It’ll be just like in the movies
You may have noticed the link in the sidebar to the 27th National Narrow Gauge Convention next August/September.
To keep costs to a minimum, my good friend CC and I had agreed to share accommodation (separate beds, hopefully) and I’ve tonight booked said accommodation. Hurrah!
I’d intended to meet up with CC in Maine as the convention kicked off but correspondence this week has floated the suggestion of my travelling, instead, to Ontario and that we drive to Portland from there.
A road trip! Like in the movies! More “National Lampoon’s Vacation” than, say, “Thelma and Louise” but still a Road Trip.
This is all, of course, subject to approval of the management Chez CC (which is why I’ve only reserved the rooms, not the flights :-)).
Three hundred and one days and counting ….
October 31st, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Ah, Lionel.
This will be a road trip in keeping with the finest traditions. Well, hopefully we can skip the car break-downs, gas station rip-offs and serial muggings in picturesque US locales, but it will be two narrow gauge fans wandering through the northern hinterland (albeit at 120 kmph ) in search of tiny trains.
I thought that I should point out a couple of the absolutely unmissable sites along the way.
Highway 401 from Toronto to the Quebec border is a 4 lane strip of asphalted terror that’s only made worse at that time of the year with the bloated and exhausted loads of families returning from an extended summer vacation- no doubt in a “rural retreat” (read: bugs, bad water, salmonella and over-priced smokes). Barrelling along at speeds in excess of the sound barrier, the spousal units are, usually by this time, so fed up with one another that the fight- complete with waving arms and associated inattention to the road- is spilling over into all surrounding lanes. This makes driving with these minivans o’ mayhem not only challenging but at times, entertaining.
Upon reaching the province of Quebec border, we are instantly reminded that we do not, in all liklihood, have enough fireworks stashed away for those important times in our life when only explosives can truly express our true feelings.
A word of caution here. If you are travelling east to ‘Canada’s Ocean Playground’ then feel free to stock-up on roman candles, burmese blasters and burning school houses for Nova Scotians enjoy controlled blasts immensely. If, however, you are planning (as we are) to make a sharp right at Montreal and venture south into the US of A, resist the urge to load the car with Quebec’s provincial pride. These days it’s very difficult to explain to the heavily armed National Guardsman why you have a car load of explosive devices. That’s assumng that you even get the chance to explain…
Before that hard right at Montreal though, we can (and no doubt will), veer lightly to starboard at Akwesasne for a fill-up o’ Aboriginal gasoline and cheap smokes. If the mood strikes (and pocket books allow) we could also squeeze in a game of Keno although I suspect that that will have to wait for another trip.
Getting back to the cheap smokes. You know that old saying, “you get what you pay for”? Unless you have the lungs of a retired asbestos miner, I suggest that we take a pass on the Akwesasne cigs.
Did you get that Lionel? Yes, they are cheap. No, they are not good.
It’ll probably only take five or six hours to clear US Customs & Immigration as I’m planning to take a display layout to the convention. The (second) last time I took a layout over the border, the National Guardsman (I’m not fond of those guys) thought that the model trees that I had on the layout may have been my clever way of attempting to smuggle contraband of the flora type into the States. The economic folly of risking personal liberty on what would amount to about two ounces of obviuosly second rate product was lost on said guardsman. I do not believe that America’s best and brightest are our greeters at the border. At any rate, once over the border, we’ll be in liberal Vermont, home of maple syrup, idle ski hills and expensive smokes.
I would expect that Burlington will be the stopping place for the night. Its always entertaining to sit out on a hot August evening in Burlington, Vermont and watch the parade of multi-generational hippies parade by. I swear, there are households in that city where the family business is tie-dying t shirts.
The second and last day of the journey to the convention is scenic but relatively uneventful (hopefully!). We drive through the granite laden stretches of eastern Vermin then on to New Hampster with it’s lovely and talented Crawford Notch and a possible stop at the Mt Washington Cog Railway for a grind up the mountain. Continuing east (on, as I remember, atrociously bad roads) we enter the beautiful state o’ Maine- mecca to the two foot narrow guage fan and eventually to the spider web o’ roads that surround Portland. Following three or four hours of driving like a crack-addled farmer, we will ultimately find our hotel and check in.
Geez, Lionel, I can’t wait!
crouton
Lionel: All I can say is: thank goodness for my anonymiser plugin!
October 31st, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Road trip! Brilliant.
The countdown is going to make the wait eternal, though.