The Wanderings of busman7

Including these 3 states in one posting all 3 are basically plains states & pretty similar in scenery.

While Kansas can only claim 13 miles of the route on an early alignment, it should not be bypassed as it clearly shows the hard times facing this section of the country, with more business’s being closed than open.

The 4 Women Cafe is period but was closed when I passed by & The Tow-Tater (haven’t seen the movie so don’t know the attraction), while a nice nostalgia piece is merely a 50’s model 170 International with a set of gin poles, nothing extra special.

The Marsh Arch bridge is unique & apparently the last of it’s kind which makes it kind of neat to drive over. Also the route directions painted on the road surface are a sure way to keep vandals/tourons from stealing them.

Moving on to Oklahoma, basically it sucks, only old road I found was a couple short pieces where curves had been straightened out which is hardly surprising considering there is only about 3 signs for the road in the whole state & one is in the middle of Oklahoma City. Did try to find a section of the old road west of the city but the lack of signs caused me to take a 50 mile tour out of the way, never knowingly traveling the road, so just got back on I-40 & hauled ass for Texas.

Things must be tough in Oklahoma as every road in the state seems to be under construction, taking advantage of Obama’s infrastructure (non)incentive!

Always had a thing for Texas but just crossing the border one can feel the change in the air + see the Historic Route 66 signs again. Spent the nighi in Shamrock, visited the Route 66/Barb wire Museum in McLean. Took the Interstate through Amarillo, stopped for a piece of heavenly chocolate cream pie at the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, the 1139 mile mark & halfway mark on Route 66, finally drove through what’s left of Glenrio on the NM border.

So far 4 of the 5 states traveled have done a superb job of promoting Historic Route 66, too bad Oklahoma couldn’t do the same.

Giving TomTom Tommy a timeout in my briefcase, will give him one last chance to see if he can find the Citi Bank branch in Albuquerque, if not—–Tommy es Muerto!!!!!

Having made the halfway mark + a tad, it’s time to take a bit of a break from the mother road to check out Roswell NM!

Once west of the Mississippi I always found the country/people more to my liking & it held true this trip. Had only briefly visited Missouri briefly in the Kansas City area before so this trip through the southern part of the state was really cool with the rolling hills & forests.

Spent time driving on/off Historic 66, off around the cities + where if paralleled I-44. However once off the Interstate the country more resembled that of the Eastern Townships of Quebec with it’s small towns & villages with their tree lined streets,  country hills & dales + the friendly inhabitants. Also the fall colors were at their prime, though lacking the brilliant scarlet’s of the Quebec maples, the Sumacs kind of made up for them, with the awesome golden yellow & brown shades of others contributing to the magnificent forest colors.

And then came Cuba, a town on old 66 where Connie has restored the historic Wagon Wheel Motel to surpass it’s former glory, right next door is the Missouri-Hick-BBQ featuring great meals at extremely affordable prices, not to be missed. The town is littered with a cacophony marvelous murals, featuring scenes of the towns past & should be visited if in the area.

Took a wrong turn at one point & ended up 20 or so miles out of the way however that proved just an opportunity to see more of the amazing state while showing what a moron Tommy was by insisting I was going the wrong way so just ignored him the rest of the day.

At another point the signs pointed down a narrow country road for a couple miles then an arrow (some touron had stolen the sign) showing a right turn down an even smaller road, where after crossing a one lane bridge, one was rewarded with the sight of a derelict Phillips 66 station, complete with the original orange sign.

It’s these small things that make a trip down the mother road such a unique experience & I urge anyone who has the opportunity to do even a hundred miles of it anywhere to take the time to return, for a couple hours to a kinder gentler time.

Oh did I mention that Diesel was running around the $2.98/gal mark??

Leaving Missouri for Kansas one is in for a whole new ball game

As Wi-Fi in old style motels that are spread out in a motor court, seems to not have enough signal strength to connect in the outlying units my reports may be a couple days old as I write them but can’t upload until I have connection. Also as I couldn’t buy the pertinent guides in Ontario & didn’t figure I had time for Amazon to ship (wrong) + that I could buy them once I was on the road (wrong again) I’m kind of winging it using the website (when Wi-Fi works) + my trusty Wallymart atlas as Tommy is proving as useful as teats on a bull! Actually makes for a more interesting trip this way.

Illinois; Had everything planned for the start of this epic road trip on a route built in 1926 to connect the ports of Chicago & Los Angeles, the first highway connecting major cities, thus the name, the Mother Road.

As with all fine adventures, “The best laid plans of mice & men shall go awry.” can’t remember the author of that saying but it’s right more times than not.

Left Canada on “Turkey Day” weekend so expected heavy traffic in the hog town area & Ont in general but was kind of surprised that it kept up across the border however since it’s been years since I traveled in that area just chalked it up to things change.

Was nice to see fuel prices in the just over $3/gal range instead of ripoff’tario’s $4+!

After figuring out TomTom’s error in leading me a couple miles from my hotel, next to Midway Airport in Chicago’s Bedford Park area. Tommy for some strange reason decided to substitute S. Harlem St for Cicero Ave, I used a good old paper map to find the Hampton Inn.

Located the closest Citi Bank on the internet + the easiest way to Lakeshore & E. Jackson, the original start of the mother road however the following morning, after going to the local Walmart to pick up an atlas that has Route 66 shown (read about it on a route 66 forum), as Tommy was proving useless.

Murphy’s Law (if something can go wrong it inevitably will) kicked in with a vengeance, as upon arriving at the bank I found the door locked with a sign on the window saying closed for Columbus Day, oh well the heavy traffic explained. Now it appears that every resident of Chicago goes downtown on Columbus Day as the areas I wanted, Jackson & Lakeshore, even worse Michigan Ave & Adams were right in the middle of the area where celebrations were going to take place, fortunately I was there early enough not to be unduly held up.

Given the fiasco of downtown Chicago I made a spur of the moment executive decision to get to hell “out of Dodge”, found my way back to I-55, which basically follows 66 anyway, & boogied off to Jolliet where I started following the old road.

Had a good lunch at a Route 66 Plaza then carried on, on the historic road, found it to be well signed & not only were the few restored landmarks interesting but also was the glimpse into the economy. All looks well when barreling down the Interstates at 70 mph past the Walmarts etc, but get 1/2 mi away on the old Main Streets of America & you see the closed Mom & Pop stores, the idle small factories. It’s then you realize, all is not well in the land.

Followed the old road to Bloomington, then as it was getting late & the last few miles had been a frontage road for I-55 anyway, I jumped on it to Springfield to spend the night at a Super 8.

As I don’t like driving in cities I just took I-55 through to the mighty Mississippi the next morning, stopping at a Cracker Barrel for a breakfast including sausage patties + Biscuits & Gravy YUMMY!!!

One state down, 7 to go & TomTom still a pain!

Around 4:00 pm on Saturday October 9, 2010 I had the ultimate pleasure of looking in the rearview, while crossing the Blue Water Bridge from Sarnia to Port Huron Michigan, to see Ontario/Canada fading from my view along with thoughts of all the insane hassles of the past couple months.

My welcome to the US for my transit along US Route 66 to Mexico & ultimately El Salvador, was a hassle free 1/2 hr, of going through the formalities of entering the country with a van-load of personal possessions + a bank draft for the funds to purchase the property there. The border agents were professional, polite, as friendly, as their job allows in carrying out their duties in a timely manner.

Would recommend that crossing to anyone traveling outside the norm.

There’s a saying that “you get what you pay for” meant to mean that normally, the more you pay the better the product. Well paid $200+ for a GPS (Gonna Play Stupid)device, but I guess when one buys something with a name like TomTom, they should have guessed that when it finds it necessary to repeat it’s name to confirm what it is, that it’s possibly a couple bricks short of a load!!

TomTom isn’t at all user friendly, being almost impossible to program & then it gets lost in Chicago, insists on directing you in the wrong direction in Missouri, all the while saying the state road you are traveling on has no name.

TomTom ranks right up there with my all-time WORST buys!! While my $6.97 Rand McNally Road Atlas purchased at Walmart, got me out of the mess that Tommy the retard tried to get me into, with the added bonus of having “Historic Route 66” shown & of course all Walmart & Sam’s Club locations marked.

Unless you have lots of money to spend on a toy that has pretty moving pictures but it’s only info that can be trusted is as a clock (that can’t figure out time zone changes), it’s better to spend the $6.97 at Walmart so you can find where you’re going!!

Finding “The Road less Traveled”  is a topic that comes up over & over on Independent travel forums by people going 1/2 way around the world seeking adventure. Wonder how many of those posters have overlooked, the road les traveled right in their own back yards?

During my trip down US Route 66 (my next posting) I discovered 2 jewels in the Mother Roads crown, less than a mile from I-44, in the town of Cuba Missouri. The, newly renovated, Wagon Wheel Motel & The Missouri-Hicks-BBQ, both great places providing excellent value for the money & hiding in plain sight providing one takes the time to slow down & smell the roses!

Stay  tuned for highlights of my travels on “The Mother Road”! 

Friday has come & gone but still stuck here due to combination incompetent personnel at the TD Bank not following directions for bank transfer + the Bank of America’s insisting on information that’s none of their business, before forwarding the funds. Requested the funds returned & will just take them across the US border personally & do the wire transfer from there, eliminating the BA involvement.

Turns out that Angels of Flight wasn’t completely upfront with their criteria for evaluating patients suitability for commercial flights, can’t say the final decision was wrong but the means of arriving at it were completely unethical & borderline fraud.

Being lied to by the owner didn’t make a very good impression either. However they seem to be about the only affordable option so there’s really no choice but to use them & jump through their silly hoops to make payment though their option of paying by cc (which I am not using) with a 3% surcharge is as far as I know illegal in Canada.

Also the quactor’s insistence that a male doctor be on the team, is also illegal but then quactors are deemed minor gods here in ONturkeyO so are likely exempt to normal rules.

Know for a fact that a quactor can illegally (without obtaining consent of a guardian) order a patient restrained in such away that long-term injuries occur & get away with it. Had an ordinary citizen inflicted such injuries on a pet they would be subjected to jail time!!

The bottom line is getting mother out of this corrupt & insanely expensive country is a priority. The cost of the air ambulance is only equal to 9 months of merely adequate care at the nursing home, so in reality it’s a bargain.

Something not quite right when the cost of one months of merely adequate care in Ontario will get one YEARS excellent care in El Salvador!!

Guess one more weekend freezing in ONturkeyO is survivable!! However it will make the sight of Ontario & Canada receding in my rearview mirror that more enjoyable!!!

Monday over & still playing silly games with the Bank of America as the CIA is still insisting in sticking it’s corrupt nose in Central American business!!!

Hasn’t been much new to post the past little while, the saga with the moronic Ontario doctors continues as the uninformed “little tin god” at the nursing home is still insisting that absolutely no one with dementia should be allowed to travel, he sounds more like a cut & paste job from Google then an intelligent person! With the negativity from the quactor, head nurse + sales manager it’s sure looking like a conspiracy to keep from loosing the 4K/month they are charging her for merely adequate care by the unionized staff.

Fortunately “Angels of Flight” has their own in house physician who is knowledgeable on the process, coming to  evaluate her this week. Also TACA airlines has a direct nonstop flight YYZ-SAL which means not being subjected to homeland stupidity’s quirky rules.

Worst case scenario is expensive air ambulance but even this cost would only be equal to a mere 9 months fees in the home. Kind of makes one wonder when one full years care in El Salvador costs less than one month in Ontario! Not to mention the higher quality of care there.

Flew down to El Salvador, AA with a stop in Miami (1/2 price of TACA), ended up buying a house (that I found on El Salvador’s Independence Day) in Playa Diego for an unbelievably low (by Canadian standards) price, only a 10 minute walk from the beach. A relatively painless procedure, similar to that here except that your first property in El Salvador must be paid for in full (no loans with El Salvadorian financial institutions). However getting the money down there from a Canadian bank is a bit of a challenge as they refuse to take a Canadian check & are a tad finicky with wire transfers but perseverance wins out in the end & that’s all that matters.

Storage unit is emptied, W/C bus is loaded for the road trip, Peterborough ON (actually a decent, friendly place to live, of course it’s outside the GTA) to Playa Diego, La Libertad, El Salvador via (my bucket list) the Historic US Route 66, the “Mother Road” that wends it’s way from Michigan & Adams Ave in Chicago to Santa Monica Blvd & Ocean Ave in Santa Monica California.

Viernes manana it’s heading out on a 10-14 day road trip where I will be extremely happy to see Ontario in my rear-view mirror as I cross the Sarnia’s Bluewater  Bridge (the quicker to get to the US’s cheaper fuel). Then onto the windy city & Route 66, followed by a stop in San Diego, over to Nogales (safer border crossing), down west coast of Mexico to Guatemala, likely a couple days in Antigua before heading home to Playa Diego.

Mother will follow Nov 1st, on a 5 hr flight.

Such is the plan, at this point in time!!

As any independent traveler knows, they are square pegs that just don’t fit in societies round holes.

While this can make trip planning anywhere from a tad annoying to downright infuriating (especially when dealing with the Melbourne office of Qantas), the rewards for sticking to your ideas can be amazing & in most cases cheaper than following the flock!

As an independent business owner for 30+ years, in a niche market of the school bus industry I prided myself on being a square peg & offering excellent service at fair prices. This worked well until the turn of the century when the “bigger is better” syndrome really took hold in Ontario’s school bus industry. The main reason (not publicly known) is the pure laziness of the top executives of the boards transportation departments which became blatantly evident (to insiders) with boards amalgamating their transportation departments (bigger is better again).

As one minor functionary told me one day, when I was being a thorn in his side, “Why should we have to deal with 65 small operators like you, when we can get it down to 3 or 4?”

That goal hasn’t quite been reached yet but is approaching fast. The sad consequence of this is that the students are being deprived (especially for sports & field trips) of quality transportation at the times they want/need it. Also the vast majority of school buses not to mention public inter-city bus transportation is foreign owned, most by Great Britain, with a US company picking up the pieces.

To make a long story short, I saw the writing on the wall, sold out & spent the next couple years traveling independently. This approach to travel made for great trips at a fraction of the cost the mainstream tourist pays & showed me that in other parts of the world small business is the backbone of the economy (even in communist countries), the way it used to be in Canada.

Also noticed vastly different medical systems & the way other cultures cared for elderly family members.

Two things that had become apparent before this trip & reinforced during it are:                       

1) most doctors practising in Canada’s Socialist medical system are inferior

2) for quality care & advise it is necessary to consult a private entrepreneur

So when seeking advise on medications, prior to taking my trips I consulted a private Travel Med Clinic, with satisfactory results.

When the nursing homes doctor informed me that my mother’s condition precluded her flying commercially, I proceeded  to check around with air ambulance services & private charter companies. The result being that, ironically, a reputable, local company right here in my town supplies the service mother requires & can obtain medical clearance for her fly commercially, accompanied by a RN escort at a saving of tens of thousands of dollars.

Sort of makes one think that the patients welfare is the last thing being considered in this country/province, while the money the doctors & nursing homes make off these unfortunate souls, is priority one. With any scare tactics that can be fed to persons responsible for their care is fair game!!

Guess there’s enough gullible sheep out there that believe the only way to cope with the elderly in Canada land, is to shove them in a home, that the loss of a few patients to the diligence of travelers able to seek out alternatives isn’t going to phase the corrupt system! 

I am in new uncharted territory here & need some information.

With nearly 34,000 hits  on this blog, it’s possible that one reader has some information they could share with me.

I would like to relocate my mother to El Salvador with me, however in the past month her dementia has progressed to the point where a 5 hr commercial flight is not recommended nor is a 3500+ mile road trip.

That only leaves air. As physically she is fine & cleared by her doctor for travel, merely needs to be sedated, air ambulance isn’t really necessary, a charter flight accompanied by a nurse should be sufficient.

Am looking for recommendations on finding a reasonably priced private flight, I know it won’t be cheap but neither are decent Ontario nursing homes.

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Dave

Lucked out & found the answer right on my doorstep, privately operated, good reputation + reasonable prices!

Home

there is an Ontario as different from that of the GTA as Ontario is from BC.

The 400 km/5 hr trip, from the outskirts of the GTA, transports one into a vastly different region that is culturally & socially foreign from the self proclaimed Center of the Universe.

People converse in 2 languages, switching back & forth, often in the course of a conversation with the same person. Reminiscent of my travels. Meal prices are reasonable, people friendlier. Truckers & the vast majority of drivers, follow the speed limit.

Farmers even drive their tractors to the local truck stop for breakfast!

Didn’t fully appreciate how different, from the rest of Canada, the area + the province of Quebec was, when I grew up there. Just considered it normal & from my travels, came to realise it is, in most of the world!

Of course as soon as it becomes necessary to deal with the bureaucracy the reality of being in a rip-off Canadian province returns in spades (doesn’t matter which province in this bankrupt country when it comes to usurious fees). An example being charged $42.50 for a photocopy of a single page accident report from the OPP, can you say “Highway Robbery”!

a threat to call your local MPP on the hospital’s satisfaction website accomplishes!

While looking for the hospital administrator’s contact info I came across a place where you could comment on anything related to service & patient care. Not really expecting anything but figuring it was worth a try I aired my grievances with a note that if I didn’t receive a response that day I would be forced to contact my MPP.

I was pleasantly surprised when a couple hours later the phone rang, the hospital rep said she was looking into my concerns & I would have some answers shortly.

Lo & behold in less than 3 hours I had answers to all my questions, arrangements had been made for mothers transfer back to the retirement home’s nursing care section, the next day + she had been given the green light to travel.

Of course it wasn’t that straight forward as there was some bureaucratic BS to wade through, but then superfluous simple serpents must, on occasion, do something to justify their jobs. However all went smoothly as I figured out how that game was played years ago.

The next afternoon when I went to visit & assure myself that all was well, I find her in her old room, where there is next to no supervision instead of the wing agreed upon in discussions with the hospital.

Actually fate played a helping hand in resolving this situation as the head nurse of that section turned out to be an former driver of mine, who had moved on to a better job. So that when I voiced my concern saying that their nurse agreed with me, there was instant compliance!

Some times it’s a matter of stumbling on the right place to air your grievances & others it’s knowing the right people to obtain the appropriate care in Canada’s wondrous,  socialist health (un)care system!

Now with the care problems stabilised it’s time for a mini road trip, in Mr Checker, to Eastern Ontario, where I can practise my French & get some real Poutine & couch surf at a friends. Then on the way home, stop at mother’s lawyer’s office to complete some paper work so we can squeeze some moula out of her insurance company for her injuries resulting from the accident. Next stop will be at her TD Canada Trust bank branch to straighten out the POA & setup online banking. I absolutely refuse to have any dealings with the morons at the Bowmanville branch,  other than file a complaint over their incompetence!

With things pretty well taken care of on this end, it’s just wait until September to see what happens on the El Salvador end!