It feels good to be back in familiar ...
Trip Start
Jun 29, 1999
1
5
29
Trip End
Dec 04, 1999
Loading Map
Toronto,
Ontario,
Canada
Thursday, July 29, 1999
As I mentioned in my last major entry Antigonish was a nice sleepy little town. The grounds of St. Francis Xavier University are especially nice. You know it's a small town though when there is a campground right "downtown." I got up early the Sunday morning to go grab some breakfast at an internet cafe but I forgot that it was Sunday and thus nothing would open until after church was out. So I sat in my car out front of The Highlander Cafe for 3 hours reading Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel" and waited for the place to open.
Sunday, July 25th
After finishing up my travelogue entry I headed westward. I knew I wanted to see one last big thing before I made it home but I couldn't quite figure out what that would be. So I just put the pedal on the floor and hoped inspiration would strike. In the evening I found a great way to avoid the crush of tourists at a popular attraction... visit the attraction about 2 hours before closing on a Sunday evening in the driving rain. This was what happenned when I visited the Hopewell "Flowerpot" Rocks just south of Moncton. I was lucky enough to arrive during low tide. These rocks are a great example of thousands of years of erosion. When the tide is low you can actually walk along the floor of the Bay of Fundy and look upwards at these 50 foot pillars of stone that usually have a bit of flora on top (which lends itself tp the flowerpot moniker).
FDR's "cottage" - Campobello Island, NB
The tide here is usually about 35 feet so you can only see a small portion of these rocks during high-tide. Even in the rain it was fun to walk around down there. The staff posts warnings at to when you should leave the beach because the tide has stranded people on these rocks for hours. I found a campsite just 5 mintues down the road - The Ponderosa Pines. Avoid this place at all costs. They charge an arm and a leg and have shitty facilities. Later that evening I received my inspiration for the last big stop on my way home.Monday, July 26th
The rain had stopped the previous evening and in the morning the area was shrouded in a thick fog. I headed along the Fundy Shore through Saint John to a town called St.George where I stopped for lunch (The Chicken Coop - check it out for great fried chicken). I then boarded a FREE ferry to go to Deer Island across Passamaquoddy Bay. The ferry ride was great. The fog was so thick that you couldn't see more than 30 feet from the side of the boat and the water was as smooth as glass. Small islands would fade in and out of view which left you with the feeling that you might be striking ground at any time. It was kind of like the world's slowest roller coaster ride. I took a quick trip across the island and the fog made all the little fishing harbours almost stereotypically scenic. I then boarded another ferry ($13) for Campobello Island. This ride was just as creepy as the first. On Campobello Island I stopped at the Roosevelt Family Cottage. This 22 room "cottage" was where Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to vacation.
In the fog, Deer Island, NB
It's where he met his 5th cousin (and wife) Eleanor and also where, after a brief swim in the Bay of Fundy, he contracted polio in 1921. The cottage is very nice and well restored with all the artifacts from the era. I then headed across the bridge into Lubec, Maine. Ah yes, America. I promptly turned on my radio and immediately found a talk radio station for some great and somewhat nauseating redirect from Rush Limbaugh. I raced through the countryside on my way to my last destination. I did make a small side trip into Winslow. I had heard on the radio of this fantastic car accident that had taken place the day before and I had to see the remaining damage. Outside of a restaurant called The Lobster Trap during the lunch hour rush an 87 year old lady in a Cadillac back been backing out of her spot and hit another parked car hard enough to push it into another car. At this point she panicked and threw it into drive. The authorities estimate she was travelling at 20mph as she rammed through the front wall of the restaurant then through the foyer, through the foyer wall into the dining room out the back wall onto the deck. She panicked once again and threw it into reverse and backed through the dining room once again where she stopped. Of the 60 people in the restaurant 27 had to be treated for injury and, luckily, only one had to be admitted into the hospital. She was not charged. I guess you need to achieve more than a 50% injury rate to get charged in Maine. I drove by the restaurant but most of the damage was covered up by tarps. It did look as though a bomb had gone off inside the building however. I headed on to Bradbury Mountain State Park for the evening. There were very few campers that night so I found a secluded spot and put my "Best of The Velvet Underground" cd in. I cranked up the volume, opened my doors, trunk and sunroof and read aloud from William Burroughs' "Junky."Tuesday, July 27th
I got up very early and I tore along I-95 on route to my last stop. I passed quickly through The Granite State (New Hampshire) and was now in Massachusetts. I stopped in Haverhill for my favourite food of all-time, the McDonald's McBiscuit. Then I was on to Lowell, Ma. This is the hometown of Jack Kerouac, a fitting place to go for inspiration for my trip. It's a pretty nice place and it taught me two lessons.
Lesson #1 - No matter how great an achievement you might complete in the end the najority of people don't care.
Considering it was the hometown of one of the most popular writers of the second half of this century there was painfully little to find about Kerouac. There is a small memorial place for him in a city park and at a textile museum they have a very small exhibit.
Lesson #2 - If someone can profit from your achievements they will.
I couldn't find many historical things about Kerouac but if you went into a goft shop they had all of hsi books and T-shirts and anything they could put his face on. I found a very small book that had a few pictures of the places in Lowell which were a part of Kerouac's past (e.g. his boyhood home, his gravesite) but this book had no addresses in it and they were charging $12 for it. I walked around old downtown (which is quite nice) for awhile and went past Lowell High where Kerouac went to school and that was good enough for me. I hopped back in the car and headed home.
I stumbled across Ma. State Highway #2 which is known as the Mohawk Trail and it was a fantastic road. It went up and down mountains and along riverbanks and was just begging to be driven as fast as possible. Once I hit the New York State Thruway all my fun ended. This is one of the most boring drives ever. I clicked on the cruise control and daydreamed my way into Buffalo. I took the QEW back up to Toronto and after not having seen a large city for a month I took the long way around Toronto via the Gardiner and the DVP.
I'll be spending the next few days in the Toronto and Kitchener areas cleaning out my car, doing laundry, airing out my tent, and preparing for the second leg of the trip. I plan to start heading westward on Monday so I'll be around to reply to your emails until then.
By the time I go I'll also have some pictures uploaded to the website so come back here next week to check them out.
