Tag Archives: friendly border police

Tuesday 13th September 2016 – AND I DID TOO!

Last night I was saying that I hoped that I would have a good night last night.

And what actually happened was that I went almost straight to sleep and there I stayed, without moving even once, until 05:40. That’s about 7 hours sleep straight through and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a sleep like that.

And not only that,I was on my travels. And quite significant they were too. I remember having a long and involved chat with someone with whom I’ve been speaking at length on the internet just recently – she put in an appearance – and I was also dealing with wind turbine issues at home. The small Rutland WG901 had lost its tail in a high wind and the bearings had seized, causing it to smoke as it tried to rotate. By some incredible feat of gymnastics up the top of a ladder I managed to remove it and replace it with the spare Air 403. Although I hadn’t anchored the mast correctly (and I’ve yet to understand at all why there where two masts) the turbine went round, but the guide light on the charging panel changed from green to orange. A closer inspection showed that the voltage across the battery system was a mere 9.0 volts rather than the 12.7 that it was supposed to be, so there was clearly something wrong. Leaving the fridge running while I was away couldn’t have accounted for that.

But anyway, enough of that. I eventually headed for breakfast and then Rachel and I set out for the tyre depot where I was going to work on Strider – but it didn’t quite work out like that, as indeed you might expect, given the way that things have been going just now.

As well as all of the stuff that had been booked in to be fixed, there had been a breakdown on the Trans-Canada Highway and a holidaymaker from Ontario had limped in to the place with a rather sick car first thing this morning.

It’s only natural that the folding stuff takes priority over any other kind of arrangement and so what with that, and a steady stream of other work that came in, very little was done on Strider before lunch. Rachel and I went off to the restaurant here for lunch, and I had home fries with onions, peppers and mushrooms and a side order of baked beans. I treated Rachel and her friend to lunch, seeing as how Rachel has been treating me to meals for the last week or so and then we headed back.

By this time someone else, driving casually past the tyre depot, suddenly remembered that their car needed a safety inspection so that was another unscheduled job that needed attention. But we eventually managed to get around to Strider and finish the work and perform the safety check.

Of course he passed and so I could go down to Service New Brunswick in Florenceville to have him licensed. And now he’s fighting fit and ready for the road, which is good news, especially as I fuelled him right up. Petrol doesn’t keep like it used to and there’s been nothing put in since the last lot in October last year, so some fresh stuff wouldn’t go amiss. I made sure that there wasn’t much in the tank when I laid him up, so that there would be a full tank at the earliest available opportunity.

Having done that, the next stop was Great Satan. Documentation rules for visiting the USA have changed quite considerably over the last year or so and I needed to know whether I was in order or whether I had to find some more paperwork. But a very friendly (and doesn’t that make a very pleasant change!) couple of US border guards went through the documents that I had, and nothing more was required. I was issued with my entry permit on the spot.

Back at the tyre depot I helped Darren replace some track rod ends on an old Ford saloon that was in for a safety inspection. Had this been the UK, the bodywork would have been a long way short of passing but this is not the UK and we have seen on these pages some examples of what is considered acceptable over here. It wasn’t the worst that we have seen, and not by a long way either.

We all came home after this and as soon as we entered the house I crashed out for well over an hour. I’m definitely not as young as I used to be, am I?

But now that I’m awake again, I’m making plans. Tomorrow with a bit of luck I’ll be off to the seaside. I want to relax in the sun and hear the crash of the surf.

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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.

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Friday 28th August 2015 – HERE’S STRIDER …

strider ford ranger pick up centreville new brunswick canada… 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

  1. me – with a foreign passport
  2. a black guy
  3. a long-haired hippy-type
  4. 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.

presque ile maine usaConsequently, 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

1919 Mack fire truck bridgewater maine usaThis 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.

1919 Mack Fire Truck bridgewater maine usaNever 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.

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Sunday 6th October 2013 – WE HAVEN’T FINISHED WITH THE NONSENSE YET EITHER.

I arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport way behind schedule, as you might expect, just in time to see the 13:25 plane to Athens disappearing over the horizon. This was … errr … something of a disappointment, especially as the next plane to Greece was not until 18:30.

Consequently, I had several hours to fill and, believe it or not, in the airport concourse there is little (if anything) available in the way of food that I can eat – in fact, food that anyone can eat. However, this was an eventuality for which I was not unprepared, and the rather large bag of ginger biscuits ($1:00 courtesy of a USA Dollar Store) filled what was rapidly becoming a large hole.

But on my perambulations around the airport, I fell in with a French border policeman and it transpires that he lives just about half an hour from Pooh Corner, in St Bonnet as it happens. We had quite a lengthy chat about the Combrailles and the surrounding area, and we parted the best of friends. It’s a shame that other border police and security guards can’t be as friendly as this guy. Travelling would be a pleasure with people like him to deal with.

Not so the staff at Air France. It seems that while they had managed to fix me up with a place on the flight, nothing had been said to anyone about my baggage. Consequently I was menaced with a €170 excess baggage charge. This likewise led to some discussion, not as heated as anything else on this nightmare journey – not the least reason of which was the fact that I needed some people to be on my side and do things for me – not like in the other situations in Montreal where I was well and truly in the chair. Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … we eventually settled on a fee of €30:00 – still €30:00 too much but that was the best that I could do.

Eventually though, we were called up to the departure lounge – to find that our plane wasn’t there. “Flight number (whatever it was) to Athens is delayed, due to the late arrival of a connection from Washington DC”. They didn’t do that for me, of course, and that is one of the reasons why travelling with bucket-shop carriers is a hazardous occupation.

air france airbus 321 paris charles de gaulle france athens greeceAnother Airbus of course, but Air France, and so a world of difference, even if (surprisingly) there was no in-flight entertainment at all. A vegan meal too, for which I am grateful.

But the fun was only just beginning.

Landing eventually at Athens I started to look for the Holiday Inn where they had arranged for me to stay and which I’m told was at the airport. With no sign of life I approached a helpful airport guy.
“The Holiday Inn? It’s about 10 kms from here”
“Really? So how do I get there?”
“There are shuttle buses that run every 30 minutes from outside the airport” and he showed me where to wait.

45 minutes later, I thought that this was strange, but then again, it is Greece. So the helpful airport guy found me the number and I rang it
“Do I have to ring you to tell you that I’m here so that you can come to pick me up?”
“The shuttle stops running at 22:00 (it was not 00:30)”
“So how do I get to you?”
“You take a taxi”
“But I haven’t got the kind of cash that permits me to take a taxi”
“Well the express bus X93 passes our doorstep if you can persuade the driver to drop you off”.

Luckily there was an X93 at the bus stop and in his bad English and my even worse Greek, we arranged that he would indeed drop me there. But I needed to buy a ticket from the kiosk across the road. Off I duly trotted, paid the €5:00 and turned round just in time to see the X93 disappearing over the horizon.

Anyway, after a while an X95, also signposted to Athens, appeared and it seems that he took more-or-less the same route – at least, passing by the Holiday Inn. And he agreed to drop me there, which he duly did, much to my gratitude.

01:30 now. “Do you know that I had waited nearly an hour for your shuttle bus at the airport?” I said to the guy at reception at the hotel. And like anyone there really cared in the slightest. And the coffee tray in the room was empty and the lights didn’t work properly (but that was a switch issue, although they might have explained to me how to make them work).

There was an overnight petrol station across the road and they fixed me up with some orange juice and biscuits, and then I made the dreadful mistake of having a long and refreshing hot shower to relax me after my efforts. Now of course, it’s 04:00 and I can’t sleep and I’m being called at 06:30.

Somehow it’s just not been my day.

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