World Wide Wanderment

On driving in Canada, all I can say is I love love love my GPS. First, at least in Quebec all the road signs are in French, which wouldn’t be that bad if I had a good map and had looked at ahead of time to plan my route, which I hadn’t. Second, the freeway (Autoroute)interchange I was supposed to take was shut down sticking me out on surface streets which would have left me horribly lost if I didn’t have my GPS to recalculate my route every 5 seconds as I drove around the construction and kept making progress towards my destination. Third, on the surface streets the street name signs are very hard to see, it’s not like home where they are hung over the street with big illuminated letters, so it’s far easier to read the names on the GPS screen then see the unlit sign nailed to the side of a building across the intersection. Fourth, there are lots of one way streets and if I hadn’t listened to my GPS I probably would have gone the wrong way up several of them…

I suppose for background I should say that I met Sylvie and her dog Laika at the dog park about two years ago. She was originally from Quebec and was working as a veterinary pathologist in southern California. About a year ago she decided it was time to move back to Quebec. She was again someone that had made the decision to move out of so cal, and then done it, in far far less time than it was taking me. I guess however I don’t need to be as sensitive to that fact as I once was since since I’ve now covered over 8000 miles… In fact as I write this, a few days late, I’m sitting in Gaspie, Quebec which is just about the furthest point possible away from so cal, well on not the furthest point possible since I could have driving up towards Labrador or Goosebay, but I am well north and east of Maine). Anyway, back to the point, when she left so cal she also offered to host anyone from the dog park who wanted to come visit, and of course I said I would. Haha… I’m sure a lot of people said they would, but what are the odds of that actually happening. I know she was surprised, hopefully pleasantly, but I wonder what kind of odds she’d have actually put on it.

I got to Sylvie’s in Lachine (a Montreal Suburb) right at 11:45pm. Only 15 minutes later than originally expected, thanks to the wonderful GPS. It was awesome to see Sylvie and Laika again. Even a touch surreal. Laika seemed to remember me and Tucker and was very excited to see us. Tucker took his usual minute or two chill out and be friends with Laika. Sylvie and I caught up a little but then called it a night, it was already pretty late.

Sylvie has an enviable and wonderful morning routine. Every morning she gets up and walks the lovely Laika. She walks her down along the St. Lawrence River past her local farmers market (open daily!). Then just past the market she stops off at her local French bakery to pick up a fresh croisant before heading home to enjoy breakfast. Tucker and I joined her every morning for this wonderful start of the day… even the morning it was raining, 5 degrees above freezing and with 40 mph winds. Several morning however, we had beautiful albeit still cold weather and frankly the dogs loved it either way.

On Friday we took the dogs to Laika’s Country Club (the name Sylvie has given it). It is a private park area just west of town for hiking and trail running in the summer and snow shoeing and cross country skiing in the winter. The dogs had a fabulous time running, swimming and chasing squirrels through the mud and water and leaves…. The pictures say more than I ever could with words

Friday evening we walked around he Old Port area of Montreal before having Indian food for dinner in Montreal. It’s a bit odd when the non-indian asian waiter is speaking French to you… Montreal is an amazingly multi-cultural city and it quickly squashes any stereotypes one might have.

Saturday Sylvie humored me by taking me into the city by subway to see the giant underground mall. As an engineer I admit I it was out of a bit of geekiness that I wanted to see it. It amazed me that in this harsh climate they’ve built a huge sub-terrainian complex to keep everything moving in spite of the weather outside. It also amazes me that anyone was brave, or foolish, enough to found a city here hundreds of years ago. Anyway, it was a good day to be inside and underground since it was cold, wet and windy outside. I can report that the underground mall, is isolated from the elements, but it’s really just a massively huge mall. You wouldn’t know you were underground. We also took the afternoon to catch a movie, one that is hard although probably not impossible to see in the US, “Death of a President”. The movie was way more noteworthy than the underground mall. It was eerily real. It’s clear it’s fictional, but at the same time I didn’t expect to suspend disbelief that way I did. I was honestly sadden as the fuax documentary played out and actors and actresses played their roles. In the end it does what it’s intended, make one really question where the country is at and where it’s going. Personally I have no doubt that war in Iraq will be looked back on in a similar vein as Vietnam and that the violations of basic civil rights (wiretaps and suspension of habeous corpus for terror suspects) will be viewed in a similar vein as Japanese enternment was. There is never, has never, and will never be a justification for such actions in a free society.

Saturday night was Sylive’s birthday dinner. Like me, all Sylvie wants for her birthday is to be surrounded by her friends so every year that’s what she tries to make happen. Quite successful this year Her friends were all wonderful, kindly speaking English when I was involved in the conversation, and all really friendly nice people. I can’t think of ever meeting such a large group of a friend’s friends and thinking so highly of all of them.

On Sunday we got a bit of a late start to the day, but started the day with a late lunch at the Museum d’art in Montreal followed by a few hours of wandering the museums art collection.

On Monday we took the dogs for a walk in a public park in the center of Montreal, with fabulous views of the city.

On Tuesday I packed up and headed for Quebec City as it was time for Sylvie to get back to work.

Did I mention she works three days a week? How cool is that, she has through some effort convinced a lab in New York to send her lab samples so she can work remotely, and to work just three days a week. Sylvie definitely leads the “deliberately simply” life style… I’m learning lessons as I travel…

The weather was gorgeous. A bit cold with a stiff wind, but fairly clear skies. It all made for a great day to go exploring the Cape. I started by taking Tucker for a long walk on the beach within the Cape Cod National Seashore. Later in the day we drove towards Province town while stopping of at several light houses along the way. The lighthouses here are beautiful, but shockingly short. I’ve only seen a few lighthouses on the west coast, in fact I think I’ve seen more today on the Cape then in the sum total of my life, however it really does seem the ones in California I remember being much taller. Some here are just 40 feet tall. I’ll have to research that next time I get internet access…

Provincetown came highly recommended by my friends in Boston. I can see how fun it would be… in season. This is true of everything on the cape, as I drive by everywhere has signs outside saying “Closed for the Season, see you next May” or something similar. Ok, I’m exaggerating by saying everywhere, really it’s just 90% of the businesses that cater primarily to tourists, so that’s all the restaurants and shops. The chain stores and shops for locals in the major towns are all still open, but then they are not really the point of visiting Cape Cod. Anyway, Provincetown looks fun, somewhat like Laguna Beach or Belmont Shores. Which is to say it’s touristy, walkable with lots of great food (although 90% closed) and both family and gay friendly.

After having the requisite steamers (clams) in P-Town and enjoying a fabulous sunset. I headed back up the Cape (South) for another beach and lighthouse visit before heading north towards Vermont.

I wasn’t sure where I was going to stay, I just knew I wanted to spend the night in Vermont before arriving in Montreal to visit Sylvie the next morning. After much scouring of my limited guide book supply I found something that actually sounded cool to me, to take a tour the Ben and Jerry’s Factory. Only somehow I lingered much longer on the cape then I thought I would and as I drove across Massachusetts and probably spent too much time on scenic roads through New Hampshire and into Vermont that I realized there was no way I was going to make it to Ben and Jerry’s Factory in Waterbury Connecticut by the time they stopped doing tours (5pm). I was also becoming very aware that every single campground I drove by in New Hampshire and Vermont was closed for the season. Apparently no one around here likes camping in the snow… I mean in California we close some of the campgrounds, but not all of them. I started looking for Wal-Marts as well since I was now into a “just need somewhere to sleep” mode. Really, I love campgrounds, but sometimes it’s such a waste of money when I show up at 9pm and leave at 8am. I drove through a Walmart parking lot just east of Waterbury, but it was attached to a mall and there wasn’t a single truck or RV parked anywhere. That always makes me worry a little… not so much for safety, but because I don’t want a store manger or worse police officer knocking on my window at 3am telling me over-nighting isn’t allowed here. Wal-mart’s official policy is to allow people to over-night in their parking lots, but only if local regulations don’t prohibit it. In many places owners of local campgrounds have banded together and convinced local legislatures to pass municipal laws banning the practice… which is just stupid and greedy. I don’t sleep in Walmart parking lots as an alternative to camping, I do it as an alternative to sleeping on some dark alley, or logging road, or rest stop, or turnout, or on some residential street. It’s flat out extortion by the campground owners to demand $20+ for me to park and sleep for 8 hours. Anyway… a bit worried about where to sleep I called Sylvie who was happy receive me late that evening rather than the next morning… so of I headed into Canada.

I crossed the boarder into Canada around 11pm. It wasn’t a “big” hassle, but it was more of a hassle then I expected. I was prepare with vaccination paper on the dog, which I handed the guy at the drive up window, but he still asked that I pull aside and come inside to talk to the border agents. So I went in expecting the dog to be the issue, they didn’t even look at the paperwork. They were more interested in me and how long I was planning on being in Canada. It’s understandable I guess, that they don’t get many people crossing the boarder for “tourism purposes” from California, with a dog, at 11pm. What I did for a living, when I was returning to work, how long and where I was staying in Canada. It occurred to me as they asked that that was the real concern, was I illegally immigrating to Canada. I suppose they get a lot of political refugees fleeing the states, but I’ve got a ticket to Thailand so I’m not trying to move to Canada… yet… I’ll wait for the next election.

Saturday I joined Abby and Sean for the Head of the Charles Regatta. It is a crew regatta up the Charles River and is the largest crew regatta in the world! We drove over to Joe and Ally’s house and then walked to the races. It was neat to see, but not really as exciting as I expected. It was more of just a fun day along the river. I think that is in part because it’s run like a time trail, rather then head to head the way I’ve seen run on TV in the Olympics. They do catch and pass the boats in front of them occasionally, but it’s still not most exciting thing to watch. Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful and fun day, just not what I expected. And isn’t it the things that you don’t expect that are the best anyway? The crowd was amazing, dozens of colleges and non-colleges all together and from all over the place. Plenty of teams come in from other countries. Meeting Abby’s friends Alley and Joe was great to, really nice people who are doing an insane remodel on thier house. (P.S. Lots more photos on Flickr)

I didn’t have definite plans on Sunday and thought about heading to Cape Cod for the day, or Salem. Ultimately I got a slow start (nearly noon) since I spent the morning figuring out where to go and what to do and that meant that Cape Cod was out since it was to far away to visit.

I should mention I hadn’t really “planned” anything in the Boston area because I don’t plan… and because I didn’t plan on staying more than two nights. However, just before leaving Pennsylvania I found out that there is a new Thai Consulate office in Boston that could issue me a visa on the spot, but only by appointment. So I had an appointment for Monday and asked Abby if I could stay an extra day or two.

Salem was great and much bigger than I expected. I spent the early part of the afternoon walking the streets of the “Witch Village” with Tucker, taking time to go down some non-touristy streets and check out the architecture as well. Later in the afternoon I discovered there was an entire other side to Salem, the historic side, and I spent the early evening checking out the old wharf and old buildings. Then when I finally was about to leave Salem I stumbled upon a walking tour and thought what the heck and took a 90 minutes walking tour to end the evening. Tucker and I were both certainly walked out for the day…

Monday I left a still tired from the day before Tucker at Abby’s and headed into Boston alone by “T” (Boston’s Subway). Getting my Thai visa was way easier than I had feared and they got it done on the spot, rather than the usually 24/48 hour turn around. I spent the rest of the day exploring Boston. Taking TWO guided walking tours of the Freedom Trail. I’m a big fan of walking tours. These were both good and very different from one another. The first was run by the city and started at Boston Commons. The guide was dress in period (1770’s) clothing and took us past graveyards and historic buildings. He was lively and animated and told colorful stories. I was amazed at the role Boston played in the birth of the nation. Later in the day I took another walking tour, this one though the National Park Service, which operates a National Historical Site in the center of the city. This tour was lead by a park ranger, a park ranger with a history degree. It wasn’t as animated, but it wasn’t dull either. The Park Ranger went to deeper historical details and timelines which was a welcome bit of info. I ended the day by walking the remaining portion of the Freedom trail, not covered in either tour. From the end of the second tour, at the Paul Revere monument, I headed north across the bridge to the USS Constitution, and then returned to the city proper, via water taxi which made for a beautiful end of the day.

Tuesday I finally departed Abby’s and headed for… Cape Cod. Well it’s one of the things I wanted to see so I thought I’d spend a day there then turn around and head north again.

After getting here, I’m glad I came, so much so I’m going to spend two nights here so that I’ll have a full day tomorrow to explore the Cape. I stumbled upon an incredible campground and campsite at Nickerson State Park. That’s a big part of why I’m staying, I’d like a couple days and nights here to enjoy this fabulous campground.

It’s been a quite a while since I blogged in earnest and in real time. I’ve been trying to fill in the blanks of the last two months, which is an overwelming task. My advice to myself and others is that if you want to keep a journal, do it every day… otherwise you spend the days you should be writting easily about “today” expending effort to write about last week only to find the next week you need to expend all that extra effort to write about this day that then had happened a week ago. Make sense… well I’ll try.

So here’s the deal, there is going to be a big gap in time and I will try to go back and fill it in at “some point” but for the time being accept that there is a gap and that lots has happened in the last two months. The gist of it though is I hung out around Philadelphia. The highlights were boating most weekends with Matt & Em on the Cheasepeake, The Philedelphia Museum of Art, the Peace Fair in Quakertown/Lahaksa, the Rahtha Yatra Fesitval, Longwood Gardens, Climbing at Philly Rock Gym and Haycock, spraining my ankle at the West Chester Climbing gym being stupid on a slack line, and that brings up to about last week which is where I will begin again.

I never seem to leave anywhere on the schedule I thought I would and hence when I’d finally decided it was time to leave Matt & Em’s and said “I’m leaving Tuesday” it was really Thursday that I had the car loaded again and got on the road.

As I drove north east out of Pennsyvania I wavered back and forth several times on whether I should drive through or around NYC. I’d walked central park several times and it’s something I wouldn’t be upset to miss on this trip when there are so many new places to see. Ultimately though I decided Tucker deserved to take a walk and Central Park and I headed into the city via Lincon Tunnel right about 5pm. Yes, traffic was bad, but then I rarely am bothered by traffic. It’s just traffic… it’s driving slow with plenty of oppurtunities to notice all the details along the side of the road you’d miss at 85 mph. Sometimes those details are mindblowing sunsets, sometimes they are heaps of trash, sometimes they are little nieghborhoods you’d never noticed, sometimes those neighborhoods are actually homeless camps tucked into the trees adjacent to a railway overpass. Even stuck in traffic on a road I drive every day I usually can find something of interest, if the view then perhaps just a bumper sticker on the car in front of me.

We got into Central Park right after the sun had set, the other advantage to coming in at this hour though was I found FREE parking adjacent on West Central Park Ave at 64th St on my first drive by the park. With that miracle noted I Tucker for his walk. As I walked into the park I was also pleasently surprised to find a group of dog owners in a little “corner” of the park all letting thier dogs play together, mostly off leash.

We walked across the park by the ball fields and I was shocked to see a beautiful tree turning orange that I had photographed several years ago turning orange! I wanted to get another photo just like the one from several years ago, but there was a bunch of construction going on the prevented me from getting anywhere that I could take a picture of it. It stands out across the baseball field as a lone tree turning amongst green trees. Lovely.

We continued our walk down past one of the kids play areas and over to the boulders in the south west end of the park. I forget what these are called, but was happy to see two people bouldering (climbing) there. I’d visitied these once before and pulled on a few problems but alone and as with this time without climbing shoes.

We wandered a bit more before returning the the van around 7. Starving I locked tucker up inside his crate, inside the van which I hate doing and might not of been necessary but with how many pedestrians were walking up and down the sidewalk, many with dogs, I worried what they might think seeing him sitting alone in the drivers seat waiting for me to return. As I’ve said so many times before. The van is as much Tucker’s home as anywhere, more so now that we are living on the road, he’s totally comfortable hanging out in the van alone for hours at a time. I don’t worry at all about leaving him, I worry about what random strangers might think or do seeing him alone in the car.

I walked towards Broadway and found a pretzel stand, followed by a Juice/Smoothie Bar to saite my hunger and then came back to the van to find Tucker had finshed his dinner and was napping. I took a few minutes to look a maps and books and try to figure out where to stop for the night. Somewhere in Conneticut was my plan, but the choices were slim.

I’ve come to realize just how well I know California and how that makes my style of camping easier. I can drive anywhere in most of California, at least the half south of San Fran know where there are campground and alternative campgrounds that I might stay at. My California Campground Guide is also invaluable in this activity. However, ever since leaving California I’ve realized just how hard it is to find A campground, let alone a good one. The problem is that the few listed on maps (AAA maps for example) and such are tailored towards RV’s. They are the Kampgrounds of America type campgrounds, which IMHO don’t deserved to be called campgrounds. They are RV resorts. Places you and your family can drive your self contained gas guzzeling enviormental isoloation device to in order to watch satalite TV somewhere other than you’re living room…. but then I think I went off on this rant in South Dakota, while also mentioned how it was nice to have wireless internet in the campground (formally a KOA, don’t know why they were not longer affiliated) that I overnighted in.

Anyway, we headed north out of the city across the cross bronx express way and into Connetecut to head up the coast of Long Island Sound and I still really had no idea where we were going to. I’d been warned by multiple people about the camping problem I was having. There are two factors doubling up on me. First, there are very few national parks in the Northeast. National parks had been the main staple of my west coast exploration, but probably because most of the land was already gobbled up before the national park system was created I haven’t seen one since South Dakota. Second, it’s now October and what campgrounds there are often closed for the season… well except for those that cater almost exclusively to those big giant RV’s I mentioned before. I mean I get that the winter weather in California is more condusive to winter camping, even when it’s cold at altitude it’s fairly predictable, but really every campsite says they closed Oct. 1st or Oct 15th or Columbus Day (like anyone remebers when that is). It’s now October 19th. Driving along I saw a road sign for Hannosmasset State Park and I thought it had potential. More potential than all those non-existant or already closed options anyway. I expected it to be closed. With much joy however I saw lights on in the gaurd shack as I drove up. Hurray! It was 9:30 and I was getting very tired having not slept wonderfully the night before. However as the pleasent young woman popped her head out the window and informed me joyful self that yes there was campig, she followed on with a “but we don’t allow dogs” as she looked across me into the passenger seat. Dejected I asked where the nearest campground not run by Cruela Deville and her minions was, although not quite in those words. She discussed with the other young people in the gaurd shack if the private campground up the road was still open. I interjected “what if he doesn’t get out of the car at all?”. The response “are you justing looking for one night?”. “Yes”. “You don’t have a tent do you… Well since you’re in the camper you could park in over flow lot as an emergency stop-over. Just please don’t walk your dog around the campground, there are only a few campers, but if they see you they’ll all come ask why they can’t bring thier dogs….”. Eleated I thank them profussly. I mentioned in the morning I wanted to check out this big (500+) acre state park, which is mostly a huge wetland wildlife estuary type place and they suggested where I could go. Oddly they also pointed out where I could and couldn’t take the dog. I’m not sure of the area they point out was just to let dog owner let there dogs out of the car to pee, or in fact was an area dogs were allowed in spite of not being allowed in the adjacent campgrounds… but since they were already doing me a favor I played it safe and didn’t take tucker out of the car, other than in the two clearly maked places I was shown. The park is huge and is what you’d get adding Newport Back Bay to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands and then some. However it was cold, slightly windy and intermitantly raining… so I looked out across Long Island Sound, unable to see Long Island on the other side and continued my way up the coast towards Newport Rhode Island.

The first stop tough was just a few miles up the road for breakfast in a little town called Clinton. I was driving up highway 1 when on the left I noticed sleepy looking cafe called “Coffee Break”. It looked just the place to sit down with a cup of coffee and if I was lucky a bagel to read up on the sights between here and Boston (todays final destination after Newport). I walked inside however to find bustling dinner with all but one table and one empty seat at the counter full. I quickly took the open counter seat. It was a fun breakfast that began mostly with evesdropping on locals discussing the news and most noteworth to me, Connecticut politics. I’d nearly forgotten I was in the land of the Lamont/Lieberman battle. Just so there is no uncertainty, I think Lieberman should be deported. Actually I think much worse should befall him, but this is a public blog so I need to keep it clean. By the time I was done with my breakfast the crowd discussing politcs had left the only noteworthy replacement was a young woman that beofre sitting down had already started talking about anything and everything. About what was on the TV in the front of the room, about what was on the newpaper, about country music… what wasn’t clear is if she was ever actually talking to someone.

We headed towards Newport, but stopped off a couple places along the way just to cehck out the neat little communities. In one, Groton I think it was, we found a beach that allowed dogs, so Tucker got a good bit of ball chasing and romping in the freeze cold water.

Eventually we arrived in Newport. I drove through the tourist section of town dodging tour buses and the large crowds belching out ofthem and across the streets in from of me in search of who knows what on the other side. I headed to the mansions. The huge, unbeleivably huge “summer cottages” built by they wealthest americans 50 years ago in a ongoing competition of “my new cottage is bigger than yours”. The ultimate is The Breakers, which is just insanly large. I didn’t go inside, Tucker and I rather enjoyed walking along the cliff trail between the mansions and the crashing water below. We were nearly alone on the trail, except for a few brave souls who were running down the trail, completly un-equiped for the pouring rain.

From Newport I headed for Boston to get a key from Abby to her house at her office. She was headed that evening to dinner with her mother for her mother’s birthday. Unfortunatly, and I still really feel bad about it, traffic was even slower than I anticipated and I arrived at 5pm nearly an hour later than planned, delaying Abby in her attempt to get out ahead of traffic. It was wonderful to see her again and with key in hand I headed to her condo. Only I actually went to the wrong address, well more accurately the wrong town. Mistakingly inputing an identical address in Boston for her address in Cambridge (a Boston suburb). Perhaps though there was a cosmic reason I went to the wrong address first though, because at the destination my GPS first guided me to I found two guys standing by thier car with jumper cables in hand. Always taking the oppurtunity to build “positive car karma” I offered to help. I tried my best to jump start from both of my battere to no avail. After several minutes though it was clear it wasn’t a dead battery and I pulled out my electrical meter and found indeed thier battery was fully charged. Their starter or the wiring to it was probably the culprit, but that wasn’t something I could help them fix on the side of the road. After that I drove up and down the street again tring to find the address Abby had given me and just before giving up Abby called me. At that point it became clear I was in the completly wrong end of town. Proper address input to the GPS I did finally make spoke with Abby’s around 8pm and set about uploading some photos to Flickr.

Abby got home around 10 and we had a couple of glasses of wine and caught up on eachother’s lives the last couple years.