Notes From Across Canada

I have been negligent in my blogging, I know. The truth of the matter is that I have been on a five-province fact finding mission. Here are my notes and observations:

British Columbia:

Stanley Park, Vancouver: Just because you happen to see a sign with a large letter ‘P’ on it surrounded by a green circle (see below), it does NOT mean you are able to park there. In fact, you might just discover after a nice walk along the ocean wall that you have just landed yourself a $39 parking ticket. (If you pay within a week. It doubles if you don’t.)

Vancouver is Toyota Matrix central. While in Alberta you may not be able to spit without hitting a Ford F-150, in Vancouver, you can’t spit without hitting a Matrix.

Alberta:

Aggressive drivers. Put the pedal to the medal or be prepared to get passed on any available road surface.

Small towns worth their salt have their town pride displayed in a monument. The tackier the better.

Saskatchewan:

This province always gets the shaft when it comes to scenery discussions. You know the jokes–you can watch your dog run away for five days before he disappears over the horizon, etc., etc. However, I like Saskatchewan. The roads go directly where you want them to go. No fooling around with having to go around lakes or rocks or going south to get north. It’s an efficient little province. And the bonus is, when you do drive by something like a salt mine or town it’s pretty darn exciting.

P.S. the Trans Canada is back in commission after all those floods. You have to reduce your speed in one short spot where you share the divided highway with the Westbound traffic, but other than that, it’s all good.

Good find in Saskatchewan–a hideaway RV park (can tent too) that is cheap and seriously has the most friendly, helpful owners ever. We literally stumbled across this one and it’s a keeper. It’s called Crooked Lake RV??? (Dang if I can remember, but it is on the south end of the lake directly north of Indian Head) east of Regina. Pasqua Lake? I’ll have to look it up.

Manitoba:

Er, um. Hmmm. Manitoba. Manitoba is… er… Hmm.. Nobody ever talks about Manitoba. It’s the forgotten child of the Canadian provinces. Oh! Here’s something. That Winnipeg circle road. Could they have made the circle any bigger? My goodness. You can’t even SEE the city from the ring road. I think it is more like a necklace for some big man named Gino than a ring.Plus, you have a lovely view of the city dump as you circle by. Lovely. It really makes me want to stop in and check out the city. Not.

General note: when it comes to vehicle colour, red seems like it is becoming the new silver. I’m liking this for the main reason that within a few years I will be able to find my car in parking lots once again. Yippee!

Ontario:

Where smart phones become expensive paperweights. Because without your special smart cellphone network, honestly, what can you do with a smart phone? You can’t phone, you can’t internet, you can’t email, basically you can’t do anything ‘smart.’ It doesn’t know what time it is. It eats it’s battery like it’s just been released from prison camp and the battery is a Black Forest Cake. You can’t even feed your virtual fish. (The region I am referring to would be from pretty much the Manitoba-Ontario border to Sault Ste. Marie. Then it begins working again. Thank goodness.)

In Northern Ontario those agressive semi drivers from Alberta become the most courtesous folks ever. They will let you know when it is safe to pass them by yusing their turn signal or flashers. Seriously. Even if you are happy to hang back and cruise behind them until the next passing lane.

It is in Ontario that you really notice what you can get for $80 a night in terms of a hotel/motel. That $80 can lead to a vast quality difference. $80 can get you a downhill slope to the bathroom with not enough towels ($120 actually–and that would be Vancouver) or a room with a door that doesn’t really close properly and is kind of musty and hot and when you open the old school ‘sanitized’ ribboned toilet seat you can’t help but laugh at the wad of used toilet paper sitting in the bowl (Dryden) or it can be knock-your-socks-off like this place in Wawa (see photo).

Best coffee EVER: Muskoka Bean on Manitoba St. in Bracebridge. BIG, yummy, flavoured mocca for $2. Yes, that’s right. Don’t even bother stopping at The Juicery in Port Carling. The prices may seem good until you get your miniscule cup of this-might-be-a-mocca.

And finally, I will leave you with a little note on tubing behind a motor boat. It’s all a ton of fun, but if you do it for too long you may end up with no skin left on your elbows. Plus, you might be amazed where a bathing suit can end up if you hit the water wrong. Trust me.

Over and out. Return trip commencing on Friday. I will Tweet my adventures, unless of course we zip down through the USA on our return trip, in which case I will go ‘silent’ as it costs too much to use our cellphone down there. See you back in Alberta!

Car Chronicles: Part One: Road Trip

Today was road trip day.

We finally got everyone together and hit the road around 11ish. Seeing that our speedometer was acting a bit wacky, we pulled over at a geocache to see if we could wiggle the wire. Well, honey it got wiggled…and broken. Because the speedometer wasn’t working, the odometer wasn’t either. So as my hubby said, “free miles!” Unfortunately, it still consumed its diesel as per usual. And, just because it didn’t think that it was going somewhere didn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t break down. But, we’ll get to that.

Geocaching. Yes, so, us girls went to find the ‘treasure’ with the kids while the guys excitedly tinkered (and broke) the car. Whatever. At least it is definitively broken now so we can get it fixed once and for all. The kids chose to trade some items for some tattoos. And then went on and on about how they needed water to apply the tattoos. Very nice tattoos. But you know, with all those mosquitoes, at least I got to see if rubbing the inside of a banana peel on the bite eases the itching. (It does.)

Back on the road…got to the grocery store to pick up the meat and cheese and veggie trays for the art show opening. The people there were so excited that we finally got there to pick them up that they forgot to give us the crackers. Being sorta slow and chatting between our vehicles, we were still outside a bit later when they realized and came out with our crackers. Sweet. We are at one with the universe.

On to Carbon! We arrived early, cookie bag depleted and red hot from the black interiored car with no air conditioning. I knew I should have ridden in the other car. They have AIR!

All is well, the kids are having fun getting rides up the handicap chair lift on the stairs. After a lovely picnic out in the gallery’s garden and of course, admiring the art and visiting with people, we headed off for pie! YUM! The moment we have all been eagerly anticipating.

So, we are about 10km from the gallery and a zillion from home and have not yet gone ‘the 20km out of the way for pie’ when bang! A burst of smoke comes billowing out from the front passenger side. Loud squealing fills the air. Great. Just great. I had a feeling that we were going to breakdown today. And not just because my hubby the tech god was having computer and GPS troubles this morning. See, I have the soon-to-be-proverbial black thumb of tech troubles and he has magic tech fingers. I kill the cars and…well, I kill the cars. So, when I had the magic tech fingers this morning and he was doing the driving…well, you know how to spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

So, I hop out of the car and pop the hood. Well, the smoke is already gone. Just like that. Smells like rubber. Tire is fine though, that is the first thing I checked. So, we all peer in there and everything looks okay. But I tell you, that smoke just about had the guys speed dialing the tow truck. (It was quite impressive, really. I wish I had taken a photo.) So, I started up the car, after telling them to get their heads out from under the hood. Everything seems good. Typical. The car is like that. Someday I will tell you about the trip where our 2 hour trip turned into 10 due to a loose block heater cord. Yeah, that messed things up in a superficial sort of way. The car always acts all dramatic over some tiny, little, stupid thing. That car has a weird sense of humour. It’s not nicknamed ‘Schiz’ for random reasons.

On we go. And then hubby tries to steer. Ugh. That is hard! Damn, it was the power steering! Gone. So, who knows just how bad it is, but we drove it home. We have no mercy on our old beaters. Currently, we have a list about as long as our arm for repairs on that poor car. And last night, just spend $1600 on airfare to visit family this summer. Yeah…so not exactly flush for making repairs at the moment. Yikes.

Needless to say, we drove home daydreaming about new cars and when I got home, I called my grandma to see if she is thinking of trading in her Saturn yet. She is getting close to the 5 year trade-in mark. Although, since she is in her late eighties, she is wondering if it is smart to buy a new car. Do it for us, Grandma! Do it for us! You can do it! You’ll be driving until you are a hundred! (Really, she is a FABULOUS driver. We once figured out (through degrees of separation) that she has pretty much taught everyone in the extended family how to drive. And I might add, our accident record is quite good–as in we don’t hit things–other than animals. But that is mostly my brother. He makes up for the rest of us humane types.)

So now we begin saving up for replacing our old beaters…<Sigh>