The Wanderings of busman7

The wedding went as planned on March 1, 2014.

Now have a new family 🙂

It’s a New Year here in the tropics, time to put the past BS with the Canadian simple serpents behind and look to the future.

With the tax return funds I was able to finish the casita and upgrade the caretakers casa so it can also be rented to travellers.

Towards the end of last year when my travails with Migración came to a stalemate it became obvious that the only solution was marriage (which I had sworn never to do again!) to a Salvadoreña was the only for me to gain residency!

Given the options of 1) moving to another country (I like it here)  2) doing visa runs every 90 days (wondering each time if I would be allowed back in) or 3) just staying here illegally, hoping not to get caught and (horror of horrors) being Deported back to Canada!

The answer was a no brainer, “Marriage”! So had to bring up the dreaded “M” word (Matronial) with my novia, who said, “Si”!

A guest, a fellow Quebecer (who had arrived as a stranger but left as a friend) kindly agreed to get copies my birth, have them notarized and bring them with him when he returned after Xmas.

Feb 20, 2014 kind of forgot about this update for a while and there are some changes.

Novia was getting a tad cantankerous and playing the “Drama Queen” so,  to make a long story short, we went our separate ways.

My birth certificates arrived from Quebec and my friend got a free weeks stay for his trouble. Next was a visit to the Canadian embassy in the city where I paid the $50 EXTORTION FEE for a stamp authenticating them!

Found another who turned out to be a bit of a

The above were out for money but were mere toddlers compared to the Queen of greed who only wanted my house but Canadian citizenship along with $$$ DUH dream on Biatche!!!  I didn’t just fall off the turnip (sugarcane) truck today.

Finally struck pay-dirt with a lady from nearby with no baggage and a head on her shoulders. Off to the lawyers to finalize the details and make arrangements for a March 1 wedding at

Mercedes ‘Rancho Sol Mar Accion’ on the

beach   at  

Boda Marzo 1, 2014 a cuatro en la tarde, wedding March 1 2014 at 4 pm.

Stay tuned.

Herr Harpo and his merry band of thieves finally released my tax return.

I received the cheque via snail mail (RevCan refused to direct deposit into my same US account Service Canada deposits my pension) in Canadian funds even though I had requested it in US funds.

The time from receipt of my return in Ottawa until I held the useless (in SV) cheque in my hands was a mere 221 days/7 months 6 days! EH!!!

Due to the fact that Canadian monopoly money is recognized almost no where in the world (certainly not here in El Salvador) I was forced to send the cheque to my US bank where the

   BANKSTERS promptly relieved me of $171.33

If that wasn’t bad enough, I had paid DHL courier $70 to deliver the return to Ottawa plus another $65 to deliver the cheque to my US bank (I have learned from past experience that both Canada Post and USPS are unreliable)! 

So All in All it only cost me $306.33 for

to Steal my Money and

Collect Interest on it for the Better Part of 2

Years!!!

  EH!!!

The new insignia for the RevCan simple serpent!

The instructions on the tax guide say it takes 12 weeks to process the return, however when I called last month it had increased to 16 weeks. Huh!

Well today when 3rd simple serpent with a sub average IQ (the 1st passed me on to another who gave me a wrong # to call), she asked “When did you mail your return?” I answered that it was not mailed but sent by courier and signed for on May 1st.

She couldn’t wrap her miniscule mind around this fact until I (on the 3rd attempt) said it was given to the courier company on Apr. 29, this seemed to make her little pea brain happy. DUH, go figure!

As today is actually 20 weeks since the return was received our mommies pride and joy (joy that her little moron found a job) says she can put in a request to speed up the process. “Well can I speak to some one?”

NO! The INTERNATIONAL Department

Talks to no one!!!

It’s a pretty sad situation when Harpo’s government has to steal 25% of the pittance it gives seniors who paid taxes all their lives & paid in to a pension. Then when they follow the rules to get it back, they’re treated like 2nd class citizens, while senators out-n-out STEAL with impunity!

Gotta love Canada, EH!  NOT!!!

Back in the fall of 2007 when I was thinking about travel to places with palm trees in hopes of finding a retirement home. I was still finding my way around the internet but had stumbled across a couple travel forums, Trip Advisor’s Cuba forum & Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree.

Back then TA was 99% AI resort travel, TT was geared towards independent travel. Then at the end of ‘07, the BBC, that had purchased LP, pulled a ‘fix what ain’t broken’ stunt, reformatting it which made it so slow that it was impossible to use on dial-up.

As a result other dissatisfied users started a ‘hate TT’ site where I heard about forum for independent travelers called BoostnAll I checked it out & joined on Jan 12, 2008.

It was a great forum & a big help in planning both my 08/09 CA/Cuba trip + my 09/10 RTW.

Times change, forum traffic has slowed to a point that about a year ago there was a topic posted http://boards.bootsnall.com/is-this-forum-dying-t47691.html where possible reasons were discussed over 4 pages. It was lamented in a post on that thread a year ago that only 77 posts had been made in a 7 day period.

Now I am not politically correct (and proud of it) & have a problem with Canucks who wear rose coloured glasses, which has gotten me banned from forums before. 🙂

A couple weeks ago there was a thread in the infamous subject of TIPPING  in which a couple Canucks said they only tipped 10% for poor service! Needless to say they were told, in no uncertain terms, what I thought of that, especially since one was from Ontario, where on my trip last August, I tipped a grand total of NOTHING due to lousy service! This unsatisfactory service is encouraged by those who tip for such lack of service IMO!!!

Fast forward a week & I find I am unable to log in on http://boards.bootsnall.com

An email to BNA brings the response that I have an unspecified time out because of my “posting style”!

Now I have been a member of BNA for over 5 years, have submitted an article + 2,026 posts to the boards. I have seen the article section go from a good selection of general interest articles to a bunch of garbage 10 best list postings that are of no interest to a traveler.

Forums have gone from lively discussion of differing ideas by experienced travelers with valid information, to a mishmash of garbage info posted by newbie’s who love dredging up long dead threads, whom one dasn’t  dare challenge for fear of sanctions! The new postings have dropped to 28 in the past 7 days. 🙁

The new section called Indie Travel is only useful to those too lazy to plan a trip themselves, the hostel section does not list the cheaper accommodations in most high traffic boarder areas, useless really. 

Almost forgot, during my 11 month RTW with One World Alliance (would use again) I only had 2 disappointments, the first in Beijing when the owners of that I had done charters for over a period of 11 years, couldn’t be bothered to meet me, the second when during the final week of my RTW in Portland, it wasn’t possible to contact a rep from BNA. Kind of brings the chickens home to roost on the class of people one has been dealing with, EH!

All I have to say to Chris aka Hydro, the moderator/Sean, the owner is that your

site IS DYING and as long as you cater to the uninformed,

naive cruiser with 24 posts, by banning a long time experienced

backpacker member, then the forum

IS NOT FOR ME!!!

BYE   -     ADIEU   -    ADIÓS

My final Canadian trip had a couple Highs a couple Lows but mostly so-so same-same but different run-of-the-mill days.

It started with a so-so flight on a good airline

Followed by a horrid experience with Canada’s Fascists

Next came 11 so-so days on a short road trip & getting Scout on the road

Next came 4 mainly good days, firstly Leaving on the road trip

Leaving Ontario

CHS Homecoming first time I had seen classmates since 1989

BROME Fair

Leaving Canada for the L A S T  T I M E!!!

A couple more days Road tripping through the US

Springfield had a couple Highs

And LOWS

Day 24 had a bad  L O W!!!

But finished on  A  H I G H!!

  🙂

Tuesday it’s up at 04:30 the nice night guy at the Super 8 had the brekky laid out as he had ordered my taxi for 05:00 to take me to the airport.

05:15 No taxi, night manager calls taxi “Can’t come cabs broke down” (Thanks for letting me know A$$****!) calls to a couple other companies, no drivers available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Ohio a city of 60,000+ people home to a humongous Navistar plant & NO taxis available

at 05:30 on a weekday UnFlucking Believeable!

Now it’s on the phone to AA to cancel my 07:00 flight & figure out plan “B”. End up with an 11:30  DAY-DFW-MIA overnight then  MIA-SAL for a mere $240 extra (thanks so much AA) now call home to to change my pickup to Wed.

The hotel lets me keep my room until I have to leave, the 2nd taxi shows up on time & we make the 20 min. trip the airport. AA refuses to check my bags through because of the layover, go through the TSA rent-a-cop gauntlet then wait half an hr for the delayed flight (could have been worse, a 06:30 flight finally leaves 11:45). A so-so flight with a so-so crew arrives a half hr or so late in DFW, same with the next to http://www.miamiairport.com where I get my bags then check it to the airport hotel which fortunately is near the baggage claim exit.

After a night in a good & reasonably priced (for an airport) hotel, I find a ripoff exchange booth to get rid of my remaining Canuck money (worthless at home in El Salvador) then head for the AA check in counter Where I get the bitch from hell counter agent, first she rips me off for $60 excess luggage fee that DAY assured me was free, she then tries to pull the onward ticket scam on me I finally give in & show her my Salvadoran residency card before she calls the law on me.

Freaking Chapter 11 AA is doing all it can to alienate

it’s customers by ripping them off, it’s working as I

will  NEVER FLY AMERICAN AIRLINES AGAIN!!!

A final pass through the TSA’s NUDE scan done by their rent-a-cop

PERVS! it’s on to the hour late A$$**** Airlines flight to SAL

& home to             Rancho Las Brisas

Thursday morning dawned sunny once again as we headed west to Cleveland OH where we jumped over to I-71 southbound to Columbus OH where we picked up I-70 westbound for the last hour to Springfield OH home of the Navistar truck plant. http://www.navistar.com/navistar once known as International Harvester   a fully integrated farm machinery, construction equipment, school bus  & truck manufacturer that made the Scout in 1978, back near the end in 1985 when poor management brought the house of cards tumbling down with the sale of the Ag division to Tenneco oil.

I’ve been going to Springfield since the One Hundred Years of International Trucks Show, that was combined with the Scout Nationals, in 2007.

As 4 previous stays were fine at the http://www.super8.com/hotels/ohio/springfield/super-8-springfield/hotel-overview I had booked a room there, so checked in before going over to http://www.superscoutspecialists.com/store to get an estimate on an asking price, then over to the http://clarkcoag.com to register the Scout for sale & get my pass to enter in the morning.

One nice thing about the Super 8 is it’s next door to a http://www.bobevans.com so that after the show I could park the Scout, clean up a bit & just stroll across the parking lot for supper. Then in the morning it was just across the street & down a bit to http://www.crackerbarrel.com for my biscuits-n-gravy Yummyyyyy!!

I had really hoped to sell the Scout at the Nationals for somewhere near the 10K I had  then take the train up to Chicago, catch http://www.amtrak.com/texas-eagle-train   (sadly it wasn’t to be) At one point, before I knew what the final spurt to finish would cost, I had considered driving the Scout down to sell it in San Salvador but the extra costs plus import taxes made that not feasible.

Friday I was optimistic but only had tire kickers with no big crowds at either the Scouts or http://ohioswapmeet.com

Saturday was cool, cloudy with small crowds, did meet a guy from Bowmanville but his wife had told him that if he came home with a Scout it would be D-I-V-O-R-C-E time! more tire kickers but no one serious, not a happy camper!

Sunday came & I was ready to severely discount but there was hardly anyone there. I talked to the guys at Super Scout & they agreed to take her on consignment for 1/2 my original asking price. Everyone was packing it in & pulling out by 2:00pm so I fired up the ole girl & waved bye-bye to the 2012 Scout Nationals & Ohio Swap meet (not knowing it was to be the last show they would do together)!

With everything that had screwed up on this trip I decided to make like the birds & flock off ASAP by breaking my vow not to fly in the US (little did I know that I would pay dearly for that decision) Back at the Super 8 (which had gone downhill a bit every year since 2007) I booked a flight for Tues. morning on  http://www.aa.com my favourite airline (little did I know that would soon change)   DAY-ORD-MIA-SAL flying out of http://www.daytonairport.com 

Monday I did a final circle check http://www.wosba.ca/index.php?menu_id=3465 (after 45+ yrs of commercial driving   

   trucks, school buses and even farm tractors {contracted to the MTO} requiring daily circle  checks, they’re as normal as breathing) after a road trip of 2,300+km (1,500+/-mi) all the fluids were still on the full marks (COOL!). Fired the old girl up & headed over to Cracker Barrel for one last feed of , then it was over to to turn over the keys/ownership for the Scout with no name. While there I learned that the powers that be of the swap meet had managed to piss of the owner of SSS so much that he said “Never again”!

Next year http://www.midnitestar.org will be holding the Scout Nationals at   Where there’s room to play with the Scouts, should be cool but too late for me.

Went out to say Goodbye – Adios to the Scout-with-no-name & take a final picture.

Getting back to the immediate problem of the blown tire (tires all looked good, haven’t had a flat in yrs so no spare) that would take the Scout on to his shop http://www.larosesinc.com   in http://www.villageofenosburgfalls.org where he would order (odd size tires) first thing in the morning & I would find a ride over there in the morning.

Turned out that the owner of   was going over to Enosburg in the morning & would give me a ride about 10 am.

First on the agenda in the morning was a walk down to the Laundromat,  then a ride to the Scout where the tire had just come in. Had the tire changed (cords had gone squirrely causing it to self-destruct) hat the gas tank leak checked (fuel gauge not installed properly) decided to carry on with not filling, had the brakes bled which cured the small problem with them.

Headed out about 2 pm with all going fine until about 6 pm when a shimmy started in the front again (Oh Shit, knew I should have ordered 2 tires) was close to the http://www.lakegeorgechamber.com/Home.aspx so got off I-87 & found a motel (can’t remember the name) got a room for the night. The next morning the manager led me a few miles down the state highway 9 to Queenston where we found a new tire the right size (different name but identical tread to the one I had bought in Enosburg) at http://queensburytireinc.com

  An hour later We’re back on I-87 southbound heading for Saratoga Springs & the State Hwy #29, a shortcut to I-90 W bypassing Albany/Schenectady.

An uneventful day where I figured out the gas gauge, drive 2 hrs the gauge says 1/2, put in $20, no leaks. Fuel mileage was $10 per hr :). At a fuel stop a guy comes up to checkout the Scout, turned out he was from Vermont & heading for the Nationals also. He had a hard time believing that I was traveling to Ohio From Toronto via Quebec :). Hit Erie PA about suppertime, Spied a Red Roof Inn http://www.redroofinn.com/property/Erie/PA/16509/-/RR1054 behind a  Mickey Dees so pulled in & crashed for the night.

As I have just left Quebec/Canada in my blog it is a good place to tell a bit of the truth about each that is hidden from the casual observer.

http://themacchoi.blogspot.com/2012/11/quebecs-pq-government-and-their-agenda.html now this may seem a bit over the top but, from the actions of the PQ government since last September’s election, it isn’t! The idiots are so far out of touch with reality, thay actually believe it’s actually possible!

http://oqla.org/en/discussion/blog/94-quebec-and-bill-101 a blog by self-delusional Quebeckers that think it possible to roll back the clock. Too many French in high places, it will never happen!

http://www.citcan.ca/main%20English%20page.htm (the link will come up Oops click on middle line ‘main page) As is clearly stated, the UN

found Canada in violation of basic human rights! As

‘Hereditary Privileges’ of the Feudal System, from Europe’s

middle ages, are still in vogue in Canada’s rogue province of

Quebec!

The UN finding was 20 years ago and is still being IGNORED!

S H A M E – S H A M E !!!

That’s my final say on the subject of Canada!