Shallow South

The railroad station that was converted into a hotel.  Lackawanna - like I wanna!

As we travel south we are noticing differences and similarities.  One of the things that has not changed is the size of the people. The average human size increases west to east.  And I am not talking about height.  Part of this is the diet that the people in the east consume. Deep-frying (and frying in general) is a major part of eastern food.  The other part is the climate: in the winter you take the car because it is too damned cold to walk, run or ride anywhere. 

a snack

That has not changed as we travel south.  My experience of Florida is that I never felt so slim and athletic in my life.  So far things have not been THAT bad but we are headed toward Florida…

This is probably an inappropriate sentiment coming from a little fat man.

The vegetation is slowly changing.  There are few, if any, evergreen trees. The trees are, in contrast to the people, spindly and short.  We drove down the historic Shenandoah Valley.  Everything here is labeled historic, by the way.  It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in America and it probably is but it seems fairly mundane compared to where we have been.

Shenandoah Valley

 The food portions here are getting bigger.  We each had a half portion of a pasta dish the other night and we could not finish it.  We had enough left for a complete dinner the next night.  See paragraph 2. 

Most of what we have seen so far, however, has been the highway.  We passed by all the main population areas of the east coast: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington.  When we passed Washington a young man came running out of a large white house followed by a bunch of other men in suits with earphones and he called to us ”Aren’t you staying for tea?  I want to talk to you about socialized medicine!”  We couldn’t stay though. We were on a deadline.

The way people speak is gradually changing as we travel south.  We are going from the delightful Newfie accent to the American southern accent.  Today we walked into a restaurant and the lady greeted us, “Ha thar!  Ha are y’all t’day”.  I said, “I am well thank-you, and how are you?”  She looked at me with some surprise and said, “Nas accent!” 

I did not realize that I had an accent… I thought she did…

Driving on the highways here is different from Canada.  There are a lot of vehicles on the roads.  On the trans-Canada you can ride (or drive) for a long time and not see another vehicle.  Here, vehicles constantly surround you.  It is almost like driving in the city except faster.   There are myriad cities and towns along the way and an almost constant barrage of signs telling you what food, lodging and entertainment is available at the next turn-off.  Some of the entertainment is questionable:  “Men’s Playground – parking available for tractor-trailers”  “World’s largest Adult Superstore”, “Discount Guns”.

We have ended up in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  It advertises itself as the most patriotic city in America.  Americans tend to be loudly patriotic as it is, I cannot imagine how loud it is going to be here tonight…

As we travel south we find the temperature is increasing.  Today it was up to 30 degrees.  I am not sure if that is due to the latitude or just unusually warm weather.   The clerk at the desk of the hotel said she was glad it was cooling down.  We stood there dripping into our puddles of perspiration gaping at her.  Cooling down?  The hotel had a pool and when we dived into it there was a hissing sound and a cloud of steam accompanied by two sighs of relief.

And we still have 2 days of travel south yet to go!

  

Coming to America

We made it across the border to the US.  Passing through customs went relatively smoothly.  Telen insisted that I drive so that when we came to the border they would see a little fat white male face rather than a beautiful Asian female face.   She was worried that if she was driving they might think she was into human smuggling.

 border guards at the US border

The border guard asked me what my profession was and I considered telling her that I was an unemployed drug dealer.  Technically this is true. The phrasing might have been be a problem, however. The border guard did not seem to have a sense of humour and I was worried about the “full body” search.

Our first night in the US was at a Days Inn in Bangor.  The price was unusually good so we jumped at it.  What we did not know was that this particular Days Inn was at the end of runway #1 of the Bangor International Airport.  We watched a Westjet Boeing 737 come in and the pilot waved at us.

Our second night we spent just outside of Salem Massachusetts. You might remember that Salem is famous for its witch burnings. Telen insisted that we not stay in Salem. So we stayed in Beverley. According to our landlady they don’t persecute witches anymore, just everyone else.   She also said that in the US they have 50 choices for Miss America and only 2 choices for president.  Interesting observation especially when every one of the Miss America contestants will insist that she wants to work toward world peace.

We really knew we were in the US when we saw this sign

We stopped at gas station in Smyra Maine to fill up and I thought we should buy a telephone for use in the US to save on roaming and long distance charges. The phone cost $22.00 and a phone card cost $25.00 for 750 minutes.  Incredibly cheap!  I even had enough money left to buy a new handgun and a bazooka.   Telen wouldn’t let me, though.  Spoilsport!  

Everyone else has one!!

We drove through Maine, New Hampshire and part of Massachusetts in one day and today we drove though Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and part of Pennsylvania.  It is hard to imagine driving through all those states in a single day whereas back home you could not even drive through one province in that time.  We hardly even noticed New Hampshire – except when they made us pay a toll.   There seems to be a lot of tollbooths.   It makes each state seem like a guy sitting in a deserted doorway with his hat out asking for spare change.

Driving down here is a bit hair-raising.  I am referring to the hairs on the back of the neck – not on top of the head!  The roads are good but there are a lot of vehicles on them and they are moving very fast.  People here think the laws of physics are more like guidelines. They think that a fully loaded Prius can come to a complete stop and accelerate back to 110 km/hr. instantly.  Come on, people!  It’s a PRIUS!

When we arrived in Scranton Pennsylvania today after driving for six hours Telen had to recruit the concierge at the hotel to help her pry my fingers off the steering wheel.  That was after she got down on her knees and kissed the ground.

Tonight we are staying in an abandoned train station.  Luckily for us it has been converted into a funky hotel.  It still has a lot of the old seats and memorabilia laying around.

I just hope the trains aren’t running anymore.

Telen writes:

I agree with Rand that driving in the States so far has been rather stressful.  There are so many cars and going so fast!  Rand has been trying to help by giving me directions even though he confuses left from the right.  I still recall with fondness how peaceful it was driving through the cliffs of the Cabot Trail when he kept his silence.

We are making pretty good meals on the road.  Last night the suite in Beverly had a full kitchen.  We roasted a couple of Cornish hens along with all the trimmings.  Yum!   People told us that restaurant food portions tend to be huge in the States.  Well, tonight we each ordered a half size pasta dish and we could only finish half of it.

In spite of all the eating, Rand has dropped several clothes sizes.  Yesterday we decided to go Target to buy some new pants as his current pair is at risk of falling off his bum in public.

I was hoping to visit Capitol Hill in Washington DC and to say hello to President Obama.  Time however is running short…so that may be another trip.

PS:  Telen has lost some inches as well.  Stress of riding in the car with me, I think.

End of Days

This is our last day in Canada for a while.  American customs, Homeland Security and CIA willing we will cross into the US tomorrow.  Tomorrow night we will, hopefully, be in Bangor Maine. 

As we were heading to the ferry we encountered very strong winds.  Apparently Environment Canada posted a “Wreckhouse” wind warning.  Now THAT sounds ominous!  Wreckhouse, we found out, is a place just to the North and West of the ferry terminal where the wind can get up to 200 kph.  It is called Wreckhouse because the wind used to blow the trains off the tracks and has even blown semi-trailer trucks off the road.  As we were approaching Port Aux Basques there was a huge flashing sign saying there was a high wind hazard and cars should pull off the road.  I did not know if that meant right there or if the wind got too strong.  It was unclear.  You would think that with an issue like that they would try to be specific.  Luckily we had booked our accommodation at a place called Codroy, which was just before the Wreckhouse area.   The wind howled until about midnight.  I kept looking outside to see if there were any semi’s flying by, but no luck.  Just a few houses and an old woman with a pointy hat on a bicycle.

We came across from Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland to North Sydney, Nova Scotia on the Marine Atlantic Ferry.   We all gripe about BC Ferries and all the problems that beset them but now that I have seen Marine Atlantic BC Ferries looks pretty good.  If Marine Atlantic is the Air Canada of ferries then BC Ferries is the Westjet.  The ferry was an hour and a half late leaving Newfoundland after taking two and a half hours to load.  When we got to Sydney it took almost that long to unload.  Apparently a motor home was stalled and no one could leave the ship until it got started again.   I wonder what would happen if there was an emergency?

Our car was sequestered in the belly of the ferry which meant that we had to drive down a ramp to the front of the ferry then back up to reach our parking space.  When it came time to unload we had to drive to the front of the ferry and turn around and go up the ramp to the stern of the ferry and turn around again and drive in a circle once more to eventually get to a ramp off the ferry.   We were humming the “Blue Danube” waltz as we went around and around and around in circles inside the ferry.  How we maintained the good humour to do so is questionable.

It was sad to leave Newfoundland.  We both really enjoyed our stay there.  Everyone at the B&B in Sydney agreed with us.  Most of them had been on the same ferry as us and the topic at breakfast was, of course, Marine Atlantic.  I tried to change the subject to “Newfoundland” to make sure that the ferry service did not leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.  The great breaky helped.

Bald Eagle flying over Bras D'Or lake- Cape Breton

Since our next destination is Florida we are going to have to start training for further drives.   Up until now, because I am a wuss, we have only been averaging about 100 k per day.   Now that I am not on the bike we can extend our distances; but that will take some training.  Our bums are not used to sitting for that long on soft seats.  Today we drove from Sydney to Moncton – about 500 kilometers.  We got out of the car like much older people – groaning and grumbling and stretching our backs.

There are a couple of hurricanes hanging about off the east coast.  I hope we don’t encounter them in any meaningful way.  Our little car with the carrier on the roof and the bicycles hanging off the back is not the most aerodynamic of vehicles.  Even with me sitting inside it is not really heavy although it is pretty close to the ground.  If the wind is behind us, great!   If it is from the side or the front we might end up going some place we hadn’t planned on...  

What the wind was blowing

I don't think we are in Kansas anymore...

  

I'se de bye

Gros Morne mountain

Newfoundland continues to enchant us. We have left St. John’s and are gradually working our way across the province to Port Au Basque to catch the ferry to Nova Scotia.  We stopped in Gander to spend the night and went for a walk to work out the kinks from sitting in the car too long.   In contrast to St. John’s, which is the oldest city in North America, Gander is relatively new having been built during WW2 as an airbase.  It is the site of the famous 9-11 incident which brought the hospitality of the Newfoundlanders to fame.  This hospitality and warmth is a real thing.  Everyone we met on the street greeted us – even a group of young girls who interrupted their heavy conversation about hair and makeup to smile and say hello.  Our waitress at the restaurant said to us, “ Oi reconnize ye frum earlier t’day, me love.  Ye were out walkin’, eh?”

I don’t think you could get away with anything in Gander…

We went and explored a bit of Gros Morne National park yesterday and today.  Telen had been there before about twenty years ago and wanted to see it again.  It really is beautiful and apparently is a world heritage site because of that.  Not to demean the park but, as beautiful as it is, it is not more beautiful than most places in BC - including our own Vancouver Island.  It is different, however, in that there are many small villages perched right on the shore and the houses are placed in more or less complete disorder.  None of this "streets and avenues" business – you build the houses where you live, bye.

The Village of Norris Point

We stopped at a lighthouse and had a chat with the Parks Canada lady who was curating it.  We asked her where a good place to get lunch was and she said to go to Jackie’s Place.  When I asked her where that was she pointed out the door and said “Roight dere.”   I looked out the door and all I could see was the parking lot and some trees.  When I looked puzzled she said, “Oi can see it frum here, bye!” and pointed across the bay to the village of Rocky Harbour in the distance.  We never did find Jackie or her restaurant, if she had one.   For all we know it might have just been Jackie’s house and maybe she made a good lunch.

Interestingly enough, in the lighthouse where they had a brief history of the west of Newfoundland, they referred to 1949 as the year Canada joined Newfoundland.   I love it.

Today we took a cruise around Bonne Bay which is part of Gros Morne park.  It was quite interesting learning about the history and geology of the area.  We came across some porpoises in the bay and we gave chase.   I thought we were going to run them down we came so close and the porpoises were swimming hard to get away.   If a captain had done that in BC we would find him hanging above the harbor with the crows feasting on his eyeballs.

Telen spotted a moose on the hillside as we were cruising by.  Apparently moose were introduced here in 1900 and have since made a concerted effort to take over Newfoundland.

Telen's Moose running from the sound of a wok 

I think they should introduce some Chinese to deal with them.  I am sure they would come up with some recipes for stir-fried moose.   But then what would we do with all the Chinese?

I‘m not sure Telen will forgive me for that remark…

I mean, Boris and Natasha haven’t even been able to deal with one Moose much less over half a million of them.

Sunning myself on the balmy beaches of Newfoundland near Lobster Cove Head

Here are some interesting things we noticed here.  Lots of houses still have their Christmas lights up.   And that is not through neglect – the houses and yards here are immaculate.  People seem to put solar lights in the cemeteries on the graves of their loved ones.  Are ghosts afraid of the dark?  No one gives you distances in kilometers; they give to you in time.   “It’s boot 1 are west of ‘ere, bye.” (it’s about 1 hour west of here, boy)

People here in Newfoundland are proud of being Newfies.  They have a long history of taking care of each other and struggling to wrest a living from an inhospitable land.  This has shaped their character making them strong, proud, resilient and caring. 

They have a right to be proud.