Tag Archives: strider

Monday 14th September 2015 – WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT

No sooner had I settled down than we had a rainstorm. And while it might not have been as intense as the other night, a rainstorm it most certainly was. And it went on and on and on until I never thought that it would end. Certainly, for four hours it kept it up because I remember looking at the time when I went out in the middle of the night to check that the stream right by my tent wasn’t going to burst its banks and sweep me away.

And that’s a shame too because for once I was comfortable in here. Now that I’ve rearranged the inside of Strider I can actually reach the bed and I pinched the mattress off it and that made quite a difference. And I must have dozed off during the proceedings because I was on my travels again. We needed to obtain some information from a certain guy and the best way to do this was to find someone to impersonate his secretary. She was a small blond who did her hair in a special way with a long pony tail, so we found a girl who resembled her from a distance and who, with a hairpiece, could pass close enough to fool the security cameras. So when this other girl went to lunch we infiltrated our girl into the building, but while she was in the ladies room checking her hair, the real secretary came in and was astonished to see her doppelganger. Our girl solved the problem by knocking the real secretary into next week with a frying pan and that was that.
But later, I was on the move again in my old van (it might even have been Bill Badger, the Austin A60 van that I had for years) with, of all people, my brother. He needed coal and there was just one place to go in Crewe for bagged coal, so off we went. When we arrived there, I was absolutely whacked and so I sent him in while I had a sleep, but anyway he came out to say that there was no coal (I’d heard this conversation anyway). I asked him if he’d asked if there was anywhere else where he could get it but he said that he hadn’t. But he knew where we could go, so I told him that I wasn’t going to mess up my van by putting loose coal into it. He’d also needed to post a letter (price £0:09) but they only had a stamp for £0:08 in there so the sales lady there sold him that stamp and told him to go to the post office and tell them that he’ll post anther letter with a stamp for £0:01 in it, and the’ll accept that. Such weird things as that happen when I’m on a nocturnal ramble, but even in that kind of state I knew enough that it seemed simpler to me to simply stick the stamp for £0:01 on the outside of the letter with the stamp for £0:08 and save the discussion.

And so while you admire the very basic, very primitive and very very free camp site on the outskirts of Greenville, I woke up to an inch of water inside the tent in the bottom corner, which was rather disconcerting but not surprising given the amount of rain that we had had during the night.

Water will always leak in around the zip and so you always pitch your tent with the entrance pointing downhill and you sleep in the uphill bit and even if it does rain in a little you can stay relatively dry. But I’ll go to Walmart, buy some more of these super-duper heavy duty tent pegs that I bought the other day, and stick the big tarpaulin that Rachel gave me over the top next time that the weather looks threatening.

A quick coffee and I was off down the road into Greenville

Parked up here in the town centre, I had a very nice piece of entertainment.

It had been seaplane fly-in weekend at the weekend here on Moosehead Lake, and there were still two left tied up at the quayside. And as I left Strider in order to admire the view, one of them started up, left his berth, and came right across to where I was standing, right by the paddle-steamer Kathadin, which you all saw in 2013 when I was here because, in the famous words of the legendary Jimmy Ruffin, “I’ve passed this way before”.

And so he (the seaplane, not Jimmy Ruffin) did a few laps of the bay in order to warm up his engine to operating speed, and then shot off down the lake.

After a run of about a quarter of a mile he heaved himself into the air and off he went.

And off I went too, to see about this log cabin.

And I was disappointed too. It seems that prices have increased considerably since I was here and what I want has priced itself out of the market. Not only that, many of the items that were included in the price back then are now optional extras and so what looked two years ago like $20,000 on the site all in and delivered is going to end up being twice that, and twice as much work too.

In fact, I can go as far as to say that my journey for the first month of my stay in North America this year has been a period of 30 disappointments. “But smile!” they say. “Things could be worse!” And so I”m smiling – and you know what that means.

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

Over the road was a hardware store and they are agents for log cabins. Nothing like as de-luxe as what was available back where I’d just been, but then neither was the price, and this looks much more “like it” from that point of view. I’m going to have to give this some further consideration.

Ably assisted by The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav, I left Greenville by the main highway that goes south-east to Millinocket and you can see what a beautiful road this highway is. Very reminiscent of the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Strider, as befits any good ranger, took it in his stride … "ohhh, very good" – ed … and I can see the benefits of having a solid truck with decent all-weather off-road tyres. The Dodges that I used to have wouldn’t have lasted five minutes down here

I had to stop for a minute or two for a gypsy’s, and found myself right by the rapids on the river just here.

This river goes down eventually past Millinocket, and while you’ll see hundreds of timber lorries down the roads here, even as late as the 1930s it’s suggested that they were still floating logs down here to the huge lumber mill down there, even past rapids like this.

If you were with me in 2013, you’ll remember our discovery of the grave of a flotteur de bois that we discovered at the foot of another series of rapids not too far from here.

At Millinocket, I nipped onto the Interstate for half an hour and then took the old road up to Presque Ile

This is another one of those roads that can be classed as one of the most beautiful roads in North America. It’s all up hill and down dale and shows Upper Maine at its beautiful best.

It’s another one of those roads that can only be driven properly on a big old single-cylinder long-stroke motorcycle and a beautiful 600cc side-valve Panther solo would be a pleasure to drive up here. And I deeply regret the one that I missed out on a few years ago.

But that’s not looking too optimistic, is it? That’s right over Presque Ile where I’m going. I don’t fancy camping in that.

And at Presque Ile I had a little success. Walmart did indeed have one of the slimline air beds that I need for the bed that I’m going to need for Strider, and they also had (at just $8:00) a little wooden fold-flat table, the size that you’d have by your chair for your coffee and cake. This is a good size for Strider, to cook on, eat off and use as a desk.

And at the Super Save shop, that has a good vegan range of food, I treated myself to a pot of carrot-flavoured vegan hummus.

It was pitch-black by now, even though it was only 17:00 and suddenly the storm broke. And how it broke too! I wasn’t going to camp in this – not under any circumstances.

And as I left Presque-Ile, the “Budget Traveller” motel appeared in the gloom. $59:95 including breakfast, and I was entitled to a discount on that rate too. I’d had a free night last night and so I wasn’t going to miss out on any of that.

There was a microwave in the room too and so I treated myself to a vegan pizza (I have plenty of my vegan sliced cheese) and that was gorgeous;

But now it’s 20:28 – I’m watching film, but my bad night last night has caught up with me and any second now I’m going to drop ….

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

-1

Sunday 13 September 2015 – SO THAT WAS MY NIGHT …

… in my rather overpriced motel.

It trades heavily on its superb view of Mount Jefferson just across the road, but today I couldn’t even have my money’s worth of that, because of the hanging clouds that we were having (it IS just like home, isn’t it?).

We’d had rain during the night – not much of it but enough to generate this weather phenomenon, and so there I was. But at least there was a coffee machine in my room and I could have a good shower and change my clothes. And I had had a good night’s sleep too. So much so that I’d been on my travels again.

I’d been doing something in some kind of home. Firstly we’d been off somewhere to check on an abandoned house and in there we ound amongst other things a lively ginger kitten. It took straight to me and so I brought it back with me to thins home place.
Back here I had to prepare a bath for some residents but was interrupted as my father (whatever was he doing there) needed to use the bathroom. And then he couldn’t find any toilet paper so I had to hunt around for that.
Another one of my jobs was to water the motorcycles that were growing in pots. You had to start off by using heated water and then continue using tap water when the heated water ran out.
Meantime, this ginger kitten had gone missing in the house and no-one knew where it was.

But talking of being on my travels again, I didn’t go very far before I was sidetracked.

You all know what this is because you’ve seen one of these before. It’s a Nash Metropolitan, made by Austin (and called the Austin Metropolitan in the UK) and was the first car sold by an American manufacturer to be made 100% outside the USA.

It’s either e series 3 or a 4 (you can tell by the chrome stripe) and it’s fitted with the BMC Series B engine. 20,000 genuine miles from new on the original engine, this baby.

And as I said a few days ago, what went wrong with the British motor industry with in the 1950s and 1960s they were selling cars to half the world, and 20 years later, they couldn’t even sell cars in their own country?

And that’s not all either. How about taking this home in the hand luggage?

It’s a Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria sedan, fitted with a Fordamatic gearbox and it has the most magnificent interior that I have ever seen on a car.

This has to be one of the most beautiful vehicles that I have ever seen, and I’m in love with it. It sums up the 1960s USA completely for me. I didn’t enquire as to whether it was for sale, or ask the price because it would certainly be far, far outside my pocket.

I didn’t move on far – just to the town of Gorham.

There’s a mainline railway here, which might be the famous Montreal – Portland line, built before icebreakers could keep Montreal’s harbour free of ice in winter, so that Montreal’s commerce could have a winter outlet.

The passenger service here has long-gone, but the good inhabitants of the city have recruited a collection of locomotives and rolling stock, including this Baldwin 0-6-0 which dates to 1911 and which worked previously in a factory in Massachusetts.

It had a restoration in 1990, so we are proudly told, but this restoration seemed to be the usual North American restoration of slapping everything all over with black bituminous paint to hide the rust and hoping that no-one will notice.

You can see what I mean by looking here at the framework of the tender. The wood has just totally rotted away here to leave absolutely nothing at all and this is just completely dreadful.

On good authority I am told “The steam locomotive was built as New England Gas and Coke n°4, the company later became Eastern Gas and Fuel, and ran in Everett, Mass adjacent to Boston from 1911 to the 40s. It was significantly rebuilt during its life to what you see now and for a while was part of the Steamtown USA collection. Allegedly the tender is from B&M mogul 1435. It was sold off when the collection moved to Scranton and has remained in Gorham ever since. As built, it very closely resembled Baldwin #26 at Steamtown”

And thanks to Alden Burns for the info

And just look at this diesel power car. You can see even from here that several of the metal panels have been replaced with wood and the wood has rotted away just as much as the metal has. There’s notmuch of either left.

Now I have seen some dreadful attempts at preservation here in North America, but I do have to say that here in Gorham is the worst that I have ever encountered. The kind of stuff that is on display here brings shame upon its owners. It really is appalling.

And so from here I set off once more, continuing my route eastwards, missing out on Berlin and Peru but passing by Mexico and into Maine, and occasionally having a few more attacks of the Jimmy Ruffins.

At a certain moment I was passing very close to the watershed between the Atlantic and the St Lawrence basins, and there was the most astonishing view from a peak on the ridge.

It’s a shame that the weather wasn’t better to enable all of you to enjoy the view because, like most views from the camera, it was much more magnificent than it looks on the photo. It wascompletely spellbinding.

I wasn’t alone here either. A couple of German tourists were here too and I ended up having quite a chat with them for a while.

It reached 18:00 – time for me to call it a day and so I started to look for a place to park. And at 18:02 I found te perfect place – a little hardstanding behind a hedge right by the river. And had I had my bed in Strider organised, that’s where I would be now. But you can’t stop at spots like this with a tent.

There was a camp site further along the route but he didn’t take tents. However, he did point me in the direction of a free wilderness camp site about half an hour down the road and I eventually found it.

It’s extremely primitive, to say the least, but it’s free, which is what I need after my motel last night. There’s a nice spot in the corner by the stream and that’s where I’ll be staying tonight.

-1

Saturday 12th September 2015 – STRIDER HAS CHANGED.

Here he is , with his brand-new specially-made truck cap.

It’s not as I wanted it unfortunately, as there’s a window on the driver’s side which I hadn’t wanted, there’s no sliding window at the front, and there’s no insulation in it (so the condensation inside it will be tremendous). But as a rush job, being built with parts ex-stock, it’s good enough.

The good news is that it’s over $400 cheaper than the fibreglass truck cap that I didn’t get, and the price difference would have been even greater had I not had the roof bars that are on it. But as I expected, the folding bed is too long for the back and so when I reach Fredericton I’ll have to make a bed for it. But that’s not going to be difficult, and I was really expecting something like this anyway.

Last night I had a very disturbed night. Not because I was uncomfortable – far from it in fact, but there was a lot of noise. The camp site was full to capacity and people were partying, playing music and running generators until all times. There really ought to be a law about generators on a camp site.

But at least I was up early, and a good coffee got me going.

And while I was working, a whole load of people were going down to the beach, even at 07:30 and I wondered what was going on.

It turns out that as part of this Homecoming weekend celebrations, there are some inter-school cross-country races and they went running up and down past my tent – about 5 or 6 races. And I was impressed that so many kids took part.

Although I’ve made several comments about the unhealthy attitude and lifestyle of many Americans, there’s just as much to celebrate, with all of these kids taking part in sporting activities. That’s a fact that deserves to be noted too, just to balance the equation.

After having the truck cap fitted I went to Hannafords down the road and bought some lunch. And then I hit the road. All the way across central Vermont and into New Hampshire, having another attack of the Jimmy Ruffins as I drove past one of the RV places that I had visited 100 years ago.

The scenery is beautiful around here but I didn’t have time to stop. It’s a long way to Greenville in Maine, my next port of call, and I want to be there on Monday morning without fail. I need to be in Fredericton on Wednesday morning and that’s considerably farther, so I can’t afford to hang about.

I resolved to stop at the first place that I found after 18:00 and at 18:02 a motel appeared through the gloom. I hadn’t planned on a motel but I haven’t had a shower for a good few days, I’ve had a couple of bad nights sleep, and I need to set myself in order. And so a motel it was. Rather expensive, and no microwave, but a coffee machine and a free handful of sweets.

It does go against the grain having just spent all this money on the truck cap, but it’ll do me for tonight. I reckon that I deserve it for once.

-3

Friday 11th September 2015 – WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

Absolutely.

There I was on my travels last night and who should come breezing in but Nerina. She’d left me two months ago but now she had discovered that she was pregnant and so wanted to come back. No wonder that I awoke all cold and sweating!

I’d been elsewhere on my travels too. I’d been quite friendly with a group of girls and every time I went around to see them their mother used to shout at me “and wipe your feet!” and this went on for ages. But then one day they announced that they were selling up and going to have to find somewhere else to live, and so I answered that there were some nice big houses by Pebble Brook School, in Buchan Grove in fact (which of course, is nowhere near Pebble Brook School but anything is possible when I’m voyaging during the night)

That latter bit does in fact have some significance for anyone who can remember events of 40 years ago, but if you weren’t around just then, then you missed out on events of earth-shattering importance.

All of the foregoing might lead you to suppose that I had a really good night’s sleep, but in fact nothing could be further from the truth. I just couldn’t drop off, for a start. I was awake for hours, and then I had another bad, uncomfortable night where I kept on waking up.

But eventually there I was, with a coffee. But not a shower. It’s another pay-shower and I don’t have any quarters. But it does go to show just what good value the Goose Point Campground at Alburgh was.

Talking of campgrounds, I can’t stay here two further nights either.It’s Homecoming Week here at the High School (hence all of the sports) and there’s quite a few inter-school competitions this weekend. The campground is therefore full but they’ve squeezed me in elsewhere for tonight and then I have to move on. Not that it’s a big deal because I could be quite comfortable here if I had decent accommodation.

And talking of things being decent, after I’d bought my butty for this afternoon I went down to the beach to eat it.

First time that I’ve been down here and it certainly is a nice place to be. I’ve not seen a beach quite like this except when I was on my travels at the start of Spring last year when I went down to western France for a week.

In fact this whole area reminds me very much of western France, which is probably what attracted many of the early settlers here. Because this area was first settled by mainly French settlers from Nouvelle France.

In fact, if you look in the telephone directory, you’ll see loads and loads of French surnames. I was sitting behind someone called Gagnon and they announced the name “Tremblay” for one of the players on the hockey team last night.

But just a word of warning if you fancy coming down here visiting in a school bus or something – there’s a 9-foot height limit under the abandoned railway so you’ll need to leave the bus miles away and walk down.

As for me, no trouble with Strider. That’s another reason for having a Ford Ranger. he fits anywhere that a small family car will go. And so I was able to sit and eat my butties in peace and enjoy the nice weather. Summer was back today.

After lunch I went up to Home Depot and had a plank of cheap OSB cut for the floor of Strider. I’ve had it cut to 40″ by 6’and I’ve now encountered another problem. And that is that with his boot liner, he’s not even 6 feet long and that means that

I have to cut down the wood further (good job that I have a saw
My camp bed won’t fit in the back of it

And so I can see that I’m going to have to make a bed to fit it. But then, I was half-prepared for this anyway – hence the circular saw.

Back at the High School, I armed myself with a press permit (Radio Anglais has a lot to be said for it) and so I was authorised to take photos of tonight’s football matches

We started off with the girls against Colchester High School, and the first thing that you’ll notice is the refereeing.They don’t have one referee and two linesman but two referees (possibly one from each school) and the pitch seems to be divided up by an invisible diagonal line, with each referee administrating on “his” side of the line.

This was how the hockey was refereed too last night but I just thought that that was usual. School hockey refereeing has probably come a long way since Joyce Grenfell refereed a hockey match at St Trinians.

The Seahorses scored just as I was entering the ground (I was late). Their n°10, whose play was very reminiscent of Les “the Truck” Davies at Bangor City in the Welsh Premier League, chased after a long ball forward (I would have given her offside by a foot, but never mind) despite being well-marked by her limpet-like defender.

And as the keeper came out for the loose ball, the n°10 kept bustling forward, shrugging off a few tough challenges, got her head to the ball and nodded it over the keeper’s outstretched arms into the net.

A proper “English Centre-Forward” of the type that followers of the English Premier League haven’t seen in years.

But the Seahorses couldn’t keep it up. They were, unfortunately, possessed of a “Pionsat” central defence, and anyone who has been a regular reader of this rubbish will know what I mean by that. They don’t seem to be able to clear the ball, dither about and are indecisive when the ball should be kicked upfield, into touch, or anywhere else for that matter, and this led to their downfall.

The central defence, from a fairly inocuous position, hang on to the ball too long instead of clearing it, and of course they eventually lose possession. And the result of that is, as we all were expecting the moment that the n°6 didn’t kick it upfield as soon as she had the ball, was inevitable.

It goes from bad to worse too. One lesson that I’ve always tried to drill into my young strikers in Pionsat’s 2nd XI is that no matter how hopeless a cause looks, you always follow the ball in. At this level, anything can happen, and young Florian has scored a few goals doing just that.

Here, a superb shot is well-saved by the Seahorse keeper but she can only push it onto the bar.

The Colchester n°5, playing inside-right and who was easily the best player on the field (and I told her so after the match – her name is Rachel apparently) was following up the shot and with the Seahorse defence being slow to react, she got her head to the ball and that was the winner.

It nearly wasn’t though. The Seahorses kept on going forward, without much luck, but here one of the girls has a shot from the diagonal corner of the penalty area, beats the keeper but hits the post and rebounds back into play.

There’s not another Seahorse close enough to capitalise on the loose ball, and this just goes to show the benefits of following in rather than standing around watching.

Most exciting moment of the match was after about 15 minutes of the second half.

The Seahorses won a free kick and it was a beautiful strike right around the end of the wall. But the Colchester keeper produced an equally beautiful diving save to push the ball out for a corner.

But you’ll notice the two Seahorses on the right – quick enough off the mark that time, but strangely, no-one running in on the left.

But the result was the right one – Colchester always looked more dangerous going forward and were more organised in defence, choosing the simple but much more effective option of clearing the ball at every opportunity.

And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too – I’ve seen a bigger bunch of girls playing football in the English Premier League too than I saw out here tonight. This kind of match is the kind that would send shivers down the spine of any woman’s football team in any other country.

As for the boys’ match against Middlebury, this really was a game of two halves. Or two keepers, in fact, as Middlebury changed keeper at half time. And this is something that is amazing me – the substitutions.

We had rolling substitutions, which you expect at this level, but not at the speed that they were doing it. Every couple of minutes there was a substitution, and at one stage they made a substitution just 20 seconds after having made a previous one. Not only does it break up the game, how on earth do you build a balanced, confident and cohesive team with all of this going on?

This was just like last night’s match – pretty much one-way traffic, but this time all flowing towards the Middlebury goal and the keeper had to show some real heroics to keep the ball out of the net.

This here is not the only example of him bravely diving at the feet of a Seahorse attacker. He did it a couple of times, and it’s just as well because his defence was just a little shaky and were rather short on skill compared to the Seahorses

Here’s one that the keeper didn’t get to, but no matter. The ball, played in by the Seahorses n°14, who was the best player on the field in this match, hits the top of the bar and goes out of play.

But the Tigers (as the Middlebury team is called) defenders need to be much closer in on the attackers to stop them having these shots on goal. Giving them half a yard of space is inviting trouble.

And so as you might expect, with all of this dominance and one-way traffic, Middlebury break away upfield, the first time that they have kept possession in the opponents’ half, and take the lead.

A goal out of absolutely nothing and so unexpected that I wasn’t ready, but a 40-yard hooker right over the diving keeper’s despairing wave (he might have got his fingers to it) and dropping neatly in the top right-hand corner of the net. Absolutely inch-perfect.

Of course, I have no photo of it, but by pure coincidence, there was a goal scored in the Welsh Premier League a few weeks ago that was a stunning carbon-copy of this goal. Check out Neil Mitchell’s goal for Newtown (Y Drenewydd) in this clip.

But with just 6 seconds to go (nice big digital displays here) Burlington finally find their way past the keeper.

A diagonal ball in from the right wing finds a player totally unmarked in the centre of the goalmouth – absolutely shocking defending, this – and he doesn’t have any problems whatever finding the back of the net. Nothing the keeper could do about this.

And so at half time, we have the goalkeeping change. And this is where the roof falls in on Middlebury because up to now, the keeper has been a one-man show on his team.

After just 55 minutes of the match there’s another diagonal ball out across the penalty area to the right-hand corner and the keeper rushes off his line, even though there are two defenders out there.

Now I know that he’s not going to reach it in time, but anyway he’s out there, and it’s an easy matter for the attacker to sidestep him and slot the ball into the empty net.

But never mind that – just look at the two Seahorse attackers there. Where’s the defence?

And it goes from bad to worse. From the kick-off the Tigers lose possession and a punt upfield from the Seahorses, again to thet right-hand corner of the are produces a weak shot to the keeper, who has stayed on his line correctly this time, and the ball goes right through his hands into the net.

But let’s not criticise the keeper. Here he is, in a one-on-one with a Seahorse attacker, doing the right thing by coming out just far enough to block the sight of the goal, forcing the Seahorse attacker into a shot, and then spreading himself wide enough to get something on the shot and push it wide.

That was an excellent save, and credit where credit is due.

So the Seahorses made hard work of what should have been a comfortable win, because the Tigers defence was dreadful and had it not been for the heroics by the Tigers keeper in the first half, this could have been an embarrassing result. You can’t play with a central defence of Lord Lucan and Martin Bormann and get away with it.

-4

Thursday 10th September 2015 – THE BEST-LAID SCHEMES …

… o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley, as we all know. And none more so that when I’m involved.

I went round today to pick up Plan B – the camper shell that I was having specially built for me, only to find that it wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be for another week. And that is of absolutely no use to me as this time next week I’ll be in Fredericton.

Mind you, I wasn’t that disappointed because first of all, I had suspected something pretty much like this – that it wouldn’t be done. I dunno – I had that kind of funny feeling and I’ve had it ever since. And secondly, I’d been having another thought anyway that maybe I had been too hasty in making a decision.

But as it turned out, the place where I’d been to also spends its time manufacturing aluminium work-type truck caps and that’s much more like it. And not only that, They can go for a taller height (32 inches instead of 29 inches) and you’ve no idea the difference that three inches can make, as the actress once famously said to the Bishop.

Anyway, having made the guy there feel suitably guilty, he’s going to build me on specially for Saturday. At least – he better had or else my long-suffering patience and good humour would disappear on the spot.

And I was in fact lucky that I still had any patience and good humour left. I didn’t have a very good sleep (not being able to fit the bed into the tent didn’t help much – I had to empty the load bed of Strider and that all needed to be under cover) and so I wasn’t in the best of humour to start with. But at least I managed to find the saucepan and the coffee so that I could brew up.

Now yesterday, I told you that there was no railway line to Burlington. In fact, I was being rather economical with the truth.

Further enquiry and exploration revealed that there is indeed a railway line here and if you need any proof, here are a few of the locomotives that are stabled in the goods yard.

There’s certainly a freight service here – a lot of kaolin (china clay) by the looks of it so whether they mine it here and ship it out or whether they mine it elsewhere and bring it in here for any kind of pottery industry I have yet to discover.

However, I have found out that Burlington is the headquarters of Ben and Jerry’s, so seeing all of the liquid kaolin slurry here has put me right off ice-cream.

The passenger rail service has long gone (although there’s talk of restarting it some time) and the abandoned railway here in front of me as I type is the old line to Alburgh, that lost its passenger service as long ago as 1948, so I was told.

South of the town on an industrial estate is a small headland that overlooks Lake Champlain, and so this is where I went for lunch.

It was quite impressive up here and while the weather might not have been the best, it was still a quite pleasant day for idly sitting around for an hour or so and doing not very much.

And then I went off for my disappointing visit.

But as I said, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Round the corner was a charity shop and I bought a rug, almost exactly the right size for Strider’s floor, for just $5:00. And the Walmart down the road came up with a cheap doormat and one or two other bits and pieces. If ever I do get something organised, it will be the prettiest place in the universe.

On the way back, as it was getting dark, I drove past the High School sports stadium just as two teams were taking the field. Thinking it might be something interesting like a football or a gridiron game, I went for a look but it was in fact a girls hockey match between Burlington High School Seahorses and Champlain Valley High School Redhawks.

Well, it wasn’t a “hockey match” – but a “field hockey” match. In North America, if you say “hockey” you mean ice hockey, whereas in Europe when you say “hockey” you mean the stuff played on grass (or in this case, astroturf) and “ice hockey” is the minority sport.

It was quite apparent from the warm-up that the Redhawks were the most disciplined and better-organised team, and they even had the team “hypnotism” session that you often see at the end of a yoga session.

And that was how the match went. The first 15 minutes were spent entirely in the Seahorses semi-circle and I did at one point think that the only time that the ball would end up at the other end would be after the teams had changed ends at half-time. One-way traffic was not the word.

Nevertheless, the Seahorses’ goal led a charmed life and how the score ended up just 2-0 for the Redhawks instead of the cricket score that I was expecting remains one of those little mysteries.

What didn’t help matters, from the Seahorses point of view, was that the only times that they threatened on the attack was down the right wing, with a combined attack of the n°17, playing right midfield and who in my mind was the most impressive Seahorse on the field, and the girl playing right-wing whose number I didn’t notice. When they were working together they usually managed to produce something threatening and interesting, even if the rest of the girls couldn’t quite manage to get on the end of the ball. But in one of the weirdest coaching decisions that I’ve seen for quite a while (and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen a few in our time at various sports) the Seahorses coach substituted the n°17 after about 40 minutes (there were two 30-minute halves) and the Seahorses attack, such as it was, melted away after that.

As for the Redhawks, they were by far the better team. Quicker, fitter (a couple of times, a Seahorse or two were caught upfield out of position and out of breath), more organised, more disciplined and more powerful. And the best player on the best team was the Redhawks right-back – a little slip of a girl wearing n°17. She was playing sweeper on the right, right on the edge of the Redhawks half-circle, but I’ve never seen anything so small move so quickly. She could run all the way up to the half-way line to intercept a loose ball and play it forward before her opponent, who had 30 yards on her, had even made up her mind what to do.

It’s not my sport of course, field hockey, even though I had a girlfriend (Rohina) who played on the school 1st XI back in those days, but I can recognise a good team and a good player and good tactics whenever I see them.

All in all, a most enjoyable night in quite a large partisan crowd – helped of course by the fact that for the first 20 minutes at least I had some convivial company – a guy from a neighbouring town who had dropped by with his wife and daughter. In fact, he was most interested in life in Europe, energy conservation, all that kind of thing, and we had a really good talk until his daughter started to become cold and wanted to go.

And no photos of the match, unfortunately. As you know, in the USA, cameras are not permitted at many places where children are present. Personally, I’m surprised that they don’t wrap them in Bourhkas myself.

And back here the camp site has been invaded by Roadtrek campers. It seems that they are having some kind of convention here, singing around the campfire and stuff like that (but I’ve no idea what the occupants will be doing of course). That’s going to be another night when I won’t have any sleep.

And talking of campers, look at this. Is this not the epitome of laziness?

For those on pitches that don’t have water taps (and private sewage hook-ups) the public conveniences are in no case more than 50 metres away. But this here is someone who has a wheeled water container so he can drag it along like one does with a shopping trolley, but tows it behind his car – for all of a maximum if 50 metres.

You can’t make up anything like this, which is why I chose to prohotgraph it. But it sums up North America completely (yes, I have noticed that the vehicle has an Ontario number plate).

-3

Wednesday 9th September 2015 – HERE, IN ONE OF THE BRIEF …

… dry moments of today, here’s a photo of my little spec at the North Beach Campgound.

It’s actually my second site. I was misled into believing that when they said “by the beach”, they actually meant “by the beach”. I didn’t realise that there was an abandoned railway line on an embankment in between.

And if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, it was the lowest part of the camp and so all of the water was streaming by in a raging torrent. A move was clearly on the cards.

In the photo above, you might just have been able to make out the lakeshore in the background. Having been for a walk around the campsite this morning, I found a much better pitch with a beautiful view over the lake, and if I walk 20 metres down the slope (because I’m much higher up here) I have this view out across the beach.

In fact the beach is only about 100 metres away from where I’m sitting and as soon as the sun comes out (which it never did, by the way) I’ll be down there with my folding chair.

And so today I’ve had a nice relaxing day of doing nothing at all, and I needed it too as I had had a very bad night. I hadn’t taken the camp bed into the tent (you have to unpack half of Strider to reach the bed and I wasn’t doing that in the pouring rain) so my night’s sleep was rather uncomfortable.

I did manage to make it out to the shops though. There is a Hannafords store not too far from here and of course, they have a decent range of vegan food. I bought some hummus as well as another pile of vegan cheese. I’ll be getting some more of that cheese too before I move on as it’s difficult to find in certain places and I don’t want to be caught without.

And so that’s basically that for today. Not gone far, not too concerned about it either. The only thing that could have been better is if the internet connection had been good. The strength of the signal is fine – no complaints there at all – and the speed isn’t too bad either. But there’s a problem with the router in that it keeps on dropping connection to the outside world and so we are cut off. It’s a good job that I stocked up with films off archive.org so that I have things to keep me occupied while I sit in my tent watching the rain come streaming down.

-3

Tuesday 8th September 2015 – WHAT AN ASTONISHING STORM!

It went very hot and humid late at night and then about 23:00 he wind got upand we had a howling gale for 20 minutes, and then the most tremendous thunderstorm for ages and ages – at least I know that my little tent it waterproof. I sat there for hours (probably 20 minutes in fact) wondering whether I should evacuate the tent but I’m not sure at all what happened because the next thing that I realised, it was the alarm going off at 06:00. Yes, the bed, even though it is too small for the tent, has made a world of difference.

But I couldn’t stay here lounging in my stinking pit all morning. This is the morning when I need to be moving on, so I have to pack everything away. And I’m pleased that I packed away everything yesterday so that today’s packing is a simple (well, relatively simple) half-hour’s job once I’d dealt with everything that needed dealing with on the internet.

Then a shower, followed by the laundry. There was a machine and a dryer available, both at $1:00 a go, and I could have put myself in there with the clothes. Everything took a while but it all came up clean and dry and you can’t argue with that. I just wish that I’d brought the washing from home.

And the result of my little stay at Goose’s Point campground? Covered with (harmless) whitefly and my spec wasn’t up to all that much. However, the internet connection was the fastest I’ve ever had in a public place and it was just $21:00 per night. I’d more-than had my money’s worth just here for sure.

First job after leaving the campsite was to go down to the Isle la Motte, or la Motte Island or whatever it’s called. The woman I met the other day recommended it.

This place is important for several reasons, not the least of which being that it’s yet another place where Samuel de Champlain is said to have landed. And it might be true too, although if de Champlain landed at every site that is claimed for him, he would never have found the time to get back into his ship.

The second claim to fame is that it was the site of one of the French forts – Fort Sainte Anne – that protected the Lake Champlain / Richelieu Valley supply route from attacks by the Iroquois. Built in 1665-66 by Pierre la Motte, it was garrisoned by about 300 soldiers (the first “European” settlement in what is now Vermont) and only lasted for three or four years before the French pulled back, destroying the fort as they left.

Nevertheless, a great many artefacts from this period have been unearthed by different archaeological squads over the years. It’s a shame that they haven’t rebuilt a replica of the fort around here.

But I have been told a story about the time that Hawkeye and Chingachgook came around here on a spying expedition for the British

“How many soldiers do you see in the fort?” asked Hawkeye.
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground. “About 300” he replied
“And how many cannon?”
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground again. “About 30”
“And how many horses?”
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground yet again. “About 60”
“And how many native allies?”
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground once more. “About 200”
“That’s incredible” said Hawkeye. “Can you tell all that by just lying down and listening to the ground?”
“Ohh no” replied Chingachgook. “If I lie down here like this and turn my head so that my ear is to the ground just like this, I can see right underneath the gates of the fort”.

In its short lifetime, the fort was aid to be an “exciting” place to be if you craved for contact with the native Americans.

Its third claim to fame was that it was the site of the first mass said in this region – in May 1666 as the fort “opened for business” and a shrine to Saint Anne, mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus, was dedicated.

Although the fort itself was abandoned, the shrine lived on and since then it’s become a place of pilgrimage for many people. There’s also a retreat here, where people can come to seek peace and quiet, and communicating with nature, although if the racket that I heard coming from the unsilenced hedge trimmer used by one of the gardeners was anything to go by, I would have done my communicating with a pickaxe handle.

I’d seen this sign a few times as I had been driving up and down the road between Alburgh and Rouses Point and so I had to take a photo of it, just to prove that the street did exist.

And sure enough, down at the end of the road were a few derelict nissen huts and a few bits and pieces of other stuff, but nothing exciting in the way of ordnance like an A4 rocket or something. The place was however sealed off with chains and padlocks and so a really good exploration was out of the question.

It wouldn’t normally bother me as you know, but bearing in mind the paranoia and fear that is gripping all Americans right now, I’d probably wake up in an orange jump-suit in Guantanamo Bay – if I ever were to wake up at all.

I went into Rouses Point after that to buy myself a coffee and something for lunch (yes, it was that time already) at the big petrol station in town.

And just to prove to many people that bad parking isn’t just confined to Liverpool, here’s some pretty shocking car parking in Rouses Point New York as Madam abandons (because on-one can say that this is parking) her vehicle across two parking spaces, one of which is a disabled bay. It’s hard to believe just how selfish and thoughtless some people are.

Over the road from the petrol station is another historic site, of which there are thousands all around this area.

This promontory where this derelict motel is situated is a former quay and over there where the lighthouse is is another quay. And this was apparently the route of a sail ferry that plied its trade across the head of Lake Champlain. I’m not sure how long it lasted but the first bridge across the head of the lake wasn’t, apparently, until the 1930s so I suppose that there had to be something going across here until then.

From here I retraced many of my steps from the other day and ended up in a town called Plattsburgh

And once again, it’s amazing the things that people leave lying by the side of the road isn’t it?

Never mind the FB1-11 that was parked up here, this is a B47 and to see this kind of thing parked up here must be something pretty exceptional. Where we are in fact seems to be at some old military complex with loads of decaying and abandoned barracks-type of buildings. apparently there was an Air Force base just outside town and the two planes here were of the type that flew out of it.

And now, almost my final destination for today.

This is the harbour at Port Kent and why it’s important for our journey is that it’s the terminal of the only crossing of Lake Champlain that I have not yet taken. It’s another one of these places that was very important once the area calmed down in the late 18th Century, becoming a thriving port and holiday resort, because there are some nice beaches here.

But the coming of the railway here (and, very much to my surprise, there is still an Amtrack railway station here and that just about beats everything) took away much of the river trade and the port declined in importance.

According to a very friendly old guy with whom I had a lengthy chat, there are three scheduled goods trains that pass by here every day, as well as the once-per-day passenger service between New York and Montreal.

And of course, I missed them all.

I’d also missed the ferry too. Only 4 per day and the one that I wanted was steaming (or dieseling) out of the bay as I arrived.

But never mind. It gave me a good opportunity to go for a good wander around and admire the local sights, including some of the famous local beaches. And they were quite nice too. But many of the hotels that used to be here no longer exist or else have been converted into private houses, such as those up there on the cliff behind.

Eventually, after a two-and-a-half-hour wait, the Good Ship Ve … err … Valtour came steaming back into harbour from its trip across to Burlington and we made oursleves ready to cross.

$30:00 to cross for a 45-minute sailing, which is starting to become excessive, but with just 7 cars, one motorcyle and a dozen foot passengers, they need the revenue. It’s a seasonal service too, that’s why it’s not very well advertised, but yet it sails right into the harbour in the centre of Burlington.

As we sail out of Port Kent harbour, I have to tell you that it’s ironic really that we are on our way to Burlington, the largest city in Vermont and whose metropolitan area includes one-third of the State’s population, and the railway line there has long been pulled up. But you can still reach Burlington by rail, in the summer months at least, if first you take the train to the little station here and then take the ferry.

It did make me wonder if they synchronised the times of the trains to correspond with the ferries? Knowing how public transport works, I doubt it very much. But they could make quite an impression on Burlington’s public transport if they were to make an effort

“Twas on the Good Ship Ve .. errr … Valtour”
“By God you should have seen us”
I know that I shouldn’t have let His Nibs near that bottle of rum.

Strawberry Moose and Strider are here enjoying the relaxing crossing, which was nothing like as rough as I was expecting, given the weather that we were experiencing. It had changed dramatically for the worse since this morning.

While you enjoy the rapidly-deteriorating weather, I wandered off to check out the facilities on the boat.

And much to my surprise, there is actually a ship’s cafe on board – the first that I have encountered on a North American short sailing. But it’s down in the bowels of the ship and you have the disconcerting sight of watching the water splash against the portholes which are round about your eye level.

I don’t mind being below water level if I can’t actually see it, but this was getting to be a little too near the knuckle for me. I’d rather be out on deck in rough weather where I have a good chance of escaping if we turn turtle. What kind of wimp am I?

We eventually make it over to Burlington in one piece, and I end up chatting to a guy and his wife who are doing a tour of the North-Eastern states on a Harley Davidson. I asked him what the fuel consumption was like, because I’d head the stories.
“Depressing” was his reply.

Anyway, they are planning to end up in Halifax and so we had quite a lengthy chat about the city which, as you know, is one of my favourite places in the whole of North America. I really hope that they enjoy it.

Having left the ship, I made my way out of town to the campsite at North Beach – and it really does have a beach too!

But I didn’t show you this cloud that was looming away in the distance as we were crossing the lake. It was in fact right over the campsite and we were having a torrential rainstorm and high winds there when I arrived. I quickly put up the tent (you’ve no idea how quickly I can do that when I’m being soaked to the skin) and crawled inside.

That’s all that I’m doing tonight!

-2

Monday 7th September 2015 – THIS BED …

… has made a world of difference – I’ll tell you that. It’s far too long for the bed, due to the dome-like nature of the latter, so even though I have to sleep curled up I was out light a light and off on my travels.

In fact I was in Shavington last night, wandering aimlessly around between Goodall’s Corner and the Sugar Loaf and I was joined by Zero, a young lady of my acquaintance who comes along to join me every now and again when I’m off on my perambulations. I’ve no idea why she should put in an appearance in the night though. Just one of those things I suppose, or else I’m hankering after my lost youth again.

The phone battery was going flat as I was going off to sleep and I couldn’t be bothered to put it on charge, so when I awoke I had no idea of what time it might have been and so I arose anyway – only to find that it was 04:00. And I couldn’t go back to sleep either.

It’s Labour Day in the USA today – a Bank Holiday – and so I had a day off. In fact I spent all morning reading a book and I don’t regret one minute of it either. And with the campsite office having coffee on tap as well; I was doing even better.

This afternoon though, I did a mammoth sorting out of everything that I had brought down from Canada yesterday and managed to fit most of the things into the storage boxes wit room to spare. And just as well too, because it’s going to be just a little tight for the next couple of days.

I seem to have acquired some duplicate tools too, not knowing what I had and what I didn’t have, and that seems par for the course of course. Still, better too many than too few. One thing though – I don’t have a metric spanner bigger than 18mm and 19mm is one of the most useful sizes on a Ford. Must sort that out too.

As it grew dark, and to celebrate the bank Holiday, I went into Rouses Point firstly for some cash and secondly for a meal. The transport cafe on the corner came up with one of the nicest spaghetti and tomato sauces that I have ever tasted and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Things are definitely looking up in North America.

But Strider now has a headlight out. I’ll have to fix that tomorrow.

-3

Sunday 6th September 2015 – I WENT TO … errr … MONTREAL TODAY

But I nearly didn’t, for I was away with the fairies last night again.

Well, not exactly the fairies, but a bunch of young girls, taking them to an audition as dancers in a film. However we arrived on the wrong day – the day when they were to audition the main cast – and one of the young girls said that she would like to try out for n acting role. Much to my (and everyone else’s) surprise, she had the most wonderful singing voice out, and ended up with the starring role.

Yes, who says my bed is uncomfortable and my camp site is noisy? I was out by about 22:00 and didn’t feel a thing. Totally painless.

But yesterday, just messing about, the Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav told me that Montreal was just 1:15 away from here on the motorway and so I decided to go. By 07:30 I was on the road and by 09:00 I was at my storage unit, and that includes having a 15-minute chat at the Canadian border with the Immigration Officer. He was a little peevish and sour at first but soon warmed up when he found out that I came from “somewhere near Liverpool” as that is where his father comes from and he knew the area pretty well. And so we had an interesting chat.

The drive to Montreal was uneventful and I’d sorted out my locker and loaded up Strider by 11:45.and after an exciting moment when I was ruthlessly and deliberately cut up by a bad-tempered Quebecois, I headed for home.

That was more interesting than you might think, because roadworks had closed off the interchange between the two motorways that I needed to take and I forgot which motorway I was on – hence having to go around the lengthy diversion twice before I could find my way out.

Having seen the enormous queue to get into the USA this morning, I turned off the Motorway and came around the back way to the tiny (and as yet un-modernised) crossing just up the road from here. But the queue here was enormous too, with just two officers on duty and seemingly having a work-to-rule.

But they asked me all kinds of questions to which (for once) I knew the answer, and the woman fell in love with Strawberry Moose, although she refused to have her photo taken with him.

But there was a depressing incident here. A foreign tourist in a hire-car had to go into the office to pay her $6:00 entry fee and went in through the wrong door. This was right behind the Immigration woman and she turned round startled when she heard the door opened.

“It’s a good job for her that I didn’t go for my gun” she said to me, and so I had quite a few words with her. As I’ve said before, “going for your gun” when you hear a door open is the limit of just how frightened and paranoid the average American is these days. It would be totally pathetic if it wasn’t so sad – Government employees blasting away tourists just because they go in through the wrong door.

It’s a mentality like this, bred into the various law enforcement officers, that has led to the current wave of violence on the streets of the USA as the law enforcement officers gun down anyone and everyone who scares them, no matter what they might be doing.

It’s a time-bomb that everyone is sitting on here, and it’s waiting to explode.

On that note, I came here. It was 15:00 and I started to sort out my stuff. And at least I now have a proper bed to sleep on, even if it is too big for the tent.

-2

Saturday 5th September 2015 – QUEBEC SHOWERS

At this campsite we have what are called “Quebec showers”, and regular readers of this rubbish will know exactly what they are. For the new readers, of which there are many these days, this is when the “C” and “F” on the taps does not mean chaud and froidas you might expect, but “cold” and “freezing”. Still, at 07:15 in the morning that woke me up, I’ll tell you that.

Yes, 07:15! I had a lie-in today, one of the reasons for this being that as I am now so close to the Quebec border my phone is picking up a signal again and it has reset the time to Quebec, rather than Maritime time. The second reason being that I had another bad night’s sleep. A pile of campers decided to have a party that went on until I don’t know what time last night and also due to the fact that I’m right by the edge of the road here so every item of traffic passing by makes a noise that wakes me up.

Of course, it can’t be that bad because for much of the night I was away on my travels – another reason for a good lie-in. Some town where I was had picked a fight with two or three car-loads of strangers from another town, and had given them a “right good panning”, as the saying goes. The townspeople were delighted but like most successes of this nature it was quite ephemeral, as the injured parties returned to the town with not just the rest of their townsfolk but the townsfolk of a couple of other towns too, and the result was an orgy of some violence and it was all quite uncomfortable.

From here, I went off for an interview. I had at one time written the script for a film in just two days. The third day, we rehearsed it all and on the fourth day, we filmed it, and this was the track record that appealed to whoever it was who was holding the interview. I wasn’t actually going for the interview – I was running through it in my mind and was making a mental list of everything that I needed to take with me. One part of me was saying that I surely wouldn’t forget everything, but the second part of me, that clearly knew me much better than the other one, was saying that I really ought to be writing this down as I’m certain to forget something important.

But once that was out of the way and I’d had quite a leisurely morning (after all, I am on holiday) I went off on my travels to check on something that I had caught a glimpse of yesterday

And I was right! It is indeed a Morris 1000 convertible. Here in the USA too! This is really quite extraordinary!

It really does make you wonder – here in the 1960s Britain was selling cars all over the world, including to North America (and we’ve seen several examples of British cars of this era on our travels – a Cortina Mk II and a Mini to name but two of them) and yet 20 years later the British couldn’t even sell one in their home country.

In this period Ford UK disappeared. So did Hillman and its offspring, so did Austin and Morris and their offspring. Gone, the lot of them. Rover struggled on for another 10 years selling obsolete copies of Asian cars and Jaguar and Land Rover were being bailed out by foreigners.

Where did it all go wrong?

That wasn’t all that was on offer here at Alburgh either.

We had a couple of other vehicles too. A saloon from the 1920s – the beige one – and inside the garage was a drop-top from an earlier period.

There was no-one around to ask permission to photograph them (you have to do this kind of thing these days) otherwise I would have found out much more about them

No such issues around the corner at Rouse’s Point, New York. Here, the owner was out mowing his lawn and so I went over for a chat – and ended up with the good old traditional American hospitality.

It’s nice to know that, despite all of my moaning, there’s still plenty of the good old American hospitality left although these days, you do have to look for it.

This is a 1949 Hudson that he rescued in 1988 and one of these days he’ll get around to restoring it.

It’s one of the last of the Hudsons, so he says. The company folded because it ra the same product line for 8 years and people who wanted an up-to date vehicle had to look elsewhere. And so despite my earlier ranting, it’s not just the UK that lacks vision and imagination and suffers from complacency.

That wasn’t all that he had either. What we have in this photo is a 1941 Buick 8 saloon as well as an absolutely gorgeous 1946 Buick 8 Hearse – the hearse being fitted with a “Flexible” body, and you can actually see the welds where the body has been customised.

I’d take that one home in a heartbeat too given half a chance. It was beautiful

He had lots of other stuff too but it wasn’t convenient to go to see them. he’d had a notice served on him by the town council to either remove the vehicles or to erect a fence, and a fence was what he was going to erect.

At least he was given the option. I lost count of the threatening letters and the other stuff that I received from Crewe Borough Council over my vehicles. And he said that it’s given him the impulse to do something, and once the fence is up, he’s going to build a great big shed to put them in and, who knows, he might even start work on them.

In between Rouses Point and Alburgh I had stopped at the picnic place at the foot of the big bridge over the Richelieu River between Vermont and New York State.

I’d been here once before, and I certainly don’t remember seeing the fort over there. It’s actually Fort Montgomery and dates from the period of the Border troubles between the USA and Canada in the 1830s and 1840s.

Ironically, by the time that it had been built, the disputes had been settled and so it never saw action and was part-dismantled in the 1930s to provide the stones for the footings of a bridge.

It’s for sale too, if you want to buy it and the island upon which it sits. Surprisingly, it’s not a Government Historic Site but private property, and it’s yours for just $2,950,000. Cheap at half the price.

One thing that I have been noticing though, and here’s a fine example of that, is that at many New York-Vermont state lines, there’s a large open area. It’s almost as if they are expecting Vermont to secede from the Union and so they have prepared the border control immigration points.

Of course, Vermont did used to be a republic (as did Texas) before selling itself out completely to the USA. I’d be intrigued to see what would happen if Vermont were to secede – what action would the USA take?

From Rouses Point I continued my leisurely ramble around Lake Champlain and, sure enough, I came across what I was expecting to find.

A ferry! The first of the holiday for Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly, and also the first for Strider. Strider will have to start getting used to our maritime perambulations

It’s always a bad idea to take me to see a ferry. After all, whenever I do see a ferry, it always makes me cross and today was no exception.

There are three or four ferry crossings across lake Champlain, and this is the second that I’ve taken. Believe me – I’ll be researching into the others in due course and we’ll be doing the business without fail.

I still can’t believe that they don’t have coffee machines on board though. What a waste of a business opportunity.

There were a couple of women here, in a Quebec car, but talking the Francais de Paris. They were trying to take a photo of themselves and so I went over to them to ask if they wanted me to take one of them.

“No thank you” they said, “but isn’t your French good!”. Well, and so it should be after almost 23 years of living there. I would have been disappointed with anything else.

Back on the Vermont side of the lake, I stopped to take a good photo and ended up chatting to a couple who had a house right here – with one of the best views in the entire State, I reckoned.

We ended up discussing building a fieldstone house, something he was quite keen to do as he had a very stony piece of land upstate somewhere. I wished him luck, because although it’s not difficult, it’s quite a complicated procedure.

And on that note, I came home for an early evening.

-3

Thursday 3rd September 2015 – I HAVE FINALLY ABANDONED …

… my quest for a slide-in camper.

This is how I shall be spending a good deal of the remainder of my stay here in Canada – in a tent. The cost of the tent, the mat, the sleeping bag and the fees for the campsite for tonight in the hills of Vermont came in total to less than the cost of a night’s stay in that motel at Auburn the other night. Based on the average of $70 for a reasonable motel and $30 for a campsite, I’ll get my money back in two nights. It’s not quite the camp camp of 2007 and 2008, but it’s good enough.

But it’s only going to be like this for a week or so because I have found a plan C and I’ve put that into effect, based on the plan that what I want will be made and installed on my truck in just 6 days’ time (unexpected delays excepted) and cost me just $1650 installed on the truck and out of the door, taxes included.

This afternoon I found a manufacturer of truck caps in Burlington, Vermont, and they will make me a fibreglass camper back truck cap specially designed for living in, complete with anti-condensation, heat and noise insulation. There’s one window on the passenger side, a sliding window that opens as you like it, and also a sliding window at the front through which you can feed your electrical cables and the like.

What has made me take this step was that I finally found a place with a slide-in camper that would have fitted on Strider. And at $11600 it would have been a good deal. But it wasn’t a pop-up and so the centre of gravity would be all wrong. They could have supplied a pop-up camper if I could wait until Spring, or also a very mini slide-in camper even smaller than a standard slide-in, and that price was unbeatable at $6100

But then comes the rub.

On top of this there’s sales tax. Not quite the 20% VAT but sales tax all the same. And then there’s the fittings and electrics. All in all, we were talking $9500 on the road – $3400 over the list price. And that makes me feel that the deal that I was offered by Harveys RV (a 2004 model for $2750 fastened on the truck and out of the gate) was a pure red herring.

But reviewing weights, fuel consumption and all kinds of things like that, a slide-in camper is not the way to go. With a fibreglass truck cap, I can sleep in that when I’m out in the wilderness, and camp in the tent when I’m near a camp site and the weather permits.

And so there we are.

On the subject of motels, this is my room from last night.

The motel is another one which is these days run by Indians (those Indians, not “those” Indians) but it’s clear from the room that its previous owners must have had some very unusual and interesting ideas about their establishment. I did notice somewhere a reference to the “Garden Room” and so I suppose that I must have been in the “Railway Room”.

As for the reference to the “Railway Room”, there’s a good reason for this.

This area was quite an important railway centre at one time (long long ago), being a junction of two major railway lines, one of which was the famous railway line that connected Montreal to the sea coast in the days before icebreakers could keep the port of Montreal free of ice in winter.

Over there where the kiddies’ park is today was formerly the site of a huge roundhouse with tracks for about 15 or so locomotives and a repair and maintenance depot.

Apart from that, we still have a railway station, which is now a gift and novelty shop (and not connected at all to the railway), and also the remains of the platforms and some rails still in situ.

I was half-expecting to find an old steam locomotive on a plinth somewhere but we have to be content with an old disaffected caboose, which everyone knows is a baby Indian. Although that’s not quite true. If a female Indian is a squaw, then a baby Indian is a squawker.

Another thing for which this place is famous is its double-decker bridge. The railway passed over here and over the Connecticut River at something of a height, whereas the road was on a lower level, having wound its way down the banks a little way.

And so when the railway was built, they built a double-decker bridge with the railway above and the road below. I had a good wander around and came across this bridge, and it is quite a good candidate for my bridge, I reckon, although the road bed is no longer there.

I hot the road and headed further north on my way to my final New Hampshire destination but I didn’t go very far before shuddering to a halt again. I had been following a railway line for a while and coming around a bend in the road just outside East Barnet, I came across this extraordinary sight.

There was some kind of circular railway line loop and it was full of old wagons in all kinds of condition, a couple of derelict diesel shunters, but nothing quite as astonishing as the very rusty remains of this steam locomotive.

There are no driving wheels on it so that I can’t say what it is, but it has two four-wheel bogies, one front and one rear and from the distance that I took this photo, I couldn’t tell if they were the original ones.

I would ordinarily have gone to make further enquiries but there were signs all over the place “Keep Out” – “Strictly No Trespassing” and the like and knowing how trigger-happy these paranoid and frightened Americans are these days, the days when you could knock on the door of the average American and engage them in casual conversation are long-gone and the USA is turning into a very unpleasant place.

But abandoning yet another really good rant for the moment, I’ve visited half a dozen more RV dealers, met some friendly and helpful people and yet more unfriendly and unhelpful ones, and some more completely useless salespersons who were completely uninterested in their work.

And hence my decision, which is probably the wrong one and one that I shall come to regret in due course, But I’ve made it and that’s that.

And now that I’ve bought a tent, we’ve had the first rain for about a fortnight.

-2

Friday 28th August 2015 – HERE’S STRIDER …

… all loaded up with a huge domestic fridge and a big cooker, and in a few minutes we are off to Sharp’s, the metal place just outside Woodstock.

I’m taking my leave of Darren, Rachel and family and heading off into the hills. I mean – I’ve been here 10 days and that’s not like me at all to put down roots like this.

At Sharps, there was nearly a lot more metal hauled into the yard as I failed to see a dark purple car against the dark vegetation background as I pulled out to go across the road. That was rather embarrassing, to say the least, especially as I had something of an audience watching me.

Anyway, having done that, I went down the road and to the border with Great Satan at Houlton. Crossing into the USA there took ages with the queue of traffic (but nothing like what it took to get into Canada the other week) and just for a change, every single one of the border guards was friendly, cheerful and helpful. If all border crossings could be like this one, travelling would be a lot less stressful.

However, just to prove that little of the underlying spirit of the USA has changed very little, while I was there, four people were chosen from the queue to receive closer attention

me – with a foreign passport
a black guy
a long-haired hippy-type
an oriental family

Still the same old stereotypes, so it seems. But as I said, even though I was selected for closer attention, it wasn’t a stressful experience by any means – just a friendly chat.

In Houlton, I struck lucky yet again at Marden’s and it made me wish that I hadn’t spent that monay at Canadian Tire the other day because they had everything that I needed there and at half the price too. But this is the thing with Marden’s – their stock is very much of the moment. It’s all bankruptcy, liquidations, fire sale stuff and it comes and goes. You can’t ever rely on them for having anything.

I fuelled up Strider as well, and I’ve come to the conclusion that his fuel consumption isn’t as bad as I was fearing. I let him run quite empty, to a rather depressing 425kms (not enough for Labrador) but to refill, it took 15.4 US gallons – about 55 litres. It’s still not very good, but at least I know what to expect.

Consequently, at the Walmart at Presque Ile, where I went next, I picked up a second 20-litre fuel container, just to be on the safe side.

And here, I struck lucky too. 2-tonne trolley jacks on sale at just $18:86. Anyone who has tried to jack up a vehicle on a dirt road with a sill jack (as we did in 2012 out in northern Quebec) will know the value of having decent tools and equipment for tyre changing. I could have done that job in 20 minutes, not three hours, with decent equipment.

Back on the road again, I didn’t go far. Just as far as Bridgewater in fact

This is a 1919 Mack fire truck, “used” here in Maine at a fire depot until 1960. Then it was converted to a tow truck but was never used and was simply laid up, until the present owner acquired it.

And I said “used” in inverted commas, because it’s done a verified 1900 miles since new.

Never mind shaft drive, this is chain-drive – in fact twin chain drive – as you can see.

It’s a 4-cylinder engine, displacing 600 cubic inches, and has a belt-drive clutch, which is bound to make for exciting motoring on the modern highway. And it does run too – in fact the owner takes it out to park it on the verge every morning and then brings it back inside at night.

You all know where this is though – it’s at the place where they have the scrap Rolls-Royce that has featured on these pages in the past. And he also has a 1925 Dodge Brothers (NOT a Dodge) convertible, a 1924 Renault, a 1910 Panhard-Levassor (and we spent ages discussing the merits and otherwise of sleeve-valve engines) and, would you believe, a Kawasaki motorbike with an Isuzu 4-cylinder 1700cc diesel engine fitted.

I couldn’t take a photo of it because they were still “work in progress”, but I’ll be back here next year to see how he’s getting on.

Not I’m in a motel just off the highway going south. I’ve had a shower, washed my clothes, and had beans and chips for tea. Now I’m ready for anything.

Thursday 27th August 2015 – WHAT A STORM!

Totally terrific. Lightning, thunder and the most astonishing rain that fell in just 10 minutes. And the worst thing about that is that I had left Strider’s drivers-side window open and so at least on the way home I washed my underwear.

I had a disturbed night, with something of a record of having to leave my bed – and I blame this half-litre of thirst-quenching drink that I had had with my tea. And I also slept through the alarm clocks too and it was 08:30 when I finally rose from my stinking pit

I’ve said … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that there was an old Canadian Pacific railway line that came up to Centreville from Woodstock and I’ve been following its path in a desultory kind of fashion.

There’s a road near here called Avondale Station Road and I’ve had a wander down there on a couple of occasions looking for the station site without success.

But having tracked down the route using aerial photographs I’m pretty convinced that this is the track bed of the railway, although the station site is well-overgrown – to such en extent that it’s not clear on which side of the road it would have been.

From here I headed off to Woodstock again and ended up having to go on a marathon detour almost to the USA border due to roadworks. And I met my bus from the other night too while I was on my travels around.

I ended up at Walmart looking for clothes and some guy in a wheelchair thought that it was fun to get in my way whenever I was trying to pick something up. Eventually I managed to reach something, and he made a remark like “Why didn’t you ask me to move?”
“Because I used to be married – I’m used to people being difficult”.

But I did have another piece of good luck in Walmart. A small lightweight 1/4 – 3/8 drive socket set at $9:00. This toolkit is building up slowly.

At Tim Horrton’s we were once again surrounded by Miltonists. About 10 staff on duty, one of whom was at the drive-in, another of whom was at the counter, a third was making wraps and as for the rest, “they also serve who stand and wait”.

After my coffee I went round to see Zoe’s shop and for a chat to see how she was doing. She could be doing better of course, but it’s hard to tell a 21 year-old about your 40-odd years of sometimes-bitter experience. They would much rather make their own mistakes. And then round to Sharp’s to see if they would take the scrap metal that we have (they will).

I went back to Centreville along the road on the eastern side of the Saint John River.

It’s not a road that I travel very often and so I don’t know all of the good views, but here’s a stunning viewpoint from a few miles south of Hartland. We can see the Saint John River of course, and in the background we have the wind farm up on Mars Hill in Maine, USA (my plot of land is to the right of the hill).

In the centre of the photo is the bridge that took Trans-Canada Highway version 2 (or is it 3?) over the river, but in front of this you’ll be able to make out the world’s longest covered bridge at Hartland.

My way back to Rachel’s took me over the river and back via Lakeville where there’s a car body repair shop. He always has some interesting stuff there but as he’s one of the best body repairers in the region his output is far too good to be suitable for these pages.

But there are always exceptions to this, such as this absolutely wonderful Mack Thermodyne B61 of the early 1950s.

It’s been stood for ages but he’s managed to make it go, however the water pump has failed. He says that it’s up to the owner to source one, and he wishes him good luck. The plan, I imagine, is that once it’s running he’ll restore it, and I’ll love to see it when it’s finished.

Hannah was supposed to be ringing me up to give her a hand to mow the lawn but she never did, and so I popped by to see how she was doing. But she had done it all on her own without my help and now she and her friend Journee were making a beer-pong table for her party tomorrow night. I went on to the shop and waited for closing time.

And this was when the storm hit.

Later in the evening Darren and I loaded up Strider with a huge fridge and a big stove. On my way round to Great Satan I’ll be heaving them out at Sharp’s.

Wednesday 26th August 2015 – I HAVEN’T MENTIONED …

… the rain as yet. But every morning this week, at about 06:00, we’ve had a rainstorm for about half an hour, and then it’s gone off on its way. This morning though, it loitered around for most of the morning and at times it was quite wet.

After breakfast I went up to the shop for a while but then Strawberry Moose, Strider and I set off out to Woodstock, and by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was pretty crowded inside Strider.

The junk shop came up with nothing at all – no books or CDs – and I had to stop at Zoe’s shop to pick up her waste bin that was rolling around the car park, and then for a coffee at Tim Horton’s.

After lunch I went across the road to the County Planning Department to discuss my plans for Mars Hill Road. My friend Gerrit has moved on but the new guy was just as helpful and doesn’t see a problem. He gave me a great deal of useful tips and hints that should make the project go easier.

And there’s good news on this front too. 4 or 5 years ago, connection to New Brunswick Power for electricity was compulsory for a new-build, but today, it’s not. You have to submit plans and they are considered on their merits. If you have 110-volt electricity, it needs to be certified but if you have a 12-volt DC system with an inverter, you need a certificate for the inverter and an electrician’s certificate for the 110-volt system that you have installed from the inverter onwards. As for a DC circuit, he’s never encountered one, so he suggests just submit it and see what happens. But solar panels and wind turbines developing 12-volt is quite a common thing these days.

They are even encountering people who wish to live with no electricity at all. 5 years ago, that wouldn’t be tolerated (people equated lack of electricity with poor quality of life) but now, it’s not uncommon to receive applications where the details of electricity installations are described as “none”.

As for rainwater harvesting, he doesn’t see any problem at all with that, but a certified sewage disposal system is an essential and there is no way around it.

But to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … I’m giving serious consideration to going towards a 48-volt system with 12-volt lighting and 110 volt power.

At the organic shop across the road, the girl who runs it was very helpful. There are apparently three co-ops in the area where vegetarians and vegans combine every two months to place bulk orders for their supplies and she gave me their addresses.

And if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, Sobey’s has greatly increased its supply of vegetarian and vegan food and we now have several different varieties of vegan cheese, although vegan ice-cream is only available next door at the Atlantic Superstore.

In other worlds, even in fairly-rural Canada, things are looking very much up.

If that wasn’t enough to be going on with, I hit the jackpot at Canadian Tire. There’s a clearance sale going on there, and a big reinforced plastic tool box, a Flexible 3/8 drive ratchet with spark plug sockets and extensions, a big set of wobble extensions, two big sets of 1/2 impact sockets (AF and metric), a converter from 3/8-drive to 1/2-drive and one or two other bits and pieces – all of that came to just over $100 – or £50:00. Add that to the tools that I have already that I need to pick up from my box at Montreal and I now have enough for almost anything. And if I can make it to Marden’s in Presque Ile and see what they have too, I might well end up with a very decent tool kit. You can’t have too much of this.

So it was hardly surprising that I didn’t do all that I had intended to do today. It was 19:00 by the time that I returned and then after supper I helped Darren repair and service the lawn-mowing tractor (which is bigger than my Kubota) and we overhauled a fridge that was in the basement.

But I have made a decision – and that is that on Friday early morning, I’m moving on. I’m becoming far too comfortable here. I’ll be trying to Enter the Dragon and go southwards through the forest to the Hudson valley then back up to Montreal for my stuff.

Friday 21st August 2015 – DOESN’T STRIDER LOOK SMART?

He now has his number plates fitted.

And I would like to say that he is totally street legal, but I can’t quite say that until Monday.

In fact he is, but the insurance certificate is made out with his temporary number plate, and this needs to be changed to his permanent number. It’s not desperately important to do that but if I’m going over across to the Great Satan, I can imagine all kinds of complications. I can get into enough trouble over there without actually asking for it.

This morning we had this wheel to refit onto the golf cart, and seeing as how I took it off, I reckon that Amber should put it back on. A girl of 12 has to start somewhere, especially if there is someone there to supervise and give advice, and all in all she was quite good at it

The parts for Strider had come by the time we arrived at the tyre depot so we stuck him up on the lift. Changing the plugs was another task that wasn’t as easy as it might have been. The engine in Strider is a basic “Cologne” V6 of 2.5 litres bored out and enlarged to 4.0, and while those engines were really simple and easy to work on back in 1962, the addition of all kinds of emissions control mechanisms have covered everything up and makes it difficult to reach.

The nearside plugs are a nightmare to reach, but we had the brilliant idea of taking off the wheel. Doing that, the plugs were quite easily accessible. And we soon found the cause of the misfire. The most difficult plug to reach (but easy from through the wheel arch) was cracked. It looks as if someone has had a go at taking it out from up above, cracked the porcelain, and then given up.

After many interruptions, Strider was finished but the number plates STILL hadn’t come. And so I went round to where I bought him from and the boss was out but, sure enough, there were the plates and the registration document sitting on his desk. His mechanic fitted the plates for me and there we were.

The trouble is that now it’s 17:00 and the insurance offices are closed until Monday. Hence I’ll have to wait until then to change things around.

I went off up the Highway to the New Brunswick-Quebec border through a tremendous thunderstorm with the cruise control set at 120 kph all the way. ON the way back, just about to pull off at Grand Sault to pick up the supper (Rachel was Tupperware-ing at Nackawik) and Rhys rang up for a chat. As a result I was home later than intended.

But the good run seems to have cleared out Strider a little. He’s running a little freer than before and it looks (at first glance) if he’s doing better on fuel although I’m not counting my chickens before they have hatched.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: strider

Monday 14th September 2015 – WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT

Sunday 13 September 2015 – SO THAT WAS MY NIGHT …

Saturday 12th September 2015 – STRIDER HAS CHANGED.

Friday 11th September 2015 – WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

Thursday 10th September 2015 – THE BEST-LAID SCHEMES …

Wednesday 9th September 2015 – HERE, IN ONE OF THE BRIEF …

Tuesday 8th September 2015 – WHAT AN ASTONISHING STORM!

Monday 7th September 2015 – THIS BED …

Sunday 6th September 2015 – I WENT TO … errr … MONTREAL TODAY

Saturday 5th September 2015 – QUEBEC SHOWERS

Thursday 3rd September 2015 – I HAVE FINALLY ABANDONED …

Friday 28th August 2015 – HERE’S STRIDER …

Thursday 27th August 2015 – WHAT A STORM!

Wednesday 26th August 2015 – I HAVEN’T MENTIONED …

Friday 21st August 2015 – DOESN’T STRIDER LOOK SMART?

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