The Wanderings of busman7

Sunday morning we head across the border to Cowansville http://www.ville.cowansville.qc.ca the site is in french as Fascist Quebec is not a democracy, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships http://www.easterntownships.org have to take the slightly  longer route through Sutton as the bridge is out the back way to Brome http://www.easterntownships.org/map

A buffet brunch had been planed at http://www.aubergedescarrefours.com this dilapidated 30 yr old former Days Inn wasn’t very inviting, especially with the lack of a sign for the restaurant. However there was a decent turnout, the food while nothing special was edible. Almost had a heart attack when it came time to pay the bill though $22.00 that’s right twenty-two dollars, ripoff those dumb Anglos n’est pas!!

We then adjourned to the Legion, that allowed to use their hall for the day, a mighty fine array of sandwiches, sweats etc were provided by a few of the local alumni ladies, a couple former students also provided some interesting entertainment. A silent auction was held of various handicrafts by former students there was also a raffle of a hooked wall hanging & a weeks stay at yours truly B & B, money going to the schools, now an elementary school http://heroesmemorial.etsb.qc.ca Also a talented alumni (who unfortunately couldn’t be present) donated the proceeds of a book she wrote from the comments on the reunion’s facebook page. http://www.amazon.com/Cowansville-School-Misremembered-Linda-Seccaspina/dp/1481810316

Also during the afternoon we were able to tour the old alma mater with some present students as guides where a group photo was taken of the gang attending the CHS Homecoming 2012  

Met a lot of old friends + a cousin that I think was a bit upset that I didn’t stay with them but I didn’t want to impose on then for four days. Sure could have used the 2 days that I missed but—-:( Saw 3 of the Brombys but Bob never made it more :(  C’est la vie!

At the end of the afternoon the legion served a lasagne supper, I passed on this as the lunch goodies were so tempting that supper was not needed plus as it was getting late & driving strange winding roads at night is becoming a challenge, it was time to leave.

Monday it was off to The Big Brome Fair for my morning shift at the homecoming booth. As expected it was slow enjoyed being at the fair after a 37 year absence, it was still basically the same fair only bigger.

After my shift & a look around the grounds I headed out to the cemetery to make sure the family stone had been engraved with mothers date. A leisurely back road drive towards Richford until a mile from the border (Oh Shit) a front tire blew, fortunately a nice lady gave me a ride to the border where the dudes were a ‘wealth of information’ (sarcasm), it is 4pm on a holiday so nothing in tabernacland is open, if I leave the Scout on the side of the road (well off on a wide shoulder not bothering anything) the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surete_du_Quebec   (QPP back in the day) would tow it back to Cowansville (thanks for nothing)!

Plan B I hoof it over to the US side where the civilized folk  http://www.cbp.gov make a phone call & find me a tow truck, they then call the Canadian side to make sure they will let him cross to pick up Scout, the answer is yes (wonder of wonders).

An hour later I’m watching Canada disappear in the rear-view mirror of the tow truck carrying the Scout!  

Bye-bye  Au revoir  Adios

  Canada

D A V E has left the country!!!

Saturday morning after pigging out on the free Brekky at http://hamptoninn3hilton.com/en/hotels/ontario/hampton-inn-by-hilton-napanee-ONTNPHX/index.html , where I slept in Canada for the very last time (YEAH!), did the circle check on the Scout, fluids all up, the oil leak from the rear main seal on the engine has dried up but the right rear tire is darn near flat. (shit!) However there’s a Wally-mart next door, drive over & yup the shop is open, a couple hrs later we’re mobile again.

While waiting, losing time again, I decide to just bail for Richford  & forget about visiting so seeing Bob is out, he’s likely down in QC by now anyway (or so I thought) Danika is too far off route for the time I have & cousin is likely gone for the weekend.

On the road again, they just had to beak the tire down, clean up the rim & put it back together again. We (the Scout & I) hit the 401 heading eastbound & down, do to the late start & all the displaced Quebeckers heading home for the weekend I decided the sane thing  to do would be to skip Montreal with all it’s crazy Frenchmen, cross the http://www.sibcr.ca   the bridge at Cornwall & head straight to   http://thecrossingvt.com

An uneventful drive to Cornwall, Scout ran like a dream, typical IH fuel gauge not working properly after the 1/2 mark though, no biggie. At the bridge it became evident that 1/2 the population of eastern ON was heading stateside, took an hour to get across the bridge where US customs was a breeze with courteous officers, night n day compared to the CBSA a$$holes entering Canada.

A few minutes from the bridge we were on reserve lands complete with casinos & cheap gas (the main reason for all the bridge traffic) a fill up of both Scout & myself (in US so cheaper food to) we’re eastbound once more, on the south side of the river’s scenic New York state two lane roads, heading for http://www.rousespointny.com    and the border of Vermont, back in familiar road running territory from back in the day. From there it’s only a couple hours on Vermont’s twisting country roads that haven’t changed since we were kids going to the drive-in movies (horrid immoral things banned in Quebec back in the day) until I’m in Richford  http://www.richfordvt.com where my room, a good meal & a cold beer await, at The Crossing.

13 is a lucky number after all.

Friday Sept 31, 2012 the start of the Labour Day long weekend (hell of a day to start a road trip) pack my pack as I’m determined to hit the road today, come hell or high water!

According to the original plan I should be working the CHS Homecoming booth at the Big Brome Fair  now but— as Robert Burns wrote “The best laid plans of mice and men/often go awry“ 

Had neglected to pickup an air cleaner element, NAPA doesn’t have one so shall try Parts Source on the way to Oshawa, surely they’ll have one in stock. (ha-ha not)

So instead, after a  couple hours to install a set of   ‘Bully’ side steps, I head out to return the rental car, Scout-man Dan will pick me up in the Scout, the round trip Castleton – Oshawa making for a good test drive. After stopping at Parts Source & ordering the air cleaner element for delivery about 1:00pm,  I stop at the Newtonville service area to call The Crossing   to let them know I’ll be a day late checking in. (it’s a bitch not having a cell phone)

Dan picks me up we stop for junk food & an ATM so I can pay him & Leon for their work then head back to Orono as I need a couple things at http://www.durhamfarmersco-op.ca  I am nearly out main component of any first aid kit (the greatest invention since sliced bread) http://www.bagbalm.com  also I have a hankering for some 5 yr old cheddar cheese http://www.mapledalecheese.com   Walking out of the co-op we run into an old tractor buddy but only had time to say hi.

Stopped at the Dutch Oven to top up the tank, still leaking when completely full, no time to mess with it, just won’t top it up any more. Take County Rd #9 across to #45 arriving back at Castleton with no problems.

Yeah she’s good to go! Almost

Still one last thing, install the bikini top!

18:00  SO LONG – SAYONORA –

HASTA-LA-VISTA-BABY!!!

Sunday, putterin’ day at Scout-mans, his father who worked out of my Pontypool shop stops by to visit, we spend most of the day reminiscing & catching up on things.

Mon/Tues are occupied by parts chasing at good ole Crappy Tire, http://www.napaonline.com Colborne store & http://www.partsource.ca 

We also discovered that the original serial number plate that matched the ownership, had grown legs (F U C K!!!), a couple days of phone calls turned up a solution that bypassed the hoop jumping that the MTO relishes in. Simply take a sample plate to http://www.millvalleytrophies.com  along with the serial #, return the next day, voila, a perfect replica of the original.

Next glitch was deciding what to do about the  exhaust without busting the bank??? Time was running out, everybody was busy or didn’t want to fab one up so when http://www.midas.com Cobourg said to bring it in Wed morning, I bit the bullet (fluck the bank) & had Scout-man tow ‘er in

Wednesday with Scout in shop was finish up odds & ends in Bowmanville, account to pick up final tax papers from mothers estate, lawyer for my revised will, over to my bus guy for a safety on the Scout, stopped by the MTO to get a license plate sticker for the Scout . On the way out of town stopped by my old tire man’s house & found him home, had a good visit + was invited for supper. A productive day, for a change!

Thursday we head in to Midas about 10am & they’re just finishing up, the mufflers had come in by overnight courier. They also did a full service on the old girl, topping up all her fluids.

Next step was to put the plates on her & for Scout-man Dan & #1 son   to take her on a shake-down cruise back home to Castleton.

The rest of the day was spent fine tuning & putting on some trim & pin striping tape to dress up the old girl.

My visiting time with old friends-n-acquaintances has fallen short of what I had planned.

 On the + side I did get a short visit with Gary, Rat & the boys at the Orono coffee shop. Caught up with Ed at Dan’s & later at the bus barn when I got the safety from Archie saw Joanne & others known from the bus years. Spent an afternoon with Roger from the tire shop, saw my lawyer & the girls from the bank. Spent a few days with #1 son.

 On the – side, never got a chance to get back to Gary’s, or Kendal way to see the Downsies, Mr Clean. Nor was I able to get north of the 7th to stop in at Noone’s, Pontypool to drive past the old shop that I heard was sold to a scrapper (cool that would just piss off the asshole neighbour), over to see Boney or Perry my old bus broker nor up to Woodville to see David from the Mercers garage days. Stopped by Earls, a former bus owner but he wasn’t home nor was Ronnie an old friend going back to pipeline days who hung out at the tire shop, of course didn’t get a chance to see ‘brother’ Joe or any of the other tire shop crew.  ( ah  well c’est la vie).

Almost There, fingers/toes crossed.

Road trip day but first Scout-man has a shopping list of paint-n-stuff. Now with the new environmental BS paint has gotten a ridiculous price & is garbage (what used to cover in 2 coats now takes 4) so we decided to go with an old standby

T R E M C L A D now the best place to buy this paint is at

(OHNO CrappyTire) http://www.canadiantire.ca

a place I hate with a passion as there’s no rhyme nor reason to the store layout, the high school dropout staff are stupid & lazy to boot! (but ya gotta do what ya gotta do)

With the day half gone I headed the Hyundai east again for the seaway town of http://www.prescott.ca to see what (if anything) was in mother’s safety deposit box. As expected from Canada’s most ignorant bank (the Green Machine) they were in top form, I had left my copy of the will showing me as executor with the accountant in Bowmanville, no can do dude says the head biatche.

As mother’s lawyer was in Morrisburg, http://www.ghosttownpix.com/lostvillages/morrisbu.html a lot closer than B’ville, I decided to get a copy there but by this time it would have to wait until morning. As I felt like just crashing at a motel with food/beer within walking distance, I ended up at http://www.worldexecutive.com/locations/canada/ontario/cornwall/67845.html

In the morning, on the way back to the lawyers I stopped off at a town along the way to see if my cousin was home, but no luck. The lawyer was away on a trip but his fine staff looked after me & I paid a bill that I didn’t know was there.

Leaving the lawyer I passed through http://www.edwardsburghcardinal.ca , where mother had lived for 20+ yrs after father passed on, then continued

on to Prescott, to find an empty safety deposit box. Still have an unresolved issue with the green machine but I’m not losing any sleep over the minimal amount of money involved, as far as I’m concerned they’re history!

I still had one more chore to do, arrange for mother’s death date to be engraved on the marker in Elmwood Cemetery in http://www.beautifulperth.com

father’s ashes are buried. They moved there when mother retired, they sold (gave away) the farm in Tabernacland (freakin’ frogs had caused farmland to be devalued about 1/2 what it was) experienced a decade of the good life outside Quebec before his time came.

So upon leaving Prescott I head West on the 4-nothin’-1 to Brockville to catch County Rd # 29 Smith Falls then #43 on to Perth.

Now for those not familiar with life in Eastern Ontario, the unwritten rules are: 1) If your grandfather wasn’t in business here, you do NOT belong here & never will! 2) Road signs are unnecessary (as in Central America) because if you don’t know where you’re going, you have NO business being here!

So a couple miles after asking where to turn for #29 was a sign showed up, Smith Falls went better as I remembered the puzzle from years ago. Finally arriving in Perth I acted on the assumption (yup ass lol) that someone at the town hall would know the contact person for the cemetery, a strange WTF look was followed by “try an undertaker”, yep that worked.

Met the manager at the cemetery & made arrangements to meet the next morning to sign the paperwork & pay $10.00 (ouch) per letter + $1.30 per letter for McSquinty to steal, for some Tabernacland outfit to come in & do the job.

Spent the night at http://www.perthplazamotel.com Next morning after brekky at Mickey Dees, paper work done headed back via Hwy #7 to Havelock then cross country to Castleton. Just before Havelock, home of http://www.havelockjamboree.com

I hang a north at Marmora towards http://www.ghosttownpix.com/ontario/towns/cordova.html on the way to http://mapcarta.com/24201314 Cordova Lake to visit an old neighbour from my Kendal days. My luck continued, he wasn’t home 🙁 !

Back to C’ton to check on the progress & call it a day.

Tuesday dawns sunny with hopes (unrequited) for a better day, it’s off to Avis to pickup a Hyundai, Budget in the same office wanted almost double as I had a Salvadoran drivers license, Avis was actually a bit cheaper.

Filling out the paperwork brings up the question of insurance, seems the quoted price is for PLPD only, for damage to the car itself just double the quote. Can you say RIPOFF? Anyhoo have no choice so do the Canadian thing (bitch n pay).

Next seeing as it’s just down the street a ways I head over to RBC insurance, the only company that would insure my wheel chair bussette as a private vehicle when I sold the company & had insured my motor home & Checker. They had no problem with insuring the Scout but had a big problem with my Salvadoran drivers license.

Fortunately my Ontario license had just expired about 3 weeks prior so it’s off to Bowmanville to the UPS store with my mailbox http://www.theupsstore.com/products-services/mailbox/Pages/index.aspx , get my renewal form head down to the local MTO license franchise, pay $50 for a 2yr renewal am good to go for insurance + have 2 legal drivers licenses.

As I’m in town there’s also a visit to the accountant, lawyer & bank before heading back to Oshawa for the insurance policy, supper at Montana’s  http://www.montanas.ca

Day 3 starts early with a drive to Orono to see the guys at the  http://visitorono.com/orono-country-cafe fortunately I only ordered a coffee as after a few minutes it was obvious the brekky venue had changed but when I asked the owner if the guys still came in (the lying bastard) says “sometimes” ah well he was just showing his true colors, the reason for his declining business, he always was an ass!

Driving down the street I saw a familiar cluster of pickups in front of a restaurant that was new since my last trip, shad a short visit with the regulars. Planned on another brekky there before I left (or so I thought). Drove around a bit in a futile attempt to find others I knew. Made couple phone calls finding one guy I really wanted to see but he was working a booth at the CNE, planned to meet before I left (or so I thought).

Finally headed the Hyundai east to see how the Scout was progressing, hoping it would be on the road the first of the week.

Arrived at the Scout’s home of the past 4 yrs         E E K!!! (so much

for hope). Time for plan B, get hold of young lad #1, who lives nearby, turns out that he’s not presently working so he agrees to help our Scout man with the work while I take care of tying up mothers  business down east. For the first bit of good luck, he has an extra room I can use.

We head to his place, it being late decide to go out for supper, he takes me to http://www.restaurantica.com/on/colborne/c-thai a mom & pop place owned be a German & his Thai wife, where I find the Best Pad Thai I have tasted since Bangkok. A great end to a otherwise so-so day.

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog so I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell of my disheartening, final sojourn to Canada & what’s been happening since.

The reason for the trip was fourfold, 1st to pickup my final toy, a 1978 International Scout II, 2nd to visit & say goodbye to old friends, 3rd to tie up some loose ends with mothers estate, 4th to attend my old high school reunion on Labour Day weekend.

The rough plan was a couple nights in Oshawa (only convenient place to pickup/drop off a rental car), do my Bowmanville business, move on to Cobourg 3-4 days to get Scout on road, return car & head to QC stopping to visit friends near Ottawa & the ‘Kleeker’ along the way, finally arriving in Cowansville Thurs or Fri. (so I planned)

To ensure (or so I thought) that I had plenty of time to do what I wanted, I booked an Aug 20 flight with http://www.taca.com , direct  San Salvador to Toronto, in order to keep my promise (or so I thought) to never fly in the US agan. As the flight arrival late in the evening, I booked a room http://www.travelodgeoshawa.ca & a rental car http://locations.avis.com/on/oshawa/os4.html I saved the price of the http://www.torontoairportslimo.com by picking up the car in Oshawa rather than the rip-off airport. Also as all accommodations, that had less than exorbitant prices, in/near Cowansville were full, I booked 4 nights across the border in Richford VT http://thecrossingvt.com (turned out to be an excellent choice)!

Day 1 Aug 20/2012 (aka THE DAY FROM HELL) started innocuously enough with my neighbour driving me to Compalapa Airport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador_International_Airport

  in my Kia.

I should have realized once I entered the plane, that it was a precursor of the trip ahead. The plane was the oldest TACA plane I had seen, my armrest was missing the padding, the flight crew seemed (& proved to be) inept trainees (guess they figured that’s all anyone Canada-bound deserved)

The uneventful 5 hr flight arrived at Pearson http://.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Pearson_International_Airport (aka HELL’s Airport) as usual we get a gate at the far end of the terminal a good 20 min walk from immigration/customs.

Arriving at the checkpoint there are 2 queues one for residents, the other non-residents, just to see what would happen, I chose to be truthful (BAD MISTAKE) and entered the non-resident one. After another 20 min. wait I reached an agent who, upon seeing my Canadian passport, immediately directed me to secondary interrogation.   Now these dudes take there tactics from the instruction book. Not liking my answer to a question the goon interrogating me grabs my passport, takes it over to a city cop and acting like   says, loud enough for me to hear, “Check this guy out, I know we can get him on something!”

An hour later, after the cop had returned my passport, with a shrug of his shoulders, the super dude had read all the emails, looked at all the pictures on my netbook, gone through my pack piece by piece he finally decided to cut his losses, pointing to the door he poutingly grumbled “that way out” as he slunk back to the office resembling this character from Hogan’s Heroes. *the next morning I discovered the mouse from my netbook missing so he was also a  

Gotta Love Canada EH.     NOT!!!

Five minutes after being released from interrogation I being whisked comfortably, in an airport limo, to the Oshawa Travelodge, arriving at the witching hour after, a smooth drive from Hog towns version of Dante’s inferno aka YYZ!

And after reading the latest letter from Service

Canada explaining they are taxing my paltry CPP/OAS

25%

I have come to the conclusion that:

I HATE  CANADA!!!

Walmart finally did it, got too greedy & pissed me off enough to say that’s it, that’s all, no mo dinero to Walmart.

For the past year & a half I have done most of my grocery shopping at Despensa Familiar which, I just recently found out, is owned by Walmart.

The Despensa is located in Centro by the market is a crowded, hot store with limited choice of product & a dismal fruit/veggie section however it’s prices averaged 20% lower than the tourist supermarket.

Until 3 weeks ago fruit/veggie sellers parked their trucks on the street in front of the store so one could pick them up on the way out. Now however the police aren’t letting them park there but have moved them a couple blocks away, making it very inconvenient.

This harassment of the vendors comes with managers in the store wearing shirts with the Walmart name on them leading one to believe that they are responsible.

Add to this the fact that the new Walmart Super Center in San Salvador is not like the ones in the US offering low prices but a high priced rip-off selling junk to the locals.

From now on I shall patronize Super Seletos with their well stocked, air conditioned store on the outskirts of town where if I watch the sales fliers the price difference won’t be worth considering.

Walmart your greed just cost you about $1,500 a year, that’s just from one low volume customer, just imagine the cost if others really looked at their spending habits & told Evilmart where to stick it!

Let the BOYCOTT begin!:)

My drivers license was due to expire at the end of next week so with finally receiving my residency card it became possible (mandatory actually) to change my Ontario license for  Salvadorian one.

Now one would (wrongly) assume the great province of McSquinty land (OnturkeyO) in Canada, have a superior system.

Ontario sends out a renewal form in the snail mail, mine is likely sitting in my mail box as I write this. The good little Ontario sheeple (not me) then trots right down to his local MTO office, jumps through the requisite hoops, pays his $85 + HST, then waits a couple months to receive an anomic looking piece of plastic with a lousy B/W photo along with class of license, height/weight, address, expiry date & some kindergarten level holographs.

In El Salvador one merely shows up at the Sertracen with their ID, ON drivers license. You are then informed that you need a notarized photocopy of the ON license + a certified document from a clinic stating your blood type.

Off to the notary in the mall for the notarized copy of the DL $8.00, he then explains where the nearby clinic is. At the clinic $5.00 + a 15 minute wait gets the required document.

Back at the Sertracen office one pays $49.40 fee + $2.58 eye test, turns in documents, takes vision test, fills out required information, gets thumb prints taken, leaves with 5 year colour Photo drivers license with embedded chip & all info from ON DL + blood type, emergency contact info, thumb print & state of the art holographs.

        Total cost $64.98

        Time 2.5 hours

Eat your heart out McSquinty in Hicksville, OnturkeyO, maybe

someday you can play in the real world? Just kidding the day will

 never come!!!