Day 10

It's about a three hour drive from Blair's parents' place to our place in Musquodoboit Harbour. But we weren't going to Musquodoboit Harbour right away. We had one more stop to make - my brother Max and his wife Kim are in Dartmouth and they were waiting for us.

All things familiar started appearing through our windshield. We had made this trip between Dieppe and home many, many times. Memramcook, home to a few well-known wrestlers. The Tantramar marsh where CBC has the radio towers that transmit to the world. Aulac, home of another Big Irving and usual stopping point (but not this time). The cut-off for the bridge to PEI. And then the Nova Scotia Welcome Centre.

The entry into Nova Scotia from New Brunsiwck is probably the prettiest provincial border crossing in the country. Maybe the world. The Welcome Centre is very welcoming, a charming building atop a green knoll, beckoning visitors to come and discover. There used to be a fellow playing the bagpipes at the border, and that was AWEsome. But budget contraints have ruined that most impressive sight - a lone piper in a kilt of Nova Scotia tartan, atop a grassy knoll, welcoming all with the unmistakable Scottish-rooted tones that says Nova Scotia in the very notes of the tune. But the Welcome Centre is still very charming, the sign is still wonderfully maintained, and the arrival at the border to Nova Scotia unbelievably joyous.

The Welcome Centre is in Amherst, though, home of the dreaded weigh station, feared by even the Sadists of Salisbury, and it wasn't long until we were yet again pulling in to be at the mercy of our provincial monitors.

Yet again, we were waved out of line for the scale to the Inspection Area. Yet again, I was filled to busting with trepidation, the vision of the rear end of the Sidekick winking in the sunlight into the eyes of a red-faced inspector, who would no doubt weigh us and find that we were overweight. The fines, according to the Sadists of Salsbury, are enourmous.

Yet again, we were asked for our paperwork, which we handed over with obvious weighted resignation.

The fellow asked Blair if he stopped at any reserves to pick up illegal cigarettes. Blair was totally taken by surprise with the question, and the fellow started laughing. We were out of Amherst in no time and headed home, and passed all weigh stations without having to open up the back of the truck. We were home-free... scale-wise. We breathed a huge sigh of relief and I felt a great weight, perhaps the same amount that we were overweight, lifted from my shoulders.

On we went, the reality of being home emphasized with each and every signing announcing our arrival at familiar places - the cut-off for Parrsboro, Springhill - home to Anne Murray, Oxford - the wild blueberry capital of Canada, Pugwash, Tatamagouche (one of my personal favourites to say out loud), the Cobequid Pass, where there is a toll. Last one in Canada, I do believe. The old road used to go through Wentworth - wonderfully scenic, twisty-turny road, much like the road up to Kamloops from Vernon. Get behind a slow guy or a big truck, your trip time tripled. I like the old way, though, even though we rarely go that way anymore. Then Masstown. We usually stop at Masstown. There's a wonderful store there, like a smaller Swan Lake, with fresh produce, a bakery, a deli, a gift shop... there's always something to bring home at Masstown Market. But not this time.

The entry into the mainland of Nova Scotia is one exit from the Miners' Memorial Highway - one. If you miss it, you're off to Cape Breton whether you want to go or not. We didn't miss it and headed toward Truro, off the Miners' Memorial and on to the Veterans Memorial Highway. Here and there, the muddy banks of the Shubie River (Shubenacadie, formally) which boasts a tidal bore that rivals Moncton's, winks through the trees with the bright red mud with which a good stretch of the highway here is paved. In some places, one side of the divided highway is paved with the red mud, while the other side is the standard gray - it's very strange to look at.

We pass Stewiacke and the famous Mastadon Ridge.  It's a Tim Horton's and gas station collective, behind which is a gift store and a hill with a big mastadon statue. The Mastodon Replica represents the male juvenile Mastodon whose bones were unearthed in 1991 at the National Gypsum Quarry near Milford, N.S. The Stewiacke cut-off can also be taken to access Highway 357, a scenic route through Middle Musquodoboit, running along the banks of the Musquodoboit River, down to Musquodoboit Harbour. We take this way frequently, especially in the fall when each turn of the road showcases a spectacular panorama of brightly coloured trees, wearing their Autumn best, defying imagination if never seen first-hand. But not today.

We pass the Robert L. Stanfield International Airport. There's a small lake just south of the airport that used to house the Dragon Log. Everyone knew the Dragon Log, an old dead tree, spiking up from the depths of the lake, looking very much like a dragon with its misshapen limbs. It was there for a very, very long time, until someone thought it would be fun to destroy it. If that person or persons decided to be forthcoming about the deed to claim some fame, they'd probably get a good sound beating every day for the rest of their lives from all who came into contact with them. Nonetheless, with the twinge of loss still floating in my mind, we pass that spot and take the turn-off for Cole Harbour/Eastern Shore.

The main intersection of our travels living here looms ahead. It is the Forest Hills intersection and very Maritime. A Sobey's Superstore, a Tim Horton's, a Canadian Tire Gas Station and a Kent Home Show park flank the instersection. Turn left for Lawrencetown, Lake Echo, Chezzetcook, Porters Lake and ultimately, Musquodoboit Harbour. Turn right for Dartmouth, and the bridges to Halifax. We turn right, against every nerve screaming to turn left, and head for Max and Kim's. They live not far from this intersection and we arrive in minutes, seeing my brother on the street watching for us. There are hugs and handshakes, laughing - a warmth surrounds the scene that only home and family can bring. We settle in to spend the night, teaching Kim's boys how to tie a tie for their upcoming Grad Party, pat the three cats we haven't seen for a year - fat Bailey, lovingly nicknamed Basketball Jones, because he looks like a basketball with a cat's head stuck on it, so large but very lovable; grey and crazy Herman, the last of the six cats Max brought with him from Toronto, free-spirited Scruff, lovingly nicknamed Scruffy McMuffin.  We drink, play cards, and marvel at the thought that we are home to stay.

In the morning, it is time to consider taking the Sidekick out of Noblesse. She has carried her burden successfully to our destination and it is time to relieve her of that obligation. We have many thoughts on how this would be best accomplished. I suggest I climb into the back, because I'm the smallest of the present stick-shifters, rev up and zoom out of the back end of the truck, hoping the shocks can withstand... well, the shock. The idea is not embraced by my comrades. We think about driving around the industrial park looking for a dock suitable for disembarking. And then, Blair has a brainstorm. Not his first, not his last, but certainly one that will be remembered for some time. He suggests we call a tow truck company, have them bring a platform truck, which we will simply drive onto, and be gently placed road side. Stellar!! We go out to Noblesse to prepare.

Opening up the truck and removing everything from the tail end, it became readily apparent that the Sidekick had seriously shifted. Where the frame was built and the Sidekick placed in the centre, the passenger side of the car was now up against the passenger side of the frame. Removing the car from where it sat would rip the entire passenger side apart. We were immediately reminded of that set of railroad tracks we'd hit in the dark coming through a particularly desolate section of northern Ontario highway. In any event, the car would have to be shoved over, in a tight fitting frame, surrounded by well-acked household goods. I had an idea - the fellas groaned, remembering my idea about driving out the back of the truck, but I persisted. If we put a jack under the car, lifting it ever so slightly, we might be able to shove it over enough to take it out without immediately needing a paint job. Max had a bottle jack, which we placed under the rear passenger tire, lifted it just a bit, and the three of us took our positions and shoved hard, moving the Sidekick a good four or five inches, which was enough.

We had more coffee while we waited for the tow truck. A young fellow arrived with his platform truck and Blair explained to him what we wanted to do. He was all smiles and filled with a sense of adventure. I backed the Sidekick out with Blair's guidance. The platform tilted, and I drove it to the street. Easy-peasey, lemon-squeezey. We repacked the stuff that had come off to get to the car. The fellas got in the truck and headed for home, while I took the Sidekick to the grocery store to meet them there with supplies... and coffee.

I have no pictures of my arrival at the house because I was driving, with the camera in my knapsack. But I can describe it to you with one word. Glorious. The house is old, but solid, and standing there all stalwart looking, with the ocean as a backdrop and a lake as a side-note, I feel what I always feel arriving here - renewed.. There is packing and unpacking to be done, painting and landscaping, cleaning and clearing, and every single solitary task will be a labour of love.

We've done many things since arriving here, four months ago now... replaced the furnace, got a new oil tank (fibreglass - it's a t'ing of beauty, by'!), septic maintenance, water system maintenance, new clothes line, new lawn mower, generator, etc. etc. We've moved in and we're settling in quite nicely. Had a couple of hurricanes already, and the swimming has been awesome this year. If the winds are what we have to take on to have a summer like this one passed, than so be it.

We have our email - magold@eastlink.ca - we've got rid of our land line and gone with the Magic Jack - new number 902-800-0345. We both have new cell phone numbers - Cathie - 902 579 3455, Blair - 902 240 1188. Please take note of these - the old numbers/email addresses are gone.

We miss everyone we left behind, but happily embracing our lives here. You know where we are - come see us sometime. It's been a wonderful journey, but this IS the final destination.

 

Day 9 Maritime

Don't you just hate it when your favourite show goes off the air for no apparent reason??

Anyway, the hectic flurry of activity has slowed to light speed so the opportunity to sit and type for a few minutes arrived and was grasped firmly.

We left our Dynamic Duo (Blair insists on being Batman) in Edmunston, New Brunswick.

After a good night's sleep, we loaded our trusty chariot with our overnight things through a very handy patio door in our room that put us in the yard and just  a few steps away from Noblesse. Easiest load-up ever. Blair, though eager to get on the road, this close to home, still takes the time to perform his morning checks - tires, oil, other fluids... once satisfied that all was good with Noblesse, we begin the penultimate leg of our journey, our destination for this day one loved and familiar.

Being a menopausal woman in the truck cab sitting over a massive and very capable, though quite heat-radiating, engine, the manual window knob of the passenger's side (that would be mine) has never before seen such activity. That window, over that past few days, has been up and down with more frequency than a Mexican Jumping Bean on steroids. The only consolation is that there are no mirrors in the cab, so I don't even catch a glimpse of what the wind has done to my hair. I'm on the road, after all, and certainly the rules must be different here.

The clouds ahead on this cool but sunny day jumble at the horizon, white, bulky cumulus rarely seen out west. The terrain has changed considerably... the hills more rolling here, sloping ever eastward toward the Atlantic where the land will kiss the ocean, having come so far to see her.

The earth, like the marvelous rock of Superior coastside in Ontario, is red. Where the grass is patchy on the humps of the meridians, red shows brilliantly through. The river beds are lined in red clay, favoured and visited frequently by potters and other artisans who covet the bold colour of the earth itself. Great stretches of highway, mortared with the neighbouring red clay, point the way in colour unseen elsewhere in Canada. It reminds me of the song by Stompin' Tom Connors - "I'm Bud the Spud from the bright red mud..." - it really is red. And the highway portions built from it seem to be in better condition than the usual gray. PEI is well-known for its potato growing, but New Brunswick should be as well. When shopping at home, I actually look for the New Brunswick potatoes because of a story we were told a while ago, about a man who went to the doctor in Montreal because of headaches. The doctor, after examining him, told him what part of PEI he lived in, knowledge inferred by the frequency with which folks eating the produce from that area ended up with brain tumours. Yep, I look for the New Brunswick potatoes instead.

 

The road signs are different in New Brunswick. We pass one where a graphic of a car is half the size of the graphic of a moose - way more realistic. We also notice that the exits are numbered in conjunction with the kilometers traveled from the border. If you're looking for something that is off Exit 61, for example, you know that the exit is 61 kms from the border. And, because there are little placards for the kms all along the way, you know exactly how far you must go to reach your destination.... very clever. I'm thinking I might have mentioned that before, and if so, then it bears mentioning again, and if not, it's not the kindof information I'd want to keep to myself.

 

About two hundred kilometers outside of Fredericton, Blair calls long-time friends, Lynn Allan and Charlene, and they give us directions to a cafe called the Blue Canoe right on the highway, where they will meet us for lunch. On our way, we pass Grand Falls, New Denver, Aroostook, taking note of the many farm fields atop rounded hills, verdant and vibrant, an testament to the rich soils here at the foothills of the Appalachians. There is a cut-off to drop south into the Appalachian Range proper... tempted, we steer our stalwart chariot toward our rendezvous with friends not seen for far too long.

 

Northern New Brunswick is a marvel of diverse topography: gently rolling hills of green, then of a sudden, a deep ravine at the bottom of which the might St. John River makes its determined trek, depositing goodness that feeds the greenery all along its path. Then flatlands again, beyond which the rolling hills can be seen to take up their march eastward once more. The highway here is divided and almost silken under the tires of our mount which has seen roads far worse in provinces far richer.  Farmhouses nestle into the planned tree windbreak atop hills where farmers can survey their domain.   In Hartland, we see the sign for the cut-off for the country's, no, the world's, longest covered bridge. Again, we're tempted, but we have things to do and people to see, but make note to take that trip again sometime in the near future.  We pass a building near this sign that announces "Covered Bridge Potato Chip Company", making that trip even more necessary! Wait for us, I think to myself. We'll be back. (I would have said so out loud but days ago, Blair and I learned to speak aloud only the really important things, since it took yelling and a couple of "What!"'s to get the message across. She's stalwart, yes, and regal our Noblesse, but she isn't quiet while running.)

 

We reach the "Welcome to Fredericton" sign, and see, shortly after that, the sign for the cut-off to King's Landing, a historical (yes, "a" historical - some of you may think that grammatically, that should be "an" historical" - but "an" in front of words that start with "h" is a rule only for those who don't pronouce the "h" in the first place.No, I'm not pointing fingers, Colin, my British friend, just pointing out the obvious) settlement where one is immersed into the ways of the turn-of-the-century community, complete with garb and food of the times. We make a note to get back there, as well.

 

A sign announces a scale ahead in our path, but again, the scale is closed, and we carry on, marvelling at our good fortune thus far.

 

Little rivulets make their way down the hill and pour out at roadside. It is not uncommon, here in the Maritimes, to see such rivulets, or to see folks parked alongside the road, bottles of every description in hand, catching the pure liquid at its exit point. I remember one in Cape Breton, at Iron Mines where a spigot was actually installed for easy access, that my father would not pass without filling a few containers to take home. Seeing these rivulets is not only nostaligic, but a profound punctuation of where we were - in the land of pricey bottled water in fancy containers that announce pie-in-the-sky claims of goodness and purity - and where we are - where people of the earth catch water from their favourite rivulets, flowing freely down a hillside, into empty Coca Cola bottles and mason jars. No further comment required.

 

At last we reach the Irving Big Stop. It is Big, and Big Trucks can Stop without any problem. I'm sure these factors played a significant role in the name of these grand outposts of renown among truckers Canada-wide. Big... Stop. The fuelling stations accomodate large rigs, with a high canopy and satellite pumps so that a duel-tank truck, like ours, can be filled at the same time with one bill. In other lesser stations, we'd actually have to turn around to fill the other tank, and have two bills. The Big Stop is a trucker's paradise - lots of room to move about, turn without a problem, fuel up, or park somewhere easy to get into and easy to get out of, and have a snooze in the sleeper compartment. Lots of rigs here, one from as far west as Nanaimo, bustling at the fueling stations and parked along the back of the lot.  We hook up with Lynn and Charlene, head in for a bite to eat and catch up on each other's news. I had a bowl of turkey soup there that almost made me faint with joy - home-made, rich and tasty... digestible road food, finally!! We have our friendly server take a picture of us IN the Blue Canoe - of course they have one!! - hug and kiss our good friends with a promise to get together when there is more time, fuel up at the big fuel station, and make our way for Dieppe, where Blair's Dad will celebrate his birthday with his Number Two son at the table with him in just a few short hours.

 

But first, we had to get through the scale, which was open and, apparently, laying in wait for us, at Salisbury. We knew it was going to be something more than a quick drive over the scales when we were immediately waved to the dreaded Inspection Area. A fellow came up to the window and asked for our IPA, RPO, JFK, hoop-de-doo, and I don't know what else, while I stared at him with eyes glassing  over and mouth agape with lips just perceptively quivering.  I started envisioning, once again, a fellow with provincial power that had gone to his head, ordering us to open up the back of the truck and have the rear end of the Sidekick pointed at his nose. Blair got out of the truck and started chatting with the guy, as did I. When he mentioned the NSC, which we had, Blair kicked me, right in the toe that had been pummeled by the bottle of iced tea, afraid that I was going to lose my cool. I grimaced, and limped back to the truck to get the paperwork the fellow had requested. When I returned and handed over the insurance papers, he asked me for the registration. "We're from BC, land of ICBC. It's all the same.", I said. "You only have pleasure insurance on this truck!", he said with alarm. I explained it wasn't a business truck, that we were moving ourselves back to Nova Scotia. He asked me if we had any restrictions, to which I responded, "We can only drive this vehicle to work five days a month," with mostly humour and some sarcasm. He looked at me as if I had popped the lid of my head to show him that, yes, I only possessed half a brain, and unfortunately, maintained the half that allowed my mouth to keep working. I decided to let Blair do the rest of the talking, while they looked under the chasis, tested the tires, checked the engine emissions and other things. Noblesse was found fault-free, except for oil coming out of one of the front tire oil-wells, which they claimed to be a serious leak, although Blair kept to himself that he had been a little messy topping up the oil wells that morning and it wasn't a leak at all.

 

After pointing out the thousands of dollars in fines we could be hit with, two good ol' boys leaned their heads together, guffawed a bit, and let us be on our way, warning us that we would be lucky to get passed the tough guys in Amherst, chortling at the mere thought of us pulling into that infamous weigh station with our big truck and toy paperwork. We made it to Dieppe for dinner without a minute to spare. No, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure we were late, but at least it was the right day!

 

Family was awaiting our arrival and gaped at the monstrosity in which we arrived, marvelled at the concept of returning with so much STUFF when everyone knew we had a house full fo STUFF. All wondered where we might STUFF the new STUFF or the old STUFF and how STUFFed the house was going to be with STUFF. STUFF is a four-letter word... don't be fooled by that extra "F". It's not just the ending of the word - it is an expletive just waiting to be said.

 

After a most enjoyable birthday dinner and visit with family, a good sleep in familiar surroundings, on the 10th of June, we headed out of Dieppe, bound for Nova Scotia... home... final destination... Noblesse seemingly sensing the end of a long journey, carrying us smoothly and unerringly eastward.

Day 8
Having planned wisely the night before with the assistance of the trusty GPS, we awoke at the Best Western (Macies) in Ottawa on the east side, having put most of the city behind us. Check out at this hotel is not until 1:00 pm, which is quite generous. Breakfast at the in-hotel was horrible - don't bother if you find yourself there.

Much of the highway through eastern Ontario is segemented - laid like slabs cross-wise across the highway, which might have seemed like a good idea to the City Engineer who put his stamp of approval on that approach, but he obviously never drove a rig, or even a truck like ours. I declared that he should be shot. Blair countered that he should be mixed in with the road top and laid out over the grooves his good idea caused. Nonetheless we made our way through the remainder of Ontario with nothiaren't ng much more than complaint.

We needed fuel. Many of the gas stations that advertise at the highway exit signs aren't really set up for large trucks, hence the Rules of the Road: 1. NEVER pull off unless you can see your destination from the road and can ascertain if it is appropriate, especially if you're driving something like the Monster. 2. NEVER bother with anything on the wrong side of the road - it's just not worth the hassle and there will no doubt be something further along on the right side. Unfortunately, there are times when the destination is only seen after the only off-ramp is passed. Such was the case near the border to Quebec. The advertisement was for Herb's, a gas station with which we were unfamiliar. So we passed the cut-off, and were almost immediately presented with an immaculate looking station on the right side of the road, with beautiful, high canopies over glistening diesel pumps, and a massive yard surrounding the station for easy entrance and exit. DRATS!

Before we knew it, we had left the land of cheaper fuel and entered the land of more expensive fuel - more than 10 cents a litre, which may not sound like much, but when the Monster you're driving can guzzle 200 litres, it starts adding up.

AND with less than half a tank (which is really one full tank - the other empty), we found ourselves on the outskirts of Montreal.

Our past record with Montreal has been hinted at. Let me expound upon that theme. Montreal is the bane of every cross-country trip we've ever taken. Driving through Montreal has caused loss of years of life, nightmares, shakes, dread and uncontrollable greasy discharge. Okay, maybe not that last thing, but close.

As we entered City Limits, we cruised along nicely and thought that perhaps Nobless Nunchuk has indeed brought enough bonus to the table to enable quick and safe passage through the dreaded city. Then we came to a screeching halt, and literally inched our way, over the next two hours, ever-so-slowly through the city. Drivers there for most part confirmed our remembered description of "aggressive" and "rude" and downright crazy. Most of the delay was caused by vehicles rushing up a lane that was supposed to cut off, only to cut into the lane they shunned at the proper merge point. Road rage must have been invented on Highway 20 through Montreal. If my toe wasn't still throbbing, I'm sure I would have been out of the Grand Lady like a shot, to rant and shake my fists at anyone who would look my way, which would be almost no one, since the culprits very rarely make eye contact. We inched and grumbled, and groaned and tried very hard, with success in retrospect, not to just RAM all those much smaller vehicles and laugh hysterically as we made our way to the Tunnel over the ruins of whichever vehicle got in our way.

Once through the city, Timmy's was definitely in order. The Esso we stopped at just outside Montreal was one of those gas stations not quite prepared for larger trucks. And the fellow there directed us to a Tim Horton's that was also not prepared for larger trucks, nor was the town. As we weaved through narrow streets and parked in an empty parking lot a block away from the coffee shop, I reminded Blair of the Rules of the Road (see above). We glared at each other for a moment, got out, got coffee, felt better, laughed and returned to our chariot, where liquid B-12 awaited consumption. It revitalizes and makes the road-weariness a little less poignant.

All day long, we hung behind the black, angry clouds that marked the track of the rainstorm attempting to drown  towns along the highway yet undriven. Actually, our daily monitor of the weather station makes it clear to us that we have dodged bullets the whole journey east. We were just behind a storm front in the western provinces, and left another just behind us. Here in the eastern provinces, we were either just behind or just north of some radical weather fronts. While we were sleeping in Ottawa, southern Ontario was hit by a tornado. Behind us, Manitoba and Saskatchewan were being rained out.  Nobless was like a tip-toeing elephant, picking ever-so-carefully the best path to arrive with all intact. And a couple of Guardian Pens (and maybe Angels) were assisting. We have been very lucky in timing and travel routes.

The drive north to Riviere-du-Loup is absolutely stunning, though not many pictures will prove worthy of posting, ruined by the dark clouds to the southeast. Expansive farm fields, church spires shining against the dark skies, the magnificent St. Lawrence, dotted with the trail end of the southern Appalachians, conspire to take the breath away of all who gaze upon the wholeness of the landscape.

Leaving that splendour behind, making our way through a few more carnival displays on the darkening highway, under construction to improve but temporarily abandoned by the workers who will return in the morning, we enter New Brunswick, almost suddenly, without fanfare. An Irving Big Stop rises from the fog ahead and beckons us into a large truck-stop sized yard, to park and saunter in to a place so familiar that to enter becomes a yearning. We sit, drink, snack and feel unable to stay anywhere tonight except behind the wheel, to carry on now that we are so close.

But a driver in the diner tells us that the moose are all over the road, and that the hill down to Fredericton is blanketed in dense fog. He suggests that if we don't absolutely have to drive on, to find sanctuary somewhere comfortable and go again in the morning.

We debate - with each other and with ourselves. We drive on, the fog envelopes us, and we look for a light bright enough to signal us through this thick soup of atmosphere around us.It appears, like a halo. We pull in. This is a lovely spot - the Days Inn - Saint Basile in Edmunston. Blair has closed his stubborn but reddened eyes and breathes quietly in bed behind me. I write to my family and friends to assure them we are safe once more, this night. Tomorrow will bring us to environs very familiar and much loved. Thursday will do the same and Friday, the posted pictures will be of our final destination, our home, where we hope to stay for a while and doff off the dust and doldrums of a very, very long highway across this magnificent, diverse country.

But tonight... sleep, with dreams of fog burning off and sunshine guiding our way tomorrow.

Day 7

Perhaps the squirrel was an omen...

We checked out of the Super 8 in the Sault and headed to an auto glass place to see what we could do about the injury to Nobless' windshield. We'd called Speedy - they wanted a minimum of $70. The local fellow wanted $20, if we paid cash. Cash, then, and off we went to see the local fellow. We didn't have too far to go.Got up to fourth gear when a black squirrel, obviously without his morning coffee to sharpen his wits, darted out in front of the truck. We were able to stop just before hitting him, although I had visions of cobalt blue mixing bowls flying through the front panel of the truck and squashing the little fellow as effectively as if we hit him.

Carrying on, we pulled into the parking lot of the auto glass place. A lady pulled out of the lot and sat in our turn space as if we were driving a mini and could easily get around her. She got honked, woke up and moved out of the way. The fellow at the glass place needed a few minutes so we headed for the mall next door to see what the locals were up to. There was a dirt path between the two places with a bit of a steep grade downward. My purple toe rebelled, and I had to hop my way down. Going up wasn't as bad.

An older fellow sat inside the mall doors selling tickets to some raffle sponsored by, appropriately, The Fraternal Order of Moose. I bought one. We had coffee at a little shop, and while sitting at a little table, downloaded pictures from the camera. Blair went to look around while I marveled at the live trees potted in the wide aisles of the mall, topped by skylights, to which they stretched their limbs. 

Returning to Nobless, we found her injury fairly well patched, though the scar was still visible. The fellow assured us that while it was still visible, the damage wouldn't get worse. Fair enough for 20 bucks.

Somehow while attempting to put the Sault behind us, we ended up in an area of town that was definitely not a truck route. No sign or cross-street cable looked high enough to allow our safe passage. After some tense moments and awesome manoeuvering by the most adaptable truck driver I know, we refound the highway without taking out the power lines for the whole east side.

Once on the highway, I settled in and organized our stuff (stuff - the reason why we needed the Monster in the first place!), I contemplated the unsung heroics of the small toe. It helps us balance and shift, walk and reach up, and until it hurts to put even the smallest bit of pressure on it, its herculean feats (no pun intended) largely go unnoticed. I'm noticing now, little guy, and promise to never take you for granted again, if you'll heal a little quicker, please.

On this Day 7, Blair and I fall into Road Delirium Conversation. I've seen it before, and though alarming, it does pass once the suitcases are stowed to the back of the closet. An example of RDC goes like this:

Oh, look - log cabins available on Lumber Road.

Yeah, just don't rush down there or you won't get one. You have to lumber.

I wonder why they don't call the road Log Road.

Because then only Journalists would visit... and the logs don't like the way Journalists look at them with that paper-lust in their eyes.

Insert hysterical laughter here. RDC - the deadly road weary condition no one talks about.

Roadsides here in Ontario show off fabulous beds of lupins. After Juan, lupins all but disappeared in Nova Scotia. We have none on our property and they are conspicuous by their absence on the routes we take in and out of town. I miss them and vow to make a concerted effort to help lupins make a come-back, especially where I can see them.

There are definitely very strange road signs in Ontario. We've concluded that they must be getting the cheaper signs from China, where something gets lost in the translation. We passed a few that showed a horse and cart. A few with a car with a bunch of dots around it - no idea what that one was. The tipping trailer is a scary one.

The railroad tracks ran along side the highway for quite a while and made me reminisce about a childhood memory concerning the railroad signs that were actually yellow rectangles with two round holes in them. I remember trying to look through the two holes, thinking that I might see some magical world on the other side or some other secret the adults were obviously trying to keep to themselves, judging by the height of the "peek holes". Those yellow rectangles are white now, and instead of two holes, there are two painted black dots. We concluded that these, too, must be coming from China, where the painted circles are easier and cheaper to make. How many Canadian children have been denied the magic of wondering what the two peek holes might hold? And, no doubt, the paint had cadmium in it, and would have to join McDonalds Shrek glasses in widespread recall.

The road from North Bay to Arnprior, in this the Capital Region of Canada, supposedly an important segment of the Trans Canada Highway, was the worst of the highways we had traveled so far. Back when I first moved to Vancouver, my sister and I bought a 1956 Chevy 5 ton and hauled away the stuff that people didn't want. (There's stuff again... it certainly does absorb a lot of our time, money and effort, doesn't it?) Back then, the city dump was in Richmond, across the old Cambie Street Bridge, which was an old corduroy bridge that had been covered and recovered with asphalt, but remained a corduroy bridge. It was bumpy, lumpy and narrow. The old Chevy had a hard time staying in its own lane at the best of times. Going over the Cambie Street Bridge required the utmost focus to arrive without taking out the bridge or any oncoming vehicle. This road in Capital Region of Canada was worse. Poor ol' Nobless did her very best to be nimble, but when you're 24' long, 12' high and carrying 14,000 Kgs, nimble isn't easy. The Two Guardian Pens were undone. Stuff fell, flew, tipped and toppled. Blair decided to create a blue streak to distract himself. I concentrated on sending my telekinetic powers to the trailer to help hold everything there in place - especially the car, which I surely didn't want to see bouncing down the road behind us. It was tense. It is passed. We're okay. The load has more or less maintained itself, and Nobless is sitting in the parking lot of the Best Western in Ottawa, beaming with self-pride. She is a capable chariot. In my anthropomorphic appreciation for arriving intact, I find myself feeling almost indebted to this Grand Lady for so capably taking care of her charges. Brava, Madam. Well done.

Today, we strive to reach Grand Falls. But first, there's Montreal to get through. Our track record with the passing through of Montreal is not great, I'm afraid to say. Perhaps Nobless will bring enough to the table to change our luck.

And we're off...

Day 6

At night before we go to sleep, we check our trusty Atlas to demark our path for the following day. Every morning,  sitting high in the throne of Nobless Nunchuk, we worry we might be pushing her too far. She continually proves that our concerns are unfounded. We made it to Thunder Bay and today, we set out for Sault Ste. Marie.

The Comfort Inn in Thunder Bay is bad. Don't go. The toilet paper could be used to refinish furniture. Furniture with 17 coats of paint. The towels could sand down a tree stump. A really dense tree stump. There was sticky stuff in the shower that I found by stepping on barefoot. Then my bloodhound barefoot found the sticky stuff on the carpet, and I was compelled to return to the shower. Pyjamas did not feel sufficient enough to protect from the feel of the sheets. We yearned for HazMat suits... preferably with built-in ear plugs to drown out the outed boyfriend in the hall, banging on the door and not taking "go away" as an acceptable answer, the girls laughing in the room next door while chopping away at their cocaine (razor on glass is a distinctive sound), or the two drunkards just outside our window having a heated debate that I'm sure neither of them, or anyone else, could decipher (too loud, too slurred, too disjointed). Consequently, we slept in fits and starts (fit to be tied, start to go mad, repeat as necessary). The morning came quickly and found  us ill-prepared but eager to depart. Thankfully, we were checked out automatically and there was no need to visit the front desk where I would have had to have glared at someone and maybe even say something and it would have been a bad start to the day. Or a second bad start - waking up there was the first bad start.
 
The drive during the last couple of dark, rain-drenched, pot-holed, horrible road hours shifted a few things and our load needed attention and resettling. That took a few minutes. Canadian Tire was our next stop. For such a large truck, there really isn't anywhere to put anything, save the little cubby holes above the seats, faced with netting that had been so abused over time that there might as well have been just holes. We needed to organize a few things that kept falling on our heads or borrowed an Avalanche Warning sign from the highways through the Rockies. I had, for example, been assaulted on several occasions by a paperback novel. Back in Swift Current, however, a man who had seen me clean the windshield came up to me to commend me for my efforts and handed me two cards pinned together by two ballpoint pens. The cards declared that no matter who I was or what crime I had committed, Jesus loved me. The presenter of this gift was a very sweet man and his intentions were pure. I happily accepted. I stuck those pens in the ruined mesh of my overhead cubby hole and had not been assaulted by the paperback since. The power of The Word is obviously strong.

Nonetheless, we needed to organize. And protect. Seat cushions and visor organizers were in order. And if we were lucky, cups that would fit and stay in the cupholders, instead of flying through the cab, threatening third-degree burns, or less if the coffee was older. Of course, one cannot go into Canadian Tire and only buy what's on the list, so it took longer than it would have if we had just purchased cups, visor organizers and seat cushions.

While Blair topped off fluids in the truck with the concoctions he had added to our purchases and put away the knives I had added, I went across the street with our new cups to Timmy's to season them properly. During his installation of my new seat cushion, on of the little plastic hooks revolted and slapped him across the cheek. It left a mark. I returned with our new coffee cups filled with hot coffee only to discover, on having the truck start to move, that they wouldn't be stable either, and caught them before further injury could be sustained. Luckily, the cups had nice, long handles, which I hooked instead into the basket I had bungie-corded to the cab between the two seats for other loose paraphernalia. Stable, if not a little harder to get to, coffee is a good thing.

The entire day of driving was spent skirting the shores of the mighty and beautiful Lake Superior, bypassing or travelling through scenic little towns like Red Rock, Terrace Bay, Marathon.  But let's get back to "the lake" first. Lake Superior, the deepest of all the great lakes, measures 1,335 feet at its deepest point, with an average depth of 500 feet. It's shores stretch 350 miles from east to west and 160 miles from north to south.

The Sea of Galilee is, at its deepest point, 150 feet. It is 13 miles long and 7 miles wide.

One definition of "lake" is  "A body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land; A large body of water contained in a depression of the earth's surface, and supplied from the drainage of a more or less extended area.

One definition of sea is, "Anything apparently limitless in quantity or volume;An inland body of water, esp. if large or if salt or brackish.

Notice that the salt or brackish quality given to a sea is not exclusive but more or less a recommendation. My point is that anyone seeing the vastness of Lake Superior must struggle with the term "lake". This is definitely a sea, complete with sandy beaches, waves, tides and turmoil. It's really big, I'm serious.

The terrain around Superior Sea is very green. A millions different shades of green blend to present a rich display of textures, light and shadow. There are none of the familiar loggers' carvings in the forests as there are in BC. No bald hilltops, no close-cropped hillsides. The foliage is almost tropical. Evergreens dominate, of course, but the other types of trees have a stratgey - they grow taller to steal some sun for themselves before the ever-present evergreens gobble it all. Consequently, a lush canopy of green rolls with the shape of the earth beneath, like the rainforests of Brazil, or aerial scenes from a Viet Nam war movie, or Out of Africa. In fall, when the deciduous trees drop their green burdens, perhaps the evergreens steal front stage, but here in June, it is the birch and elm et al attaining magnificent heights that catch the eye.

The foundational rock itself is magnificent in its own way. Granite outcroppings shattered to make way for the road expose their boldly striated pink insides. Or red. Or taupe. The colour is so brilliant that it seems out of place and brings visions of stone-faced fireplaces and elegant stepping stones to mind. Had we room for something larger than 1/2 cup of sand, I might have been eyeing some of the break-away smaller pieces a little differently.

Invading peoples' privacy at 90 km an hour, I steal glimpses of the gardens of private homes. At the top of the Sea, homes on the lakeside, where I'm sure they clammer to be, are shaded by the large hills behind them. The lilac bushes in these gardens have blooms on only the lakeside, where the sun is unimpeded in its march to kiss springtime buds. Even when the lake is not in view, the direction of it is given away by the lilacs.

Most of the waterways, other than the great Sea itself, are tinted. Ponds, pools, streams and rivers glint like steeped tea in the sun. Perhaps the wonderful red rocks are the cause, or tannins from the abundant foliage in its life-and-death rhythm.

Many trees along the roadside are wounded, dying or dead. There is debate whether this is caused simply by the fumes of traffic, or diseases or bugs brought in by those same vehicles. In any event, these roadside trees are the first defenders of the forests behind them, and I see them as martyred soldiers, the few dying for the many.

I've lost count of how many closed scales we've passed. Last time we actually pulled into an active scale station was Golden, in British Columbia. Perhaps word of their defeat has been sent out by the Scale Ogres and no one else dare challenge us. I don't think so, but dreams are fun.

We stopped in Wawa to refuel. Into the convenience I went to find something interesting - road food is wearing thin. I opened the beverage cooler to remove Pepsi for Blair and Iced Tea for me. Something happened - I don't know what. Perhaps I was distracted, or just having a blank moment. The bottle of Iced Tea fell from my hand. My reflexes are still pretty good so I did the Startled Shuffle to protect myself and almost, almost escaped unscathed. The only part of me that didn't escape was my little toe.

It is extraordinary how an insidious bottle of iced tea can gain sufficient momentum and velocity in its short downward drop to give the illusion of landing like a skid of 20 lb. bags of cement, and delivering unimaginable agony. Unfortunately, as I opened my mouth to share my share my wonderment of the physics of weight and gravity, only a string of expletives issued forth. The lady at the counter did her very best to ignore me, as I contained myself, retrieved the skid of cement and hobbled to the counter. Blair arrived from refuelling the Monster and was appropriately sympathetic and helped me to the truck, to the obvious relief of the Lady of the Counter. My poor little toe today looks as if I've been stomping blueberries, in a perfect little circle from front to back. I'll have my own little reminder of our adventure for some time to come. I'll laugh with you later, when it becomes funny to me.  Obviously, my Two Pens of Protection were sufficiently distracted by the dreaded paperback novel to afford no protection for falling Iced Tea of Cement. Maybe I should return to the sweet man and plead for more pens.

There was a bad accident on the road to Sault. A trailer, coincidentally loaded with cement, apparently tipped too far and fell against the old rockface on the road, which eagerly peeled away the side of the trailer like a metal fan. Contents were strewn and the ruined trailer remained as evidence of the folly of taking this winding, up hill down hill, road for granted. Curiously, the accident occurred just after the road disappeared again and plummeted unsuspecting travelling vehicles to a dusty barren gulch lasting about 15 kms. On this horribly bumpy section, a semi that should have been moving at about 70 kms came the other way at about 120, and shot a waiting missile from the ground straight at my face. Luckily, there was a protective windshield in the way of its hopeful destination and I was spared death, or at least life-long maiming, by tire-shot rock.

In the morning, we shall visit a glass repair place.... then set out for Ottawa.

Into the rising sun....

 

Day 5

 Leaving Portage La Prairie, we realized we'd lost another hour and
were heading out later than we'd planned. Skipped breakfast, which
was okay since we planned to meet up with Blair's Uncle John for
lunch in Winnipeg - actually at the big PetroCan on the Bypass
highway. There's a little Humpty's restaurant that, unlike other
restaurants in the chain, has won awards for original recipes. Huh,
who knew?? I keyed it into our trusty GPS and it popped up like a
jack-in-the-box. I was surprised... absolutely no Points of Interest
would appear ever since we'd left Swift Current. Perhaps, the GPS is
wiser than we even think it is... :-)

The fields and the highway trenches were overflowing from the
rainstorms the day before, but relative good weather was holding on.
We high-fived after passing each of two closed scales.

Lunch at the famous Humpty's was delicious... better even than
Billy's Sticky Fingers but not quite as good as Pilgrim's would have
been - I'm certain. After good conversation, lots of coffee and
laughter, we were bid "bon voyage" by Uncle John, though he doubted
we would reach our day's end destination of Thunder Bay.


With encouraging suddenness, we crossed the border into Ontario. The
increased frequency of tree groves should have alerted us that the
prairies were dropping behind us, but it was the rock outcrop that
startled us into that realization. What beautiful rocks they were...
hadn't seen any since the rockies!! Funny how you miss something you
see every day and then it's gone. Didn't even realize how much we
missed rocks until we saw them again.

We chased and then caught up with angry, black cloud upon entering
Ontario, some looking dangerously like funnel clouds. The rain
remained intermittent though, and the change of scenery was refreshing.

The change in air pressure wreaked havoc with one panel on the roof
of the truck, which would compress and then loudly pop. The first
time we heard that, we stopped and checked all of the tires, of
course. Then watched as the panel popped out again, with relief.

To make the kilometres go by less torturously, we made a game out of
road signs. The first sign read Lilac Campground. I wondered aloud if
there were lilacs at Lilac Campground. Blair said no. The next sign
read Rock Garden Campground. I wondered aloud if there was a rock
garden at Rock Garden Campground. Blair said, "No, but there are
lilacs." And the game was on. One of us (didn't matter which) had to
remember the last "thing" that wasn't at its namesake place to insert
it in the new one. That carried us until it was too dark to read the signs.

So then we started counting semis. We had to "fill" sets to four. One
alone counted as one. Two filled the two spot, etc. to four. Four was
hard to get. We made up rules as we went along. A car between semis
made the count invalid. A semi behind could be counted in as long as
we couldn't count past ten before it was beside us. That kept us
amused until the road disappeared.

The sign indicated a bump ahead... BUMP?? There in the rainy darkness
of Northern Ontario highway, we dropped about four inches, and drove
for much longer than we wanted on washboard dirt road, then up
another three inches. Doesn't sound like much, but we could hear and
FEEL the load shifting. Not a good thing with a car at the rear of
the truck. Without option, we simply carried on.

Nance, there's nothing left on the highway at Borup's Corners except
the sign announcing the empty space where something might have been.
I'd have taken a picture of the emptiness for you, but it was too
dark. Thought about you, though.

The darkness played tricks with the landscape. Blair thought that the
trees were fog. I could have sworn I saw a teddy bear waving from the
treeline. Stared it down, and it still looked like a teddy bear. The
dismembered bits of tires looked like entire murders of crows, black
and dead at the side of the road. A fallen and blackened evergreen
looked startlingly like a bear. And an unearthed tree stump
realistically took the shape of a moose. Perhaps we were seeing
"animals" because we were so concerned about hitting one, seeing too
many real carcasses at the side of the road during daylight.

The stretch between Ignace and Thunder Bay was treacherous - dark,
raining, lousy highway... But here we are, safely ensconced once more
to rest up for another day of adventure.

Must check and restore the load before we head off in the morning,
refuel... and beetle on down to, hopefully, Sault Ste. Marie by day's end.

We'll set our destination for the following day once there. We don't
really know what day it is or what time it is. It is strange how it
seems that what we did before has vanished, and it seems that all
we've ever done is drive in this truck until it's dark, sleep
somewhere that isn't home, and then do the same again the following
day. Other responsibilities have waned to insignificance, in favour
of load balance, fuel supply and vacancies at hotels. Oil pressure,
windshield wiper quality and tire condition are of equal
importance... and it seems today that it will always be thus. For
today, it is enough... until we reach our final destination and catch
sight of the Atlantic.

And in the morning, to the East!

 

Day 4

On and on they go, these prairies. Not much change in terrain but a beautiful day full of sunshine. We left Little Salt Lake City  and drove on to Moose Jaw, where we stopped for Timmy's (turn right at the Moose - yes, that's what their sign says) and was served by a very rude ditz who was given terse instructions on how to talk to customers, but only after we had coffee in hand. Then we spotted a Sobeys and headed off to get some fresh fruit. Splitting up to minimize time spent, I gathered fresh edibles while Blair stood in line for cigarettes. I was in the truck and had washed all our edibles before he returned, empty handed and frustrated. The one cashier at customer service left her post to search with another customer for an elusive product. We had a quick lunch of fresh carrots and ice cream bars. YUM! And left Moose Jaw to its own devices, which is a bit scary.

Perhaps made delirious from the unchanging vista, we saw a silo that looked like a big chicken sitting in a hot tub
 (hot tub?? oh yeah, that would be later!) Then we saw Gumby sitting in a hot tub. Then a stork in a hot tub. Yes, a theme was building. The more we sat bouncing in our chairs, carried ever-forward by our loyal, if not rather lumpy, chariot, the more hot tubs we saw.

The tree-shrouded farm houses seem to envelope tiny independent cities within. Far from each other, each with an expanse of tilled soil, or hay fields, with tractors perched to attach another quadrant, or cows lazing under the shade of the occasional  tree stand, they seem to be little worlds of their own, the inhabitants kept quite busy within the confines of these mini-cities. The huge silos give witness to the labour in these mini-cities, visions of small cogs turning large cogs dancing in the puffy clouds overhead.

There are many implements in the fields with unknown but obviously important purposes. A thing-a-ma-jig to every what-not.

Prairie dogs pop up from the many holes they've dug, hearing the sound of engines coming to close, and scurrying to underground destinations best known to themselves. Deer in numbers suddenly burst from a stand of trees, realize they've been seen, and rush back to their green hiding places. The sameness is deceiving. This is a very busy place.

We passed through CaronPort where we noticed the beloved Pilgrims Inn. Thinking they'd expanded, we carried on to Brandon where we believed the original was. It was not, and the dreams of fluffy mashed potatoes, home gravy and mile-high lemon meringue were dashed. After anguished discussion, we concluded that Pilgrims Inn was always in CaronPort, never in Brandon and our memories had failed us miserably. Hungry and disappointed, we carried on to Portage La Prairie, nibbling fresh carrots that no longer tasted as good, lamenting the loss of our overly-anticipated stop at Pilgrims.

Arriving in Portage, we realized that we'd lost yet another hour and the hot tub at Days Inn was closed. DRATS! We weren't going to mimic chicken, Gumby or stork sitting in a hot tub. And the restaurant was closed... DOUBLE DRATS! We obtained a few recommendations from the front desk, and being a little tired of pizza, chose Billy's Sticky Fingers for chicken dinner. It was, alas, not Pilgrims Inn, but tasty nonetheless.

Tomorrow, we meet up with Blair's uncle for Breakfast in Winnipeg, then head east to put as much of a dent in the very wide province of Ontario as possible.

The "laundry" suitcase now holds more than the "clean" suitcase. Does that mean we're more than halfway? Not quite, but we're making headway.

Nobless Nunchuk (aka The Monster) can do over 1,000 kms on a tank (double tank) of full, but she lumbers more with a full tank. Tonight we're doing the calculations/destinations to keep her only half full, so that she can glide across the country like she no doubt does in her big truck dreams. Nothing has shifted in the load. All is well.

The weather network says we'll be chasing thunderstorms through Ontario. At least the terrain will change and, for the first day anyway, won't seem so interminably unending/unchanging.

Judging by past performance and if all goes well, we'll be in Thunder Bay by day's end.

Onward...

Day 10

It's about a three hour drive from Blair's parents' place to our place in Musquodoboit Harbour. But we weren't going to Musquodoboit Harbour right away. We had one more stop to make - my brother Max and his wife Kim are in Dartmouth and they were waiting for us.

All things familiar started appearing through our windshield. We had made this trip between Dieppe and home many, many times. Memramcook, home to a few well-known wrestlers. The Tantramar marsh where CBC has the radio towers that transmit to the world. Aulac, home of another Big Irving and usual stopping point (but not this time). The cut-off for the bridge to PEI. And then the Nova Scotia Welcome Centre.

The entry into Nova Scotia from New Brunsiwck is probably the prettiest provincial border crossing in the country. Maybe the world. The Welcome Centre is very welcoming, a charming building atop a green knoll, beckoning visitors to come and discover. There used to be a fellow playing the bagpipes at the border, and that was AWEsome. But budget contraints have ruined that most impressive sight - a lone piper in a kilt of Nova Scotia tartan, atop a grassy knoll, welcoming all with the unmistakable Scottish-rooted tones that says Nova Scotia in the very notes of the tune. But the Welcome Centre is still very charming, the sign is still wonderfully maintained, and the arrival at the border to Nova Scotia unbelievably joyous.

The Welcome Centre is in Amherst, though, home of the dreaded weigh station, feared by even the Sadists of Salisbury, and it wasn't long until we were yet again pulling in to be at the mercy of our provincial monitors.

Yet again, we were waved out of line for the scale to the Inspection Area. Yet again, I was filled to busting with trepidation, the vision of the rear end of the Sidekick winking in the sunlight into the eyes of a red-faced inspector, who would no doubt weigh us and find that we were overweight. The fines, according to the Sadists of Salsbury, are enourmous.

Yet again, we were asked for our paperwork, which we handed over with obvious weighted resignation.

The fellow asked Blair if he stopped at any reserves to pick up illegal cigarettes. Blair was totally taken by surprise with the question, and the fellow started laughing. We were out of Amherst in no time and headed home, and passed all weigh stations without having to open up the back of the truck. We were home-free... scale-wise. We breathed a huge sigh of relief and I felt a great weight, perhaps the same amount that we were overweight, lifted from my shoulders.

On we went, the reality of being home emphasized with each and every signing announcing our arrival at familiar places - the cut-off for Parrsboro, Springhill - home to Anne Murray, Oxford - the wild blueberry capital of Canada, Pugwash, Tatamagouche (one of my personal favourites to say out loud), the Cobequid Pass, where there is a toll. Last one in Canada, I do believe. The old road used to go through Wentworth - wonderfully scenic, twisty-turny road, much like the road up to Kamloops from Vernon. Get behind a slow guy or a big truck, your trip time tripled. I like the old way, though, even though we rarely go that way anymore. Then Masstown. We usually stop at Masstown. There's a wonderful store there, like a smaller Swan Lake, with fresh produce, a bakery, a deli, a gift shop... there's always something to bring home at Masstown Market. But not this time.

The entry into the mainland of Nova Scotia is one exit from the Miners' Memorial Highway - one. If you miss it, you're off to Cape Breton whether you want to go or not. We didn't miss it and headed toward Truro, off the Miners' Memorial and on to the Veterans Memorial Highway. Here and there, the muddy banks of the Shubie River (Shubenacadie, formally) which boasts a tidal bore that rivals Moncton's, winks through the trees with the bright red mud with which a good stretch of the highway here is paved. In some places, one side of the divided highway is paved with the red mud, while the other side is the standard gray - it's very strange to look at.

We pass Stewiacke and the famous Mastadon Ridge.  It's a Tim Horton's and gas station collective, behind which is a gift store and a hill with a big mastadon statue. The Mastodon Replica represents the male juvenile Mastodon whose bones were unearthed in 1991 at the National Gypsum Quarry near Milford, N.S. The Stewiacke cut-off can also be taken to access Highway 357, a scenic route through Middle Musquodoboit, running along the banks of the Musquodoboit River, down to Musquodoboit Harbour. We take this way frequently, especially in the fall when each turn of the road showcases a spectacular panorama of brightly coloured trees, wearing their Autumn best, defying imagination if never seen first-hand. But not today.

We pass the Robert L. Stanfield International Airport. There's a small lake just south of the airport that used to house the Dragon Log. Everyone knew the Dragon Log, an old dead tree, spiking up from the depths of the lake, looking very much like a dragon with its misshapen limbs. It was there for a very, very long time, until someone thought it would be fun to destroy it. If that person or persons decided to be forthcoming about the deed to claim some fame, they'd probably get a good sound beating every day for the rest of their lives from all who came into contact with them. Nonetheless, with the twinge of loss still floating in my mind, we pass that spot and take the turn-off for Cole Harbour/Eastern Shore.

The main intersection of our travels living here looms ahead. It is the Forest Hills intersection and very Maritime. A Sobey's Superstore, a Tim Horton's, a Canadian Tire Gas Station and a Kent Home Show park flank the instersection. Turn left for Lawrencetown, Lake Echo, Chezzetcook, Porters Lake and ultimately, Musquodoboit Harbour. Turn right for Dartmouth, and the bridges to Halifax. We turn right, against every nerve screaming to turn left, and head for Max and Kim's. They live not far from this intersection and we arrive in minutes, seeing my brother on the street watching for us. There are hugs and handshakes, laughing - a warmth surrounds the scene that only home and family can bring. We settle in to spend the night, teaching Kim's boys how to tie a tie for their upcoming Grad Party, pat the three cats we haven't seen for a year - fat Bailey, lovingly nicknamed Basketball Jones, because he looks like a basketball with a cat's head stuck on it, so large but very lovable; grey and crazy Herman, the last of the six cats Max brought with him from Toronto, free-spirited Scruff, lovingly nicknamed Scruffy McMuffin.  We drink, play cards, and marvel at the thought that we are home to stay.

In the morning, it is time to consider taking the Sidekick out of Noblesse. She has carried her burden successfully to our destination and it is time to relieve her of that obligation. We have many thoughts on how this would be best accomplished. I suggest I climb into the back, because I'm the smallest of the present stick-shifters, rev up and zoom out of the back end of the truck, hoping the shocks can withstand... well, the shock. The idea is not embraced by my comrades. We think about driving around the industrial park looking for a dock suitable for disembarking. And then, Blair has a brainstorm. Not his first, not his last, but certainly one that will be remembered for some time. He suggests we call a tow truck company, have them bring a platform truck, which we will simply drive onto, and be gently placed road side. Stellar!! We go out to Noblesse to prepare.

Opening up the truck and removing everything from the tail end, it became readily apparent that the Sidekick had seriously shifted. Where the frame was built and the Sidekick placed in the centre, the passenger side of the car was now up against the passenger side of the frame. Removing the car from where it sat would rip the entire passenger side apart. We were immediately reminded of that set of railroad tracks we'd hit in the dark coming through a particularly desolate section of northern Ontario highway. In any event, the car would have to be shoved over, in a tight fitting frame, surrounded by well-acked household goods. I had an idea - the fellas groaned, remembering my idea about driving out the back of the truck, but I persisted. If we put a jack under the car, lifting it ever so slightly, we might be able to shove it over enough to take it out without immediately needing a paint job. Max had a bottle jack, which we placed under the rear passenger tire, lifted it just a bit, and the three of us took our positions and shoved hard, moving the Sidekick a good four or five inches, which was enough.

We had more coffee while we waited for the tow truck. A young fellow arrived with his platform truck and Blair explained to him what we wanted to do. He was all smiles and filled with a sense of adventure. I backed the Sidekick out with Blair's guidance. The platform tilted, and I drove it to the street. Easy-peasey, lemon-squeezey. We repacked the stuff that had come off to get to the car. The fellas got in the truck and headed for home, while I took the Sidekick to the grocery store to meet them there with supplies... and coffee.

I have no pictures of my arrival at the house because I was driving, with the camera in my knapsack. But I can describe it to you with one word. Glorious. The house is old, but solid, and standing there all stalwart looking, with the ocean as a backdrop and a lake as a side-note, I feel what I always feel arriving here - renewed.. There is packing and unpacking to be done, painting and landscaping, cleaning and clearing, and every single solitary task will be a labour of love.

We've done many things since arriving here, four months ago now... replaced the furnace, got a new oil tank (fibreglass - it's a t'ing of beauty, by'!), septic maintenance, water system maintenance, new clothes line, new lawn mower, generator, etc. etc. We've moved in and we're settling in quite nicely. Had a couple of hurricanes already, and the swimming has been awesome this year. If the winds are what we have to take on to have a summer like this one passed, than so be it.

We have our email - magold@eastlink.ca - we've got rid of our land line and gone with the Magic Jack - new number 902-800-0345. We both have new cell phone numbers - Cathie - 902 579 3455, Blair - 902 240 1188. Please take note of these - the old numbers/email addresses are gone.

We miss everyone we left behind, but happily embracing our lives here. You know where we are - come see us sometime. It's been a wonderful journey, but this IS the final destination.

 

Day 9 Maritime

Don't you just hate it when your favourite show goes off the air for no apparent reason??

Anyway, the hectic flurry of activity has slowed to light speed so the opportunity to sit and type for a few minutes arrived and was grasped firmly.

We left our Dynamic Duo (Blair insists on being Batman) in Edmunston, New Brunswick.

After a good night's sleep, we loaded our trusty chariot with our overnight things through a very handy patio door in our room that put us in the yard and just  a few steps away from Noblesse. Easiest load-up ever. Blair, though eager to get on the road, this close to home, still takes the time to perform his morning checks - tires, oil, other fluids... once satisfied that all was good with Noblesse, we begin the penultimate leg of our journey, our destination for this day one loved and familiar.

Being a menopausal woman in the truck cab sitting over a massive and very capable, though quite heat-radiating, engine, the manual window knob of the passenger's side (that would be mine) has never before seen such activity. That window, over that past few days, has been up and down with more frequency than a Mexican Jumping Bean on steroids. The only consolation is that there are no mirrors in the cab, so I don't even catch a glimpse of what the wind has done to my hair. I'm on the road, after all, and certainly the rules must be different here.

The clouds ahead on this cool but sunny day jumble at the horizon, white, bulky cumulus rarely seen out west. The terrain has changed considerably... the hills more rolling here, sloping ever eastward toward the Atlantic where the land will kiss the ocean, having come so far to see her.

The earth, like the marvelous rock of Superior coastside in Ontario, is red. Where the grass is patchy on the humps of the meridians, red shows brilliantly through. The river beds are lined in red clay, favoured and visited frequently by potters and other artisans who covet the bold colour of the earth itself. Great stretches of highway, mortared with the neighbouring red clay, point the way in colour unseen elsewhere in Canada. It reminds me of the song by Stompin' Tom Connors - "I'm Bud the Spud from the bright red mud..." - it really is red. And the highway portions built from it seem to be in better condition than the usual gray. PEI is well-known for its potato growing, but New Brunswick should be as well. When shopping at home, I actually look for the New Brunswick potatoes because of a story we were told a while ago, about a man who went to the doctor in Montreal because of headaches. The doctor, after examining him, told him what part of PEI he lived in, knowledge inferred by the frequency with which folks eating the produce from that area ended up with brain tumours. Yep, I look for the New Brunswick potatoes instead.

 

The road signs are different in New Brunswick. We pass one where a graphic of a car is half the size of the graphic of a moose - way more realistic. We also notice that the exits are numbered in conjunction with the kilometers traveled from the border. If you're looking for something that is off Exit 61, for example, you know that the exit is 61 kms from the border. And, because there are little placards for the kms all along the way, you know exactly how far you must go to reach your destination.... very clever. I'm thinking I might have mentioned that before, and if so, then it bears mentioning again, and if not, it's not the kindof information I'd want to keep to myself.

 

About two hundred kilometers outside of Fredericton, Blair calls long-time friends, Lynn Allan and Charlene, and they give us directions to a cafe called the Blue Canoe right on the highway, where they will meet us for lunch. On our way, we pass Grand Falls, New Denver, Aroostook, taking note of the many farm fields atop rounded hills, verdant and vibrant, an testament to the rich soils here at the foothills of the Appalachians. There is a cut-off to drop south into the Appalachian Range proper... tempted, we steer our stalwart chariot toward our rendezvous with friends not seen for far too long.

 

Northern New Brunswick is a marvel of diverse topography: gently rolling hills of green, then of a sudden, a deep ravine at the bottom of which the might St. John River makes its determined trek, depositing goodness that feeds the greenery all along its path. Then flatlands again, beyond which the rolling hills can be seen to take up their march eastward once more. The highway here is divided and almost silken under the tires of our mount which has seen roads far worse in provinces far richer.  Farmhouses nestle into the planned tree windbreak atop hills where farmers can survey their domain.   In Hartland, we see the sign for the cut-off for the country's, no, the world's, longest covered bridge. Again, we're tempted, but we have things to do and people to see, but make note to take that trip again sometime in the near future.  We pass a building near this sign that announces "Covered Bridge Potato Chip Company", making that trip even more necessary! Wait for us, I think to myself. We'll be back. (I would have said so out loud but days ago, Blair and I learned to speak aloud only the really important things, since it took yelling and a couple of "What!"'s to get the message across. She's stalwart, yes, and regal our Noblesse, but she isn't quiet while running.)

 

We reach the "Welcome to Fredericton" sign, and see, shortly after that, the sign for the cut-off to King's Landing, a historical (yes, "a" historical - some of you may think that grammatically, that should be "an" historical" - but "an" in front of words that start with "h" is a rule only for those who don't pronouce the "h" in the first place.No, I'm not pointing fingers, Colin, my British friend, just pointing out the obvious) settlement where one is immersed into the ways of the turn-of-the-century community, complete with garb and food of the times. We make a note to get back there, as well.

 

A sign announces a scale ahead in our path, but again, the scale is closed, and we carry on, marvelling at our good fortune thus far.

 

Little rivulets make their way down the hill and pour out at roadside. It is not uncommon, here in the Maritimes, to see such rivulets, or to see folks parked alongside the road, bottles of every description in hand, catching the pure liquid at its exit point. I remember one in Cape Breton, at Iron Mines where a spigot was actually installed for easy access, that my father would not pass without filling a few containers to take home. Seeing these rivulets is not only nostaligic, but a profound punctuation of where we were - in the land of pricey bottled water in fancy containers that announce pie-in-the-sky claims of goodness and purity - and where we are - where people of the earth catch water from their favourite rivulets, flowing freely down a hillside, into empty Coca Cola bottles and mason jars. No further comment required.

 

At last we reach the Irving Big Stop. It is Big, and Big Trucks can Stop without any problem. I'm sure these factors played a significant role in the name of these grand outposts of renown among truckers Canada-wide. Big... Stop. The fuelling stations accomodate large rigs, with a high canopy and satellite pumps so that a duel-tank truck, like ours, can be filled at the same time with one bill. In other lesser stations, we'd actually have to turn around to fill the other tank, and have two bills. The Big Stop is a trucker's paradise - lots of room to move about, turn without a problem, fuel up, or park somewhere easy to get into and easy to get out of, and have a snooze in the sleeper compartment. Lots of rigs here, one from as far west as Nanaimo, bustling at the fueling stations and parked along the back of the lot.  We hook up with Lynn and Charlene, head in for a bite to eat and catch up on each other's news. I had a bowl of turkey soup there that almost made me faint with joy - home-made, rich and tasty... digestible road food, finally!! We have our friendly server take a picture of us IN the Blue Canoe - of course they have one!! - hug and kiss our good friends with a promise to get together when there is more time, fuel up at the big fuel station, and make our way for Dieppe, where Blair's Dad will celebrate his birthday with his Number Two son at the table with him in just a few short hours.

 

But first, we had to get through the scale, which was open and, apparently, laying in wait for us, at Salisbury. We knew it was going to be something more than a quick drive over the scales when we were immediately waved to the dreaded Inspection Area. A fellow came up to the window and asked for our IPA, RPO, JFK, hoop-de-doo, and I don't know what else, while I stared at him with eyes glassing  over and mouth agape with lips just perceptively quivering.  I started envisioning, once again, a fellow with provincial power that had gone to his head, ordering us to open up the back of the truck and have the rear end of the Sidekick pointed at his nose. Blair got out of the truck and started chatting with the guy, as did I. When he mentioned the NSC, which we had, Blair kicked me, right in the toe that had been pummeled by the bottle of iced tea, afraid that I was going to lose my cool. I grimaced, and limped back to the truck to get the paperwork the fellow had requested. When I returned and handed over the insurance papers, he asked me for the registration. "We're from BC, land of ICBC. It's all the same.", I said. "You only have pleasure insurance on this truck!", he said with alarm. I explained it wasn't a business truck, that we were moving ourselves back to Nova Scotia. He asked me if we had any restrictions, to which I responded, "We can only drive this vehicle to work five days a month," with mostly humour and some sarcasm. He looked at me as if I had popped the lid of my head to show him that, yes, I only possessed half a brain, and unfortunately, maintained the half that allowed my mouth to keep working. I decided to let Blair do the rest of the talking, while they looked under the chasis, tested the tires, checked the engine emissions and other things. Noblesse was found fault-free, except for oil coming out of one of the front tire oil-wells, which they claimed to be a serious leak, although Blair kept to himself that he had been a little messy topping up the oil wells that morning and it wasn't a leak at all.

 

After pointing out the thousands of dollars in fines we could be hit with, two good ol' boys leaned their heads together, guffawed a bit, and let us be on our way, warning us that we would be lucky to get passed the tough guys in Amherst, chortling at the mere thought of us pulling into that infamous weigh station with our big truck and toy paperwork. We made it to Dieppe for dinner without a minute to spare. No, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure we were late, but at least it was the right day!

 

Family was awaiting our arrival and gaped at the monstrosity in which we arrived, marvelled at the concept of returning with so much STUFF when everyone knew we had a house full fo STUFF. All wondered where we might STUFF the new STUFF or the old STUFF and how STUFFed the house was going to be with STUFF. STUFF is a four-letter word... don't be fooled by that extra "F". It's not just the ending of the word - it is an expletive just waiting to be said.

 

After a most enjoyable birthday dinner and visit with family, a good sleep in familiar surroundings, on the 10th of June, we headed out of Dieppe, bound for Nova Scotia... home... final destination... Noblesse seemingly sensing the end of a long journey, carrying us smoothly and unerringly eastward.

Day 8
Having planned wisely the night before with the assistance of the trusty GPS, we awoke at the Best Western (Macies) in Ottawa on the east side, having put most of the city behind us. Check out at this hotel is not until 1:00 pm, which is quite generous. Breakfast at the in-hotel was horrible - don't bother if you find yourself there.

Much of the highway through eastern Ontario is segemented - laid like slabs cross-wise across the highway, which might have seemed like a good idea to the City Engineer who put his stamp of approval on that approach, but he obviously never drove a rig, or even a truck like ours. I declared that he should be shot. Blair countered that he should be mixed in with the road top and laid out over the grooves his good idea caused. Nonetheless we made our way through the remainder of Ontario with nothiaren't ng much more than complaint.

We needed fuel. Many of the gas stations that advertise at the highway exit signs aren't really set up for large trucks, hence the Rules of the Road: 1. NEVER pull off unless you can see your destination from the road and can ascertain if it is appropriate, especially if you're driving something like the Monster. 2. NEVER bother with anything on the wrong side of the road - it's just not worth the hassle and there will no doubt be something further along on the right side. Unfortunately, there are times when the destination is only seen after the only off-ramp is passed. Such was the case near the border to Quebec. The advertisement was for Herb's, a gas station with which we were unfamiliar. So we passed the cut-off, and were almost immediately presented with an immaculate looking station on the right side of the road, with beautiful, high canopies over glistening diesel pumps, and a massive yard surrounding the station for easy entrance and exit. DRATS!

Before we knew it, we had left the land of cheaper fuel and entered the land of more expensive fuel - more than 10 cents a litre, which may not sound like much, but when the Monster you're driving can guzzle 200 litres, it starts adding up.

AND with less than half a tank (which is really one full tank - the other empty), we found ourselves on the outskirts of Montreal.

Our past record with Montreal has been hinted at. Let me expound upon that theme. Montreal is the bane of every cross-country trip we've ever taken. Driving through Montreal has caused loss of years of life, nightmares, shakes, dread and uncontrollable greasy discharge. Okay, maybe not that last thing, but close.

As we entered City Limits, we cruised along nicely and thought that perhaps Nobless Nunchuk has indeed brought enough bonus to the table to enable quick and safe passage through the dreaded city. Then we came to a screeching halt, and literally inched our way, over the next two hours, ever-so-slowly through the city. Drivers there for most part confirmed our remembered description of "aggressive" and "rude" and downright crazy. Most of the delay was caused by vehicles rushing up a lane that was supposed to cut off, only to cut into the lane they shunned at the proper merge point. Road rage must have been invented on Highway 20 through Montreal. If my toe wasn't still throbbing, I'm sure I would have been out of the Grand Lady like a shot, to rant and shake my fists at anyone who would look my way, which would be almost no one, since the culprits very rarely make eye contact. We inched and grumbled, and groaned and tried very hard, with success in retrospect, not to just RAM all those much smaller vehicles and laugh hysterically as we made our way to the Tunnel over the ruins of whichever vehicle got in our way.

Once through the city, Timmy's was definitely in order. The Esso we stopped at just outside Montreal was one of those gas stations not quite prepared for larger trucks. And the fellow there directed us to a Tim Horton's that was also not prepared for larger trucks, nor was the town. As we weaved through narrow streets and parked in an empty parking lot a block away from the coffee shop, I reminded Blair of the Rules of the Road (see above). We glared at each other for a moment, got out, got coffee, felt better, laughed and returned to our chariot, where liquid B-12 awaited consumption. It revitalizes and makes the road-weariness a little less poignant.

All day long, we hung behind the black, angry clouds that marked the track of the rainstorm attempting to drown  towns along the highway yet undriven. Actually, our daily monitor of the weather station makes it clear to us that we have dodged bullets the whole journey east. We were just behind a storm front in the western provinces, and left another just behind us. Here in the eastern provinces, we were either just behind or just north of some radical weather fronts. While we were sleeping in Ottawa, southern Ontario was hit by a tornado. Behind us, Manitoba and Saskatchewan were being rained out.  Nobless was like a tip-toeing elephant, picking ever-so-carefully the best path to arrive with all intact. And a couple of Guardian Pens (and maybe Angels) were assisting. We have been very lucky in timing and travel routes.

The drive north to Riviere-du-Loup is absolutely stunning, though not many pictures will prove worthy of posting, ruined by the dark clouds to the southeast. Expansive farm fields, church spires shining against the dark skies, the magnificent St. Lawrence, dotted with the trail end of the southern Appalachians, conspire to take the breath away of all who gaze upon the wholeness of the landscape.

Leaving that splendour behind, making our way through a few more carnival displays on the darkening highway, under construction to improve but temporarily abandoned by the workers who will return in the morning, we enter New Brunswick, almost suddenly, without fanfare. An Irving Big Stop rises from the fog ahead and beckons us into a large truck-stop sized yard, to park and saunter in to a place so familiar that to enter becomes a yearning. We sit, drink, snack and feel unable to stay anywhere tonight except behind the wheel, to carry on now that we are so close.

But a driver in the diner tells us that the moose are all over the road, and that the hill down to Fredericton is blanketed in dense fog. He suggests that if we don't absolutely have to drive on, to find sanctuary somewhere comfortable and go again in the morning.

We debate - with each other and with ourselves. We drive on, the fog envelopes us, and we look for a light bright enough to signal us through this thick soup of atmosphere around us.It appears, like a halo. We pull in. This is a lovely spot - the Days Inn - Saint Basile in Edmunston. Blair has closed his stubborn but reddened eyes and breathes quietly in bed behind me. I write to my family and friends to assure them we are safe once more, this night. Tomorrow will bring us to environs very familiar and much loved. Thursday will do the same and Friday, the posted pictures will be of our final destination, our home, where we hope to stay for a while and doff off the dust and doldrums of a very, very long highway across this magnificent, diverse country.

But tonight... sleep, with dreams of fog burning off and sunshine guiding our way tomorrow.

Day 7

Perhaps the squirrel was an omen...

We checked out of the Super 8 in the Sault and headed to an auto glass place to see what we could do about the injury to Nobless' windshield. We'd called Speedy - they wanted a minimum of $70. The local fellow wanted $20, if we paid cash. Cash, then, and off we went to see the local fellow. We didn't have too far to go.Got up to fourth gear when a black squirrel, obviously without his morning coffee to sharpen his wits, darted out in front of the truck. We were able to stop just before hitting him, although I had visions of cobalt blue mixing bowls flying through the front panel of the truck and squashing the little fellow as effectively as if we hit him.

Carrying on, we pulled into the parking lot of the auto glass place. A lady pulled out of the lot and sat in our turn space as if we were driving a mini and could easily get around her. She got honked, woke up and moved out of the way. The fellow at the glass place needed a few minutes so we headed for the mall next door to see what the locals were up to. There was a dirt path between the two places with a bit of a steep grade downward. My purple toe rebelled, and I had to hop my way down. Going up wasn't as bad.

An older fellow sat inside the mall doors selling tickets to some raffle sponsored by, appropriately, The Fraternal Order of Moose. I bought one. We had coffee at a little shop, and while sitting at a little table, downloaded pictures from the camera. Blair went to look around while I marveled at the live trees potted in the wide aisles of the mall, topped by skylights, to which they stretched their limbs. 

Returning to Nobless, we found her injury fairly well patched, though the scar was still visible. The fellow assured us that while it was still visible, the damage wouldn't get worse. Fair enough for 20 bucks.

Somehow while attempting to put the Sault behind us, we ended up in an area of town that was definitely not a truck route. No sign or cross-street cable looked high enough to allow our safe passage. After some tense moments and awesome manoeuvering by the most adaptable truck driver I know, we refound the highway without taking out the power lines for the whole east side.

Once on the highway, I settled in and organized our stuff (stuff - the reason why we needed the Monster in the first place!), I contemplated the unsung heroics of the small toe. It helps us balance and shift, walk and reach up, and until it hurts to put even the smallest bit of pressure on it, its herculean feats (no pun intended) largely go unnoticed. I'm noticing now, little guy, and promise to never take you for granted again, if you'll heal a little quicker, please.

On this Day 7, Blair and I fall into Road Delirium Conversation. I've seen it before, and though alarming, it does pass once the suitcases are stowed to the back of the closet. An example of RDC goes like this:

Oh, look - log cabins available on Lumber Road.

Yeah, just don't rush down there or you won't get one. You have to lumber.

I wonder why they don't call the road Log Road.

Because then only Journalists would visit... and the logs don't like the way Journalists look at them with that paper-lust in their eyes.

Insert hysterical laughter here. RDC - the deadly road weary condition no one talks about.

Roadsides here in Ontario show off fabulous beds of lupins. After Juan, lupins all but disappeared in Nova Scotia. We have none on our property and they are conspicuous by their absence on the routes we take in and out of town. I miss them and vow to make a concerted effort to help lupins make a come-back, especially where I can see them.

There are definitely very strange road signs in Ontario. We've concluded that they must be getting the cheaper signs from China, where something gets lost in the translation. We passed a few that showed a horse and cart. A few with a car with a bunch of dots around it - no idea what that one was. The tipping trailer is a scary one.

The railroad tracks ran along side the highway for quite a while and made me reminisce about a childhood memory concerning the railroad signs that were actually yellow rectangles with two round holes in them. I remember trying to look through the two holes, thinking that I might see some magical world on the other side or some other secret the adults were obviously trying to keep to themselves, judging by the height of the "peek holes". Those yellow rectangles are white now, and instead of two holes, there are two painted black dots. We concluded that these, too, must be coming from China, where the painted circles are easier and cheaper to make. How many Canadian children have been denied the magic of wondering what the two peek holes might hold? And, no doubt, the paint had cadmium in it, and would have to join McDonalds Shrek glasses in widespread recall.

The road from North Bay to Arnprior, in this the Capital Region of Canada, supposedly an important segment of the Trans Canada Highway, was the worst of the highways we had traveled so far. Back when I first moved to Vancouver, my sister and I bought a 1956 Chevy 5 ton and hauled away the stuff that people didn't want. (There's stuff again... it certainly does absorb a lot of our time, money and effort, doesn't it?) Back then, the city dump was in Richmond, across the old Cambie Street Bridge, which was an old corduroy bridge that had been covered and recovered with asphalt, but remained a corduroy bridge. It was bumpy, lumpy and narrow. The old Chevy had a hard time staying in its own lane at the best of times. Going over the Cambie Street Bridge required the utmost focus to arrive without taking out the bridge or any oncoming vehicle. This road in Capital Region of Canada was worse. Poor ol' Nobless did her very best to be nimble, but when you're 24' long, 12' high and carrying 14,000 Kgs, nimble isn't easy. The Two Guardian Pens were undone. Stuff fell, flew, tipped and toppled. Blair decided to create a blue streak to distract himself. I concentrated on sending my telekinetic powers to the trailer to help hold everything there in place - especially the car, which I surely didn't want to see bouncing down the road behind us. It was tense. It is passed. We're okay. The load has more or less maintained itself, and Nobless is sitting in the parking lot of the Best Western in Ottawa, beaming with self-pride. She is a capable chariot. In my anthropomorphic appreciation for arriving intact, I find myself feeling almost indebted to this Grand Lady for so capably taking care of her charges. Brava, Madam. Well done.

Today, we strive to reach Grand Falls. But first, there's Montreal to get through. Our track record with the passing through of Montreal is not great, I'm afraid to say. Perhaps Nobless will bring enough to the table to change our luck.

And we're off...

Day 6

At night before we go to sleep, we check our trusty Atlas to demark our path for the following day. Every morning,  sitting high in the throne of Nobless Nunchuk, we worry we might be pushing her too far. She continually proves that our concerns are unfounded. We made it to Thunder Bay and today, we set out for Sault Ste. Marie.

The Comfort Inn in Thunder Bay is bad. Don't go. The toilet paper could be used to refinish furniture. Furniture with 17 coats of paint. The towels could sand down a tree stump. A really dense tree stump. There was sticky stuff in the shower that I found by stepping on barefoot. Then my bloodhound barefoot found the sticky stuff on the carpet, and I was compelled to return to the shower. Pyjamas did not feel sufficient enough to protect from the feel of the sheets. We yearned for HazMat suits... preferably with built-in ear plugs to drown out the outed boyfriend in the hall, banging on the door and not taking "go away" as an acceptable answer, the girls laughing in the room next door while chopping away at their cocaine (razor on glass is a distinctive sound), or the two drunkards just outside our window having a heated debate that I'm sure neither of them, or anyone else, could decipher (too loud, too slurred, too disjointed). Consequently, we slept in fits and starts (fit to be tied, start to go mad, repeat as necessary). The morning came quickly and found  us ill-prepared but eager to depart. Thankfully, we were checked out automatically and there was no need to visit the front desk where I would have had to have glared at someone and maybe even say something and it would have been a bad start to the day. Or a second bad start - waking up there was the first bad start.
 
The drive during the last couple of dark, rain-drenched, pot-holed, horrible road hours shifted a few things and our load needed attention and resettling. That took a few minutes. Canadian Tire was our next stop. For such a large truck, there really isn't anywhere to put anything, save the little cubby holes above the seats, faced with netting that had been so abused over time that there might as well have been just holes. We needed to organize a few things that kept falling on our heads or borrowed an Avalanche Warning sign from the highways through the Rockies. I had, for example, been assaulted on several occasions by a paperback novel. Back in Swift Current, however, a man who had seen me clean the windshield came up to me to commend me for my efforts and handed me two cards pinned together by two ballpoint pens. The cards declared that no matter who I was or what crime I had committed, Jesus loved me. The presenter of this gift was a very sweet man and his intentions were pure. I happily accepted. I stuck those pens in the ruined mesh of my overhead cubby hole and had not been assaulted by the paperback since. The power of The Word is obviously strong.

Nonetheless, we needed to organize. And protect. Seat cushions and visor organizers were in order. And if we were lucky, cups that would fit and stay in the cupholders, instead of flying through the cab, threatening third-degree burns, or less if the coffee was older. Of course, one cannot go into Canadian Tire and only buy what's on the list, so it took longer than it would have if we had just purchased cups, visor organizers and seat cushions.

While Blair topped off fluids in the truck with the concoctions he had added to our purchases and put away the knives I had added, I went across the street with our new cups to Timmy's to season them properly. During his installation of my new seat cushion, on of the little plastic hooks revolted and slapped him across the cheek. It left a mark. I returned with our new coffee cups filled with hot coffee only to discover, on having the truck start to move, that they wouldn't be stable either, and caught them before further injury could be sustained. Luckily, the cups had nice, long handles, which I hooked instead into the basket I had bungie-corded to the cab between the two seats for other loose paraphernalia. Stable, if not a little harder to get to, coffee is a good thing.

The entire day of driving was spent skirting the shores of the mighty and beautiful Lake Superior, bypassing or travelling through scenic little towns like Red Rock, Terrace Bay, Marathon.  But let's get back to "the lake" first. Lake Superior, the deepest of all the great lakes, measures 1,335 feet at its deepest point, with an average depth of 500 feet. It's shores stretch 350 miles from east to west and 160 miles from north to south.

The Sea of Galilee is, at its deepest point, 150 feet. It is 13 miles long and 7 miles wide.

One definition of "lake" is  "A body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land; A large body of water contained in a depression of the earth's surface, and supplied from the drainage of a more or less extended area.

One definition of sea is, "Anything apparently limitless in quantity or volume;An inland body of water, esp. if large or if salt or brackish.

Notice that the salt or brackish quality given to a sea is not exclusive but more or less a recommendation. My point is that anyone seeing the vastness of Lake Superior must struggle with the term "lake". This is definitely a sea, complete with sandy beaches, waves, tides and turmoil. It's really big, I'm serious.

The terrain around Superior Sea is very green. A millions different shades of green blend to present a rich display of textures, light and shadow. There are none of the familiar loggers' carvings in the forests as there are in BC. No bald hilltops, no close-cropped hillsides. The foliage is almost tropical. Evergreens dominate, of course, but the other types of trees have a stratgey - they grow taller to steal some sun for themselves before the ever-present evergreens gobble it all. Consequently, a lush canopy of green rolls with the shape of the earth beneath, like the rainforests of Brazil, or aerial scenes from a Viet Nam war movie, or Out of Africa. In fall, when the deciduous trees drop their green burdens, perhaps the evergreens steal front stage, but here in June, it is the birch and elm et al attaining magnificent heights that catch the eye.

The foundational rock itself is magnificent in its own way. Granite outcroppings shattered to make way for the road expose their boldly striated pink insides. Or red. Or taupe. The colour is so brilliant that it seems out of place and brings visions of stone-faced fireplaces and elegant stepping stones to mind. Had we room for something larger than 1/2 cup of sand, I might have been eyeing some of the break-away smaller pieces a little differently.

Invading peoples' privacy at 90 km an hour, I steal glimpses of the gardens of private homes. At the top of the Sea, homes on the lakeside, where I'm sure they clammer to be, are shaded by the large hills behind them. The lilac bushes in these gardens have blooms on only the lakeside, where the sun is unimpeded in its march to kiss springtime buds. Even when the lake is not in view, the direction of it is given away by the lilacs.

Most of the waterways, other than the great Sea itself, are tinted. Ponds, pools, streams and rivers glint like steeped tea in the sun. Perhaps the wonderful red rocks are the cause, or tannins from the abundant foliage in its life-and-death rhythm.

Many trees along the roadside are wounded, dying or dead. There is debate whether this is caused simply by the fumes of traffic, or diseases or bugs brought in by those same vehicles. In any event, these roadside trees are the first defenders of the forests behind them, and I see them as martyred soldiers, the few dying for the many.

I've lost count of how many closed scales we've passed. Last time we actually pulled into an active scale station was Golden, in British Columbia. Perhaps word of their defeat has been sent out by the Scale Ogres and no one else dare challenge us. I don't think so, but dreams are fun.

We stopped in Wawa to refuel. Into the convenience I went to find something interesting - road food is wearing thin. I opened the beverage cooler to remove Pepsi for Blair and Iced Tea for me. Something happened - I don't know what. Perhaps I was distracted, or just having a blank moment. The bottle of Iced Tea fell from my hand. My reflexes are still pretty good so I did the Startled Shuffle to protect myself and almost, almost escaped unscathed. The only part of me that didn't escape was my little toe.

It is extraordinary how an insidious bottle of iced tea can gain sufficient momentum and velocity in its short downward drop to give the illusion of landing like a skid of 20 lb. bags of cement, and delivering unimaginable agony. Unfortunately, as I opened my mouth to share my share my wonderment of the physics of weight and gravity, only a string of expletives issued forth. The lady at the counter did her very best to ignore me, as I contained myself, retrieved the skid of cement and hobbled to the counter. Blair arrived from refuelling the Monster and was appropriately sympathetic and helped me to the truck, to the obvious relief of the Lady of the Counter. My poor little toe today looks as if I've been stomping blueberries, in a perfect little circle from front to back. I'll have my own little reminder of our adventure for some time to come. I'll laugh with you later, when it becomes funny to me.  Obviously, my Two Pens of Protection were sufficiently distracted by the dreaded paperback novel to afford no protection for falling Iced Tea of Cement. Maybe I should return to the sweet man and plead for more pens.

There was a bad accident on the road to Sault. A trailer, coincidentally loaded with cement, apparently tipped too far and fell against the old rockface on the road, which eagerly peeled away the side of the trailer like a metal fan. Contents were strewn and the ruined trailer remained as evidence of the folly of taking this winding, up hill down hill, road for granted. Curiously, the accident occurred just after the road disappeared again and plummeted unsuspecting travelling vehicles to a dusty barren gulch lasting about 15 kms. On this horribly bumpy section, a semi that should have been moving at about 70 kms came the other way at about 120, and shot a waiting missile from the ground straight at my face. Luckily, there was a protective windshield in the way of its hopeful destination and I was spared death, or at least life-long maiming, by tire-shot rock.

In the morning, we shall visit a glass repair place.... then set out for Ottawa.

Into the rising sun....

 

Day 5

 Leaving Portage La Prairie, we realized we'd lost another hour and
were heading out later than we'd planned. Skipped breakfast, which
was okay since we planned to meet up with Blair's Uncle John for
lunch in Winnipeg - actually at the big PetroCan on the Bypass
highway. There's a little Humpty's restaurant that, unlike other
restaurants in the chain, has won awards for original recipes. Huh,
who knew?? I keyed it into our trusty GPS and it popped up like a
jack-in-the-box. I was surprised... absolutely no Points of Interest
would appear ever since we'd left Swift Current. Perhaps, the GPS is
wiser than we even think it is... :-)

The fields and the highway trenches were overflowing from the
rainstorms the day before, but relative good weather was holding on.
We high-fived after passing each of two closed scales.

Lunch at the famous Humpty's was delicious... better even than
Billy's Sticky Fingers but not quite as good as Pilgrim's would have
been - I'm certain. After good conversation, lots of coffee and
laughter, we were bid "bon voyage" by Uncle John, though he doubted
we would reach our day's end destination of Thunder Bay.


With encouraging suddenness, we crossed the border into Ontario. The
increased frequency of tree groves should have alerted us that the
prairies were dropping behind us, but it was the rock outcrop that
startled us into that realization. What beautiful rocks they were...
hadn't seen any since the rockies!! Funny how you miss something you
see every day and then it's gone. Didn't even realize how much we
missed rocks until we saw them again.

We chased and then caught up with angry, black cloud upon entering
Ontario, some looking dangerously like funnel clouds. The rain
remained intermittent though, and the change of scenery was refreshing.

The change in air pressure wreaked havoc with one panel on the roof
of the truck, which would compress and then loudly pop. The first
time we heard that, we stopped and checked all of the tires, of
course. Then watched as the panel popped out again, with relief.

To make the kilometres go by less torturously, we made a game out of
road signs. The first sign read Lilac Campground. I wondered aloud if
there were lilacs at Lilac Campground. Blair said no. The next sign
read Rock Garden Campground. I wondered aloud if there was a rock
garden at Rock Garden Campground. Blair said, "No, but there are
lilacs." And the game was on. One of us (didn't matter which) had to
remember the last "thing" that wasn't at its namesake place to insert
it in the new one. That carried us until it was too dark to read the signs.

So then we started counting semis. We had to "fill" sets to four. One
alone counted as one. Two filled the two spot, etc. to four. Four was
hard to get. We made up rules as we went along. A car between semis
made the count invalid. A semi behind could be counted in as long as
we couldn't count past ten before it was beside us. That kept us
amused until the road disappeared.

The sign indicated a bump ahead... BUMP?? There in the rainy darkness
of Northern Ontario highway, we dropped about four inches, and drove
for much longer than we wanted on washboard dirt road, then up
another three inches. Doesn't sound like much, but we could hear and
FEEL the load shifting. Not a good thing with a car at the rear of
the truck. Without option, we simply carried on.

Nance, there's nothing left on the highway at Borup's Corners except
the sign announcing the empty space where something might have been.
I'd have taken a picture of the emptiness for you, but it was too
dark. Thought about you, though.

The darkness played tricks with the landscape. Blair thought that the
trees were fog. I could have sworn I saw a teddy bear waving from the
treeline. Stared it down, and it still looked like a teddy bear. The
dismembered bits of tires looked like entire murders of crows, black
and dead at the side of the road. A fallen and blackened evergreen
looked startlingly like a bear. And an unearthed tree stump
realistically took the shape of a moose. Perhaps we were seeing
"animals" because we were so concerned about hitting one, seeing too
many real carcasses at the side of the road during daylight.

The stretch between Ignace and Thunder Bay was treacherous - dark,
raining, lousy highway... But here we are, safely ensconced once more
to rest up for another day of adventure.

Must check and restore the load before we head off in the morning,
refuel... and beetle on down to, hopefully, Sault Ste. Marie by day's end.

We'll set our destination for the following day once there. We don't
really know what day it is or what time it is. It is strange how it
seems that what we did before has vanished, and it seems that all
we've ever done is drive in this truck until it's dark, sleep
somewhere that isn't home, and then do the same again the following
day. Other responsibilities have waned to insignificance, in favour
of load balance, fuel supply and vacancies at hotels. Oil pressure,
windshield wiper quality and tire condition are of equal
importance... and it seems today that it will always be thus. For
today, it is enough... until we reach our final destination and catch
sight of the Atlantic.

And in the morning, to the East!

 

Day 4

On and on they go, these prairies. Not much change in terrain but a beautiful day full of sunshine. We left Little Salt Lake City  and drove on to Moose Jaw, where we stopped for Timmy's (turn right at the Moose - yes, that's what their sign says) and was served by a very rude ditz who was given terse instructions on how to talk to customers, but only after we had coffee in hand. Then we spotted a Sobeys and headed off to get some fresh fruit. Splitting up to minimize time spent, I gathered fresh edibles while Blair stood in line for cigarettes. I was in the truck and had washed all our edibles before he returned, empty handed and frustrated. The one cashier at customer service left her post to search with another customer for an elusive product. We had a quick lunch of fresh carrots and ice cream bars. YUM! And left Moose Jaw to its own devices, which is a bit scary.

Perhaps made delirious from the unchanging vista, we saw a silo that looked like a big chicken sitting in a hot tub
 (hot tub?? oh yeah, that would be later!) Then we saw Gumby sitting in a hot tub. Then a stork in a hot tub. Yes, a theme was building. The more we sat bouncing in our chairs, carried ever-forward by our loyal, if not rather lumpy, chariot, the more hot tubs we saw.

The tree-shrouded farm houses seem to envelope tiny independent cities within. Far from each other, each with an expanse of tilled soil, or hay fields, with tractors perched to attach another quadrant, or cows lazing under the shade of the occasional  tree stand, they seem to be little worlds of their own, the inhabitants kept quite busy within the confines of these mini-cities. The huge silos give witness to the labour in these mini-cities, visions of small cogs turning large cogs dancing in the puffy clouds overhead.

There are many implements in the fields with unknown but obviously important purposes. A thing-a-ma-jig to every what-not.

Prairie dogs pop up from the many holes they've dug, hearing the sound of engines coming to close, and scurrying to underground destinations best known to themselves. Deer in numbers suddenly burst from a stand of trees, realize they've been seen, and rush back to their green hiding places. The sameness is deceiving. This is a very busy place.

We passed through CaronPort where we noticed the beloved Pilgrims Inn. Thinking they'd expanded, we carried on to Brandon where we believed the original was. It was not, and the dreams of fluffy mashed potatoes, home gravy and mile-high lemon meringue were dashed. After anguished discussion, we concluded that Pilgrims Inn was always in CaronPort, never in Brandon and our memories had failed us miserably. Hungry and disappointed, we carried on to Portage La Prairie, nibbling fresh carrots that no longer tasted as good, lamenting the loss of our overly-anticipated stop at Pilgrims.

Arriving in Portage, we realized that we'd lost yet another hour and the hot tub at Days Inn was closed. DRATS! We weren't going to mimic chicken, Gumby or stork sitting in a hot tub. And the restaurant was closed... DOUBLE DRATS! We obtained a few recommendations from the front desk, and being a little tired of pizza, chose Billy's Sticky Fingers for chicken dinner. It was, alas, not Pilgrims Inn, but tasty nonetheless.

Tomorrow, we meet up with Blair's uncle for Breakfast in Winnipeg, then head east to put as much of a dent in the very wide province of Ontario as possible.

The "laundry" suitcase now holds more than the "clean" suitcase. Does that mean we're more than halfway? Not quite, but we're making headway.

Nobless Nunchuk (aka The Monster) can do over 1,000 kms on a tank (double tank) of full, but she lumbers more with a full tank. Tonight we're doing the calculations/destinations to keep her only half full, so that she can glide across the country like she no doubt does in her big truck dreams. Nothing has shifted in the load. All is well.

The weather network says we'll be chasing thunderstorms through Ontario. At least the terrain will change and, for the first day anyway, won't seem so interminably unending/unchanging.

Judging by past performance and if all goes well, we'll be in Thunder Bay by day's end.

Onward...