2019-02-01 Fri

It’s not “IN Nova Scotia”, it’s “ON Cape Breton Island”

Today’s plan is to be in Truro by 10 a.m. and get Hollis Ford to install headlights on the truck. I cannot drive the Trans-Canada Highway from Port aux Basques through the hills to Corner Brook without lights, nor Clarenville to Bonavista up the little highway #230 without lights. I aim to be in the motel in North Sydney well before dark, in time, in fact, to check out the ferry terminal before I eat my last meal on the island and head across to the mainland to open up an off-shore banking account.

8pm. I am too tired to type up Friday’s Tripping True Trials and Tribulations, but it will be done tomorrow because one of two things will happen:-

(1) I’ll be stuck on the ferry for seven hours with nothing to do or

(2) The ferry will be cancelled, so I’ll be stuck in this motel for twentyfour hours with nothing to do!

The guppies are alive, and have been fed. I have chewed a “Friday Night steak special” and having been awake since 4am and so now I am going to sleep.

(So now it is Saturday, February 02, 2019 and I am wide awake, again, in a motel room)

Here is a photo of Lac UHaul forming. At the left of the photo you see part of the grab-bar which saves me yanking on the steering-wheel when I enter the cab, but does little to help this old guy in getting out of the cab. My legs ache, in part from all the walking and lifting Monday/Tuesday, but now I suspect from sitting in the seat of the truck from six in the morning until eight at night. I cannot drive seventeen hours a day for three days in a row as I used to twenty years ago (Toronto-Memphis-El Paso-San Diego), in part because of my age, but also because this is a heavy vehicle compared to a 1993 Hyundai Excel, and road conditions are bad.

Now that you have exclaimed horror at my recklessness in taking a photo while driving off the edge of the highway, may I let you in on a little secret? I am parked on the shoulder of the on-ramp to the highway. In a small sedan car I’ll accept the risk of a quick shot while on the go, but not at 55 mph on the only lane clear of snow, with twenty vehicles impatiently lined up behind the dog-in-the-manger behind me.

Look at the tachometer (foot of photo “phootoffoto?”). There is no sign of the red needle. Either I am stationary OR I have the engine at 5,000+ RPM. You be the judge. Can we be friends again?

Another stationary shot, this one easily recognizable as being in Moncton, right? Check out the date of the photo. Although I see the time is reported as 12:21, whereas it was taken immediately I had started the engine, so just after eight in the morning. Frost still bedecks the wind-screen.

I hit, in a manner of writing, the highway and spend a glorious two hours driving into the blinding rising sun until a merciful large brown-grey cloud hides the sun and the cloud’s snow hides the road. This “Bonavista” better be good, because right now I am in “Malovista”, but don’t quote me in Spanish on that.

A word about Truro: Before I started at eight this morning I studied the maps, and made a note on my paper-and-pencil log “102S to 2E Hollis”. Check the map above, what could be easier? I come in from the left, the west, drop off to 102 South, hang a right on to 2 East, and Hollis Motors will stand out like a properly functioning headlight.

Truro City Council in its infinite wisdom, has TWO highways #2 (some residents hint at three), adjacent to each other, and both with exits from the 102S. Now I admit that we were driving in what I think is called white-out conditions, where even the tractor-trailers are obediently following-the-leader (me) in the right-hand lane. At 10:15 I took the exit indicated by the big green sign as Highway 2 and hung a left at the lights at the end of the ramp. Heading East, right? Turns out “No”. I had escaped onto the OTHER Highway 2. So I waddled into a parking lot that sported a Self-Storage firm and another firm, plenty of room to turn around, and walked to the office door. I was unpleasantly surprised to see that they were a UHaul dealer, until I opened the glass door and the reflection of the orange “UHaul” on the off-white side of my truck swung away out of view. At my age ...

Nice people inside gave me directions “Go up Princes street, turn left at King” sort of thing until I pointed out that right now all signs were covered with snow. We settled on “Turn left at Pye Chevrolet - That’s where you should be going instead of Ford” and so on. I made a graceful exit from the office. People always say “See you later!”, and I always respond “I hope I never see you again”, because in truth I want to reach my target, not drive circles around Truro in a snowstorm. I made a not-so-graceful exit from the parking lot (well, I got the job done), hung a left at Pye, oscillating between thoughts of a warm meat pie and a circle, and spotted an Enterprise Car Rental. I’ve been doing business with Enterprise since 2003; nice folks, so out I get. Turns out that I am within a hundred yards of Hollis. You just can’t see it because of the snow.

This is another example of time taken during bad conditions. In fine weather I could have spotted Hollis Ford from 0.3125 Km away (as newspapers say) in snow I get out of the truck, skate across to the door marked “Please Use Other Door” and so on, to ask directions. Five to ten minutes more added to the trip. Thanks UHaul. I leave with a feeling that if I can’t follow simple directions such as “Please Use Other Door”, then I am not worthy of asking directions out of the parking lot.

And what liars these Nova Scotians are! All the tourist blurbs have photos of pert-breasted high-school girls whirling their kilts outwards and ever upwards while a chubby-cheeked bag-piper plays from memory next to the hot-dog stands.

In the bright, warm sunlight.

It’s all lies, I tell you.

And so to Hollis showroom, where a very dapper Rick-the-sales checks out my apple-and-carrot-and-snot stained outfit and escorts me to the overalled arena of Service/Parts. Sniff! I explain my situation to the lady at the front desk, and she tilts her head to one side and responds “Where are you from?”. She is from Lancaster, Lancashire, UK, next door to Preston where my mother’s parents came from, and hence my mother’s accent, and hence mine, me having spent my first ten years in Lancashire.

Becky is summoned; she dons a bright red toque, thick padded coat, heavy mitts etc while I wonder if I should zip up my jacket and put my bare hands in my coat pockets until we can reach the truck and I can get my summer hat from the cab. Becky’s first comment is along the lines of “I’m not surprised; This model (of truck) always has this problem”. I am disappointed. I was hoping to hear “For forty dollars we can install a new unit, be as good as new” to which I would respond with what used to be “Ka-Ching!” but is now “Please insert card; please wait”

Everything is working just as it was poorly designed. Low beam, high beam, then Becky concedes that the lights might be adjusted too low. I have done 55 years of night-time driving and on this truck the beams are as effective as parking lights. How do I re-arrange my driving schedule so that I have NO nighttime driving on an island as sparse as Newfoundland? I know the highways well from my 2017 trip .

I even had dreams of a hot lunch somewhere nearby while the Hollis Ford mechanics worked on the truck. We go back inside. Becky cheerfully shucks her clever winter wear while I receive directions for Getting out of Dodge . Which I fail to do. On my way back to 102N I spot an Esso station. If you have to get off the highway, always fill up before getting back on (remember that 45-minute halt outside Belleville?) so I fill up, my back turned to the pump. The pumps no longer “click” at each unit, they whirr. One hundred and eleven dollars later, I restart the engine, tell the fish “We’re on our way again”, pull out of the gas station and straight into the English Fish and Chips next door, sod it! I am cold and sad.

The lady who serves me, for sure is from Bonavista, for her name is Kim, and every other woman in Bonavista is named Kim. I eat my fish and chips in memory of Rawtenstall, phone Kim-The-House-Insurance in Bonavista (with no success), and decide to book a room at The Clansman in North Sydney. The phone signal drops away, so I piggy-back on the Free WiFi from McDonalds next door, note the phone number, and dial by hand. Booking confirmed. Google maps says 3 hrs 18 mins, but I know it’s going to be more like five hours, so declare my ETA as five pee-emm.

I leave Truro at 11:50, another 90 minutes triggered by UHaul and the snow. I’d not have stopped for a sit-down lunch had I not been so exhausted after the Tour of Truro. Two hours later the divided highway comes to an end and we are back to the signs “Passing Lane 5 Km Ahead”. Telling drivers to wait five kilometres is like telling a six-year old that they can have a new chromium-yellow wax-crayon next Christmas. Around Antigonish my hopes are raised as the two-lane-each-way divided highway resurrects itself, but I writhe in anguish fifteen kilometres later. This little stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway serves two purposes, Antigonishians and Antigonising through-traffic.

By 15:45 I am at Canso. I have read and heard of the Canso Causeway, and today I learn that Cape Breton Island really is an island (or used to be), and that Cape Breton Island harbours the ferry terminal. I cross the causeway and am now in the eastern tip of Nova Scotia. I fork right and marvel at how the Trans-Canada Highway gets steadily smaller from the (at times) nineteen-lane wide highway 401 in Toronto down to this two-lane meander through clusters of houses named Lower River and Big Pond. The locals stare at me. Haven’t they seen a UHaul before? UHaul made it sound like there must be seven out-of-repair UHauls every hour going to the Secret Graveyard in Newfoundland. (Later, Thinks: Perhaps people aren’t really renting one-way to Newfoundland; perhaps they figure it’s cheaper to fly back to Toronto than rebuild the truck, one part at a time?)

I drive on, stopping once more to phone the house-insurance agent, with no success. Well I was successful in reaching her voice-mail, but not beyond that. At 16:10 I am driving alongside the sea-shore; waves break from the ocean onto the shore. This view gladdens me for we are now in territory where we might spot a ferry!

I drive and drive while the road gets narrower and narrower, the traffic sparser and sparser. With an arrhythmic murmur I come to my senses. For a while I had been seeing signs that read “Sydney 103 Km”, “Sydney 93 Km”, “Sydney 83 Km”, but I haven’t seen such a sign in ever so long a time. Am I on the wrong highway? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Could be. I have spent little mental time driving today, and lots of time mentally unpacking the truck (First set up the aquarium to filter the water, then the framed maps, pictures, mirrors, then designate one bedroom for cartons, one for furniture, ...”. I’ve been driving for ninety minutes. If I have gone down a wrong peninsula ...

Here’s the map in my head. I saw the ocean on my left, so the purple line represents “wrong peninsula” while the yellow line is “right peninsula”. Or “Correct Peninsula” if you prefer. The road I am on is and has been for an hour, devoid of gas stations. The tank is half-empty. If I have to retrace my steps ... and the traditional horror engulfs me. I then spot a gas station on the left and think it would be smart to pull over and burn up my smart phone data plan to see where I am. After all, you can’t define “getting to there from here” unless you know where “here” is. I have to wait while a stream of cars drives past me. I could bulldoze my way across, but I don’t want my books to be damaged. Besides being smart, I am impatient, and so decide to forget the search, continue on for fifty yards and spot a sign “Sydney 16 Km”. I weep with relief, and at 16:50 make my way from Sydney to North Sydney in a peak-hour Friday snow squall.

Here we are at the ferry terminal. There are two ferries. My plan was to park and enquire about keeping my guppies alive and at room temperature. There is no such place. I am sluiced into a kiosk where a charming lady takes my data and offers me a berth on the this night’s overnight ferry. I hesitate. This would win me back a day, but I suspect that I will do better by having a good hot meal and a sleep in a good bed in a motel, so I decline. Also I have, at times, a tendency to be a bit of a control freak, and would prefer a daylight crossing so that I can keep an eye on the captain’s course.

Probably as well. Nice lady says “But there again we may cancel tonight’s run anyway; Strong Winds”. I nod. “Maybe even tomorrow morning’s” she says, and I ponder anew that it might be better to go while the going’s good? I tell her I’ll take a punt on tomorrow, and am grateful that she is not a smartarse like me, and that she doesn’t say “It’s a ferry, not a punt”. Now. How to get out of here? Nice Lady phones a keeper to open the gate, and within five minutes a flashing rooftop light arrives, Nice man opens the gate and waves me through. I head towards The Clansman

Now on my smart phone, using up my data quota, I find on Maps that from where I am parked alongside the show-grounds, I can head west and then north along the service road that runs up the side of highway 10? Look closely and you will see that the service road that runs up the side of highway 10 does not run all the way to the motel. It ends on a steep rise as a muddy spur to nowhere. I execute another world-famous Chris Greaves 23point turn and grimly grip the steering wheel. I need to sleep, after eating a good meal.

This image, this time from my laptop and Google Maps, shows that Musgrave Lane is not yet built. My little rutted mud spur is shown.

By 17:00 I am ensconced in The Clansman Motel. The room is musty, but still a Not Smoking room. I had read reviews on the web that rooms were smoky, but I suspect that people who said so could not distinguish between “musty” and “stale smoky”. The room is comfortable and equipped well enough for me, although the next morning both coffee pods fell apart in the coffee maker; grounds for complaint?

What went wrong yesterday?

Well, whether you are from Prince Rupert or Toronto, at those distances Sydney and North Sydney are the same place, right? But to Cape Brettoneers they are two different places joined by a multi-lane highway with quite a few exits. Coming off the Canso causeway I must have spotted a sign “Sydney” and in cavalier fashion said “I know where I’m going” and set off the bout of palpitations. It wasn’t the Atlantic Ocean; it was Bras d’Or Lake , an inland salt-water sea. Both roads get me to the ferry, but part of my logging (which you don’t see here) was to answer my own question in a travel forum about how much of this trip would be good divided highway. Thanks to my own error I can now say “Much more if you do it properly”.

My deviant (devious?) course is marked in purple. What should have been a five-hour drive took me almost nine hours, some of it my wasted time (fish and chips for lunch), but the rest of it detours for truck repairs and snow problems. These are reasons that, back in the 70s at ICL’s Software Development Centre, principles of estimation were drummed into me. 463 kilometres in 8 hours 45 minutes is an average speed of only 53 kilometres per hour. 33 mph for the rest of you.

I have had a quick shower, donned fresh clothes – nice pants and shirt, not my long-distance driving garb – and am ready for my Steak Special. I noted that the dining-room was packed with old age pensioner couples, older than me, always a good sign.

I didn’t photograph the crunchy steak, mashed, and carrot, but I felt that I deserved a reward for not driving off the road during five days and lightless nights of snowstorms.

Just don’t tell my doctor what I had for dessert, OK?

Part of my place mat; the rest of it has red dribbles and drizzles of something sweet all over it. There are a few dubious claims here, especially around “firsts” with transatlantic cables and wireless transmissions, but I am too fatigued right now to do the research.

An observation: I feel like an Adult!

Now that make strike you as strange, what with me being 72 years old and all. How could I not have been feeling adult? The thought came to me Thursday night at the Days Inn in Moncton. After the excellent in-house made and cooked-in-a-real-oven lasagna I wandered back to my room, inspecting a conference room along the way. Inside the room the rear table had the remnants of the day, including four large cookies on a plate. I grabbed a large chocolate cookie and a paper plate and took it back to my room. In the past I would have SNUCK it back to my room, but my feelings have changed. I didn’t (or if you prefer, no longer) feel like a naughty kid, getting away with something naughty. I felt that it was reasonable for me to take the cookie, that no hotel staff member was likely to challenge me, and so on. I have had other examples recently and wonder why it is so.

I suspect that a great deal of it arises from this moving experience. Three times in my life I have bought a house and relocated, but each time has been with outside help – an officer of the company, a father-in-law, and so on. This, my fourth house, I have done all the leg-work myself, made every decision based on my own feelings. I have had a great deal of help from Morley Moyles, the vendor’s real estate agent and from bank officers and from my old accountant, but all the decisions that affect my life have been made by me, alone, all by myself. I have invited no friends or acquaintances into the discussion. I have told friends and acquaintances what I plan on doing, but have not asked them (parent-like) if I (child-like) am doing the right thing.

How strange it is to be 72 years old and feel adult. Now I write these words I recall some ten or fifteen years ago walking through Cloverdale Mall and buying an ice-cream. I didn’t have to ask anyone if it would be OK. I thought “If at my age I can’t buy an ice-cream without feeling I have to ask permission, what am I?”, so that was a rejection that I was an appendage to a family. I was ME!