To Wasaga Beach for the weekend to stay with friends. We leave Friday night and after a quick pitstop at Tim Horton's on Dundas Street we head off up Airport Road. I'm peddling hard in the smart car to keep up with the GMC crewcab carrying the tour party bicycles. Up saturday morning and we head for the Georgian Trail. After positioning the vehicles we suffer a setback as the valve pulls out of the tube on one of the bikes as I pump up the tires. Luck is with us as Little Ed's Bike Shop in Collingwood fixes the problem on the spot.
We set off about midday and take a picnic lunch beside the Georgian Bay where sailboarders and parasailers are enjoying the end of season weather out on the lake. We carry on towards Thornbury but Annette takes a tumble on the trail and we limp in to town in search of a bandage and coffee. We stop at Tourist Information, which is open but unmanned. An OPP Officer appears but turns us away when asked for a first aid kit. We are unimpressed.
We find a drugstore and Tim Horton's - Annette is sufficiently revived to photograph the many bicycles but with no bike rack. We cover the last segment from Thornbury to Meaford in good order completing about twenty-two miles in all. There is much new development on the trail - they are on their way to spoiling it.
We load up the bikes for an early dinner - the yellow Brompton folded under the seat in the crewcab. We've booked a table at Ted's Range Road Diner, out-of-town, down a sideroad in the direction of Owen Sound. The diner is in an old quonset hut - Nissen hut for UK readers. There are no menus but many choices spread around the walls. You sometimes have to wait for other diners to move to see the full selection. We don't lack an appetite.
We head back to Wasaga, retrieving the smart car en route. There is heavy rain overnight but still there is a lack of water in Georgian Bay - the water has retreated at least 100 feet or more - is this a cyclic phenomenon or a permanent depletion? We spend some time beachcombing and return with a bowl full of litter.
Back to Hogtown and we stop at the workshop of our friends where we view a '56 Chevy being rebuilt, a Volkswagen beach buggy and a Yamaha-powered single-seater built by students at Ryerson University. I'm impressed by the skill and ability of these young folk, the future movers and shakers, and also the opportunities provided by their school. I don't remember a racing team when I was at college.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
smart Centre Mississauga Meet
To Port Credit for a gathering of smart car owners. We stop for gas on the way and find diesel at Pioneer in Port Credit at 93.9 cents per litre. All the cars are gleaming on arrival and my smart, Ermintrude, needs cleaning. I scoop some water from the harbour at the marina and give her a wash as the show gets underway. After detailing with Mothers California Gold Showtime the car looks passing decent. This is a wake-up call for shows to come. Living in an apartment building it is not easy finding the facilities to keep the car up to standard. I'll swear some of the sand on the car came from New Mexico.
Over 25 smart car owners gathered for the show and we enjoyed chatting with smart enthusiasts and ogling their cars. Across the street to the Pita Pit, where lunch is laid on courtesy of the owner John Elizee. Many thanks to smart specialists and hosts Justin Sookraj and Edward Garcia. We hope this show will happen again some time.
Over 25 smart car owners gathered for the show and we enjoyed chatting with smart enthusiasts and ogling their cars. Across the street to the Pita Pit, where lunch is laid on courtesy of the owner John Elizee. Many thanks to smart specialists and hosts Justin Sookraj and Edward Garcia. We hope this show will happen again some time.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
The Cat came back
To Rochester, New York on the newly-reinstated ferry in the smart car, Ermintrude, in the company of Chaplain Clive. The ferry is now called The Cat, not The Breeze as in its previous incarnation, but is still also called The Spirit of Ontario. Confused? I notice the vessel still has Nassau written on the lifebelts although I believe it is no longer foreign registered and a flotilla of customs men no longer greet the vessel offshore at Rochester.
On arrival at the Cherry Street dock in Toronto the man in the booth, sees the smart, and says "Ten out of ten - I'll put you at the front of the queue!" The ferry check-in is still a farce with no coffee in sight - "We are hoping to rectify that." Which year would that be?
Toronto's "large imperfect" Mayor, David Miller, is always bleating on about Toronto being a world class city - the present arrangements are more like Checkpoint Charlie. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley remarked rather undiplomatically on a recent visit that Toronto is seventy or eighty years behind Chicago in developing the waterfront. When I visited Chicago recently his remarks proved to be absolutely correct.
Fifty-four cars disembarked in Toronto before we got aboard and the ship is pleasantly uncrowded for the 11:30 sailing Friday - we actually leave seven minutes early, a fuel-saving measure I am told. I chastise a woman on the car-deck who persists in banging her car door against the smart.
Copious coffee required en route and we dock about a quarter of an hour late around 14:15. The weather is lousy with low visibility and rain. We manage to get through customs with the minimum of hassle and set off along the Parkway west with Lake Ontario on our right. We are in search of lunch and for no particular reason we head inland. Just when we are getting fed up a Tim Horton's hoves into view in Albion, New York. The girl at the cash asks why we are in New York State and I can think of nothing better than to say we like Tim Horton's - which being of Canadian origin is rather lame. However why do you go for a trip other than for the hell of it?
The smart attracts the usual attention in the parking lot from young and old alike. We take gas at K&K Food Mart across the street, $2.999 per US gallon for diesel and I manage to squeeze $9.01 worth into the car to the amusement of onlookers.
We are back at the border in no time at Queenston and turn sharp right for Niagara-on-the-Lake. A quick pitstop at the Angel Inn and we take the scenic route to the Queen Elizabeth Way [QEW]. Signs say the "Queenie" is jammed east of Burlington, so we divert onto the lakeshore. We have got a bee in our bonnet about fish and chips and after one false alarm, the place was closing, we stop at Oakville Fish and Chips where we are served by a pleasant Chinese girl. We decide Clive must be a Russian spy as he orders red wine with his fish. Back in Hogtown at 21:45, an enjoyable day with little or no point at all.
On arrival at the Cherry Street dock in Toronto the man in the booth, sees the smart, and says "Ten out of ten - I'll put you at the front of the queue!" The ferry check-in is still a farce with no coffee in sight - "We are hoping to rectify that." Which year would that be?
Toronto's "large imperfect" Mayor, David Miller, is always bleating on about Toronto being a world class city - the present arrangements are more like Checkpoint Charlie. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley remarked rather undiplomatically on a recent visit that Toronto is seventy or eighty years behind Chicago in developing the waterfront. When I visited Chicago recently his remarks proved to be absolutely correct.
Fifty-four cars disembarked in Toronto before we got aboard and the ship is pleasantly uncrowded for the 11:30 sailing Friday - we actually leave seven minutes early, a fuel-saving measure I am told. I chastise a woman on the car-deck who persists in banging her car door against the smart.
Copious coffee required en route and we dock about a quarter of an hour late around 14:15. The weather is lousy with low visibility and rain. We manage to get through customs with the minimum of hassle and set off along the Parkway west with Lake Ontario on our right. We are in search of lunch and for no particular reason we head inland. Just when we are getting fed up a Tim Horton's hoves into view in Albion, New York. The girl at the cash asks why we are in New York State and I can think of nothing better than to say we like Tim Horton's - which being of Canadian origin is rather lame. However why do you go for a trip other than for the hell of it?
The smart attracts the usual attention in the parking lot from young and old alike. We take gas at K&K Food Mart across the street, $2.999 per US gallon for diesel and I manage to squeeze $9.01 worth into the car to the amusement of onlookers.
We are back at the border in no time at Queenston and turn sharp right for Niagara-on-the-Lake. A quick pitstop at the Angel Inn and we take the scenic route to the Queen Elizabeth Way [QEW]. Signs say the "Queenie" is jammed east of Burlington, so we divert onto the lakeshore. We have got a bee in our bonnet about fish and chips and after one false alarm, the place was closing, we stop at Oakville Fish and Chips where we are served by a pleasant Chinese girl. We decide Clive must be a Russian spy as he orders red wine with his fish. Back in Hogtown at 21:45, an enjoyable day with little or no point at all.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Lauterbach Giant
I enjoyed taking this picture in Springfield, Illinois, near the start of the Route 66 leg of the smart car tour. The “muffler men” are a feature on Route 66 – originally they held a muffler, hence the name, but have been adapted over the years – here is the “Lauterbach Giant” who now holds an American flag in front of Lauterbach’s Tires in Springfield.
Friday, September 2, 2005
The Lost Bryson
I've just finished reading Bill Bryson's "The Lost Continent - Travels in Small-town America." I'm tempted to call him a self-satisfied, middle-class lardbucket who enjoys laughing at those less brainy and fortunate than himself. However he was smart enough to spot when the 'F' word would come into common parlance, and you have to give it to him, he is funny.
He has recently been appointed Chancellor of Durham University, my old alma mater, so I guess I should show some respect. Handy if you fancy free Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pud when on Wear-side, some compensation for listening to the drones of the Senior Common Room, but too high a price to pay in my view.
Here is Bryson on Route 66:
"I left Santa Fe and drove west along Interstate 40. This used to be Route 66. Everybody loved Route 66. People used to write songs about it. But it was only two lanes wide, not at all suitable for the space age, hopelessly inadequate for people in motor homes, and every fifty miles or so it would pass through a little town where
you might encounter a stop sign or a traffic light - what a drag! - so they buried it under the desert and built a new superhighway that shoots across the landscape like a four-lane laser and doesn't stop for anything, even mountains. So something else that was nice and pleasant is gone forever because it wasn't practical - like passenger trains and milk in bottles and corner shops and Burma Shave signs."
He has recently been appointed Chancellor of Durham University, my old alma mater, so I guess I should show some respect. Handy if you fancy free Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pud when on Wear-side, some compensation for listening to the drones of the Senior Common Room, but too high a price to pay in my view.
Here is Bryson on Route 66:
"I left Santa Fe and drove west along Interstate 40. This used to be Route 66. Everybody loved Route 66. People used to write songs about it. But it was only two lanes wide, not at all suitable for the space age, hopelessly inadequate for people in motor homes, and every fifty miles or so it would pass through a little town where
you might encounter a stop sign or a traffic light - what a drag! - so they buried it under the desert and built a new superhighway that shoots across the landscape like a four-lane laser and doesn't stop for anything, even mountains. So something else that was nice and pleasant is gone forever because it wasn't practical - like passenger trains and milk in bottles and corner shops and Burma Shave signs."
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