I Gotta Make A Run For The Border
I went all the way around Lake Ontario. Lia was in Canada after living and working in Abu Dhabi and before moving to Amsterdam with her man. So I left St. Catharines for Toronto on Thursday night so I could spend all of Friday with her. We explored the Beach before heading to the Annex for dinner on a patio followed by a ridiculous number of pints. It was upsetting to say goodbye yet again.
My train to Kingston was at 7am the next day. 7am hurt a lot the next day. Soon after I arrived in Kingston, Chris, Matt and I loaded up the Accentrice and we were on our way. We crossed the border somewhere east of Kingston. The conversation with the border guard went as follows:
Guard: “What do you do for a living?”
Chris: “I’m an urban planner.”
Matt: “I’m a festival director.”
Doug: “I make sparkly pillows!”
Ok, I’m kidding about that last part. But why on earth did a sparkly pillow make it on the road trip in a tiny, tiny automobile?!
After we made a scene with our photo shoot in McDonald’s, and sped past a paranormal investigator just before getting very lost in rural New York, we decided it was time to buy a road map. Google maps was very disappointing. Actually, it may have been ok if Chris has printed out the visual instructions, not just the text. Apparently, there are situations when it’s worth the ink and paper.
The purpose of going all around the lake was to see Lake Placid, site of the Olympics in 1932 and 1980. There were some stores dedicated to Olympic paraphernalia, other gift stores, the hockey arena, a ski jump way in the distance and Starbucks. Oh, thank goodness.
How can Curious George POSSIBLY be live?!?!
It was cold and rainy at the lake, so we continued south. Matt used a cartoon, not-to-scale map drawn by an Autistic child to find Mallory’s Bush. It had a covered bridge and a house that looked like Goldie Hawn’s faux house in ‘Swept Away’. Then Matt used his cartoon, not-to-scale map drawn by an Autistic child to insist that the empty driveway 20 metres to the east was the interstate. Shan’t.
As dusk fell near Albany, we were tired and hungry and cranky for deciding to be spontaneous and not booking a hotel in advance. We couldn’t find a hotel and we were on a toll highway with about 4 exits in a 2000km stretch of road. We got off at a rest stop and Matt asked for a hotel. The girl gave him directions and asked where we were going. When he said ‘New York’, we thought she was going to say, ‘You mean over there?’ and gesture out the window toward the Manhattan skyline. We were only about 100km away by this point, but it was time for food and sleep and booze [not in that order].
You know what I love about the US? There are stores with names like ‘Liquor Warehouse’… AND they sell ONE LITRE bottles of Smirnoff PINEAPPLE Vodka for $17. God Bless America.
My train to Kingston was at 7am the next day. 7am hurt a lot the next day. Soon after I arrived in Kingston, Chris, Matt and I loaded up the Accentrice and we were on our way. We crossed the border somewhere east of Kingston. The conversation with the border guard went as follows:
Guard: “What do you do for a living?”
Chris: “I’m an urban planner.”
Matt: “I’m a festival director.”
Doug: “I make sparkly pillows!”
Ok, I’m kidding about that last part. But why on earth did a sparkly pillow make it on the road trip in a tiny, tiny automobile?!
After we made a scene with our photo shoot in McDonald’s, and sped past a paranormal investigator just before getting very lost in rural New York, we decided it was time to buy a road map. Google maps was very disappointing. Actually, it may have been ok if Chris has printed out the visual instructions, not just the text. Apparently, there are situations when it’s worth the ink and paper.
The purpose of going all around the lake was to see Lake Placid, site of the Olympics in 1932 and 1980. There were some stores dedicated to Olympic paraphernalia, other gift stores, the hockey arena, a ski jump way in the distance and Starbucks. Oh, thank goodness.
How can Curious George POSSIBLY be live?!?!
It was cold and rainy at the lake, so we continued south. Matt used a cartoon, not-to-scale map drawn by an Autistic child to find Mallory’s Bush. It had a covered bridge and a house that looked like Goldie Hawn’s faux house in ‘Swept Away’. Then Matt used his cartoon, not-to-scale map drawn by an Autistic child to insist that the empty driveway 20 metres to the east was the interstate. Shan’t.
As dusk fell near Albany, we were tired and hungry and cranky for deciding to be spontaneous and not booking a hotel in advance. We couldn’t find a hotel and we were on a toll highway with about 4 exits in a 2000km stretch of road. We got off at a rest stop and Matt asked for a hotel. The girl gave him directions and asked where we were going. When he said ‘New York’, we thought she was going to say, ‘You mean over there?’ and gesture out the window toward the Manhattan skyline. We were only about 100km away by this point, but it was time for food and sleep and booze [not in that order].
You know what I love about the US? There are stores with names like ‘Liquor Warehouse’… AND they sell ONE LITRE bottles of Smirnoff PINEAPPLE Vodka for $17. God Bless America.
posted by Douglas J. Stiles, BA Hons, MES! at 6/05/2010 07:18:00 p.m.
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