still we felt cheated. Alas for the poor tourists, perhaps making the trip of a lifetime to see a North American Wonder of the World, only to find it veiled in smoke.
But we didn’t expect to hit the rolling foothills of Alberta, and still be shrouded in smoke. Nestled in a valley campground in Devon, Alta. on Aug. 21, southwest of ever-growing Edmonton, we see and smell smoke in the air. Radio tells us Calgary is covered in it, that the entire province is suffering from smoke inhalation. There’s irony in that, amid the smoke, campground fires here are OK, while in the untainted air at the B.C. beginning of our trek there was a campfire ban.
While air quality has improved slightly today and our eyes are no longer stinging, smoke is still there. We’re thankful neither of us, nor the cats, suffer respiratory problems. Otherwise, we’d be on a camping trip, trying to stay indoors.
We set out prepared for rain, snow, sleet and hail but not smoke. Forecasters say it should improve here tomorrow, as we pack up and head for Saskatchewan.
We’ll see if the smoke has managed to cover two or three provinces.

Drug trafficking

2010-08-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

The campground host certainly looked interested as our friend Bob said, “Why don’t you pay for the two campsites on your credit card since I brought you the drugs?”
We quickly, and loudly, pointed out that he might want to use the word “prescription”, rather than drugs since he had picked up that last little bit for us at our home drugstore before heading out to meet us for a two-day camp on Vancouver Island. We may not be young, and we may be semi-retired, but it’s our generation that first brought fear and loathing to our parents with the word drugs.
Travelling with drugs, or if you prefer prescriptions, is not simple. Between the two of us, we have a medium Rubbermaid tub full of prescriptions, supplements and natural remedies that will last us for the next four to five months. On top of that, there is a small AC/DC cooler that holds four months supply of Vicki’s medication for multiple sclerosis, meaning that only one month has to take up space in the small three-way fridge in our 17-foot Burro trailer. The medication must be kept cool at all times so reaching in to check temperature in either fridge or cooler has become routine already.
Getting the supply covered by the medical system in British Columbia was no easy feat either. BC’s Fair Pharmacare system, which pro-rates the cost of prescriptions to residents according to income, has an iron-clad vacation policy. It will cover, and issue, 100 days of any prescription. If you’re planning a trip longer than 100 days, Fair Pharmacare doesn’t care. You can easily order a longer period of any prescription, but you’ll pay full price for it.
Under FairPharmacare coverage, Vicki’s MS medication costs $67.70.
Without that coverage, it rings in on the cash register at $1,660 per month.
That wasn’t an option our travel budget could absorb.
With the help of a couple of creative pharmacies, we learned that a prescription may be ordered and covered under FairPharmacare, such an oxymoron, every two weeks. Luckily, we were setting all of this up well ahead of our departure date so were able to stockpile a couple of months, using the two-week order time frame, before we resorted to the 100-day vacation supply.
There was a panicky moment where we thought it wasn’t going to work with Vicki’s MS medication and were presented with the ugly thought that we might have to cut our trip short and make a run for the border simply to get more drugs. But a pharmacy assistant at Shoppers Drug Mart, sitting at home pondering the problem one night, decided to put Vicki’s name and prescription needs on her personal calendar. She ordered precisely on the two-week interval and came through with the needed supply with FairPharmacare coverage.
We hope she enjoyed the roses we left at work for her, with our heartfelt thanks.
None of this, in any way, defrauds BC’s FairPharmacare system. We have our prescriptions filled to last us until the end of the year. Had we stayed home and not travelled, FairPharmacare would have covered the same drugs in that time frame.
Point is, if you’re planning an extended trip, think about your prescription drug needs well before your planned departure date.
And don’t refer to them as drugs in front of outsiders, particularly campground hosts, border crossing guards, traffic cops, county sheriffs ....

2010-08-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

Chemainus Gardens

Campground or cottage?

2010-08-20T13:26:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of travelling with a trailer is a chance to scan the campgrounds to see what’s out there in terms of mobile accommodation, to see what other people travel with and how they have tailored the rigs to suits their needs.
But increasingly, a cruise around camp sites reveals that for a growing number of Canadians, campgrounds are becoming home, either year-round or before heading off to escape winter in the sunny south.
That’s a trend that Bryan and Micky Fleming have noticed, and they are moving to fill a need.
The change at Chemainus Garden Holiday Resort on Vancouver Island began in January, when the Flemings and their partners bought the 34-acre property, which has operated as a campground since the 1980s.
Since taking the reins, the new owners — Micky Fleming and three others — have established 35 sites for park model trailers, modular homes on wheels that sell for between $80,000 and $110,000 from VI Modular homes. Then, for $405 a month plus taxes, residents get a fully serviced site they can call home at the resort, just a short walk down the hill to Chemainus. Fleming said 20-year mortgages are available for the homes.
“There will still be RVs here, there will still be a campground component,” said Bryan Fleming, the park’s on-site general manager. “The initial plan was to squeeze 220 (park models) onto the site, but now it’s going to be more like 180 sites. We want to leave a little more room for amenities — storage for fifth wheels and boats, a work shop and maybe a clubhouse.”
Fleming said that while there are no age restrictions on who can buy into the resort, everyone who has shown an interest has been 45-plus. So far eight of the 35 existing sites have been spoken for.
“Pretty well everybody who has gotten into it is a snowbird,” Fleming said. “It’s just a question of whether they spend two or three months down south, or four or five. Some of them just want to downsize and travel more.”
Fleming also said he expects some interest this winter when the refugees from the Prairie winters start showing up in Vancouver Island.
“Winters are a lot easier here than where they come from and they don’t have to leave the country,” he said, a nod to a need for health care and the cost of insurance to travel outside our borders.
Fleming said the original house and gardens on the property were started by a Japanese family who owned the land in the 1930s. When that family was interned during the Second World War, the property at various times became a family home, a small farm and eventually a campground. Plans for the extensively renovated original home, which is now being used as a sales office, include a bistro with a deck overlooking an anticipated pool.
As well the site boasts a pavilion from Expo 86, a large facility with what Fleming calls a “community hall” kitchen and room for 110 at a sit-down dinner. The building, which Fleming thinks was the Swiss pavilion at the world exposition, ate into the group’s capital when some planned repairs turned into an entire new roof.
“We were going to start on the pool this year but the new roof changed that,” Fleming said with a shrug. But the garden has a lot of quite old and long-established plants, and a lot of rare ones too. We’re still finding things out there.”
Fleming said the group has been in touch with all the previous owners or their descendants, and that all have given the new project their blessings, something he recognizes is important in small, close-knit communities like Chemainus.
“We’re trying to hold onto the heritage stuff of the old days as well as plan for future expansion.”
He said the planned build-out for the property, a 10-minute walk from Chemainus, is three to five years.
The resort currently has a staff of seven or eight, he said, with no one except himself from further away than Duncan. His plan, he said, is to buy a park model and live in that while working. A transplant from Toronto, Fleming said he moved to Telegraph Cove in 1977 and met his wife there.
“We understand what’s like when someone ‘from away’ buys in and starts out saying, ‘That’s not how we do it in Toronto.’ We get along with and are part of the local community and we think that’s important.”
He said that discussions are underway with the local community to allow rights of passage over trails on the resort property — including access to the local golf club — for scooters, golf carts and walkers.

First campground

2010-08-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

The hum of a Macintosh starting up seems grossly out of place in Goldstream Provincial Park campground, just north of Victoria, B.C., an area we called home for 15 years. Even though we come to Victoria regularly from Pender Island to shop for various things, we had to look on Google Maps to find our way here.
The northwestern portion of Greater Victoria, the city of Langford, has done nothing but expand in the six years since we moved off Island, and the amount of asphalt has matched that growth. There’s a new way to reach the park, at least new to us. It was reassuring to find Ma Miller’s Pub, a familiar landmark, just before the campground gates.
Sitting here, surrounded by enormous cedars by most standards — maybe three feet in diameter — it’s hard to fathom how loggers think of them as small, and aim for higher prey. It makes you understand the occasional person you meet who was actually born on this coast, since most of us come from away, who says, “I’ve been East. Went to Calgary once.” Why leave, when this is home?
We leave, partly because we know some of what is out there. A Canada that is vastly different from one region to another, but beautiful nonetheless, constantly amazing us with how beauty can materialize in so many forms. And counting on the promise of more beautiful places we have not yet seen and know nothing about.
But still it is difficult to leave here. As the ferry pulled away from the Otter Bay dock on Pender Island on Friday, we watched wistfully. It’s a beautiful time of the year on the island, with endless sunny days for months even on this “Wet” Coast. It was difficult trying to picture our potential return in December, with rain likely pelting down from a dark grey sky. But even then, with the endless hues of blue and grey produced by the ocean, mountains, sky and island, we know it will be a welcome sight to us.
Goldstream on a record-hot July day is a haven just on the edge of the concrete jungle. Drive five minutes and the pavement radiates the heat as you run whatever errands are left for a camping trip. Our daughter and son-in-law were tickled to leave their fourth-floor apartment, with one wall of glass facing a blazing sunset, to come sit in the heavy shade of the park and barbecue some dinner. Even a few mosquitoes, unusual for this coast but a result of a late, wet spring, couldn’t drive us inside.
It’s a quiet beginning to what we expect to be a life-changing journey, even though we’re uncertain what those changes will be. In the years since we purchased our Burro, we have camped in the shoulder seasons, spring and fall, consciously avoiding the summer crush of families and campers. Goldstream is a pleasant surprise with its plethora of tents, and quiet families with well-behaved children glorying in time spent with mom and dad’s undivided attention. Watching those girls scrape through a box of sidewalk chalk announcing one’s birthday party, or a father close by as his very young son wheeled that first two-wheeler along the roadway, brings back a million camping memories for us. For our daughter last night, it was the distinctive flap of flip flops — musn’t call them thongs these days as even that has change — slapping along pavement on running feet that brought back memories. “Don’t fall,” she said, no doubt still aware of the feel of scraping skin on asphalt.
It seems a laptop does not belong here, even though during a park warden’s taking of a survey, we expressed a need for WiFi. A five-minute drive this morning put us in an Internet cafe in downtown Langford, with free WiFi.

Leaving home

2010-08-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

This is what it looked like as BC Ferries' Queen of Cumberland pulled away from the Otter Bay dock on Pender Island. With such a pretty place to call home, it's sometimes hard to leave.

2010-08-04T09:33:00.001-07:00

TWO-WHEEL TRANSPORT
It was doubt, not really believing we would actually pack up and go for four months in a space only a little bigger than a bathroom, that kept us from pulling the trigger on a sweet deal on a pair of folding bicycles.
We were in Oregon, on our way to join a group of fibreglass-trailer enthusiasts, when we saw the bikes, new, for $130 apiece. We thought instead that we would support Canadian retailers and manufacturers in order to wheel our way around various campgrounds across Canada and the United States.
Then began our quest to find folding bicycles in Canada, along with a serious case of sticker shock. Since we live on Pender Island, one of the Gulf Islands floating between Vancouver and Victoria, our local shopping alternatives were slim to none, and slim just left town.
So we hopped on the Internet and found that Camping World would ship them to us — but with shipping fees as pricey as the bikes themselves.
So to Plan B. We put our niece’s new husband, who works in a sporting goods store in Winnipeg, onto the problem. Sorry, he says, they don’t sell them. Plan C, we contacted a nephew in a Toronto bike shop. Sorry, he says, they don’t sell them.
Plan D, we got back on the Internet, trying to find anywhere in Vancouver or Edmonton, our first stops, that might stock them. Plan E, we stopped at a used-bike shop in Victoria, which didn’t have them, but pointed us down the road, telling us to expect to pay around $500 for one. Not going to happen.
Plan F: We whined to our friends, who whined on our behalf to their friends.
And along came that six degrees of separation thing. We snivelled to a friend, who passed it on to his brother on Vancouver Island, who told him about his former neighbour on Pender who has two of them. The former neighbour plays saxophone in the Pender Island Community Jazz Band, often sitting beside Vicki as she plays her flute.
Who knew?
On the busiest weekend of the year, when Pender’s population can explode from 2,500 permanent residents to a throng of 10,000, we headed over to the sax player’s home on a hillside overlooking the ocean and saw two beautiful bikes. And in true Pender spirit, he is lending them to us for our trip.
They are a matching pair of Raleigh Stow-Away beauties, purchased separately at thrift shops. One was picked up near a marina for $75, which makes perfect sense since boaters often become bikers when they tie up at our docks. The other was grabbed for $25. Raleigh hasn’t made these bikes in some time so they are not as light as some newer models, but their sturdy construction makes us hopeful they will hold our middle-aged weight.
The lender is unhappy with the kick stand on one of them, so is putting another in its place. And with a smile, he happily pointed out that the seats are very comfortable. Once again, Pender comes through for us.
Two bicycles now are on the list of things we think will fit under the canopy on our little truck when we roll out of here.

Early prep

2010-07-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

We're getting ready, and excited. Ian's in the trailer right now, laying a new floor since we don't want to live with the existing carpet. Sidney, one of the cats, is hanging out around the door, wondering what we're up to now. I'm looking at all the stuff I want to fit in the trailer, and wondering just how we're going to do that. But new under-bed storage units should help with a second season of clothes, since we'll pack the summer stuff in the cabinets.
The trailer is 17-feet long, bumper to hitch, which leaves us about 14 feet inside for a double bed, bathroom, couch and kitchen area. Not enough room to swing a cat, as they say. And we'll have two of them. Luther's the type to be happy because there's a bed. His needs are met. Sidney has earned the title of Houdini, since he escaped on each of his first two camping trips. Consequently, we'll be carrying a covered playpen, just for the cats to get some outdoor time. It's only a coincidence the playpen's brand name is Happy Camper.
The itinerary is loose, but we are definitely leaving on Aug. 13. We plan to make our way across Canada first, but aren't sure we'll have time to get to Newfoundland. We have to be back in Michigan by mid-October for our nephew's wedding, and then we'll head south, ahead of the snow. At least that's the plan.
What we know from previous trips is we'll get the urge to write about all this, and about the people we'll meet.