Thoughts on a Facebook link I read today

When something seems blatantly obvious to you and yet you know that there are people out there with the same access to knowledge as you but radically different opinions on the subject, it is sometimes mind-wrenching. How can people believe that? Don't they know [X]?? What kind of nutcases are they anyway? Or, maybe they're just Evil.

Years ago I had the experience of driving across the northern USA in a truck that had undiagnosed mechanical problems. Randomly, it wouldn't start. I'd camp somewhere and it wouldn't start in the morning. I'd stop for a rest break and it wouldn't start when I was ready to move on. But randomly, I never knew when it was going to happen. I had tried to get it diagnosed and fixed before I left on this trip but to no avail. As it turned out it was a relatively simple problem and cheap fix; something about the ignition computer? Whatever. I didn't know my 1991 truck even had a computer, but it did.

Back to the story. The upside of travelling with a mechanical problem is that you find out the kindness of strangers. Lots of people tried to help me. In Wisconsin I ended up spending a weekend camped on the front lawn of a family that really tried hard to help me. The fellow virtually dismantled my truck trying to locate the problem. At one point he thought he had fixed it and I left the next morning. I stopped at the next town for gas and the truck wouldn't start. I knew this guy had a tow truck, I phoned him and he and his wife came to bring me and my truck back to their place so he could figure out what wasn't working. On the trip back the three of us were crammed into the cab of the tow truck and they began to tell me about their religious beliefs. They belonged to a small but wealthy evangelistic Christian sect that among other things believed in The Rapture but not in Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Anyone who knows me knows that my beliefs are pretty much the polar opposite to theirs. So I sat there quietly listening, not wanting to bite the hand that was currently trying to help me out.

In listening, I got where they were coming from, I understood why they believed what they did and I even kind of agreed with them. Out of Darwin's theory comes Social Darwinism, the so-called Survival of the Fittest. Competition is all, and to hell with those who are not Fit enough to Survive. Not that most proponents of the theory of evolution believe that now, but it is an unfortunate extension of the original theory to human history. In Darwin's time it was entirely believable, some people, some races of people, are just not Fit enough to Survive and we do the Fitness of the Human Race as a whole a disservice by trying to help them. My benefactors obviously did not believe that at all, otherwise they would have just shrugged their shoulders at my misfortune. I ended up going to church with them on Sunday and learned some more. This was in the Bush era and they had a photo of President Bush in the lobby of their church. They also had photos of various young members of their congregation currently serving in Iraq lining the back of the church hall. After the service the pastor's wife introduced me to each one of them, clearly in pain about the possibility of losing them. Several people took me aside to whisper they wouldn't be voting Republican again, they were deeply disappointed in Bush. They had wanted an end to abortion and homosexuality and they got a war in Iraq instead.

It helps to understand where people with opposing opinions are coming from. Sometimes there is an element of truth in what they are saying, it helps to find something to agree on. We will never have peace and freedom until we do.

So all of that is just a preamble to something I read (on Facebook) today. Here is the link:

This Man Hiked the Entire Route of the XL Pipeline

In this article the man is being interviewed about what he experienced and learned in the course of his hike and he talks about the different attitudes toward fossil fuels and climate change that he encountered during his hike. The following paragraph about some climate change deniers really struck me:

"These are folks who see themselves as hardy, self-sufficient, small government individualists. If you believe in climate change, you’re giving in to the idea of government coming in to fix things, collective action to impose greenhouse gas limits, and reining in the evils of the free market with stricter regulation. This conflicts with so much of that heartland identity."

The link between individualism and climate change denial was made clear to me. Living in a country where we don't have such a strong belief in rugged individualism and we see the value in government-provided welfare and healthcare, it is nevertheless clear that there is a price for that. We have more regulation and less personal freedom, more personal taxes and less emphasis on self-reliance. And if we accept the belief that drastic climate change is human-caused and ultimately disastrous for humanity, then we also have to accept the belief that humanity as a whole has to do something about it. Self-reliance and rugged individualism is not going to accomplish that, like it or not we will have to resort to Big Government Regulation to enforce the kind of drastic change necessary. I get that that is a tough nut to swallow for people used to taking care of themselves and disliking infringement on personal freedoms.

There are over seven billion of us now, and growing. In spite of progress made in birth control and birth rate reductions this number will only increase in the foreseeable future. We live on a planet that is not really setup for those numbers and in the natural order of things there would be considerably fewer of us in a balanced natural ecology. North America is an enclave of relatively low human population living in a very large area. Granted, most of it is not suitable for human habitation, but still. Preserving that luxury by building walls around us might work in the short term but long term it is not a solution. Our future here is inextricably linked to the future of humanity everywhere on the planet. Due to the huge number of us that is going to mean more government-enforced regulation, not less. I totally get the sense of loss of freedom. In my own lifetime I remember greater freedoms a few decades ago than exist now. It is sad. I don't like it. We have to do it.

Truck goes away and stays away?

Twice last week I took my truck out to Canning to get it undercoated for the winter. Twice Garage Guy told me to come back another time because he couldn't do it that day, even though we'd set up an appointment. He was very apologetic and offered me a discount when he finally did do it.

I told him about the water leak and how since the storm last week the truck has been full of water and I couldn't dry it out because it is too cold. He said that if I left the truck with him over the weekend, he'd dry it out, find the leak and fix it. And I could have my truck back on Monday.

Well, I thought that was a good deal, I could get through a half week or so without the truck.

Then on Saturday morning my brand new espresso maker stopped working. Just when I was becoming nicely addicted to my morning espresso.

The store I bought it at said, No problem, they'd replace it, just bring it in.

Which I couldn't do, because of no truck. Well, I hauled out the old French Press coffee maker but it was just not the same. But for a couple of days I could manage.

So today, Monday, I packed up the espresso maker in readiness for returning it to the store as soon as my truck was ready. While packing, I thumbed through the manual and noticed there was a 1-800 number for the manufacturer so what the heck I thought I'd give it a try.

Wouldn't you know it, the customer service person there identified the problem right away and told me what to do about it and she was right and now the espresso maker works just like it is supposed to. So I don't have to return it.

My neighbours asked where I'd been all weekend.

I told them, Right here but my truck is away. Told them it was coming home later in the afternoon.

Of course, another major storm is on its way and they were worried about me driving back from Canning across the dikes in the blowing snow, so they suggested that if I waited until tomorrow they would drive me to Canning themselves.

But I was looking forward to getting my truck back today, I was prepared to drive through a blizzard if necessary.

Then Garage Guy phoned.

He dried out the truck and he found the leak, but he didn't undercoat the truck, yet again. He said the leak was due to the detached rubber seals around the doors, and if I took the truck home today it would only get wet again because of the storm we're supposed to get tonight. And also, if he undercoated then he wouldn't be able to install new rubber seals, the doorways would be too greasy.

So he suggested I leave the truck with him until he could get the rubber seals, maybe tomorrow, maybe later.

Hmmm.

He said he was really hoping this storm would dump three feet of snow. He badly wants to get out on his snowmobile.

I said, Yeah right, if we get three feet of snow I'm never going to get my truck back.

He said, That would be OK with me. I could just hear him grinning.

Well I might have something to say about that, I said.

OK, my dear, call me tomorrow and we'll talk. He laughed.

He's got my truck hostage. Weatherman is on my side though, Weatherman says 5 cm of snow and 25 mm of rain overnight, I think Garage Guy's out of luck with the three feet. And for the meantime my truck is indoors, warm and dry.

First thing tomorrow is the lunar eclipse and the winter solstice. We won't see the eclipse here with all that snow and rain but hopefully someone will see it. Happy solstice! At the very least it means the days will start to get a little longer now. That's gotta be good news.

Waiting

Arrived. Arrived but not quite home yet. The tenants in my house will be out on the 29th and the property manager wants the 30th to ensure everything is shipshape for my move-in.

The truck is loaded to the gills with my stuff and the kayak sits on the roof, waiting. It is getting snowed and rained upon but there's no place to put it so what can you do. Mike tells me that it should be no big deal, another week of this shouldn't be a problem.

I called my mechanic to discuss the fate of the truck, he wants to "give it a listen" because he doesn't think things are as bad as I think they are. Besides, he says, we can just plop another engine into it, shouldn't cost me more than $1500 or so.

I'm thinking, Yeah but, a new vehicle with new features (and reliability!!!) would be kinda nice...

Of course a mechanic would rather see the old truck repaired and saved than a new vehicle that doesn't need repairin'.

I long for the good old days when I could set out across the continent without wondering what terrible truck breakdowns I am letting myself in for this time.

But then, sitting here at my friend's house waiting for the day when I can move into my own place, I start doing the back-of-the-envelope calculation of how long my money will last me, what can I afford and where do I have to start cutting corners. The net result is, my travelling days may be over. Unless I come up with a new source of income.

Sigh.

Eastward bound

This post covers the period of Nov 2 - 4, 2010, the trip from Winnipeg Manitoba to Barrie Ontario.

Driving through north Ontario is kind of a treat. I did not have great weather but still, the scenery was fine. I made it to Thunderbay in the first day with no problem, and spent the night at Kakabeka Falls just outside of town. I was very pleased with the 'snake oil' additive, the engine noise seemed quieter, my gas mileage better, and I did not appear to be burning oil at the former alarming rate. In Thunderbay I stopped at a shop in the same chain as the one in Winnipeg to find out the name of this amazing little oil additive and maybe pick up another bottle of the stuff for the rest of the trip. As it turned out they told me I could get the stuff at any Canadian Tire store. I didn't bother go looking for the local Canadian Tire but just continued on the next leg of the trip with somewhere between Wawa and The Soo as my destination.

I made it to Wawa with no problem and thought I may as well continue on to The Soo as I still had a bit of daylight left. But the weather went downhill after that, heavy rain and poor visibility. Several potential overnight stopping points turned out to be inaccessible so I continued to drive. By the time I got to The Soo I'd had enough, I wanted off the road. Now my cell phone worked again, so I tried calling my Edmonton friend Inger because she had said she had a friend in The Soo that could put me up, but this was her Toastmasters' night and all I could do was leave a message. I decided to continue driving.

Fortunately the weather cleared substantially after I left The Soo and a few kilometers down the road I found a boat launch place on a small lake that I could stop at. It was quiet and pretty, the lapping of the waves on the lakeshore close to the truck was soothing.

On the third day I made it to Barrie where my brother lives. I got to wash the clothes I had not changed in three days and have a nice hot bath for myself. We watched videos while we ate supper, and then I toddled off to a big soft bed for the night.

On numerous occasions through the prairies and northern Ontario I saw a curious little bird, somewhat smaller than a robin and looking a bit like a sparrow but with white patches on its wings. I have since found out that that bird is the Snow Bunting, otherwise known as the "snowbird" of Anne Murray fame. Neat.

Last trip home

The truck is not in great shape. We are now making ominous engine noises and burning oil, the gas mileage is way down.

There was an unfortunate side effect to the wiper switch fix in Edmonton, the headlights stopped working. I did not find this out until dusk of the first day on the road, somewhere just west of Regina. Needless to say I had to get off the road right quick. I had highbeams but no lowbeams, I took side roads to get to Buffalo Pound Lake Park to camp overnight.

In the morning the inside of the truck was lined with ice, probably a good thing as it would have dripped on me if it hadn't been frozen. All of Saskatchewan was cold and there was lots of snow and ice on the ground. It was cold and windy, and east of Regina I ran into ice fog which lasted pretty much into Manitoba. However by Brandon it was clear and sunny, and snow was a distant memory.

I made it into Winnipeg by dusk on Hallowe'en, and I am staying with my niece Tara and her family. In "The 'Peg" there are still a few green trees, it is autumn not winter here.

First thing this morning I called a shop in the same chain as the one in Edmonton and they got my truck in right away and fixed the headlight problem, charging the cost back to the shop in Edmonton. I asked them about the engine problem, they really couldn't say much about the prognosis, told me to keep the oil up. They put in some additive---couldn't promise it was anything more than snake oil but at this point I am grasping at straws---topped up the oil, and sold me an extra liter for the road.

So I guess I will do some laundry (I've been sleeping in my clothes because it is cold at night), clean up the truck a bit, make sandwiches for the road and hope for the best. Once I leave Winnipeg I will not have cell phone coverage for almost three days, a bit disconcerting to say the least but what can you do. The weather forecast for the next three days is a mixed bag: sun, rain, snow, warm, cold, windy, fine. November weather.

In Edmonton Dale said, You're on an adventure, you'll laugh about all this when it's over. But until then I am just gritting my teeth and trying to think positive thoughts.

I guess this is the last time I do a road trip in this truck.

Edmonton, and best laid plans...

I arrived in Edmonton around 5.00 pm on Saturday, finding my host's home without too much difficulty.

Inger is a woman I worked with way back when in Vancouver, we have kept in touch over the years. She and her husband moved to Edmonton shortly after I moved to Toronto, to better jobs, more affordable housing, and wonder of wonders, a way better social life. They pay the price of a nasty winter for all that. I have been promising to visit ever since they moved here, finally I've made it.

I told Inger about the dog at the rest stop and wondered if it would be rescued or euthanized. Inger said, Around here they don't euthanize dogs. They'll find a home for him.

I planned to stay a day or two to visit before heading on. Sunday morning we woke to sleet, mixed snow and rain. It only got worse.


My host---who was off to a course at 7.45 am---said, No snow, that's just Fat Rain.

She refused to admit to the possibility of the white stuff.

Sure as heck looked like snow to me.


Inger left for a conference in Vancouver on Monday and I got an invitation to stay in Calgary on my trip east. Although making my trip slightly longer it worked well with my itinerary plans so I packed up to leave the same day as Inger. On her way to the airport Inger was surfing the net on her Crackberry and found a catalytic heater she thought would make my nights on the road a little more comfortable. She sent the info to me and I looked a little further and discovered that a nearby Canadian Tire had such a beast so I hopped in the truck to go pick it up.

Turns out that sometime since I arrived in Edmonton, the windshield wiper motor switch on my truck gave out. Not a good thing when it is snowing, it meant I had to physically hold the switch on to get the wipers to work which is hard to do when you are signalling a turn and then attempting to actually make the turn.

So, I returned to the house and woke up Inger's husband Dale, who is working night shift this week. He was gracious about being woken up and immediately got on the phone looking for a garage that would repair my truck toute de suite.

This was the first snow of the season here, which means most of the city was trying to get into a garage to get their snow tires on. Trying to find one that would fix a wiper motor switch the same day was kind of out to lunch. Nevertheless he tried, and managed to find a garage that would do it the next day. Dale went back to bed and at the appointed hour got up and went off for his night shift. The idea was that when he returned at 6.30am we would then drive the truck to the garage.

However, we did not write down the name and address of the garage, and sure enough, we both forgot where we had the appointment. In a mad scramble at 7.00am we found another garage that would "take a look" at the truck. When we got there though they were booked up and couldn't even look, they sent us off to another garage further out of town. That garage said it could do the job almost right away, however Dale was exhausted and needed to sleep before his next shift, so the earliest we could pick up the truck was considerably later in the day.

The garage called to give me their cost estimate: $350. The switch is inside the steering wheel column, making it a labour intensive job.

Then they called back to say that they had broken something inside the column and would have to replace the entire column.

Then they called back to say that they couldn't find a steering wheel column for my truck. Still later they called to say that they had found one at a wrecking yard, but it was going to be different from my original steering wheel column (something called a slant column), and that they were having trouble removing it from the vehicle it was in at the wrecking yard, so they were very sorry but they would not be able to finish the job until the next day.

My invitation to stay in Calgary is fairly open-ended, they even went so far as to say that if I got there after they were planning to go to Vancouver, they would leave the key at their neighbour's so I could stay over even if they were not home. Who knows when I'll get my truck back. Or what the new steering column is going to be like. I do know that the cost is going to be higher than the original estimate, but the fellow at the garage thinks he can keep it down to only a $50 increase.

He gave me a bit of a rant about car companies that discontinue perfectly good truck models and then don't keep up parts inventories for them. As if we can all afford to buy a new vehicle every couple of years. He expressed some admiration that I had kept this particular truck going for as long as I have, and some chagrin at failing to support me in that endeavour. But he hoped this substitute slant column would be acceptable.

I sure hope it does not have one of those safety air bag thingies in it.

Whistler

I finished the last Larsson book and packed up to leave Vancouver on Friday. Beofre leaving however, I had to get snow tires on the truck, and Dave insisted I get the engine noise checked out before I left. It has been noisy for so long that I was used to it and didn't think it was unusual, but he did. He thought it was my water pump and as it turned out, he was correct. Good thing I got it checked out I guess, but between that and the snow tires I dropped $1400 in two days at the same auto shop. That hurt.

My intention was to visit yet more friends who live in Whistler and then pick up the last of my stuff at D'arcy before heading east. I had wonderful sunny clear weather for the scenic drive to Whistler, and arrived in time to go for a lengthy hike around the neighbourhood. Lots of great views of the surrounding mountains. This picture is of the Armchair Glacier, just to the "left" of Blackcomb and Whistler ski mountains.


We walked out to Green Lake, where we saw a beaver lodge built into the shore and considerable beaver damage among the nearby trees. They had felled a bunch of trees, some of them quite large. One tree had been girdled but not felled. Several trees had fallen only partially, hung up in other trees. The girdled tree had another felled tree leaning on it so if they ever chew threw they will get two very big trees in one.


Whistler is a well-known resort town, houses there sell for millions of dollars. We walked through a neighbourhood of some of those million-dollar homes. They are fairly spectacular, with large wooden beams and lots of glass to take advantage of the surrounding mountain views. But they are also crowded together like a subdivision. If you want privacy in Whistler, you pay way more than a million or two for it.

My friends in Whistler live in a cabin that he, Keith, built in the early '70s, before Whistler was a money destination. It is well done, he being an engineer, but he says that for Whistler it is a tear-down. They are doing some renovations to make it more comfortable but there is no point in renovating for resale value because all the value is in the site, not the house.


We watched the Stellar's Jays on their deck, they come for the peanuts that Keith and Judy throw to them. One jay is quite fearless, he takes the peanut from your hand. In the morning he perches on the patio door frame, insistent on his peanut handout. Other jays are not so bold, they wait hidden in the surrounding spruces to pounce on a thrown peanut. They are very beautiful birds with large black crests bigger than the eastern Blue Jay's crest. But just as raucous.

On my second day in Whistler we drove out to the Olympic Village, built near the old site of the town dump (I have to laugh at that). We then followed a trail up the Cheakamus River, across a suspension foot bridge and back down the other side of the river. Along the way we looked at many mushrooms. Judy had recently been on a mushroom identification walk in Whistler and wanted to reinforce her newfound knowledge of mushrooms. It was quite interesting all the different kinds of mushrooms we saw, but being rank amateurs none of us knew their names or edibility status.



At night we could see lights on the two skiing mountains, Blackcomb and Whistler. Tiny lights outlined the lifts to different ski runs and one bright light identified a shelter high on Blackcomb. We speculated as to why it was lit up, Judy told me their was a summer road up there and we wondered if maybe they were provisioning the cabin for the winter when the road was closed.

Besides the Stellar's Jays I also saw my first Clark's Nutcracker, hanging upside down from spruce branches prying loose the seeds from the spruce cones. Smart and handsome looking bird.

Through the weasel door

I've mostly been staying at a friend's place in North Vancouver, we've spent a weekend on Gambier Island and I've spent almost a week in Seattle. Right now I am in D'arcy again.

I went to Seattle to visit an old boyfriend, Dave, now "just friends". He works on contract at Microsoft, and is more or less constantly working on one of his three vehicles: an older Toyota truck, a vintage Mercedes that he is restoring and a vintage Scorpion sports car. Since the last time I saw him he has sold the vintage Rover he had and the Toyota truck has died. It is still parked on the street in front of his house though. A few days before I arrived at his place, the Scorpion was sideswiped by an unknown vehicle while parked on the street, leaving a seriously crumpled fender. Needless to say this did not put him in a very good mood.

I was pulled over at the border and my truck searched, I was asked a lot of personal questions about where I was going, what I was doing, my current circumstances and my life history. Including the exact nature of my relationship with my friend in Seattle. I guess they didn't believe the "just friends" bit. The fellow in the booth at the border seemed quite unfriendly about the whole thing, the other fellow who did all the questioning and searching was less unfriendly and in retrospect I kind of think he was trying to figure out why his coworker had pulled me over, hence all the detailed questions. Or, as Dave suggested later, my long grey hair gave me a certain subversive look and they were just sure I was up to no good.

In any case it left me with a very bad feeling being in the States. It made me feel like a Very Unwelcome Foreigner, and I spent most of the rest of the week restraining myself from looking over my shoulder. Dave and I used to joke about our respective countries, but it didn't seem funny anymore. Dave used to call the border crossing "the weasel door", the hole that weasels slip into America through. Weasels being all those non-Americans who don't support the War in Iraq but who nevertheless want to take advantage of all the goodies available in America. It was a joke, he was being ironic, but now it feels true.

I don't think I will be going back any time soon. I suppose all this heightened security is necessary, but making one feel like a potential criminal just for crossing the border at a legitimate crossing point, seems to me a bit of overkill. I discussed this later with my North Vancouver friend and she said she has had the same experience and feels the same way about it. She is Dutch; for some reason American border guards suspect that she is trying to settle illegally in the States every time she crosses the border and shows her Dutch passport.

Dave and I spent the weekend working on our respective vehicles. He wanted to fix the crumpled fender on his Scorpion and there's a bit of rust on my truck that I was hoping to deal with under his supervision and with his tools. I expected the whole process to last maybe a day or two, depending on the weather. However, as these things do, it got complicated. I was into Quick and Dirty, Dave was not. If I was going to take instruction from him then I had to do it right, and he was not going to let me proceed to the next step until he was satisfied that I was working to his standards.

I assumed that I would be able to buy the correct colour of spray paint in Seattle, but that turned out not to be possible. On Friday we thought we would have to order the paint and then I would do all the work over the weekend to prepare the truck for painting on Monday when the paint would arrive. However on Monday we found out that this colour has been discontinued and cannot be ordered anywhere.

As it happened Dave had some of the colour I required in his shop, but it had to be mixed up and put into special equipment for spraying under pressure. I would not be able to do it as I did not have the experience or expertise to handle the equipment. So Dave had to take time off work to mix the paint and apply it to the truck on Tuesday. I felt bad about making him take time off work and do the paint job himself, this had not been part of our original agreement. The best I could do was take him out for dinner Tuesday night, before returning to Canada on Wednesday.




I was glad to be back safe in my own country on Wednesday, but it took a few hours after crossing the border before the feeling of being an Unwelcome Foreigner wore off. I had been debating whether I would return east via the USA or Canada, but my trip to Seattle pretty much decided that issue. I'll happily pay the higher price for gas in Canada to feel like an OK person.

The very next day I called Canadian Tire to see if they had the paint colour I was looking for; the fellow I spoke to on the phone said he couldn't find that particular colour code, however he had a couple of colours that might be close and I should come and take a look. I did, and one of them was pretty darn close, maybe even perfect. I bought one can to try on the truck to see how good a match it is. The job Dave and I did on the truck will probably last quite a while, maybe even the remaining lifetime of the truck. But it will be nice to know I can get touch-up paint fairly easily just in case.

And this weasel is happy to stay away from the weasel door for a good long while.

It's complicated...

A week since my last post, a lot has happened but only in the sense of 2 steps forward and 2 steps back. The seller and I are in some kind of weird little dance, my fourth offer on the house went in on Friday and I guess I'll hear the response soon.

I think the realty agents are colluding to get this sale over with, they both work in the same office and this house has been on the market---off and on---for ten years. My agent wants to get me a good deal on it, his agent just wants it done and gone. The seller, well, I'm not sure what the seller wants, it seems complicated. I suspect he doesn't know what he wants.

In any case, I think the agents know what they are doing and one way or another the deal will go through. I may be moving sooner than planned, or not. It has been such a complicated negotiation that I am ready to walk away from it if things don't resolve this week.

Isaac came for a whirlwind visit over the weekend, we had some business to discuss and we did a little visiting as well. He left early this morning to meet the rest of his family in PEI and head back to Toronto.

I got myself a little iPhone just in time for Isaac to hep me set it up. My cellphone bill immediately jumps from $11 to $60 a month, but it has so many features that I like and can use while travelling, that I am finally taking the big leap.

My truck has developed a leak that I patched with duck tape. I know it is sold as 'duct tape', but originally it was Duck Tape, so I am sticking to the original, and in this case I think that name is entirely appropriate. I was waiting for a good heavy rainfall to test my patch but all I got was occasional showers. So far the duck tape seems to be working, so I am going to stop waiting for the heavy rain and just get the truck packed and ready to go early next week. The plan is to be back in Toronto next week, then head west for a visit with west coast friends and family (and the soon to be newest member of the family!).

Depending on how the house negotiations go, I will spend the winter either in Nova Scotia or Ontario. Or who knows, maybe even BC.

This time of year

Still haven't heard the last of the medical mystery and I am abandoning the whole issue. It occurs to me that the shortage of medical isotopes due to Chalk River shutting down is impacting how fast they can schedule me for a CT scan; when I called the clinic they mentioned that they were triaging appointments so I'm guessing I am way down on the priority list. Personally I take that as good news, they must not think my situation is serious. Nor do I, so I am fine with skipping the whole thing.

The squirrels are having some drama. Not sure exactly, but I think they have another squirrel trying to move in on them. Lots of noise and teeth-clicking going on, and running in and out. They completely ignore me when I remind them of their promise to keep quiet.

With the truck I negotiated the minimum in repairs, which meant no undercoat, but then I changed my mind so now I have to go back for that. Annoying but my own fault.

I want to visit friends in Cape Breton, but their schedule is that they are too busy for visitors between Thursday and Sunday. The only window of opportunity is Monday to Wednesday, and it takes a day to drive there. I could have gone today, except that the only undercoating time slot I could get was either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. Although after cancelling out on the Cape Breton trip they then told me I could come in on Tuesday of next week for the undercoating. That would have worked better, but it's too late now.

So I am still trying to figure out when to go back to Toronto. I could drive up to Cape Breton next Monday, stay for a couple of days and then leave from there, but that will add an extra day of driving to the trip to Toronto.

Or I could go to CB, return here, and then leave from here right around Hallowe'en.

NOT! If you need to know anything about Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, it's

You.Do.Not.Want.To.Be.On.The.Road.On.Hallowe'en.

No way, no how!

OK, more pics.

This is the little red maple tree in my 'front yard'. It lights the whole place up on the darkest dullest days.


One day the moon was up on a bright sunny day.


My outhouse (now why would I need a curtain? that reflection is curtain enough!)


The Fraser Brook (the other major brook in these woods) down in the vault...


...and up close, looking upstream...


...and down.


In a normal year this brook runs almost dry by August, but this year it has looked like these pics pretty much since July. Except for the yellow leaves of course, that's recent.

And a bright yellow shelf fungus on red rotting wood.


I'm glad I stayed here until now, in spite of the various frustrations. As the guy who delivered my firewood said, This time of year make's it all worthwhile. I've been repeating that comment to everyone I meet around here, it's become a bit of a joke now, people are starting to say it back to me.

This time of year makes it all worthwhile!

Letting go

My truck is in the garage getting major repairs. I took it in a few days ago to get an inspection prior to driving back to Toronto, and I was fully expecting the garage to tell me the truck was fine, or that it needed minor repairs. I certainly hadn't noticed anything other than the gas leak from the filler hose. However Albert at the garage told me I was looking at $1300 worth of work. Thirteen hundred! Yuk.

After consulting various friends and family members (Hi Peter!) I negotiated with Albert to reduce the repairs to those absolutely necessary, and to use cheap parts (he wanted to put in top quality parts to keep the truck going forever), bringing the price down to just under a thousand. Still a hefty bill but he said it was unsafe to drive as is all the way to Toronto, I don't have time to find another vehicle now and Albert was unwilling to back off from what he considered safety-related necessary repairs. So there you are.

I do however have an offer from a former car salesman to help me find a new vehicle next year. He seems pretty knowledgeable and apparently he loves doing that sort of thing, especially the part where you negotiate a really good price. Hey, sounds like a plan!

The big step for me was foregoing undercoating the truck. I've always tried to keep up with proper maintenance of the truck, and in this climate undercoating is critical. Saying no to the undercoat means I am letting the truck go. We are about to part ways. I've had this truck for fifteen years and it is hard to do. Albert put up a strong argument for keeping it going, he believes it is a solid truck and worth the effort, but I've reluctantly come 'round to saying that may be so but not for me. It's hard.

Thirteen hundred

I took my truck into the garage on Tuesday to get the brakes and front end inspected; I fully expected to get some kind of seal of approval and be sent merrily on my way.

Boy was I naive!

Right now I am looking at sinking $1300 into my beloved little truck. Albert assures me that it is all absolutely necessary, and---AND---

My Truck Is Worth It.
Yup, he said that. Yuck, where did that come from?

So I drove home to sit in front of the fire and reel. Omigod, thirteen hundred bucks. THIRTEEN HUNDRED bucks.

OK. Moving on.

It's only money, right? And I love my little truck. But having to make major vehicular decisions always leaves me feeling inadequate and insecure. It absolutely scares the heck out of me. So, I did what I do under those circumstances, I asked everybody I could think of what I should do. Needless to say I got lots of conflicting advice. Everything from just do what the man says to get rid of the truck now, this only ends badly. So I got to spend a sleepless night mulling it all over.

In the morning I had pretty much come to some kind of conclusion, but still feeling totally inadequate and insecure I went around trying to get all those advice givers to agree with and approve of my conclusion. I know, it's silly and useless, but that's what I do. I called Albert and he argued with me. One opinionated mechanic, is our Albert. But he came back with a revised estimate and a deadline, tell him by 3.00pm what I wanted to do. And I did. We agreed on slightly less work and slightly cheaper parts for a slightly lower estimate (eleven hundred). And having had twenty-four hours to wrestle with this issue I am content with it. On Thursday morning the truck goes into the garage and it doesn't come out till end of Friday. It gets a whole bunch of new parts and an undercoat.

The conclusion I came to was that, while looking for a new vehicle is probably in order, I don't want to do that right now under these circumstances. I need time. But I also need to get back to Toronto with my kayak and all my stuff, and that means I need the truck, and I need it to be safe. A thousand bucks seems like a lot of money to put into a vehicle you plan to get rid of, but I don't see a way around it that is less stressful.

And I like Albert. His main argument was, this is a good truck, it is worth it. He said they call this particular model The Iron Work Horse, because it just keeps going and going. I feel that if I am going to live here for any length of time then I want Albert to be my mechanic of first choice; I need him to pay attention to what I want, but I also don't want to tick him off.

The waiting room blues

It's getting colder all the time now, Sheila says the long range forecast is for snow flurries next Friday. I'd pack up and leave now, but...

It seems like every time I plan to leave, whether from Toronto to Nova Scotia, vice versa or anywhere else for that matter, all hell breaks loose. All of a sudden I have emergencies that must be taken care of right now and even involve postponing departure dates. Right now I have both medical and vehicular urgent matters---or so it seems---to take care of and I can't leave until I do.

As far as the vehicle goes, apparently I have a gas leak, but it is most likely not the gas tank but the hose from the gas lid to the tank. However they no longer make that hose, but the local gas tank repair guy has obtained one from the "after-market" (now, would that be the junk yard?) and can install it Wednesday. I also am taking the truck in to another garage on Tuesday to get the front end and brakes inspected. I think they're fine but don't want surprises on the road. Both garages are in small towns so there's not a lot to do while waiting, and usually they want a few hours at least, so it's a bit of a pain but what can you do.

The medical matter is more of a mystery, I suspect it is nothing but the doctor---a young guy---has taken the ball and run off with it, ordering up all kinds of tests and X-rays and CT scans and whatnot. He's at a walk-in clinic so I can't make an appointment, I have to show up and wait for at least an hour before I get to see him. I'm getting the immersion course in waiting room life (that would be a whole other blog posting!).

So far he has proposed several theories, each one necessitating yet another test, and I am on my second course of antibiotics even though there is very little evidence of any kind of infection. A kind of ruling-things-out-by-treatment: if the antibiotic doesn't fix it then it must not be an infection. And apparently each antibiotic is only good for certain things, so if the first one doesn't work then maybe it's another kind of infection.

I just looked up from my laptop to see a blue jay sitting on my windowsill, a few feet away. Cool!

The X-ray was supposed to be definitive, but it only raised yet more questions and more theories, so now he wants a CT scan. That is sure to be definitive! I went home Friday night quite discouraged, I am "sick and tired" of all this fuss over a relatively minor complaint that as near as I can tell does not indicate anything serious. So I went on the internet yesterday to look up CT scans, and while there are lots of benefits there are also some risks, it involves considerably more radiation than just an X-ray. The descriptions all say that the benefits far outweigh the risks, because the CT scan allows early diagnosis and prompt treatment.

My problem with that is that we're not talking cancer or any other life-threatening issues here, and the doctor's current theories either have no treatment or a "wait and see" treatment. So why run the risk for such little benefit? He says it could take as long as 3 weeks to get the CT scan, or I could get in as early as one week from making the appointment. And since I only saw him on Friday night after the clinic staff had left for the long weekend, that appointment won't get made until Tuesday, so we are talking at least a week and a half. Hence the discouragement.

So, I am thinking that I will get the truck taken care of and then see how I feel about taking a miss on the CT scan. I am pretty sure it will be even harder to get the CT scan in Toronto, and my current plan does not involve staying in Toronto for very long. I just bought myself a round-trip Westjet ticket to Vancouver for Christmas, leaving Toronto the end of November and returning early January. December has got to be one of the worst months weather-wise to be in Vancouver, and of course the same can be said for January to March in Toronto. I'm just a glutton for punishment!

I dislike flying in big airplanes to and from big airports, but Westjet is one of the better ones so I am kind of looking forward to that. Haven't flown with them in a while so they may not be as good as they used to be---we shall see---but I have good memories of them. If ever an airline believed in customer service, it would be Westjet.

One of my favourite memories is of an ill-fated flight during the winter from Toronto to Vancouver, with a stopover in Calgary. Departures were delayed by several hours, in both Toronto and Calgary, due to weather. Connections were missed. When we finally boarded the plane in Calgary it was clear that we would be arriving in Vancouver after closing time and we would be damn lucky to find taxis or buses there. But, when we were all seated and belted in, the pilot came on the intercom singing, "Six days on the road and we're gonna get you home tonight!" They've got the nicest people working on their airplanes!

They have no first class seating, it's all one class. They didn't used to serve meals so there were no food carts in the aisles and as soon as the seatbelt sign went off they encouraged you to get up and wander around. The flight attendants told jokes and played games. One game they used to play involved throwing rolls of toilet paper down the aisles! People brought their own food and shared with their neighbours, I had some really great meals on some of those flights. We used to compare flight jokes, to see who had the funniest flight. Unfortunately the airline now serves food so they do have the food carts in the aisles, and they have TV screens in the seatbacks so the flight attendants don't tell jokes or play games anymore. Too bad, it used to be a lot of fun.

One thing I discovered with Westjet though is that flights with stopovers are actually better than non-stop flights, they give you a chance to get out and stretch your legs and breathe real air. Westjet used to stop at some out-of-the-way places, so you ended up in tiny airports in parts of the country you never expected to see. Small airports are way better than the big ones.

Oh, one more thing. I got email from Lisa, the Festival Committee Chair of Deep Roots Music. She found my blog post on this year's festival and liked it, she was writing to ask permission to link to it from the Deep Roots website. I feel honoured!

And that's my rant for the day.

Breakdown

The outhouse is progressing, it seems slow but it probably isn't really.

Yesterday Mike went to Canning to buy all the stuff we needed to finish it, but he didn't get everything. He could get plywood for the roof but not for the walls because a local farmer had bought up all the 3/8" plywood earlier in the morning for something he was building. They had a toilet seat but it was rather expensive; Mike figured I could get a cheaper one another time.

He picked up about a pound of nails and they charged $85 for that! Must have been a typo, they probably meant $0.85, but Mike'll have to go back to get them to fix it.

So yesterday we got the roof on and all the wall studs up, and we hung the door. It looks quite handsome.


I stapled tarpaper onto the roof.


Today I planned to buy the plywood for the walls and the rest of the stuff we needed, the toilet seat, a thumb latch for the door, stain for the plywood, and also some groceries. I need coffee! Mike had to go down to the Valley too, we ended up leaving at the same time. But Mike turned off on the road to Canning and I continued on to Wolfville.

Driving down the Mountain, I smelled antifreeze. Then I saw a light on the dash behind my pen, I moved the pen and the light said "CHECK GAGES". I looked at all the dials, wondering what I was supposed to be looking for. Then I saw the Temperature gauge up in the red zone. I pulled off the road immediately. Lifted the hood and sure enough there was steam or smoke puffing out. Whups.

I usually carry a phone book in the truck so I got that out to look for the number of the garage that fixed my truck the other day. A truck passing in the other direction stopped and the driver asked if I needed a phone. I said, No thanks, waving my cell phone at him. He drove off. But when I turned it on it immediately told me that my battery was low and needed to be charged right away. Double whups.

I tried calling anyway. When the garage answered I spoke quickly trying to tell them who I was, where I was, what the problem was and that my cell phone was about to die. Then the woman who answered put me on hold! And of course my cell phone died.

I walked down the road looking for a house with a car in front of it. I found one a short distance away, in fact the car owner was puttering in his driveway. When I asked if I could use his phone he led me into his house and his wife directed me to the phone. I called the garage, got their voice mail and told them the address and phone number of this house. The woman at the garage called back in a few minutes and said that Albert was on his way. So I went outside to wait for him.

It turned out that the fellow and his wife whose phone I used were from the Harbour. In fact he grew up there. When he told me where he used to live, I knew who he was, I had heard of him. We talked a bit about the Harbour and Wenega. He was friends with Mike but hadn't seen him in a while, he asked after Mike.

Albert showed up a few minutes later and quickly found that radiator hose clamp had come loose, thus emptying the rad and causing the engine to overheat. He was able to re-install the clamp and refill the rad with antifreeze, and then suggested that I follow him back to the garage where he could double check the clamp and also the antifreeze and water ratio in rad. This we did, and after he had satisfied himself that everything was as it should be, he offered me a card entitling me to a free oil change in compensation for the aggravation.

I continued on to Wolfville and picked up all the things I needed, but I got back home much later than I had planned. Plus the whole event took its toll on my physical, emotional and mental stamina, I felt exhausted and nearly brain-dead.

Nevertheless Mike and I tackled the outhouse again. Mike and Ruth are planning to go away on the weekend so Mike wanted to get far enough along that I could continue without him, or his Skilsaw. I think I would have preferred to go somewhere and stare at a wall for an hour or two, but never mind we ploughed ahead.

I rather suspect Mike was in a similar state of mind, it seemed like we made all kinds of mistakes and barely managed to avoid snapping at each other. The mosquitoes just swarmed, the outhouse is in a damp shady area and we were hot and sweaty.

At one point, after having miscut a sheet of plywood and discovering that it was not only the wrong size but the wrong shape, and then debating what to do about that, Mike said there were two choices: slap the damn thing up and ignore the fact that it was the wrong size and shape, or go cut another sheet of plywood correctly. I opted for the former (slap it up). Mike said nothing and we slapped it up. I am beyond caring.

Then Peter phoned to say that he had found in his workshop basement a bunch of clapboard I could use on the walls of the outhouse. I told him I had just bought the plywood for that. Oh well. He had a few more suggestions, and they were all useful and kind, but my mental and emotional exhaustion was such that I could not really comprehend what was being suggested. I just thanked him.

Mike finally left around 6pm. He still has to get me started on the roofing, we think we will do that tomorrow. I met Valerie on the road back into the woods on my way back from the Valley, she was at the pond with her dog Phoebe. She motioned for me to stop because she was worried Phoebe might bound up from the pond and into my path. She said she had missed me on the morning dog walks this week and hoped I would be out tomorrow. I said I would, but now it looks like I won't be able to.

It's amazing how a relatively minor incident can completely overwhelm you for the rest of the day. There was no real harm done, the incident only lasted an hour, but it wiped me out for the rest of the day.

Busy day

I bought some building supplies for an outhouse, and took my truck to a garage to get its problem diagnosed. Burnt out heater core. Antifreeze being sprayed onto the inside surface of all the truck cab windows, windshield in particular. $300. Coincidentally, the building supply store also estimated $300 for all the building materials I wanted for the outhouse. I didn't buy it all, just enough to get started. Yesterday Peter helped me draw up a plan for the outhouse, I had tried earlier to do it but somehow it seemed too complicated (there are special requirements for this particular outhouse). Peter has a gift for simplifying things. After a few minutes of sketching, I had a plan, a materials list and a cost estimate. Plus donations of a door and roofing materials.

I also went and looked at a three acre building lot with "deeded water access" on a lake. The location is kind of interesting, it was a very pretty drive to get there and the lake itself was very pretty. The real estate agent was a very nice lady who lived nearby. It was a fun trip but I have not made up my mind. It has its pros and cons, as usual, although a friend said You just have to decide, the pros and cons don't really matter. Which is true I think in this case. But easier said than done!

Had dinner at Mike and Ruth's and we talked among other things about a book I am reading called The Strange Empire of Louis Riel. Reading it is like watching a bad car crash happen in front of you, you know it ends badly and getting to see the details of exactly how and why it ends badly is not pleasant but hard to turn away from. I can't read too much of it at a time.

Luthier and body woman

The other evening Mike and I modified my banjo. We had already taken the resonator off the back of it, but there was still the resonator ring and that was uncomfortable because it cut into my thighs when holding the banjo in my lap. To remove the ring all the nuts on the banjo head brackets have to be removed, then the ring pulled off and the nuts replaced. I think there are around twenty of them. The big trick was to find a tool to remove the nuts, since I did not have a banjo wrench. Mike had a broken adjustable wrench and pliers, we used those to remove the nuts. It was a tedious process, but at the end when we had finally removed the ring and replaced the nuts, Mike said, There, now we are luthiers!

Well today I can say, There, now I am a body man! Body woman? At any rate, today I fixed the hole in my truck.

I was going to do it yesterday, but not being enthusiastic about the task I managed to find lots of other jobs to fill the day. At 4.30 in the afternoon I finally went out to the truck and poked at the hole with a bit of sandpaper. Sure enough, not an easy job and even more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I tried to formulate a plan of attack, ran over it with Mike after supper, he made some suggestions, and I went home mulling it all over. Definitely not an easy task.

The problem is that the hole is behind a wheel well, into a cavity that was full of mud when I first looked at it. I managed to spoon out most of the mud and could see another hole in behind the first hole, no doubt the entry point of all that mud. Upon closer inspection I realized it wasn't really a hole but rather a gap between two pieces of the truck body. On the other side of the truck this gap is much tinier and filled with a gasket, but on this side of the truck the gap is almost a half inch wide (and three or four inches long) and the gasket comes nowhere near to filling it.

I was thinking that if I filled the hole on the outside, mud would continue to get into that cavity via the gap behind and cause it to rust out. I thought I should somehow block off that gap. My idea was to use a piece of fibreglass cloth leftover from the kayak building last summer and a whole whack of body filler.

Anyway, this morning I realized that my abortive effort to tackle the job yesterday was part of a pattern with me. When I have a big job to do and I don't really know how to do it but suspect that it is going to be much harder and more complicated than the instructions seem to suggest, then my first step is to avoid it. I can put it off for days, weeks, finding other more important things to do. I need a new compost pile, I need to clean up the garbage in front of the house, I need to plant some more seeds, I need to pull up some more bracken. Anything but the task at hand.

My second step is to read the instructions and try to do it, usually under the most unpromising of conditions, such as at the very end of the day. This is the critical step. This is where I finally come to grips with how hard it really is, how big and complicated a job it really is. Now I get it. The instructions lied, this is not easy.

The third step of course is to come up with a more realistic plan of action. Now I know I have to start earlier in the day (doh!), and I know what tools I'll need and have some idea how to start.

So today I started at noon instead of 4.30pm. I used a wood rasp and a file to remove the worst of the rust and paint, and I also decided to take on another spot on the truck that was not yet a hole but soon would be. In fact I managed to create a new hole with the file. I removed the plastic rims around the two wheel wells adjacent to the old hole and the new hole. Under one of the rims was a yet more rusty metal, so I filed that down too.

After a couple of hours of filing and sanding I finally had it down to a point where I thought I could start filling the holes. My new hole was easy, it was small and there was no cavity behind it to worry about.

The plan I had for dealing with the gap behind the original hole turned out to be worthless, the combination of fibreglass and body filler was just a mess. I ended up just glopping body filler into the cavity and attempting to smear it over one end of the gap, leaving the other end open, on the theory that since I could not make the cavity waterproof then I should leave some of it open so that any water or mud that did get in there could still potentially drain out.

After several rounds of glopping in body filler and letting it harden, the gap may or may not have been partially filled and the outer hole was finally closed. Of course now I had almost a quarter inch of body filler sticking out of the hole and smeared around it, so when it was dry I now had to file or sand it all off. So more filing and sanding, filing and sanding. And I had to add yet more filler because there were pinholes in the glopped filler when I sanded it down.

Finally it was sanded down to a point where I thought I could start painting it. Certainly not perfect, still a bit of a raised patch, but good enough. This is after all, an eighteen-year-old truck with over 300,000 km on it, hardly a perfect specimen. The next step was to tape and paper around the areas to be painted, leaving only the parts I wanted to paint exposed. By this time it was close to 5.00pm, but in June on a nice sunny day I had several hours left in the day to work. And, once I got the primer on, it would be OK to leave it to the next day to finish, since the weather report is for several clear sunny days ahead.

The primer went on easily. You had to leave ten minutes between coats, I put several coats on and it all looked fine. I cleaned up and went home for supper.

After supper I went back and looked at the truck, and I thought I could probably go ahead and put the final coat of red paint on, there was still lots of time left in the evening. So I sprayed the red paint on over the primer. The instructions for this paint say I only need to wait 3-4 minutes between coats and I should probably do two or three coats. By this time the mosquitoes were thick, it was getting tricky to work. The first coat I sprayed exactly over the primer, on the next coat I moved all the tape and paper back a bit to spread the paint beyond the primer. Everything was going well and there was quite a bit of the red paint left, so I thought that the quarter panel with the hole in it could do with a bit of brightening, it is the most faded part of the truck. So I moved all the paper and tape back to include the entire panel and sprayed it all. Several times.

Gee, this went much easier than I expected! Of course the light now is not the best so maybe it looks so good because I can't see the imperfections. Tomorrow it may look horrible, but that quarter panel already looked horrible, it can't be any worse!

I cleaned up and went home, but I had to go back out to admire it again. Hard to leave it alone. I went over to Mike's to tell him about it, he in turn told me a perfectly depressing story about Nazi atrocities during World War II. So I had to go back to admire the truck again before it got really dark.

The instructions say I am supposed to wait a few days to buff it, I have no idea what buffing means. I may or may not pursue it. In any case, I think I can get my safety sticker now. Yippee!

Catching up

It's been awhile since I last posted, but finally I am in Nova Scotia. One delay after another, but it's finally done, I am moved in at The Harbour.

I can't post much in the way of photos because I can't transfer them from the camera to the computer yet, but soon. I wish I had taken a photo of the truck before I left because it was all nicely washed and waxed, with the kayak mounted on the roof. Oh well, you'll just have to imagine it. But don't look too closely, the truck is packed to the gunnels (oh darn, is that one 'l' or two? Spellcheck doesn't even recognize it as a word!), with only a little space for me to sit in front of the steering wheel...

Getting out of TO

My original intention was to leave Toronto and arrive here on May 8. But due to a bit of a health scare requiring various tests, I postponed my departure date to the following week. Then I got a cold. Then the cold turned into a sinus infection. Then there was the long Victoria Day weekend and not wanting to be on the road on the first long weekend of the season. I was then going to leave the Tuesday immediately following, the 19th, but The Dog Ladies wanted to get together one last time and one of them was out of town that long weekend so the earliest we could get together was, guess what, Tuesday the 19th. So I postponed leaving until the next day.

We met for potluck dinner at Catherine's, it was a nice evening so we sat in her backyard under the grape arbour and dined on barbecued chicken kebabs, potato salad, green salad, some lovely artisan bread, and a mix of Portuguese pastries including the classic custard tarts. Oh and wine and beer of course. I was a little more restrained this time than last time, since I planned to start a long drive the next day.

I spent most of Tuesday packing and cleaning up, but did not manage to finish before dinner time, so I ended up spending all Wednesday morning and early afternoon packing. Finally I was ready to go, at 2.00pm on the 20th, but there's something about leaving in the middle of the afternoon that is just really hard to do. I had to leave right then and there or face Toronto rush hour, and I just couldn't do it. So I postponed to Thursday the 21st.

I cleaned up a few loose ends on Wednesday afternoon so that I really would be ready to leave early Thursday. Isaac agreed to wake me up at 5.00am so I could get out of the house by 6.00am, ahead of the rush hour on the downtown portion of the Gardiner Expressway. That all worked fine, but what I didn't count on was that the Jameson St. access was closed for road work and I did not know where the next nearest access was. And on top of that, having driven down Jameson St along with several other cars expecting to get onto the Expressway there, everyone had to turn around and get out, and the silly fool in front of me backed into my truck and broke one of my headlights.

We pulled over and piled out to look at the damage, the other driver said it was no big deal, just a broken headlight, and I said, But I'm trying to get to Nova Scotia and now I can't until I get it fixed and I have missed my damn window of opportunity to get out of Toronto ahead of rush hour! The guy seemed to think that this was easily solved, he knew a garage open 24/7, they could replace the headlight and I could still make it out of town in half an hour. He offered to lead me to this garage. Having no other plan, I reluctantly agreed to his and so we turned around and drove to this garage he knew.

Turns out the garage he spoke of is the only garage in all of Toronto that I have had a Most Negative Experience of in the past, one Bento's on Dundas. Wouldn't you know it! I swore I would never go there again and now here I was. Well, I could only hope that replacing a broken headlight was simple enough that they couldn't screw it up. The mechanic on duty there said they did not have my headlight in stock, they wouldn't have it until 8.30am. So much for getting out of Toronto before rush hour. The other driver paid for the headlight and installation thereof and took off, hardly 20 minutes out of his day all told, while I was stuck waiting another two hours before the part would even be available. Argh!

So back home I went to wait for my headlight. Went for one last walk at the dogpark with Isaac and Dobby. Went back to Bento's at 8.30am, only to be told by Bento himself that I didn't have a hope in hell of getting the headlight before 9.30am! I freaked out. I told him I was trying to get to Nova Scotia by Friday afternoon, I had been into his garage two hours before and the mechanic had promised the headlight for 8.30, and I just couldn't wait until 9.30! Bento got on the phone and ordered the headlight from another supplier, 10 minutes later it arrived, and by 9.00am the truck was ready to go.

Three hours late, but oh well.

Island in the rain

I went back to Brentwood Bay to visit Peter and Pat again this week. Peter was going to install new shocks on the truck and his friend John arranged an appointment for my truck to get transmission service at a shop he recommended.

So on Wednesday I took the ferry from Tsawwassen to Schwarz Bay.

I was intending to catch the 3:00pm ferry, and I thought I had left New Westminster in ample time to make that ferry, but apparently mid-day mid-week is a busy time! I had to wait for the 5:00pm ferry.


Fortunately I arrived in time for one of Pat's wonderful meals, a roast of pork with vegetables and salad.










Bike ride to Todd Inlet

On Thursday morning we took the truck in for the transmission service, but Peter could not install the shocks because they had not arrived yet. John was supposed to have ordered them but it turns out he hadn't so they wouldn't arrive until Friday.

Island life: sometimes you just have to wait for stuff.

I went for a lovely bike ride in the nearby provincial park, through the woods and down to Todd Inlet. This is the inlet that Peter and I kayaked in the last time I visited Brentwood Bay.

I wish I had brought my camera, it was so beautiful. The water of the inlet was like glass, and there was a mist drifting down from the trees. I could see delicate white jellyfish in the water, and the faint outline of a large fish swimming deep in the water. This time of year is exquisite here!

Watching the leadership debate

In the evening we watched part of the leadership debate on TV, it was very interesting. Elizabeth May was so good! Very impressive! And it was a beautiful moment seeing her wagging her finger at Stephen Harper, like a mother to a naughty little boy. My favourite moment though was her accusing Stephen of fraud. Someone asked her to repeat the comment in French and in a very terrible French accent she said, "Fraud. Fraud!" Quite funny.

Gilles Duceppe was good too, but I guess that since both Elizabeth and Gilles haven't a snowball's chance in hell of becoming the next Prime Minister, they are both free to speak their minds without worrying about how many votes they will win or lose. It was hard to be impressed by either Dion or Layton, much as I would have liked to have been.

A walk in the garden

On Friday Peter got the new shocks and went to work on my truck, while Pat and I went off to the Glendale Gardens and Horticultural Centre of the Pacific. It rained most of the time we were there but it was still most enjoyable. All of the pictures today are from there. Glendale is small compared to its much more famous neighbour, the Butchart Gardens, but it is well laid out and is a working garden for the Horticultural College. Pat is a member and can use their extensive and wonderful gardening library, and take courses at the College.

New shocks

Installing the shocks took more time than Peter expected but I was nevertheless able to catch the 5:00pm ferry back to Tsawwassen without any problem. I would have thought there would more likely be delays on a Friday rather than a Wednesday, but not so.

Peter noted that one of the old shocks he removed from the truck looked different from the others, it had more rust, was more worn out and did not have the same label as the others. We speculated that when I got four shocks put on the truck last June by Canadian Tire, only three in fact were put on. I am not happy about that.

I said my good byes to Peter and Pat after a very pleasant couple of days visiting with them.

I don't know when I will see them next, so I left feeling a little sad, I will miss them.

And Spencer the cat too!

From the Atlantic to the Pacific

My plan was to go straight from D'Arcy to Brentwood Bay to visit my brother Peter. Brentwood Bay is just north of Victoria, about half way between the ferry terminal at Swartz Bay and the city of Victoria.




September 15: Best laid plans, changed on the fly

I left D'Arcy around 10:00am, after saying goodbye to Sam and a brief Hello-Goodbye to the fellows at Island Expeditions. If it had only taken three hours to get back to Vancouver I think I might have made it to Tsawwassen for the 3:00pm Victoria ferry as I told my brother I was going to. However, driving on the Sea to Sky Highway was again quite slow, so I opted for the Nanaimo ferry from Horseshoe Bay at 3:10pm and then a drive down the Island Highway.

In one of the line-ups waiting to get through some road construction on the Sea to Sky Highway I met a man who travels the ferries a lot and he recommended that, even though Brentwood Bay (my destination) is much closer to the Victoria ferry terminal, I should take the Nanaimo ferry from Horseshoe Bay instead of the 76 km "drive through hell" that is the route through Vancouver to the Tsawwassen fery terminal. As it was, I just barely made it onto the Nanaimo ferry. Unfortunately I had to pay the oversize fee of an extra $30. I met the same guy again on the ferry and he said I should complain, that my truck and kayak sure didn't look overheight. Even though they (the BC Ferries guys on the ferry) counted my vehicle as underheight once on the ferry, they couldn't do anything and recommended that I stop by the ferry terminal in Nanaimo. So that is what I did.

At the Nanaimo ferry terminal, the manager measured my truck height and showed me that it was actually 2 inches overheight. So, they wouldn't give me my money back but now I knew how much I needed to somehow get rid of in order to avoid the overheight fee the next time.

I arrived at Peter and Pat's home in Brentwood Bay just as they were setting dinner on the table. How fortuitous! We ate at the table on their backyard patio, it was very pleasant. They have a very nice house surrounded by big trees, and the gardens that Pat has been working hard on for the past year. They just moved in about a year ago and are still meeting their neighbours, getting to know the place, and making changes to make their home more comfortable and beautiful.

September 16: Foiling BC Ferries

Peter took on the project of getting my roof rack down by at least 2 inches. In the end he was successful but it was quite a job. First we moved the roof rack mounts forward so that they could be attached lower on the truck canopy (the cap on the bed of the truck). Then Peter tried reducing the size of the extra spacers in the forward rack mounts, but when we put the kayak on after he had done that it turned out to be not sufficient. It was better to removed the spacers altogether.

By suppertime we were satisfied that it was well under the seven foot limit for overheight vehicles on BC Ferries. However, the rear rack was now mounted so far forward that I had to change my kayak mounting technique to get it up there. A little more awkward but still doable.

September 17: From sea to sea

Today Peter and I went kayaking in Brentwood Bay.











Peter rented a kayak and I took mine.












We paddled down a long narrow inlet that was at first very quiet and peaceful but when we got near the end of the inlet it was full of noisy high school kids out paddling canoes. Ah well!










We passed through a great underwater cloud of white jellyfish, ranging in size from a couple of inches to maybe eight inches in diameter. They were very beautiful. We also saw starfish and spiderfish (they look like starfish but have many many legs) on the rocky bottom. At one point we thought we saw a river otter swimming across the inlet, but it turned out to be a harbour seal. It dove, and then later I saw it under my kayak slowly spiralling up to the surface. It broke the water just behind me, sat there for a few moments blinking its eyes and looking around, before diving below again. We also saw a couple of kingfishers and turkey buzzards, and some Canada geese.

A number of Brentwood Bay residents have homes right on the waterfront, each with their own little dock and boats. At the tip of the bay is a marina full of pleasure craft and rows of condos that Peter refers to as The Chicken Coop.





So now I have officially gone a mari usque ad mare in my kayak, dipped it in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as one freshwater lake, Anderson. The only thing 'missing' is Lake Ontario, but I probably won't be able to do that this year.

After our paddle we went for lunch at a local pub and had quite a good chat about our respective plans for the future, family, and various other topics. Later I went for a walk with Pat around the neighbourhood, she showed me some of her favourite gardens and spots to view the ocean. Gardening is big, very big, in the Victoria area, you can grow so many things that just don't grow anywhere else in Canada. The gardens are lush and varied with many beautiful shrubs and trees as well as flowers.

September 18: Friends and family

Today was very social day, Peter and Pat invited their friends John and Debby for a pancake breakfast and later in the afternoon we went to visit Aunt Sidney and Uncle David.

Earlier I had asked Peter what his opinion was on how much longer I could expect to keep my truck running, whether I was better off to keep it going or look for another one. He suggested that his friend John could give me a better idea than he could, so after breakfast John took a good look at my truck and made his recommendations. Basically, he thought that I could probably get another 50,000 km out of my truck if I did a few crucial repairs, and that rather than try to keep it going any longer than that or embarking on major repairs, I should start looking now for a replacement. He recommended that I look for a good used Mazda B2200. More importantly, he told me my fan belt needed to be replaced immediately, like before I left Brentwood Bay, and there were a couple of other things he thought my truck needed. He could get me a deal on parts if I wanted to return to Brentwood Bay in a week or so. I was extremely grateful for his opinion and careful examination of my truck.

In the afternoon we went over to Sid and David's place for tea. Sid is my mother's sister, the last of the three sisters still alive. She and David are in their 80s, and they have lived in the same house just about since they were married. In fact, it is the house that David grew up in, it was bought by his father when David was eight. It is a lovely old house on a beautiful lot overlooking Oak Bay in Victoria.

Among other things it is filled with examples of Sid's fine needlework, which unfortunately she no longer does. They also have many fine old paintings and a lovely garden. Sid's favourite pastimes are golf and gardening.

Sid told us the story of the AY Jackson painting they had that has now ended up in the Ontario Art Gallery. They sold it a few years ago and apparently it got the highest price of any AY Jackson painting ever. It was little known, since Jackson's work was mostly in Ontario and Quebec, few knew that he had come out to BC and done some painting here as well. This painting is a view of trees and mountains rising from a waterfront, perhaps somewhere along the coast. She said they were glad that it ended up in Ontario, Jackson's home province.

Sitting with Sid and David was almost like having my mother back, Sid looks a little like my mother and shares some of her mannerisms and way of talking. It was kind of poignant, flipping between seeing her as Mum and Sid, and being aware of how frail she is and how one day she will be gone too. Not that she is unhealthily frail, she does after all continue to golf every week. But they have largely given up sailing even though they still have their boat.

Sid urged Pat to take some of her plants, but Pat feels she already has enough for now. Sid and Pat enjoy each other's company very much as they share the gardening in common. Mossom, their son, was there for awhile. I did not talk to him much although Peter and Moss went out for a chat probably about cars.

Peter is very much into cars, especially his two Mustangs, a Cobra and a Shelby. I understand that the Shelby is very valuable and powerful, Peter keeps both vehicles in immaculate condition. The Shelby is not for everyday driving, he uses the Cobra for that.

September 19: Back to the mainland

Peter changed the fanbelt and the oil on my truck, I will be returning in another week or so for new shocks, a new gasket in the engine (twice I asked the name of it, twice he told me, and twice I forgot it; I just know that it is not the head gasket), and a transmission servicing. I am kind of annoyed that the last two shock absorber changes made no difference to how the truck ran and John said the reason is because the shocks are inadequate for my truck. The new shocks put on this summer should still be good but they are not. John will order some heavy duty shocks for me. John also recommended a heavier oil in my truck, so that is what Peter put in.

So that's it, I am on the ferry heading back to the mainland after my week of travelling and visiting, I did not have to pay the overheight fee this time. I hope to get back to Sam's place and I am committed to going back to Peter's, in another week or so. Then I will probably start thinking about heading east.