Another driving day and we didn't do anything that fits into a small story arc, so this is, yet again, a series of notes and observations:
Just west of Blind River Ontario we passed 4 bald eagles perching on rocks in the middle of a river, while across the road and behind a livestock fence 3 white tailed deer were grazing in a small meadow. This trip has suffered a noteable shortage of large animals, (with the bison-sized exception of Wind Cave N.P.) so the eagles especially were a treat.
In the same area someone welded a bunch of old bicycles together to use as a fence. An interesting bit of semi folk art.
We have passed three pontoon boats shrink-wrapped in blue plastic. The sine qua non of winterization.
The residents of the Michigan Upper Peninsula have christened themselves "yoopers" -- "We're in America by law, but we're Yoopers by choice."
Finally: We stopped at a service station in Seney, Michigan for biological necessity (aka -- take a whizz).
The service station, self called "The Party Place" also had the usual 7-11 type snack food, a closed deli, a large selection of knives (butcher, hunting, novelty, swords, bowie, etc) an equally large selection of ammo, and a selection of real pelts. Including bear, fox (red and blue), skunk, otter, beaver and weasel ($22.50)
A service station nonpareil in my life experience. DA
Yeah, it was an uneventful day with a lot of driving. The fall color was classic. It was the sunny fall day of calendars and coffee table books. Even the U.S. customs guy asked if the fall color was good up in Ontario and it was. Plenty of tour buses in Algonquin Park for the holiday weekend. Monday is Thanksgiving Day in Canada so plenty of people were traveling and enjoying the fall colors. I've enjoyed seeing the foliage and am very glad for the sun after all the rain last week. At least returning to Portland we should be going through weather systems instead of traveling with them. I hope anyway. Tomorrow the Concrete Park in Phillips, WI and visiting a friend in Bruce, WI. dw
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Espanola, Ontario
Today was a driving day. The weather was great, if windy and the drive was lovely in a quiet way. We drove through Algonquin Provincial Park, and it was nice with a lot of low hills and crags. Thousands of lakes large and small with slow meandering streams. Multiple bogs of every sort, spruce, peat, reed, general bog -- pretty much whatever sort of bog you might want can be found. Some areas of good fall color.
Other than scenery the day's high point was Sudbury, home of three of the worlds second biggest chimneys. Except one of the three is kinda short and fat. All of them are still putting out smoke from whatever kind of factory is under them.
More random observations: dw thought I was overly snide concerning Canadian artists. She's probably right.
Ontario v.s. Quebec moose and deer warning signs. Quebec clearly is the winner. Ontario has a cheery bounding deer and an agressive striding moose, But Quebec actually shows a car hitting a deer -- with an orangey spikey cartoon crash sign and the car is tilted, nearly out of control from the crash. Another sign shows the car hitting a moose. It has the same crash symbol, and the car is really tilted, clearly careening out of control. They're great. Quebec also has a "slow for children" sign that shows a dead kid on the pavement. Perhaps effective but a bit morbid. DA
Other than scenery the day's high point was Sudbury, home of three of the worlds second biggest chimneys. Except one of the three is kinda short and fat. All of them are still putting out smoke from whatever kind of factory is under them.
More random observations: dw thought I was overly snide concerning Canadian artists. She's probably right.
Ontario v.s. Quebec moose and deer warning signs. Quebec clearly is the winner. Ontario has a cheery bounding deer and an agressive striding moose, But Quebec actually shows a car hitting a deer -- with an orangey spikey cartoon crash sign and the car is tilted, nearly out of control from the crash. Another sign shows the car hitting a moose. It has the same crash symbol, and the car is really tilted, clearly careening out of control. They're great. Quebec also has a "slow for children" sign that shows a dead kid on the pavement. Perhaps effective but a bit morbid. DA
Good morning from Arnprior, Ontario!
Weather: not currently raining, some scattered strato-cirrus clouds, sun, full red, orange, yellow leaf color, 13 degrees Celsius (53 F).
Location: dw at table, DA reading in bed - both of us enjoying the morning coffee courtesy of the Twin Maple Motel although I'm not seeing any maple trees at this motel in Arnprior, Ont. (try saying that three times). The community is 7000 people and located on the Ottawa River which at this point is still pretty wide and big - especially after the recent rains. Cutesy lively downtown when we arrived last night - always nice to see an active community rather than a dying one, which many are these days.
When; Friday 0810
What's new? We're heading back to Portland in our leisurely wandering way. Heading west-ish anyway. The highlight of my day yesterday was the Canadian House of Commons at the Parliament Building in downtown Ottawa (Canada's capital) and home to Big Buildings. All very impressive. I have not experienced government-in-action so my impressions are those of a first timer. Security was impressive of course. Two security checks to get into the galleries. I was wanded at the second one and had everything out of my pockets when I still beeped. He ferreted out my money belt worn under my clothes. It didn't even have coins in it, just papers! Amazing. I told him he was exposing all my secrets! Made me remove it anyway. On to the observers gallery where we were informed we would get one warning about making a sound or gesture and if we did it again, out we would go (not fair as the legislators did plenty of both!). Single file we walked in and crawled up into gallery seats - talk about nosebleed section- then struggled with the hand held wand for language translations and volume. All those legislators you see listening on devices are probably just needing more volume as it was noisier than I expected. They got approximately 60 seconds to make their prepared statements and it moved along pretty quickly.
My favorite - Saskatchewan guy proclaiming the value of setting up Billy Bob's Golf Emporium or some such thing as a vehicle for promoting the economy. Quebec guy accusing the Nunavut woman of saying nasty things on Facebook. Then the room filled up with more legislators and a couple of press persons sat in their designated gallery seats for the slander accusations - graft and malfeasance (don't you love that word?), etc. Whew, back and forth so fast I couldn't keep up with the argument but I did recognize the failure to answer a direct question and the rhetoric. I thought, wow, this is why nothing gets done by the government - any government , I started to gesture OOOPS - no gesturing! No one saw, I guess as I didn't get booted out.
Justin Trudeau (yes, Pierre's son and a hunk if I do say so myself) spoke and was widely applauded. A security guard mentioned he was being groomed for being Premier in about ten years. I believe it. The entire experience was a hoot.
Time to head out. Any suggestions for sights to see in the northern U.S. email us at: djalexa@spiritone.com . We already know about Salem Sue World's Largest Holstein Cow in Salem, ND and it's a must-see. Later, dw
Location: dw at table, DA reading in bed - both of us enjoying the morning coffee courtesy of the Twin Maple Motel although I'm not seeing any maple trees at this motel in Arnprior, Ont. (try saying that three times). The community is 7000 people and located on the Ottawa River which at this point is still pretty wide and big - especially after the recent rains. Cutesy lively downtown when we arrived last night - always nice to see an active community rather than a dying one, which many are these days.
When; Friday 0810
What's new? We're heading back to Portland in our leisurely wandering way. Heading west-ish anyway. The highlight of my day yesterday was the Canadian House of Commons at the Parliament Building in downtown Ottawa (Canada's capital) and home to Big Buildings. All very impressive. I have not experienced government-in-action so my impressions are those of a first timer. Security was impressive of course. Two security checks to get into the galleries. I was wanded at the second one and had everything out of my pockets when I still beeped. He ferreted out my money belt worn under my clothes. It didn't even have coins in it, just papers! Amazing. I told him he was exposing all my secrets! Made me remove it anyway. On to the observers gallery where we were informed we would get one warning about making a sound or gesture and if we did it again, out we would go (not fair as the legislators did plenty of both!). Single file we walked in and crawled up into gallery seats - talk about nosebleed section- then struggled with the hand held wand for language translations and volume. All those legislators you see listening on devices are probably just needing more volume as it was noisier than I expected. They got approximately 60 seconds to make their prepared statements and it moved along pretty quickly.
My favorite - Saskatchewan guy proclaiming the value of setting up Billy Bob's Golf Emporium or some such thing as a vehicle for promoting the economy. Quebec guy accusing the Nunavut woman of saying nasty things on Facebook. Then the room filled up with more legislators and a couple of press persons sat in their designated gallery seats for the slander accusations - graft and malfeasance (don't you love that word?), etc. Whew, back and forth so fast I couldn't keep up with the argument but I did recognize the failure to answer a direct question and the rhetoric. I thought, wow, this is why nothing gets done by the government - any government , I started to gesture OOOPS - no gesturing! No one saw, I guess as I didn't get booted out.
Justin Trudeau (yes, Pierre's son and a hunk if I do say so myself) spoke and was widely applauded. A security guard mentioned he was being groomed for being Premier in about ten years. I believe it. The entire experience was a hoot.
Time to head out. Any suggestions for sights to see in the northern U.S. email us at: djalexa@spiritone.com . We already know about Salem Sue World's Largest Holstein Cow in Salem, ND and it's a must-see. Later, dw
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Ottawa
Even though we did have some blinding rain on the drive in, we had a good time in Ottawa. Yesterday afternoon we went to the National Gallery of Canada. While I don't want to injure the sensibilities of any Canadians who might come across this, I found the art in the Canadian Artists section to be (I'll be nice here) derivative. Otherwise there were some interesting things to see, particularly in the modern art section. We were surprised at the small display of Indian and Inuit art, which. is the Canadian Art equivalent of American Jazz and Blues. Today we looked at a couple of other galleries -- We're considering buying another print by Inuit Pudlo Pudlat -- we already have two by him. We're considering it but ($$$) is a major consideration. --- lest I forget: in front of the main entrance to the National Gallery is a giant (30 to 35 feet high) stylized spider with eggs --- We didn't really understand the relevance to anything.
We also went into the Notre-Dame Cathedral -- An impressive neo-gothic painted blue and gold, which looks much better than this description makes it sound.
Today we walked around the city -- visited a couple of galleries, had a street polish dog (DA) and bratwurst (dw), went through the now-wow-and-today shopping district (oddly, I found nothing to buy) and a farmers market.
But the highlight was visiting the Parliament Building. (which also included ascending the Peace Tower -- 350 ft. up -- just beneath the great clock and carrilon -- built 1919 to comemmorate the end of WWI -- which had a great view of the city) The real highlight was attending a Parliament debate. After a series of short (1 to 2 minutes) speeches by back-benchers, they got to the meat of the afternoon: Accusations of malfeasance and graft flew thick and fast (Hear, Hear!) (Pounding on the desk) (Hear, Hear!) Followed with a stout defense by the Conservative Leader ("That is not the case! We will thoroughly investigate any hint of fraud we find! Might I remind the Honorable Liberal Member, that the Liberals cut the budget for health care in 2004 while we Conservatives strongly protested that action!") -- (Hear, Hear!) (Pounding on the desk) (Hear, Hear!) It was great. We had the honor of hearing a 1 minute speech by Justin Trudeau -- son of Pierre -- a hot new face in Canadian politics.
--- Lest I forget: Personal comment to Cary N.: What's the point of a sober and courteous comment? and to Hilary S.: You needn't read that book on Carravagio any time soon (or even ever) :-) -- Wow, that's the first emoticon I've used in this blog --
Finally, I was wondering if our Montreal signage experience was unique to us, so I looked on the web for comments. A couple I found: "Our GPS was useless. The street names and numbers had no relation to what our GPS was showing" --- "and what's up with the blue "Tourist" markers? Are the numbers next to the names distances? Exit numbers? Prayers needed to find it? Because there are several places where the markers just disappear or go from 3 to 1 to 8 in just a few blocks"
I imagine we'll try Montreal another time, but when we do, we'll get a map in advance. DA
We also went into the Notre-Dame Cathedral -- An impressive neo-gothic painted blue and gold, which looks much better than this description makes it sound.
Today we walked around the city -- visited a couple of galleries, had a street polish dog (DA) and bratwurst (dw), went through the now-wow-and-today shopping district (oddly, I found nothing to buy) and a farmers market.
But the highlight was visiting the Parliament Building. (which also included ascending the Peace Tower -- 350 ft. up -- just beneath the great clock and carrilon -- built 1919 to comemmorate the end of WWI -- which had a great view of the city) The real highlight was attending a Parliament debate. After a series of short (1 to 2 minutes) speeches by back-benchers, they got to the meat of the afternoon: Accusations of malfeasance and graft flew thick and fast (Hear, Hear!) (Pounding on the desk) (Hear, Hear!) Followed with a stout defense by the Conservative Leader ("That is not the case! We will thoroughly investigate any hint of fraud we find! Might I remind the Honorable Liberal Member, that the Liberals cut the budget for health care in 2004 while we Conservatives strongly protested that action!") -- (Hear, Hear!) (Pounding on the desk) (Hear, Hear!) It was great. We had the honor of hearing a 1 minute speech by Justin Trudeau -- son of Pierre -- a hot new face in Canadian politics.
--- Lest I forget: Personal comment to Cary N.: What's the point of a sober and courteous comment? and to Hilary S.: You needn't read that book on Carravagio any time soon (or even ever) :-) -- Wow, that's the first emoticon I've used in this blog --
Finally, I was wondering if our Montreal signage experience was unique to us, so I looked on the web for comments. A couple I found: "Our GPS was useless. The street names and numbers had no relation to what our GPS was showing" --- "and what's up with the blue "Tourist" markers? Are the numbers next to the names distances? Exit numbers? Prayers needed to find it? Because there are several places where the markers just disappear or go from 3 to 1 to 8 in just a few blocks"
I imagine we'll try Montreal another time, but when we do, we'll get a map in advance. DA
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Montreal and Moses
Today was our last morning in Burlington. I wrote some doggeral in Patrilary's guest book (to the tune of "Sweet Betsy From Pike") And then we spent a pleasant morning with Hilary and Cary. The four of us had a light breakfast and shortly after that Cary left for Phildelphia. Then Hilary dw and I walked to the pedestrian mall and had some coffee (Sadie the dog came along to tell us when there was something interesting and vital to smell) -- Patrick had already gone to work so we were larking about without him.
We left about noon and went to a kinesthology (huh?) person (for dw) who did some back adjustments and gave dw some exercises to do. dw's back has been troublesome and she hasn't been able to drive for nearly a week. (My final pain scale update: knees: at rest 1 to 2 -- normal. walking 2 to 3.7 -- normal --- the passive range of motion worked miracles ) Anyway the adjustments and exercises seem to be helping and dw drove for awhile today.
After the kines (huh?) person we stopped at Patrick's place of work. He works for NRG -- a private company that makes and sells equipment that measures and analyzes sites for wind turbine installations. It was interesting -- it looks like a great place to work: the company (about 100 people work there) has a small gym, exercise pool, pool table, ping-pong table etc, etc. They also provide lunches (we had a piece of cake in Patrick's work area- courtesy of Laura who thought to recognize our visit - thank you, Laura) and incentives to car-pool and to buy hybrid cars. It's quite a place. The building has a large solar power installation, and a small wind turbine (it's not in a good place for wind power) It's about as green as a factory (officially -- light industry) can be.
Miscellaneous items about Burlington: We drove to Barre (pronounced Barry) Vermont (near Burlington) to look at the Hope Cemetery. Barre has, since 1818, quarried granite of a remarkably fine grade. and they have a long-time history of carving tombstones. The graveyard has a huge array of truely remarkable markers. A two-foot soccer ball on a pedestal. A bi-plane, a couple sitting up and holding hands in bed. -- Another site to Google and look at the pics. It's an amazing place -- obviously the local stone carvers use the cemetery as a marketing device. "Look at the things we can do in stone!!!"
As we were driving towards Montreal, I saw two fighter jets flying north. DA: "I think those are the vangard of our invasion of Canada." dw: "It's about time."
A couple of days ago we drove north, nearly to Canada, on the islands centered in Lake Champlain. We went to St Anne's Shrine -- now a shrine to St Anne -- rather nice -- but once the site (1667) of a French fort built to defend against the Iroquis.. I heard the following mumbles coming from the passenger seat: dw: "If it was kilometers, we'd already be there" (the site was further off the main road than we expected) and dw: "I'd rather have St Anne's Shrimp" (after having mis-read the map)
Mileage posts in Vermont tell the mileage in tenths of a mile, which is more specific than I need.
For weather reasons (too dry, too rainy, too warm) this isn't a good year for the leaf peepers. (according to an information bureau person.
All in all we had a very good day until we got to Montreal. For starters, we didn't get a good map before we got to the city, and then we arrived just at the start of rush hour. According to our map, there was Tourist Information just off the freeway. According to reality, not so much. At some point pre-Montreal we saw a sign for Tourist Information 4 K. Reality -- 4 K and no exit or any hint of Information. In the city we saw another sign: Tourist Info, L 4K. turned left, drove 5 blocks, came to a T intersection without a hint of another sign. On we trekked. Another sign Tourist Info R 1K -- turned right drove 2K and saw another sigh for Tourist Info in another K, and after two more kilometers, still nothing. At last we decided "F" this and headed for a main drag out of town. We turned right and after two blocks saw another Tourist Info sign 2K to our right. We ignored it. (all of this was during rush hour)
We have decided that Montreal can do nasty things to itself and we're moving on. If we gave it another try, I believe I'd sell my soul to the devil to get the power to inflict the Ten Plagues of Moses onto the city of Montreal. And whoever put up the Tourist Information signs would get the Ten Plagues plus a bad case of dandruff. DA
The above description of the Montreal experience has been downsized and sanitized for the general reading public - trust me. It was no picnic and I was beginning to feel we were in the Twilight Zone. To all of you out there who love and honor Montreal - maybe another time.... With better information and timing I'm sure we would be sitting in a Montreal B and B instead of this rather lovely room at the Auberge du Mont Rigaud - 1 hour and 15 minutes from downtown Montreal. Reading the "Discovery" free magazine (and real estate guide) to this area I am excited to see what daylight may bring. It could be lovely out there and we have no idea. Rigaud is on the Ottawa River and may be exploding with fall foliage but we arrived in the dark and don't know. Since the fall colour festival is this weekend here in Rigaud, I hope there's something out there for the attendees.
BIGGEST NEWS! Dennis thought he lost the above posting which he put a lot of effort and time into and I found it! I solved a computer problem. Wow. Feel free to congratulate me in your head if you won't "comment".
That's the yin and yang of travel - a gorgeous day with family and interesting experiences and the Circle of Hell in the big city. Can't wait until tomorrow! dw
We left about noon and went to a kinesthology (huh?) person (for dw) who did some back adjustments and gave dw some exercises to do. dw's back has been troublesome and she hasn't been able to drive for nearly a week. (My final pain scale update: knees: at rest 1 to 2 -- normal. walking 2 to 3.7 -- normal --- the passive range of motion worked miracles ) Anyway the adjustments and exercises seem to be helping and dw drove for awhile today.
After the kines (huh?) person we stopped at Patrick's place of work. He works for NRG -- a private company that makes and sells equipment that measures and analyzes sites for wind turbine installations. It was interesting -- it looks like a great place to work: the company (about 100 people work there) has a small gym, exercise pool, pool table, ping-pong table etc, etc. They also provide lunches (we had a piece of cake in Patrick's work area- courtesy of Laura who thought to recognize our visit - thank you, Laura) and incentives to car-pool and to buy hybrid cars. It's quite a place. The building has a large solar power installation, and a small wind turbine (it's not in a good place for wind power) It's about as green as a factory (officially -- light industry) can be.
Miscellaneous items about Burlington: We drove to Barre (pronounced Barry) Vermont (near Burlington) to look at the Hope Cemetery. Barre has, since 1818, quarried granite of a remarkably fine grade. and they have a long-time history of carving tombstones. The graveyard has a huge array of truely remarkable markers. A two-foot soccer ball on a pedestal. A bi-plane, a couple sitting up and holding hands in bed. -- Another site to Google and look at the pics. It's an amazing place -- obviously the local stone carvers use the cemetery as a marketing device. "Look at the things we can do in stone!!!"
As we were driving towards Montreal, I saw two fighter jets flying north. DA: "I think those are the vangard of our invasion of Canada." dw: "It's about time."
A couple of days ago we drove north, nearly to Canada, on the islands centered in Lake Champlain. We went to St Anne's Shrine -- now a shrine to St Anne -- rather nice -- but once the site (1667) of a French fort built to defend against the Iroquis.. I heard the following mumbles coming from the passenger seat: dw: "If it was kilometers, we'd already be there" (the site was further off the main road than we expected) and dw: "I'd rather have St Anne's Shrimp" (after having mis-read the map)
Mileage posts in Vermont tell the mileage in tenths of a mile, which is more specific than I need.
For weather reasons (too dry, too rainy, too warm) this isn't a good year for the leaf peepers. (according to an information bureau person.
All in all we had a very good day until we got to Montreal. For starters, we didn't get a good map before we got to the city, and then we arrived just at the start of rush hour. According to our map, there was Tourist Information just off the freeway. According to reality, not so much. At some point pre-Montreal we saw a sign for Tourist Information 4 K. Reality -- 4 K and no exit or any hint of Information. In the city we saw another sign: Tourist Info, L 4K. turned left, drove 5 blocks, came to a T intersection without a hint of another sign. On we trekked. Another sign Tourist Info R 1K -- turned right drove 2K and saw another sigh for Tourist Info in another K, and after two more kilometers, still nothing. At last we decided "F" this and headed for a main drag out of town. We turned right and after two blocks saw another Tourist Info sign 2K to our right. We ignored it. (all of this was during rush hour)
We have decided that Montreal can do nasty things to itself and we're moving on. If we gave it another try, I believe I'd sell my soul to the devil to get the power to inflict the Ten Plagues of Moses onto the city of Montreal. And whoever put up the Tourist Information signs would get the Ten Plagues plus a bad case of dandruff. DA
The above description of the Montreal experience has been downsized and sanitized for the general reading public - trust me. It was no picnic and I was beginning to feel we were in the Twilight Zone. To all of you out there who love and honor Montreal - maybe another time.... With better information and timing I'm sure we would be sitting in a Montreal B and B instead of this rather lovely room at the Auberge du Mont Rigaud - 1 hour and 15 minutes from downtown Montreal. Reading the "Discovery" free magazine (and real estate guide) to this area I am excited to see what daylight may bring. It could be lovely out there and we have no idea. Rigaud is on the Ottawa River and may be exploding with fall foliage but we arrived in the dark and don't know. Since the fall colour festival is this weekend here in Rigaud, I hope there's something out there for the attendees.
BIGGEST NEWS! Dennis thought he lost the above posting which he put a lot of effort and time into and I found it! I solved a computer problem. Wow. Feel free to congratulate me in your head if you won't "comment".
That's the yin and yang of travel - a gorgeous day with family and interesting experiences and the Circle of Hell in the big city. Can't wait until tomorrow! dw
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Burlington, VT
Again, a ton of rain during the drive from Quebec to here. (I read on the news that the storm that has been plaguing us has dropped more rain than normally falls in 6 weeks) -- Flooding in Wisconsin right after we left. Hurricane in Nova Scotia / Newfoundland when we were on the Gaspe, rain and flooding in New England (especially Vermont) now that we're here. We're going to notify areas that we're coming and suggest they give us money to stay away.
We stopped at an asbestos mine on the way here -- between Thetford Mines (a town) and Black Lake (a town named after a lake that no longer exists -- it was drained to put in a mine) Another big hole in the ground. The one we saw is no longer in operation. A different mine that is still operating doesn't allow visitors. -- A great pity -- I couldn't do my old guy at a construction site routine: " Yup, that's a mighty big hole. Course back in my day we had different sort of holes, but this hole is big enough for ordinary use."
In any case, we're staying with Patrick and Hilary S. (aka Patrilary) in their condo.
Burlington is a very pleasant college town. (bookstores, art galleries, buskers, street food, etc) It reminds me of a smaller version of Madison WI, or Eugene OR. Yesterday we walked Church street -- the pedestrian mall (had a crepe for a snack) -- then down to the lake. We were going to take the ferry to New York (using the ferry as a brief tour boat) but the last ship had sailed.
Before I forget to enter this: Happy Birthday Dan -- I'd like to do lunch, perhaps with Josh when we get back. --
Yesterday, while Patrick was off to a friends wedding (joined by Hilary in the evening) Hilary was a tour guide for dw and I. We drove a fall foliage / free snack tour. I guess we're early for the foliage (it was raining anyway) but the snacks -- cheese, chocolate, cider -- at various factories were good. We went to Stowe and had lunch. Stowe is a classic example of a quaint New England town, and the residents go to a fair amount of trouble to keep it that way. A couple of years ago, one of Patrick's uncles printed up a large official sign, togged himself up in official workman's clothing, and posted the sign on a brick wall -- The sign announced the upcoming arrival of a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop. Consternation and protest letters to the editor from the locals. Later, he did the same thing in Charlotte (another quaint New England town) only that time it was for a Red Lobster (Charlotte is on Lake Champlain). There were even more protests that time with a hundred or so angry letters to the editor. Though the second time someone at the newspaper noticed the signage occurred on April first.
As I'm writing this, the sun is out, no clouds in sight and we're hoping for a few good days. Today Hilary's mom (Cary N.) is coming by train from Phildelphia. We're looking forward to her arrival.
A small note: we were literally 6 feet past the interview with the customs officer at the U.S. border crossing when my phone (which you may remember doesn't work in Canada) rang, announcing I had some messages. DA
It's such a "welcome to the U.S. " feeling when the phone rings the minute you are two feet inside the border. Now if the messages were reading-worthy it would be even better. Nothing exciting except a few vague text messages and since we don't text it's a wonder we even receive them. Anyway, it allowed us to call and warn Hilary and Patrick we were close. Now we are in family time and have facilities to catch up on laundry and cleaning the car. How much coffee can one spill on a long distance road trip. Plenty. I'm thinking of having the carpeting changed in the car. Can you do that? Sightseeing yesterday in downtown Burlington was very much Madison State Street for those of you who may be familiar with the University of W'isconsin State Street area. For many years it was the toga capital of the world and with Halloween approaching it might be again. Plenty of pre-Halloween decor here. Pumpkins galore. And lots of beer and a few microbrews. We dined at one the evening we arrived and I have to admit the beer and food were very good and rival PDX's microbrews. Yup, Burlington is a good place to visit. Patrick and Hilary make me laugh so it's all good. More later, dw
We stopped at an asbestos mine on the way here -- between Thetford Mines (a town) and Black Lake (a town named after a lake that no longer exists -- it was drained to put in a mine) Another big hole in the ground. The one we saw is no longer in operation. A different mine that is still operating doesn't allow visitors. -- A great pity -- I couldn't do my old guy at a construction site routine: " Yup, that's a mighty big hole. Course back in my day we had different sort of holes, but this hole is big enough for ordinary use."
In any case, we're staying with Patrick and Hilary S. (aka Patrilary) in their condo.
Burlington is a very pleasant college town. (bookstores, art galleries, buskers, street food, etc) It reminds me of a smaller version of Madison WI, or Eugene OR. Yesterday we walked Church street -- the pedestrian mall (had a crepe for a snack) -- then down to the lake. We were going to take the ferry to New York (using the ferry as a brief tour boat) but the last ship had sailed.
Before I forget to enter this: Happy Birthday Dan -- I'd like to do lunch, perhaps with Josh when we get back. --
Yesterday, while Patrick was off to a friends wedding (joined by Hilary in the evening) Hilary was a tour guide for dw and I. We drove a fall foliage / free snack tour. I guess we're early for the foliage (it was raining anyway) but the snacks -- cheese, chocolate, cider -- at various factories were good. We went to Stowe and had lunch. Stowe is a classic example of a quaint New England town, and the residents go to a fair amount of trouble to keep it that way. A couple of years ago, one of Patrick's uncles printed up a large official sign, togged himself up in official workman's clothing, and posted the sign on a brick wall -- The sign announced the upcoming arrival of a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop. Consternation and protest letters to the editor from the locals. Later, he did the same thing in Charlotte (another quaint New England town) only that time it was for a Red Lobster (Charlotte is on Lake Champlain). There were even more protests that time with a hundred or so angry letters to the editor. Though the second time someone at the newspaper noticed the signage occurred on April first.
As I'm writing this, the sun is out, no clouds in sight and we're hoping for a few good days. Today Hilary's mom (Cary N.) is coming by train from Phildelphia. We're looking forward to her arrival.
A small note: we were literally 6 feet past the interview with the customs officer at the U.S. border crossing when my phone (which you may remember doesn't work in Canada) rang, announcing I had some messages. DA
It's such a "welcome to the U.S. " feeling when the phone rings the minute you are two feet inside the border. Now if the messages were reading-worthy it would be even better. Nothing exciting except a few vague text messages and since we don't text it's a wonder we even receive them. Anyway, it allowed us to call and warn Hilary and Patrick we were close. Now we are in family time and have facilities to catch up on laundry and cleaning the car. How much coffee can one spill on a long distance road trip. Plenty. I'm thinking of having the carpeting changed in the car. Can you do that? Sightseeing yesterday in downtown Burlington was very much Madison State Street for those of you who may be familiar with the University of W'isconsin State Street area. For many years it was the toga capital of the world and with Halloween approaching it might be again. Plenty of pre-Halloween decor here. Pumpkins galore. And lots of beer and a few microbrews. We dined at one the evening we arrived and I have to admit the beer and food were very good and rival PDX's microbrews. Yup, Burlington is a good place to visit. Patrick and Hilary make me laugh so it's all good. More later, dw
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