Tag Archives: senior citizens discount

Monday 5th August 2019 – I’M BACK …

… in Sheridan again tonight.

Not at the same motel as last time though. At probably the cheapest in the town and certainly the cheapest in which I’ve stayed.

“So what’s it like?” I hear you ask.
“The cheapest motel in which I’ve stayed so far” reply I

But seriously, it might be old and dated and worn but it’s clean and everything works. The shower is good too, and what more can any man desire?

The air conditioning is much quieter than last night’s motel (although that’s not saying a lot). Last night it was a case of “turn off the aircon and lie awake sweltering” or “turn on the aircon and lie awake because of the noise”.

But I did manage to drop off a few times.

Much to my surprise I dropped straight back into exactly the same place where I had left a nocturnal voyage the previous evening. And even more interestingly, after I went back to sleep after an awakening, I stepped right back into where I had left it a couple of minutes earlier.

And I did get the girl too. Not ‘arf I did!

It was a struggle to awaken as you might expect and I vegetated for quite a while. I made it into breakfast (a couple of rounds of toast with jam but included in the price) then came back for a shower.

By now it was time to phone the bank and I’ve no idea how much it’s going to cost me but my card is now unblocked and I can use it.

Heading into town I went to look at the “exhibition” locomotive where the railway station used to be. It’s a 4-8-4 “Northern” steam locomotive and, rather like “Big Boy”, who we met in Southern Wyoming in 2002 it’s in pretty miserable condition, slowly rotting away – a stain on the character of the town.

And it might not be there long because they have now “discovered” that it’s full of asbestos.

From there I went shopping in Walmart (my card does now work) where I found some vegan cheese and broke the weighing scales at the check-out.

From there I headed north, stopping every 10 minutes or so to photograph a locomotive. I’m in the deep open-cast coal mining area and they run merry-go-round trains to move the coal. Most of the locomotives are Burlington Northern and Santa Fe outfits although I was taken by surprise when a Kansas City Southern locomotive went rattling past, miles out of its territory.

Eventually I reached the Little Big Horn battlefield where the miserable bar stewards refused to give me the senior citizens’ discount. “That only applies to US citizens” – the first that I’ve ever heard of that in a National Park. I had to pay the full $25:00.

But I was there for hours. I had a good walk down to the deep ravine where the final deaths took place as the native Americans mopped up the surviving troopers, a good walk around Last Stand Hill, the cemetery and the Native American monument, and another good walk around Benteen’s final hold-out position where the survivors hung on (and there were survivors, despite what people think. It was only the troops with Custer, about half of the 7th Cavalry complement) who were lost.

The drive between the various points was interesting, and the trail of bodies along the route and down in the Deep Ravine only goes to confirm that apart from a couple of isolated actions, it was basically a panic-stricken rout. Why else would 41 troopers be running down the hill TOWARDS the native village if they weren’t running away from the fighting up on the ridge?

That took all afternoon so I set out to find a motel. None in Busby, which really is a miserable one-horse town so I headed for the mining town of Decker.

Nothing there either so calling at the site of the “battle” of the Rosebud (which I’ll be visiting tomorrow) to say “hello’, I came back here.

In my room I noticed a “do not place anything on the heater”. I don’t recall having been here before, have I?

But the room is cheap, old and worn out. But then again so am I so what’s the difference? It’ll do me until tomorrow and then I can think again.

Monday 19th September 2016 – YEEUUUCCCHHH!

That was how I felt when I awoke this morning. One look through the window to the heavy grey sky outside was quite enough for me.

But my night wasn’t as bad as I expected. I was out pretty quickly but soon awoke. But not for all that long. And once I’d gone, I’d gone and that was how I stayed until 05:10. And having been for a walk on the parapet I was out once more until the alarm went off at 06:00

I’d been on my travels too – back to my days in Brussels. I was living with someone, but I can’t remember who the girl was and we were sharing a room with one of my former colleagues from those days as well as someone who used to hang around Pionsat football club. And who should turn up to see us but Anne-Marie, one of the girls with whom I worked and with whom I was quite friendly. This was followed by being back in Crewe and I had bumped into a couple whom I know who live on the Wirral but the husband comes originally from Crewe. They were living down at the end of a very tight cul-de-sac in Crewe that was crowded with cars. We were talking about house repairs and they were having to dig a trench six feet deep at the side of their house to shore up the foundations. I mentioned that I had a digger that they could borrow and although they said that they had already borrowed one, I could see the woman’s eyes light up when I mentioned it. They asked where it was because when they had been around to my house it wasn’t there. It suddenly flashed into my mind that Terry had borrowed it to take to Normandy, but that was not what I was worrying about. What was concerning me was how I was going to pull the trailer and digger through the maze of cars that were parked so tightly in the cul-de-sac.

There was no point in being in too much of a rush to be out of bed, and so I wasn’t. It was another bit of a lie-in. But when I did finally leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit and had breakfast, I just sat on the comfy sofa and that was that.

About 10:00 the weather showed no sign of improvement and so I decided to go for a drive. Moncton and its shops were beckoning me and I may as well go this morning instead of on the way home. Who knows? The weather might be different by the time I come back.

It was an uneventful drive down there. The Salvation Army c&me up with a couple of books, for which I received a 10% pensioners’ discount. I must be looking my age. Value Village came up with a few more (but it’s not Pensioners’ Day there until tomorrow), and Princess Autos supplied a few more toys to take back home with me.

But at Home Depot, Ryobi came up trumps. They have a new design of portable Ryobi Plus One portable air compressor and I can find some use for that back home. That will suit me.

vegan chicken burgers sobeys shediac new brunswick canada september septembre 2016On the way back home, I called at Sobeys for some more shopping. It costs a fortune to do your shopping here.

But I did have some good luck there – they had some vegan burgers (complete with bread) that tasted like chicken. Not that the taste meant anything to me, but it was a change from my usual diet and it just goes to show the range of vegan food now on offer here in Canada.

I was right about the weather too. It had changed, just as I predicted, but changed for the worse. It was now absolutely streaming down. I had my butties right here in my room.

It might have looked better a little later and so after I’d had a bit of a crash-out, I went to the beach and sat under my shelter there, where I ended up chatting to a fellow traveller from the Motel. But I wasn’t out long. The weather opened up again and even under my shelter I started to become even more wet than I usually am.And so back to the hotel I headed.

I tried these new burgers with my beans and chips, and they weren’t too bad at all. I’ve had much worse than this.

So now let’s see what tomorrow brings me. That’s my last day because on Wednesday morning I have to leave. I have a choice of places to go, a choice of directions to take.

I just hope that I have another decent night tonight.

Saturday 4th June 2016 – THAT WAS DEFINITELY THE CORRECT DECISION …

… to come here and find the quietest room in the hotel, without a doubt. Although it took me ages to drop off to sleep (I remember seeing 01:00 come up on the clock) I was absolutely, completely and utterly stark out when the alarm went off at 07:45. I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t even have to go for a stroll on the parapet either. It was the best night’s sleep that I have had for months and my only regret was that there wasn’t more of it because I could have slept for a week.

I’d been on my travels too – to the garage at British Salt (the right way round too this time, not a mirror-image like the last time that we visited it) at Middlewich where I was repairing, of all things, a huge pile of amplifiers, speakers and the like. I’d gone into work early when there was no-one about and because of there being no-one about, I cracked on and by the time everyone came in, I’d done most of the stuff. My father came in, saw the pile of work and started to say why each appliance was difficult to do, and how each problem was insurmountable, to which my reply at each instance was “it’s fixed already”. After all, anyone can do a much better job when there are no interruptions and no negative vibrations floating around the place, as we all know.

I had a couple of cups of coffee this morning at breakfast too – the first time that I’ve had coffee for well over a week. I’ve steered clear of it because of my … errr … upset stomach but that has settled down for the last few days and so I wanted to give it a try. I would have had mint tea but there was none of that available at breakfast, so coffee it was. And it wasn’t really a good idea because I’d tell you what happened except that you are probably eating right now.

hotel premiere classe soissons aisne franceAfter I’d spent some time doing some work, I packed up and left to continue on with my journey. Now that I’ve been reunited with my telephone I can show you where I stayed the night – and the night two weeks or so ago.

My room is the one that has the open door on the top right – right at the end of the corridor at the highest part of the building. As I said, it really was quiet in there and I’ll have that room again.

By setting the SatNav to “shortest route”, I went a very merry and mazy way through some beautiful by-roads where I was suddenly decanted into the town of Guise.

chateau fort de guise aisne franceThis is the entrance to the magnificent castle of Guise and those of you with long memories and have read reams and reams of this rubbish will know exactly why this is the only photo of the place that is appearing on these pages.

The answer is that, quite simply, as you might expect, I arrived bang on the stroke of midday, just as they were closing the place up for lunch. Everyone knows that the lunch break is sacred in France – so much so that when Marshall Petain (whose grave we visited on the Ile d’Yeu in 2013, you might remember) was appointed as Generalissimo of the Allied Armies in the middle of the desperate retreat of 1918, he is reputed to have asked for just two things to save the Allies from disaster – a free hand with the army and two hours off for lunch.

Many of you will have heard of Guise, of course. Mary of Guise was the wife of James V of Scotland and mother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

diesel shunter guise aisne franceThat wasn’t the only thing that was interesting about the town. On the by-pass on the edge of the town was this magnificent diesel locomotive – a shunter by the look of it, parked up on the site, one assumes, of a couple of demolished houses which have been fitted out to make a raiway setting.

I liked the artwork on the wall of the house in the background. It was superb.

I wish however that there had been a plaque to tell me what was the significance of the display. I hate being left in the dark.

military cemetery commonwealth war grave lieutenant awdry etreux aisne franceNext stop, seeing as I’m in the vicinity, is the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Etreux. This is where scores of members of the Royal Munster Regiment are buried following a spirited rearguard action at the crossroads by a battalion of the regiment on 27th August 1914, to hold up the German advance while the main body of the British Army slipped away.

The claim to fame of the cemetery is that it is the burial place of Lieutenant CEV Awdry, said to be the half-brother of the Reverend W Awdry of “Thomas the Tank Engine” fame.

gallo roman ruins forum  bavay nord franceLeaving the Aisne behind us, we cross into the Nord and arrive at our destination, the town of Bavay, or, to be more precise, Bavay la Romaine.

And it deserves its name too because it was formerly the Gallo-Roman (you must never say “Roman” in France. The French do not accept that the Romans brought civilisation to the French, insisting that Gaul was already civilised long before the Romans arrived. It’s “Gallo-Roman” and I’ve seen some impressive uproar when people forget) city of Bagacum.

gallo roman ruins forum bavay nord franceThe city is situated at a major crossroads of routes in the northern part of the Roman road system and is home to some of the most impressive Roman … "Gallo-Roman" – ed … ruins in Gaul.

What we are looking at here is part of the Forum – the central market place of any Roman … "Gallo-Roman" – ed … city and impressive it certainly is. It’s always been known that there are Gallo-Roman remains here – stuff has been dug up for centuries – but someone digging in a cellar in the 18th Century found himself decanted into the subterranean crypt of the temple and this started everything off.

gallo roman ruins temple forum bavay nord franceGerman shelling of the town in 1940 uncovered many more remains and once the war was over, excavations started in earnest.

Our cellar-digger painted a picture of what he saw and it shows a beautiful Gallo-Roman crepi with painted designs, but all of that has long-since been washed away over 250 years of exposure to the weather, which is a shame because it really did look quite magnificent.

gallo roman ruins temple forum bavay nord franceI spent all afternoon here having a prowl around, totally immersed in everything that was going on all around. It really was €3:00 well-spent (yes, I’m not ashamed to claim the Senior Citizens’ discount now that I qualify for it).

No-one was more surprised than me to notice that the time had suddenly advanced to 16:30 in the blinking of an eyelid and I hadn’t even noticed. I shall have to get a wiggle on.

alberet steam roller compactor rouleau compressor nord franceBack on the road, I didn’t travel very far before coming to another screeching halt. Despite all self-propelled road compactors (or rouleau compressor as they are called over here) being called “steam rollers” in the vernacular, this really IS a steam roller.

It’s an Alberet, works number 1012, from the factory in Rantigny in the Oise and I don’t think that I’ve ever encountered one of this make before. It’s here parked on the edge of a haulage yard by the side of the road, inviting a photo-opportunity.

It’s not really an old car but we’ll class it as that seeing as how we don’t have a more suitable category.

So now I’m holed up in another Premiere Classe in Feignies, just outside Maubeuge. No internet (thank heavens for the mobile phone) and disinterested staff, which is a shame.

But it’s much better than a standard “Premiere Classe” that’s for sure. it has all inside rooms rather than outside rooms for a start and they are 3 times bigger than standard.

I’m having my money’s worth here tonight.

Tuesday 15th September – I WAS RIGHT …

… yesterday when I said that this first month of my stay in North America had been one of 30 disappointments. We’ve had another issue raise its ugly head today too.

There’s only one company in Canada that insures vehicles for people with non-Canada driving licences (and they make people suffer financially for that of course) but it seems that since April this year they have ceased that particular line of business. And so the motor insurance for Strider has been rejected, leaving me without insurance cover.

However, the company has said that cover can remain on a temporary basis while I apply of a driving licence in Canada and so that’s what I’ll do. Apply for a Canadian driving licence.

Of course.

How long it might take, and whether it might be granted is of course another thing completely, and then there will always be an appeal process if it’s refused. But by that time of course I’ll be back home in France and it won’t be an issue. And next year is, of course, next year.

And so tomorrow, I’ll get on the case.

But if you think logically about it, it’s all a nonsense. There is without any doubt at all at least one company that insures drivers with foreign driving licences. If there wasn’t a single one, then how would car hire work? I’ve hired dozens of cars in North America and each hire has been with my French driving licence. And I still can do so (because I’ve checked). You aren’t going to tell me that a car hire company is going to let its customers drive around in uninsured vehicles, are you?

And it’s true (or it was true – at least in the UK) that when I worked in the motor insurance business, a company or a person could insure himself against liability. But he had to deposit a bond of £50,000 (and that was in 1972 – I shudder to think what that figure would be today) per vehicle and that money is tied up. I can’t see a hire company going through all of that, having the money tied up, no tax relief, no interest payments and all of this.

No – there is a company somewhere that specialises in this business and I have to find it. I’ve always said that where there’s a will, there are relatives. It’s just one more problem to solve. Now, how do you go about setting up a car hire business in Canada?

But apart from that for the moment, I slept the sleep of the dead last night. I crashed out at 20:28 and that was that until I had to go and ride the porcelain horse. An early(-ish) start and I did a pile of work and then a copious breakfast. I really can’t believe all of this for just $59:40 (including tax).

But while I was eating my breakfast I was watching TV (something that I rarely do of course) and the disclaimers for the adverts (which are often longer than the ads themselves) are quite often funnier than any comedy programme you would care to name. This morning we had a “do not take {this product} if you are allergic to any of its ingredients”. And you can’t make that up, can you?

Back on the road Walmart came up trumps with the big tent pegs that I’m going to need if I use this tarpaulin oversheet idea for the tent, and it also produced a couple of gas canisters for my cooker (they are becoming harder and harder to find as everyone changes over to the bigger sort) and a set of stubby spanners, which cost just $4:49. Ideal for getting into tight corners. But Mardens couldn’t produce a 19mm ring spanner at any cost. Still, I have an open-ended one and a socket and I hope that that will do me if I need anything.

At the border, I was whacked for import duty on the truck cap. $90:00 or something like that, but I don’t suppose that this is excessive really. It’s worked out as 5% of the value (in Canadian dollars), including, would you believe, the sales tax that I had to pay in the USA. That’s a bit near the knuckle.

georgia registered lorry trans canada highway new brunswickI had a race down the Trans-Canada Highway with a lorry – simply because I didn’t recognise his number plate and I wanted to see where he came from.

As it happens, he comes from Georgia (that’s Georgia USA, not the former Soviet republic) and so he was a long way away from home. It seems that the Maritime Provinces are becoming more and more popular.

Af Fredericton I picked up my parking pass for the next three days (foreign visitors can park free in the town centre for three days if they apply to the tourist office for a pass), picked up my media passes for the festival and went to have a chat with the people at Service New Brunswick who gave me a couple of useful tips.

At Value Village, it’s Pensioners Day and I profited to the maximum with a pile of books, a couple of CDs and also (at long last) the Canadian cable that I need for my laptop power pack (which saves having to hump around a pile of adapters. Walmart and Home Depot came up with nothing exciting and so I went for my traditional falafel platter in the Lebanese restaurant and then came back here – “here” being the Mactaquac Provincial Park campsite where I stay when I’m here.

But we did have a very interesting encounter this afternoon. You may remember yesterday that I was talking about big old British single-cylinder motorcycles. Anyway, wandering down the street in Fredericton I noticed a young guy sitting on, of all things, a Triumph T100. 1971 it was, and it looked it too. In original, unrestored condition looking every day as old as it was. We were chatting for hours about old British bikes and of course, AJS and Matchless motorcycles figured heavily. And it turns out that he has a friend who has a fetish about the big AJS and Matchless singles and who, at the last count, has 14 of them, plus numerous crates of bits and pieces. And so he’s taken my e-mail address and says that he’ll pass it over to this guy.

And so that was that. I buried myself in my sleeping bag ready for bed.

Now who is going to come along and spoil my day tomorrow?

Monday 15th September 2014 – ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Next morning I troll off early towards Antigonish. It’s a long way away and I have plenty to do en route.

It’s quite an uneventful drive at least as far as Fredericton where I stop to pick up my purchase from Saturday. And in due course I’ll post a photo of it and tell you all about it.

Back on the road south-eastwards and at a certain moment a few miles south of Fredericton, I’m surprised by three tanks that drive over a bridge across the Trans-Canada Highway. And I don’t mean water tanks or that kind of thing, but proper great big self-propelled armoured machines with long guns. I wonder what’s up with them.

david alward campaign bus smashed window trans canada highway moncton new brunswick canadaJust gone past me is a campaign bus for one of the candidates in the forthcoming elections and if you look very carefully on the nearside you might see something black flapping in the wind. It seems that someone has put out one of his windows, and the driver has covered it over with a black plastic bin liner to keep out the rain, but that’s burst now due to the air pressure as he’s been driving along.

And as we approach Moncton it seems to be brightening up now. We have blue skies and there might even be some sun about to make its appearance. It makes a change from the grey miserable misty morning that we had.

I struck gold in Princess Autos. They are having a sale and I bought an 25-inch power bar for $9:99, a set of 22 spanners, 11 metric and 11 AF, for $12:00, and a tyre pressure gauge for $0:99. An absolute bargain, that all was.

The only downside of this was that they didn’t have a cheap set of sockets to go with the power bar. But these were unbelievable prices.

And at the Salvation Army Thrift Store down the road they gave me a senior citizen’s discount on the CD that I bought. I’m not sure whether to be pleased of humiliated.

And on the Trans-Canada Highway, which is effectively a motorway with dual carriageways, just outside Moncton there’s a railway level crossing. And there’s another one too just a mile or so further on, by the Dieppe and airport turn-off. This isn’t something that you see every day on a motorway. We would have endless amounts of fun with a railway level crossing on the M25 in the UK.

wind turbines wind bent tree fort beausejour tantramar marshes new brunswick nova scotia canadaBob Dylan once sang “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”, and that’s certainly true around here, isn’t it?

I’m at my lunch stop and you can tell that we are at the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia because tthere’s a pile of wind turbines down there taking full advantage of this screaming wind.

Where I am is actually in New Brunswick and there’s not a wind turbine in sight. I know that I have a “thing” in favour of wind turbines, owning four myself, but this lack of wind turbines in New Brunswick is just plain absurd.

fort beausejour new brunswick canadaWhere I am is actually at Fort Beausejour and we’ve been here before, haven’t we?

It was freezing cold then in the middle of winter so I didn’t stay there long. And I didn’t stay here long today either as I was in quite a rush – just long enough to take a couple of photos and eat my butties. I’ll have to come back here yet again.

I made it to Antigonish right to the minute and Hannah was bang on time too. We went for a meal and a really good chat and she told me all about her first couple of weeks at University. She’s the first of our family to go to university straight from school by the way, and she’s at St Francis-Xavier University, the best University in Canada if not the English-speaking world. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m intensely proud of her.

The downside of this is that I have left it far too late to find a spec for the night and I’ve ended up in a wickedly-overpriced motel. Still, you can’t have everything.

Tuesday 4th March 2014 – THIS MORNING TOOK ME BY SURPRISE

caliburn heavy snow hotel gaspa ordino andorraAs you can see by looking at poor Caliburn, we’ve had a right pasting of snow this morning. It was certainly impressive!

But then again I had an interesting night. A couple of Security guards were accompanying some notable person and how they communicated with each other was by coded flashes of a torch. They thought that it was quite novel but I took the trouble to explain to them that we had been doing that for years – even down to having different lenses (clear, green, red) and even Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes adventures had been doing it. (The Speckled Band as it happens).


gondola ski lift La Massana andorraSo that was enough excitement for the morning. I headed off into the town of La Massana at the bottom of the hill.

There’s a huge ski slope up in the mountains and the lifts start from right in the town. A gondola or two went a-clattering over my head and so I resolved for a closer inspection.


Seems that these days Yours Truly is entitled to a Senior Citizens’ discount but even so, €7:50 was still a lot of money to spend. But anyway, as Martin Luther once said – “hier stehe ich – ich kann nicht anders”.
upper ski slopes la massana andorraI was tempted to hire some skis and other kit for a little go but I’m glad that I didn’t because of course it’s Carnaval and school holidays. The slopes were absolutely teeming with kids.

It was freezing cold too and the wind was perishing so after a cup of coffee and a wander around, I came back down again and continued my walk around the town.

houses for sale andorra adverts in russianBut you can see where much of the money in Andorra is coming from these days. Some of the Estate Agents have their adverts written in Russian for their nouveau-riche visitors. And as for the prices, well you and I can forget it. Think of a number, double it, and then add some more on top;

It wasn’t just the house prices in Russian either. We had menus in Russian, notices in Russian, signs in Russian, all that kind of thing. In 25 years the Russians have gone from being oppressed Communists to the worst kind of Capitalists. That’s what a western lifestyle does for you.

hatch for exclusive use of bombers andorraThe country is, however, very welcoming and even terrorists are made to feel at home and given every assistance possible.

Almost every commercial building has a little place where a terrorist can leave his bomb … “are you sure about this?” – ed … no sending it by post or sticking it in a waste paper bin here.

Good old Andorra!

hotel gaspa ondina andorraSo after a really good wander around and some falafel with hummus, I went back to my hotel.

That’s it up there – the Hotel Gaspa. And such a nice, warm, friendly place it is too that I’ve decided to stay on here for an extra day. I don’t want to be going far by road in this weather, and at least I’m comfortable here.