Tag Archives: eric hall

Saturday 28th September 2013 – I’VE BEEN TO HEAVEN …

… this morning, and it was by mistake. I’d crossed over the river from Lebanon, New Hampshire, to White River, Vermont and I wanted a place to park in order to photograph the sign.

The bridge was under repair and there were queues of traffic about all over the place and so I nipped onto an industrial estate to park up, but I became somewhat distracted instead.

These three vehicles here, the older of which is a 1932 Hudson, are three of about 20 or 30 vehicles from the 1930s and 40s that were lying abandoned all over the place.

I’ve no idea what they are all doing here but it’s certainly something of a tragedy to see them lying about like this – for some of them, there’s not very much left to save and for others, something needs to be done with them pretty quickly if they aren’t going to end up like the others.

It also begs the question, if these are outside, what might there be lurking around in a warehouse or industrial unit around here? If these are simply the donor cars for other projects it would be extremely interesting to blag my way in for a nosey but there was no-one around to ask. But it does bring back old times when I used to do this kind of thing in France with Nerina all those years ago.

Just down the road from there is the Quechee Gorge on the Ottauquechee River.

It isn’t quite the Grand Canyonof course, but it’s the best that was on offer around here. Hordes of people from everywhere and, much to my surprise, much of what seemed to be on offer was free. Maybe the USA is “The Land of the Free” after all, after all that I have been saying. I’ll have to change the script a little.

I’ve been travelling steadily south-west through the mountains and there wasn’t really very much to see because with overhanging cliffs and forests and the like there was never a clear view. But somewhere along the highway between Londonderry and Manchester there was another one of these rear-view mirror moments as I crest an enormous rise.

That’s where I’ve come from, right over there in the distance. That far ridge is probably 40 miles away and this is really the first proper glance that I’ve had of it. It was worth the wait, even if the image can’t do the view any justice.

This image is rather sad, though. It’s Troy, in New York State, my destination and where I hit the Hudson River. This is civilisation and a sign that my holiday is drawing to a close. This time next Saturday I’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic if we haven’t crashed on take-off, and I’m not looking forward to going home. I wish that I could stay here.

However I did have a stroke of luck. The Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav directed me into town past a huge Home Depot and so I took the opportunity to go for a wander around. I did a few errands there but I also made another Ryobi purchase.

I don’t know if you remember that a while ago I broke my Ryobi flourescent light. Here in the USA the model has been discontinued because they have now launched a similar light but powered by LEDs, and all for $19:99 too, and that’s a bargain in any currency.

And I’ll probably have to use it tonight because I’ve left it late to find somewhere to sleep.

-7

Friday 27th September 2013 – IN WHICH OUR HERO COVERS SOME GROUND

Yes, I’m never going to get anywhere at the rate at which I’m travelling. Albany is still a good several hundred miles away from Skowhegan and The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav tells me that I can get there by 19:00 tonight if I put my foot down (ha ha).

And so after a healthy three or four miles I come to a sudden halt in a traffic jam. It’s not a traffic jam really but roadworks, and this sets the pattern for the morning’s route – roadworks everywhere as they prepare the road for the winter. It’s really not my day.

But taking my time to successfully negotiate the chaos I can, in fits and starts, begin to put my foot down every so often and try to cover the road as quickly as possible taking all kinds of circumstances into account, more of which anon.

This area is pretty good however if you are the kind of person that suffers from multiple personality disorders though – you can each of you travel along your own road and yet stay together in the same vehicle.

But if any of you think that I am taking the … err … mickey unnecessarily, just ask yourselves why I always hire a seven-seater vehicle when I’m over here. It’s so that each one of mine can have his own seat.

Other things of course contrive to get in my way, like they do. Seeing a load of campers and hearing a load of noise, I go over to investigate.

I find myself at the Oxford Plains Speedway and it seems that there’s racing, a kind-of mini-Indy500 racing series this weekend, and I have stumbled upon the practise sessions. No spectators admitted, but that’s not the kind of thing that has ever stopped me before, has it?

But only one car spun off the track and there were no multiple pile-ups so it wasn’t all that exciting. But someone watching with me did ask me why there are no successful women Indycar racers. I replied that it’s because they have to keep on stopping to ask for directions.

The next thing that interrupts my passage is encountering the Winnipesaukee and Pemigewasset Valley Scenic Railroad at Meredith, and so I stop to see if there are any steam locomotives here. Apparently not – it’s not like Chama, where I was in 2002
– just old diesel shunters.

But I had an interesting encounter nevertheless, something so rare in the USA that it’s worth recording.

I went over to Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe. It was closed but there was someone behind the counter happily twiddling her thumbs – she saw me try the door and eventually came over to open it to talk to me. She wouldn’t let me in, and told me “sorry, we’re closed, I’m just here to wait for the return of a train that’s gone out with a party of tourists feom Indiana – you’ll need to come back tomorrow”

I replied “well, I won’t be here tomorrow”, so she just said “sorry” and closed the door.

Sounds just like Medicine Bow in 2002 doesn’t it?

So, hours behind time, as the sun goes down, I encounter Mascona Lake here in New Hampshire.

There’s a big camp site here just on the edge and so this is where I’ll plan to stay the night. The trouble with pressing on farther in the dark is that you never know what you might (or might not) encounter, and what you might miss out on along the way.

In the meantime, to our new reader who sat down the other day and read over 200 pages from start to finish, a big hello. Why not introduce yourself?

-5

Thursday 26th September 2013 – DITCHED!

Yes, I’ve had an unpleasant encounter today.

But that wasn’t how the day started. In fact it started off rather well for a change, with the sun suddenly and dramatically bursting through the cleft in the hills just opposite last night’s spec.

THis has to be worth the price of the admission alone and I was glad that I came this way, that’s for sure, even if subsequent events were to suggest otherwise.

Anyway after a breakfast and a good walk around, I set off, and this was where I came undone.

. Blasted sewage pumping wagon wouldn’t pull over (as you can see by his tyre path) “there were overhanging branches” apparently, and having to swerve to take avoiding action, I ended up in the ditch.

So after a frank exchange of views, the driver arranged for a park warden to come along, and the park warden pulled me out. These wardens have the same powers as policemen and so, after studying the tyre tracks, more will apparently be said to the truck driver.

I could now get on my way and a little further down the road here I encountered the first snows of winter 2013. High up in the mountains yes, but first snows all the same and this is looking ominous for the winter, isn’t it? Snow already!

From here I followed the road version of the Appalachian Trail which, believe me, could match anything that I encountered on The Trans Labrador Highwayand ended up in the town of Greenville.

Greenville is the principal town on Moose Head Lake, and if you want to know why the lake is so called, look at the photo just here. Definitely a moose head, that.

I spent a while here walking around as it was really beautiful too, and for tonight, I’m off on the road to Skowhegan to see what turns up.

-2

Wednesday 25th September 2013 – CROSS-BORDER INCIDENTS

We’ve had one of those today.

I’ve left Rachel and Darren’s, and I’m back on the road again, heading South-West, and that of course takes me over the border into Great Satan.

Just for a change, I crossed over the border at River du Chute, a tiny little part-time border crossing up near my piece of land, where I woke up the border guard. It’s clear, in some internal staff regulation somewhere, that border patrols have to give “the works” to a certain number of border-crossers every hour, and so when you haven’t had anyone across your border for three weeks, then this is your one chance in a lifetime to take out the thumb-screws.

This interrogation included the legendary conversation –
Border Guard “Why are you crossing over here?”
Our Hero “Why not?”
BG “Where have you come from?”
OH “Centreville”
BG “So why didn’t you cross over there?”
OH “Because I wanted to cross over here”

And so we then had the full search of the Dodge. I suppose it might have been different had I answered the questions differently, but seriously, just how DO you answer questions like that and keep a straight face? It was also the first time that I have ever been asked to show my driving licence.

But if anyone wants a finer example of the fear and paranoia that is gripping the citizens of the United States, you son’t eed to look further than this. It was just like trying to cross the border into the Soviet Union back in the 1970s and I’m waiting for someone in authority in the USA to admit that maybe the Soviets had a point. 50 years of destroying Communism and then they install the worst aspects of it in their own country.

Pillarks.

But anyway, having manipulated my way across the border and inspected the old cars and tractors, and manoeuvred my way around the Mennonite horse buggy convoys transporting the corn that they have been harvesting, I was off on the next stage of my adventures.

At Presque Ile I built up the supplies again, and I also bought a new bed. This bed is really nice and comfortable but it’s rather Heath-Robinson and extremely difficult to manoeuvre around, and impractical when there’s more than one of you in the vehicle. And as well as that, having been screwed and unscrewed so many times, the fixture is weakening. However today, at Walmart they were selling a real “Coleman” folding camp-bed with mattress, and I don’t mean one of these cheap and nasty cots but a proper lightweight bed with springing and the like, and all for $50. That’s much more convenient and easy to store.
Now what I’m doing is heading to Albany in New York because I want to go back to Montreal via Lake Champlain and the Richelieu Valley, the route of the “Last of the Mohicans”, and so I’ve drawn a straight line on the map between the two points and I’m doing my best to follow it.

This route is producing some stunning scenery, not the least of which is this early Triumph Herald 948 convertible. When was the last time that you saw one of these in the UK, never mind anywhere else? I didn’t know that they exported these to North America, and this one is Left-Hand Drive, as you can see.

But it shows you the demise of the British motor industry when just 50 years ago they were selling all kinds of marginal products to different places all around the world, and 10 years ago they couldn’t even sell anything in their own country. I can’t recall any other manufacturing base that has collapsed so quickly and so completely.

My route has also taken me over the 100-mile dirt-track Highway 159 into the Baxter State Park and it’s here that I’m staying the night. And it was here that my good fortune ran out because not only was I nabbed for the gate fee, I was also nabbed for the campsite fees. Still, the first this year after all of the “visiting” that I had done to date. I’m not complaining too much.

Anyway, it might only be 19:30 but I am totaly whacked, so I’ll see you all again in the morning.

-6

Tuesday 24th September 2013 – I’ve been stirring the …

… errr … brown and smelly stuff today.

And quite literally too.

At a small town called St André, about 100 kms from here is a farm owned by someone called Laforge. It’s a dairy farm but he’s expanding into all kinds of other farming activities seeing as how he has abundant supplies of … errr … fertiliser. The reason for this is that it’s all the by-product of Canada’s biggest methane generators, for which he uses the waste matter from his cows and whatever else he can find.

Darren showed me a video of the operation the other day, and then quite casually mentioned that they were customers of the feed mill. Of course, my eyes lit up and a phone call or two later, Rachel and I set off.

Impressive is not the word, that’s for sure, and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours there talking to the guy. And he knows his stuff too, even down to sourcing a supply of wood ash to mix into the inert waste matter in order to produce a balanced fertiliser.

His experiences, mostly with the hide-bound Government officials, were interesting too and full of difficulty as you might expect. But the rewards are equally as good, especially as he’s now planning other exciting activities such as using the waste heat to warm greenhouses to grow tomatoes with the fertiliser that he has. Even more interestingly, using the fertiliser to the maximum he’s just starting on his fourth hay crop whereas his neighbours have managed two this year.

That’s not the only bit of brown smelly stuff we encountered today. Zoe and I were in Woodstock today sorting out her salon and running other errands and while in Tim Horton’s Zoe was surfing the local small ads. “Chevy Silverado pick-up, 1997, $2500 or best offer” and so seeing as it was on the way home, we went for a look. And this is where the brown smelly stuff came in, because even though the pickup was white, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate description.

Seeing as I’m leaving here tomorrow I shall just have to resign myself to not having a pickup again. But these rental charges are killing me.

-4

Monday 23rd September 2013 – THERE’S A LANE NOT FAR FROM HERE …

… called Noah Lane, and someone suggested that I go and look at some of the houses there.

It was well-worth the trip too because they are certainly out-of-the-ordinary as you can see. And in the weather that we have been having this last few days/weeks/months, living in somewhere like this is not a bad idea at all because it’s atrocious and if I’m not careful these pages will become an eternal liturgy of desolation.

This morning I took advantage of the absence of everyone by repacking stuff that is hanging around in the car. I found a bigger cardboard box and repacked the library, and generally rearranged things in the suitcase. THat’s given me some more room to play about with.

Tim Horton’s was next, for now that they have free wifi access it’s an obvious port-of-call when I’m out. And from there I wandered off for lunch, sitting on a bluff near Hartland overlooking one of the rivers, whose name I managed to forget, to eat my butties.

This afternoonn I went, via Noah Laneof course, to see someone I know, and we had a good chat and organised a few things here and there. That took quite a while. And apart from that, we spent a lot of family time together and had a good chat. There’s not a lot else that you can do in weather like this.

-2

Sunday 22nd September 2013 – AND IT WAS AS WELL

Yes, a rough night with howling gales and driving rainstorms and one more night where I don’t seem to have had a decent sleep. I’m getting rather fed up with this.

Anyway, everyone else was up and about early (no surprise) and oo we hit the road. Having telephoned Rachel, we all arranged to meet up at the truckstop at Houlton for breakfast and then while Darren and Hannah went home, Rachel, Amber, Zoe and I went shopping around Marden’s and Walmart. Walmart is having a CD sale at $5:00 a time and so I’m all loaded up with all kinds of goodies to take home with me. Add that to the Ryobi bit driver and Strawberry Moose, and there won’t be any room in there for my clothes, not the first time that this has happened to me. His Nibs did offer to buy his own jet and fly it home, but that was ruled out when I explained to him that it was spelt “L-E-A-R”.

Back home I had a shower (no, the OUSA Executive Committee hasn’t come over to join me) and then did quiet domestic things to finish off the day. After all, it is Sunday

-3

Saturday 21st September 2013 – HERE IN MILLINOCKET …

… the weather looked distinctly less-than-promising this morning. Although we had spent the evening sitting out in a gentle warm breeze, watching the stars, something must have happened during the night and it all looked so depressing.

We were however told by the guy in charge of the airport that the day would brighten up, and as the morning wore on and the competitors began to arrive, some of them brought the nice weather with them and by the time the competition got itself under way, we had a bright scorching sunshine

There was nothing else here apart from the tractor pulling – no fairground or showground as at Clinton the other week.

And not that I know very much about tractor pulling, but the track looked to be in far better condition. And so it should have been, considering the effort that had gone into preparing it the morning of the event (it pays to be at places like this early so that you can see exactly what is going on).

Here’s one of our old friends, a grader similar to the thousands that we encountered in 2010 during our marathon drive along the Trans Labrador Highway
(except that this one has griffers on the back) smoothing to track out ready for the compactors to compress down.

. There were several more classes of truck than at Clinton, although nothing like as many entries, and the event was over long before nightfall.

What didn’t help was the number of breakdowns. All kinds of things were going wrong for some of the drivers – clutches disintegrating and the like. On one old truck, the effort to pull the sledge pulled a universal joint clean out of the si=ocket in the centre of the propshaft and I can’t say that I’ve ever seen that happen before, although on one of my old taxis many years ago, an out-of-balance propshaft tore the mounting out of the floor of the car.

In the middle of the contest Darren did a demonstration run in “Perdy in the Pink”, and then Hannah had her first effort. And when I find the USB lead to charge up the camcorder (which somehow I seem to have forgotten to bring), I’ll put a video of her run on here. Dad made 341 feet and a bit, and Hannah, putting everything that she had into it, did 337 feet, which is pretty spectacular considering that she’s only just 16.

Her second run though, she was doing even better until the fuel line split and sprayed ethanol all over her and the track at about 50psi. Nevertheless, first place in her class and in the top 10 overall is something to be proud of.

Highlight of the day has to be the guy who came over to me while I was filming and said “How do you manage to stand so close to the tractors and film then with all of the noise that they are making?” to which I replied “what?”.

And we can’t be bothered to go home tonight so we’re sitting here talking, drinking and watching the storm clouds gather. It’s going to be rough tonight.

-6

Friday 20th September 2013 – AND WE’RE OFF …

… tractor-pulling again. Just the four of us this time, namely Darren, Hannah, Yours Truly and of course Strawberry Moose. We’re going to a place called Millinocket which is deep inside darkest rural Maine and miles off the beaten track, so I shall be quite at home there.

But a crisis at the local truck stop (not the big one where we stopped last time). My fries turned up, well, sort-of okay but my beans had bacon in them despite me specifying “just beans – no cheese and no bacon or anything else”. Apparently a simple request like that is beyond the capacity of some trukstop waitresses in the USA. “However did this lot become the new master race?”, as I have asked myself before.

Today started off early as it was Inspection Day at Zoe’s salon. A couple of last-minute tasks needed to be carried out and so Yours Truly was roped in. This little desk with two shelves that we bought (was $60, when we first saw it, it was reduced to $40 and when Zoe bought it it was further reduced to $20) is an absolute bargain and does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and more besides.

Then I went off to Tim Horton’s to give two people the shock of their lives. There they were sitting at a table next to me quietly nattering away, and then I caught the “long Jaaaa”. “Jullie komen uit Nederlands?” I asked them, and then we had a very interesting 10-minute conversation in Dutch. Probably the last thing that they were expecting in a coffee bar in a small town in rural New Brunswick.

The rest of the day was spent running errands. They are short-handed in the tyre depot again and deliveries were piling up and so with Zoe as navigator (her salon passed its inspection and as soon as Darren finishes welding the sills on her car she’ll be in business) we went off around Bath, Florenceville and Bristol with a pile of parcels and envelopes. And of course the bank. I don’t know if I mentioned last time the fun that I had trying to get US dollars out of US cash machines with my Canadian bank card, and so I went to the bank and took out some USA cash.

Now I’m sitting at the side of a deserted runway in rural Maine watching the stars and the full moon, and waiting for things to happen.

-3

Thursday 19th September 2013 – WE STARTED OFF THIS MORNING …

… with the usual and traditional panic-stricken 20-minutehunt for the keys. And no-one was more surprised that I was to find them, after all of that, in their proper place. Yes, the last place to look for them of course.

Nevertheless, by 07:30 I was sitting on the docks at Baie St Anne drinking coffee and contemplating the gorgeous weather. It was absolutely taters when I woke up, all of 3°C, but it quickly warmed up once the sun rose and even despite the wind, it was lovely out.

A short drive down the road I discovered another quite little cove and thatw as the spot for breakfast, and then I continued my drive along the Acadian Trail.

One of the places that has to be visited along here is the little fishing port of Escuminac, in the Miramichi Bay.

This was the scene of a major disaster in JUne 1959. All of the boats were out fishing when a sudden storm sprang up. 26 boats sank in the gale and 39 fishermen drowned. The entire communnity was devastated by the disaster as most of the male population was lost at sea. It puts a totally different price on the kipper on your breakfast plate, events like these

In the afternoon I left the coast and headed to Centreville. There’s a tractor pull this weekend and Strawberry Moose and I will be there.

And so I stopped for lunch up on the top of Tobique on the site of the old railway station on the banks of the river about 10 miles from Plaster Rock.

And here we had an exciting incident. Some woman with a dog came by and we had a chat, and during the course of the conversation it came out that I was on my way to Centreville. She mentioned that she knew people there, even though it was about 80 miles away, and subsequent enquiry revealed that it is Rachel’s parents-in-law at the mill.

THis world is getting far to small for my liking.

-4

Wednesday 18th September 2013 – ET IN ACADIA EGO

… but more about that in a bit.

My overnight spot was excellent and was a wonderful place to pick, and so up and about at an early hour I went for a walk along the Dune de Bouctouche – all 11 kms of it (the dune, that is, I walked … errr … somewhat less than that).

The morning was the best morning yet on my adventures and a brisk walk by the seaside blew away all of the cobwebs, and quite right too because the wind was a little bit frisky to say the least. The wind turbines on Prince Edward Island way across the Nothumberland Strait were going round like the clappers

Here, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky as you can see, and the sky was almost as deep-blue as the water. It really was a pleasure to be out and about.

From here I went off along the coast looking to see how many of the old wooden truss bridges are still left standing, having noticed that a few that I counted when I was here in 2003 have been replaced by modern concrete bridges.

The one near the First Nation settlement at Rexton is still here as you can see, but it’s really only just about standing

It’s in a totally dreadful state of repair as you can see, thoroughly eaten away by rot and woodworm in several places. Some of the wooden trusses have been replaced and others have had some kind of Heath-Robinson repairs that have done little to fix the problem.

I don’t reckon that it will be much longer before this bridge ends up in the river underneath with a couple of car-loads of pasengers down there with it.

And there was another one equally as bad on the way out of St Louis de Kent and that’s on a main road with heavy traffic too.

Talking of St Louis de Kent, this town is said to be the birthplace of the Acadian flag and here flying on the bluff that overlooks the river and the valley below is probably the biggest Acadian Flag that the world has ever seen.

The guy that designed it, and did so much to foster the Acadian “identity” was Marcel-Francois Richard, a priest here round about the turn of the 20th Century and they celebrate his fame in something of a big way with statues and plaques and, of course, the flag. But not, so it seems, a chorus of Ave Stella Maris, the Acadian anthem (unless I’m going deaf).

Talking of priests and the like, and going back to Rexton, here is the parish church of the aforementioned and the priest of it 150 years ago is by no means as famous as his son ever was.

Andrew Bonar Law was the only British Prime Minister ever to be born outside the UK and if you read his biography it says that he was born in Kingston New Brunswick. However, if you go to Kingston they know nothing about it. This is because there were formerly two Kingstons in New Brunswick and it all became confusing and so 100 years ago one of them, this one, changed its name to Rexton

Bonar law’s dad was vicar of this church and it was in the manse next door that Junior was born.

So with more bridges and beaches and yacht harbours and the like I’m now on the campsite of the Kouchibouguac National Park for tonight. It’s nice and peaceful at the moment but now that I’ve arrived, you watch that all change.

-2

Tuesday 17th September 2013 – BRRR IT WAS COLD …

… this morning. Winter is here by the looks of it. Mind you the beautiful clear sky had a lot to do with that – all of the radiant heat disappearing through the night. But I really ought to stop complaining and get on with some work.

Still, you can’t keep a good man down, and not even me, and so I was off down the road into the gorgeous day.

Skirting the edge of Moncton and climbing into the hills at the back, some of the views were terrific and it was a total pleasure to have had a good day to see them for a change.

This is a view from the top of a bank somewhere along Homestead Road and somewhere down there is the truckstop where I spent the night, and of course the Trans Canada Highway as it closes in on Moncton. It’s a shame that the photo can’t really do any justice to the image but, like I said, it was something to be able to see clearly today.

In Moncton, it was largely disappointment. Princess Autos, the big motor factors, had nothing that was of interest and even if they might have done, the staff, while helpful, know totally nothing about their stock and so they were of no help at all.

UPS doesn’t have a budget freight service and the guy there suggested the Post Office for me to ship back a few things, but Home Depot did even better. A Ryobi plus One impact bit driver and two lithium batteries plus charger for just $119. You can’t even buy the batteries for that in Europe, and the bit driver costs more than that alone.

From there it was to the seaside, which was why I came down here anyway. This is the fishing port of Shediac. It’s only half an hour or so from Moncton and it’s one of the most beautiful places in New Brunswick. Strawberry Moose and I had a really good wander around and he made quite a few friends, both animal and human, more of which anon, and I took plenty of photos.

From here, we followed the Acadian Trail northwards. The Acadians were the original French settlers of the area and after the fall of Nouvelle France to the British they were obliged to take an oath of loyalty to the British Crown. Many of them did so of course, but some refused and those were deported to other French possessions (such as Louisiana, where they became known as “cajuns”) in North America, although once tensions had eased in the Maritime Provinces many of them filtered back

If it weren’t for the fact that the water here is absolutely freezing even in High Summer (this is the Northumberland Strait between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Isle – no Gulf Stream here) this would be a splendid place to come. There are lots of little beaches (but like in most areas of North America, quite a few of them are private) and lighthouses and all of that kind of thing to entertain the tourist.

Unfortunately, the tourist season is very short and Sunday was the last day for that and so there isn’t much that is open to the public right now, but who cares anyway? I’m enjoying the weather and the sea air.

Some of the small towns are quite pretty too. This is Bouctouche, a little further north along the Arcadian Trail, and the photo was taken from the steps of the large church.

The bridge is comparatively modern and at the side of it you’ll see a ramp down into the water and on the other side of the river, heavily overgrown, is another ramp. That seems to indicate “ferry” to me because even as late as the 1980s there was nothing like the number of bridges that you see today and the whole route was punctuated by ferries. A water-borne paradise and I for one am disappointed that it’s all gone.

But Bouctouche, or rather the huge Bouctouche sand dune, is where I’m heading. There’s a big car park quite discreetly hidden amongst the trees and that is where I plan to have my overnight stop.

-3

Monday 16th September 2013 – I’M NOT AT ALL SURE …

… what it was that awoke me thins morning but it was big and brushed past the side of the van while I was asleep. Of course no-one sleeps after anything like that.

so while I show you a picture of my little home for the last few days, I went off for a shower and then spent the next hour or so bringing the paperwork up to date as much as I could in the time that I had available.

You can’t see the bench that is allocated to each camping spec, and neither can you see the old truck wheels that are used as bases for open camp fires but I didn’t use either of them due to the weather (and it was even raining again this morning)

Once things were all organised I set off to Fredericton to pick up my new bass amp (silly me) and then spent the afternoon driving along the north bank of the Saint John River, a river that has of course featured in songs by such artists as Man and Led Zeppelin in the song “Babe I’m Going To Leave You”.

The drive wasn’t particularly inspiring, due completely to the weather which was enough to put the mockers on anything, but it very slowly started to clear up, as you can see in the distance in this photograph of a place called White’s Cove.

And by the time I got to Phoen … errr … the edge of Moncton and the big Irvings truckstop where I planned to stay the night, the sun was actually out, peeking under the edges of the cloud as it descended below the horizon

Of course, it won’t last

-3

Sunday 15th September 2013 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… the sun was out this morning. Absolutely right on cue too, because the festival is now over.

I consequently caught up with a few more mundane tasks such as tidying up, something that I seem to be rather lax about as you know. Anyway once that was sorted out and a few other things up to date I headed for the hi… town.

We’re back into the more mundane photography too, as you might expect. This one isn’t mundane though.

During the various land reclamation schemes that have gone on throughout the world for over a thousand years, one aspect that has occurred almost everywhere is the straightening of water courses to ease the flow of water and to reclaim more fertile farming land from the bed of the old course of the river and in particular, some of the more pointless meanders.

These areas are of course filled with silt from the river and so are more fertile than the surrounding land but as the soil is less compact there, any really heavy rain sinks in and is absorbed like a sponge rather than running off. When these areas are thoroughly saturated in prolonged heavy rain the water rises to the surface and you cans ee traces of the old water course.

There’s a marvellous example of an old meander, what they call an “ox-bow lake” this morning on the way into Fredericton via the old road

A little further on we encounter another interesting item. This is a Dodge Power Wagon from the 1940s I reckon (but I’m never very good at guessing the ages of American vehicles).

It has been mobile, would you believe, but its last licence tag expired in 1977 and it looks as if it was used for a while subsequently as a stationary crane for a paving company. Anyway it’s not been used for ages, all rusted up, and it seems to be on its last legs, which is quite a shame.

In town, there was nothing at all going on and so I wandered around for a while and then, taking full advantage of the public internet access in Fredericton, I wrote the web page for the Canned Heat photos and they are now on line. For reasons concerning copyright and image theft I’ve degraded the quality of the photos substantially, but there are high-quality images available for anyone who would like to see them, as long as you say the magic words.

So tomorrow I’m back on the road. No idea where I’m going, though. But ask me if I care?

-5

Saturday 14th September 2013 – IT WASN’T THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that woke me up this morning. The weather seems to have cleared up a little – unless it’s run out of rain and gone back to find some more, which is most likely.

I wasn’t in a hurry to leave the stinking pit either today seeing as it’s weekend and I’m on holiday, but eventually I managed to do the photos and the notes as well as having a long chat with Cécile and her mum on Skype.

ON the way into town I stopped to fuel up and found the cheapest petrol that I’ve seen in ages – $1:26.9 at a garage owned by a Lebanese guy. Coffee at $1:25 too so I fuelled myself up with that. We also spent ages putting the world to rights too.

But now for the music.

First up in the Alexander Keith tent was Bob Marley’s old backing band, doing loads of covers of some of his best material.

Reggae is not really my scene and so I didn’t hang around too long as there was plenty of other things to be doing today, but at least I took a few photos of them. Not very many as it was impossible to fight my way through the crowds and down to the front.

However I didn’t half feel a fool. Due to a misunderstanding and a bad telephone line, I was the only person in the crowd who was carrying a harpoon.

In the Mojo Tent we had Marcia Ball, the Swamp Boogie Queen, on stage with her backing band. She was really quite good and thoroughly enjoying herself, and quite right too.

Not quite my scene either but I can appreciate good music whenever I hear it and I had no complaints about this performance, saxophones notwithstanding. I did enquire of one of the stage crew whether she had received any help in setting up her concert and giving her advice and all that kind of thing, to which he replied “not in the least – it’s all Ball’s.

This is Jessie Ashcroft on one of the outdoor stages, that restarted operations today now that the weather has improved. She was playing a Pink Floyd song, the name of which escapes me for the moment and which I’ll remember as soon as I press “send”, when I encountered her. Wat I found disappointing was that there was probably not even 40 people watching her act.

Even more disappointing was that when I asked the technician who the guitarist was, he answered “ohh, just some guy who plays with her” – he didn’t even know her name and that was dreadful because he deserved so much more that to be left in the deepest, darkest obscurity and anonymity like this.

Back in the Mojo Tent Garrett Mason (in the silly hat) and Keith Hallett (in the cap) were back on stage along with their rhythm section – Ray Jay Junior from Prince Edward Island on bass and a drummer called Chuck from Chicago.

The bassist was efficient rather than spectacular but the drummer was superb.

As for Garrett and Keith, they did live up to my expectations and moved into first place on my unofficial list of Festival winners. A fine hard-rocking boogie blues band that had the audience on its feet from start to finish.

Back at my spiritual home, the Hoodoo House, I saw the most astonishing band that I have probably ever seen in my 45 years of concert attendance – the 24th Street Wailers from Toronto.

They featured a sax player, a bassist, a female lead guitarist and a female lead singer on drums. Finding singing drummers is rare enough – finding female drummers is even rarer, but finding all of that together is astonishing.

And they weren’t bit-part players either.

Technically there wasn’t much wrong with what they were doing although it wasn’t all that technically-challenging (not that that ever bothered Status Quo and their army of supporters, I have to say), but if top rung on my ladder of Festival success was measured by energy, enthusiasm and audience interaction, they would have been down the road and out of sight long a long time before the final number

Headlining tonight was Ross Neilsen, together with a bassist and drummer whose name I didn’t catch. Sorry, guys. As a blues power trio they were thoroughly magnificent even if the sound mix was pretty awful, and I was prepared to install them at the top of my list, which I would have done with ease had they kept it up.

But then an astonishing thing happened.

They kept on inviting their mates to come up on stage and take part and we had a sax player, a keyboards player and, even worse, a mouth-organ player (and you know that that puts the kiss of death on a performance in my opinion). Of course, worse things happen at sea but it wasn’t as if these musicians added anything to the performance – in fact it quite detracted from what had been a magnificent opening set of numbers. All that was missing from the second half of the set was an invitation to next door’s cat to come up on stage.

Seriously, if Ross Neilsen and his two mates had kept up the power trio bit all the way through the performance they would have swept the board in my awards because they really were that good.

And had this motley crew of musicians been on stage from the very beginning it wouldn’t have been so bad either, but starting off as well as they did and then descending into chaos brought the curtain down on their performance as far as I was concerned.

Mind you, judging by the audience’s reaction, I’m clearly in a minority of one in this case.

I took refuge outside amongst the buskers, and spent a pleasant 20 minutes listening to this guy. He’s called Mike Peters and originally from Saint John but somehow managed to drift his way up here to Fredericton.

He was playing a set of folk-rock numbers, including Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and it beats me how it is that performers like him can’t find a regular spot at a festival like this when you consider some of the other artists who have been given stage time at the festival. There was nothing wrong with his performance and people like him deserve far more recognition than they are receiving.

So back to the camp site and it’s a clear night. So much so that I actually did a pile of washing before going to bed. That’s rather optimistic of me, I know. Cue a torrential downpour during the night.

-3

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality