Tag Archives: alburgh

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

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

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.

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Friday 4th September 2015 – WELL, THAT WASN’T …

… a very comfortable night last night. The foam mattress isn’t good enough for what I need and an air bed would have made an enormous difference. But seeing as how I have my camp bed in my storage locker in Montreal, I’m not spending out on one for just a couple of days.

It didn’t help by having noisy neighbours – a couple of guys from Pennsylvania who arrived late, moved around a lot during the night and then drove off early in the morning. And while it didn’t actually rain, the condensation was terrific. Mind you, I must have slept during the night at some point because I was off on my travels again during the night, although I can’t remember now where it was that I had been.

But it did all have its compensations. At least the view from my tent (or, rather, from just around the corner from my tent) was pretty impressive, with the wind turbines that I had somehow managed to miss yesterday evening when I arrived.

Apparently I’m in the Green Mountains around here and quite a few of the ridges here have wind turbines on them. It’s a symptom of the constant American demand for power, more power, more power.

So having hit the road, my first stop was for some coffee at a service station up the road. And here I fell in with an old guy who was supplementing his meagre retirement pension by driving a lorry for a local farmer.

If you remember a good few years ago now whan I was in Trois Rivieres, I heard what I reckoned to be a two-stroke diesel. This truck was the same type, and made the same noise when it slowed to enter the garage, so that was what made me go over for a chat.

In fact, it’s a four-stroke but it’s the Jake Brake that makes it sound like a two-stroke and furthermore he remembers two-stroke diesels because there was a “Detroit” two-stroke diesel that was made until well into the 1960s, he reckons, and he thought that the sound was familiar too.

Having resolved the accommodation issue, I’m now officially on holiday and so I went for a short wander (more by accident than design) through some of the Green Mountains.

They really are beautiful – not quite as savage as the Appalachians next door or the Rockies, and this would be a beautiful place to come and explore when I’ve picked up my maps and so on from Montreal, which is planned for Tuesday next week.

On the Motorway, I headed for a rest area. Vermont is well-known for the high quality of its public wi-fi available on motorway rest areas and I was determined to take full advantage. I had a short chat with Liz and an even longer chat with Cecile.

I also had a most extraordinary encounter with a most extraordinary woman. A Quebecoise, she had been living for 9 months illegally in the USA in an old Dodge Caravan, and going back to Canada as her Dodge was about to give up the ghost.

She was one of these “New-Age” spiritualist healer-type of people and she insisted on trying to “heal” me – but I could have told her everything that she was trying to tell me, and a good deal more too, so really she was wasting a good deal of her time. Like most of these “New Age” people, they don’t really understand the significance of what it is that they are doing.

Now, what do you reckon that this is?

I knew the answer to this straight away, long before I ever saw the faded and derelict sign torn down at the side of the property. It’s an abandoned and derelict drive-in cinema, a symbol of 1950s and 1060s USA. I reckon that more children of that era were conceived at one of these drive-ins that an any other place in the whole of the USA and it’s a shame that they no longer function.

Not that there is anything worth watching at the cinema these days.

But I’d come here, seeing as how I was in the vicinity, to visit another RV dealer. He wouldn’t sell me a slide-in camper back for Strider as he was aware of issues that no-one else knew. And that was that the weight of the camper distorts the body of the truck and causes the doors to fly open when you go over a bump.

I must admit that I’ve not heard of that one before (and neither has anyone else with whom I’ve talked)

So here I am at my campground – the Goose Point campground at Alburgh, Vermont. I’m a stone’s throw from Canada, a mere cock-stride from New York, and I’ll be staying here for four days so that Labour Day can pass me by.

I have a noisy spot, right by the road, but one of the most impressive views that I could wish for – right across Lake Champlain – and all at $84 for the four nights, so beat that if you can. It’s not even the price of a motel room for one night and the camping gear that I bought is now paid for (in spades).

We have free showers, a washing machine at just $1:00 a load (and I’ll be taking full advantage of that in due course just as soon as I’ve found a pile of quarters) and a few other bits and pieces too.

But it’s no surprise that the American people are so … errr … large. Here, we are just 200 yards away from a marina and boat-launching ramp, and the number of people who are travelling from the camp to the marina … on golf carts.

No-one seems to walk anywhere any more in the USA and so the obesity crisis is no surprise. A good walk or two every day would do these people good. How ever this lot became the Master Race totally defeats me.

-2

EPIC HALL

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