Peabody Ducks

January 23, 2016 / The Meanderers Musings / 1 Comment

Blues, Barbecue and the Peabody Ducks, which of these things is not like the others

Everything is just ducky at the historic Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis, a short walk from Beale Street where the blues and barbecue rule supreme.

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Apparently attitude will only get you so far on a chilly winter’s day

But the Peabody is a world away from the rough and ready atmosphere of this southern city’s music scene. To call the Peabody a class establishment is understatement. It is the place to stay in Memphis if you have the wherewithal.

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Not a cowboy hat or boot to be found on Beale Street, you can honky tonk your butt on back to Nashville for that

Famous guests of the original Peabody Hotel, built in 1869, include Presidents Andrew Jackson and William McKinley. Jefferson Davis once lived in the hotel while working in Memphis. The current Italian Renaissance incarnation was built a block from the original site, which closed in 1923.

The hotel has played a pivotal role in the Memphis social scene since it reopened in 1925. Elvis Presley attended his high school graduation party in one of the hotel’s ballrooms. Neil Diamond wrote Sweet Caroline (with a young Caroline Kennedy in mind) in his room after serenading hotel guests at the lobby’s grand piano.

And what a lobby. In the weeks leading up to Christmas it is festooned with a two-story Christmas tree with more glitter than Liberace, who likely stayed here when in town. The tree is matched in grandeur by the bar on the opposite side, which rises behind the lobby’s centrepiece fountain, its rich wood shelving gleaming with an array of libations to tempt the most devout teetotaler.

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The Dames’ massive cranium is dwarfed by the Peabody’s Xmas tree

Not that you have to imbibe alcohol to soak up the Peabody’s atmosphere. Tastefully uniformed servers are happy to serve tea, hot chocolate topped with Santa Claus hats of rich whipped cream or even root beer floats, a house specialty. All accompanied by bowls of crunchy aperitifs.

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This is where Elvis shopped, a few of his 70’s psychedelic shirts remain, prices however, have gone up slightly

The lobby is adjacent to the requisite high end shops, including the gentleman’s clothing purveyor where Elvis liked to shop. It is said he often ordered his unique rock and roll outfits (pre-white jumpsuit phase) by phone and the proprietor, knowing his size and taste, would send over a van load of clothing for the King to peruse. On more than one occasion he instructed the delivery driver to leave it all.

The scene is overlooked on all sides by a second story walkway from which hotel guests can lean on the railing and watch the action unfold. On our visit the action included a lot of men in athletic gear, all of them closing in on seven feet, emerging from the elevator to walk through the lobby. A discreet inquiry revealed that they were not NBA players in town to take on the Grizzlies but instead college players getting psychologically prepared for a game against the University of Tennessee. No billets in college dorms for these amateur b-ballers.

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The tourists fill the lobby to capacity at the Peabody, the ducks aren’t the only ones getting fleeced here. Eight dollar hot chocolate anyone?

In late afternoon, the lobby fills to capacity with tourists and hotel guests, all of them focusing on the magnificent fountain, and pool, built from a single block of Italian travertine marble, that is the lobby’s centrepiece. Athletes, entertainers and political luminaries walk unnoticed among the gathered, who have their eyes on a man in a red, gold braid-embossed tail coat who moves about the room, gold-knob walking stick in hand, with the calm but welcoming authority of a man who knows he’s in charge.
He is the famed Peabody Duck Master, a man who by force of will alone will lead his feathered charges from the fountain, down three stairs and along a red carpet that is rolled out from the fountain twice a day for the march of the Peabody ducks to the musical accompaniment of John Phillip Sousa’s King Cotton March.

The tradition dates back to 1933 when the hotel’s general manager returned from a duck hunting trip which included liberal draughts of Tennessee sippin’ whiskey. He thought it would be amusing to put some duck decoys in the fountain. It was, and the Peabody Duck March was born when hotel bellman Edward Pembroke volunteered to care for the ducks. He served as Duckmaster for 50 years until his retirement in 1991. The list of celebrities who have served as honorary Duckmaster includes Oprah, Joan Collins, Kevin Bacon, Emeril, Peter Frampton and Queen Noor of Jordon.

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The Duck Master leads his charges back to the elevator after a busy day at the fountain

The Peabody ducks, always a mallard drake and four hens, take the elevator at 11 a.m. from their $200,000 glassed-in home with private pool on the hotel’s roof down to the lobby, which they march across on a red carpet to the magnificent fountain and pool, there to while away their day, paddling and quacking, in the midst of the lobby’s coming and goings.

The ducks are raised on a farm. They stay at the Peabody for three months before being returned to the farm where they are free to fly away. They are not ducks to be toyed with. Petting and feeding are strictly prohibited, as is throwing coins into their pool. They do not leave the water to fly about or to solicit treats from hotel guests. These ducks know a good thing when they see it, and their part of a bargain which includes free food and luxurious accommodation in the city’s premier hotel, is to cavort in the water until it is time to walk the red carpet to the elevator at the Duck Master’s behest.

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On the other side of the tracks, this bird works for tips as a door-bird at a seedy Beale Street establishment, dreaming of the day the ducks leave Memphis

At precisely five p.m., the Duck Master taps his walking stick on the pool’s marble edge, signalling his feathered charges that it is time to go. They jump from water to marble with a barely discernible flap of the wings, then down the steps one stair at a time before waddling their way to the elevator, taking little or no notice of the surrounding throngs snapping pictures in their wake.

The elevator doors close to a flash of cameras and the Duck Master and his feathered charges chalk up another ducky day at the Peabody Hotel.

Incidentally, Duck does not appear on any of the hotel’s menus.

How To Honky-Tonk in 5 easy steps

January 6, 2016January 6, 2016 / The Meanderers Musings / Leave a comment

He’s a little bit country and a little bit rock n’ roll (shout out to Donny & Marie)

The radio pickings are mighty slim in the southern USA, unless y’all are a fan of hell and damnation sermons, country music or the bigoted stylings of right wing radio gods like Rush Limbaugh.

We opt for country music, –‘broke-down-pickup-truck, girlfriend-troubles, dog-done-left-me’—over the ravings of Rush, whose hatred for Obama is superseded only by his love of money. The right wing windbag interrupts his diatribes to shill for everything from home security systems to bathroom cleaning products. Mistakenly tuning into Limbaugh is like hitting an old tel-evangelist show while flipping TV channels: you listen with morbid fascination as bile rises. Limbaugh rants about the media elite, ignoring the fact that his multi-million-dollar national radio contract puts him at the top of the media pack. It’s hilarious but horrifying when you realize how many listeners believe his every word. Canada’s recent election was a Kumbaya love-fest compared to political commentary down here.

A Rush Limbaugh fan

Nashville is music industry mecca, a town where guitar pickers and songwriters of every stripe come to ply their trade, hoping for the big hit that will transport them to a fenced estate in Belle Meade or Brentwood, beside Dolly Parton or Keith Urban and Nicole.

Charmin’ Tommy Garmon, tour guide extraordinaire, just ask him

Apparently going country in Nashville involves buying a mansion along a leafy country lane, if not for yourself than for a close relative. City girl Taylor Swift, who has a downtown penthouse that takes up an entire floor, bought her ailing mom a home in the suburbs where her white SUV can frequently be seen parked at the house, a football field of grassy expanse away from the country lane. Steve Tyler keeps a luxury condo in town, not far from Taylor’s place. No word on whether the Aerosmith mouthpiece gets together with country’s ‘Angst’ girl for beer and shop talk.

Dolly’s house, note the two large..gates

We know all this after taking a tour with Charmin’ Tommy Garmon, a Nashville native with a face like a blood hound and a mouth-full-of-marbles Tennessee drawl. Tommy, who bills himself as a tour guide/comedian, wisecracks his way around town in a small white bus, attending to his driving just enough to keep the bus from veering into a curb or ditch.

He knows Nashville like the backs of his meaty hands, one of which drapes from the wheel while the other performs an assortment of tour guide tasks, pointing out the sights, fiddling with CDs and DVDs, gesticulating for emphasis, singling out a passenger for the punch line of a joke. He has taken enough tourists over the years to fill Nissan Stadium, where the Tennessee Titans struggle to be taken seriously as a professional football team.

Johnny Cash memorabilia, note his prison mugshot on the right

Tommy takes us to the home store of American Pickers, where television-entranced tourists line up for a look at the show’s set. He deadpans that the building is a false front and the inside is no bigger than his bus. He cruises past the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Johnny Cash Museum, dishing insider dirt on the nasty inheritance fight among far-flung Cash family factions after the Man in Black’s death. We drive along studio row, where promising songwriters are paid set wages to turn out ditty after ditty in eight hour shifts in the corporate quest for money-making hits.

“I slave away the days at this old computer screen,
Just a waitin’ for the weekend to come,
So I can hose down my pricey pickup sparklin’ clean
And then go shoot my brand new Bass Pro Shop gun.”
Too commercial? How about something with a little more southern twang?
My woman works nights on the barbecue down at Porky’s Place
Slappin’ down-home southern sauce on great big slabs of meat.
She don’t wear no fancy perfurme, not for her that frilly lace
Cause she comes home from work smellin’ good enough to eat.

While many of the Waylon and Willie wannabes have the musical chops, few will make it to Belle Meade, except perhaps on one of Tommy’s tours. Music lovers who descend on Nashville’s Music Row are the ones who benefit from the influx of talent. The best of the bunch play the saloons and honky tonks for tips in the hope they’ll be discovered. The price of a beer and a couple of bucks in the tip jar buys passersby an afternoon of more than passable guitar pickin’.

Personally I never wear white boots after labour day

You’ll need a bit more dough if you want an authentic pair of Tennessee cowboy boots, despite all the signs along the strip advertising Buy One Pair, Get Two Pairs Free. Bargain hunters browsing through thousands of boots on floor-to-ceiling racks can be seen to swoon, not from the heady aroma of hand-tooled leather, but instead from price tags on that first pair, which start at about four hundred bucks and go upwards from there, depending on how fancy you want your feet to look walking through cow-pies in the pasture.

Nothing says seedy bar like this stool, but hey $2 buck shots help

America’s deep south is one of the civilized world’s last bastions for nicotine addicts. Enticed by a sign proclaiming two buck shots, we slide into a hole-in-the-wall bar on a side street steps from Music Row. It’s two in the afternoon but the inside of the bar says it’s two in the morning. A lone guitar picker wailing about love lost from a make-shift stage sets the tone. The place is dark and dank, its air so permeated with stale tobacco that breathing feels hazardous.

Adding to the mystique, urine coloured walls and patron inspired graffiti

In concession to the years of paint-peeling smoke and boot-scootin’ boogies, the worn and torn linoleum floor peels back in spots to reveal grimy black concrete beneath. The sticky wooden tabletop wobbles at first touch, as does the bar stool, its twirling seat lowering first one cheek, then the other, as if acclimatizing our butts to the sordid surroundings. The only concession to the 21st Century is a big screen TV playing college football. A no-nonsense waitress appears out of the smoke to demand our order.

You’ll note the sign with shot prices for all tastes, being upscale we went for the $2 option

“Two cheap shots,” the Meanderers wheeze in unison with exaggerated bonhomie. “Like it says on the sign.”
“What kind,” she says, wasting no words on small talk. “We got lots.”
“Tequila,” replies the Dude with a manly gasp for air.
“No tequila,” says the waitress, continuing her remarkable efficiency with the language.
“How about bourbon or vodka?”
“We got bourbon and vodka.”
“We’ll have bourbon and vodka.”

A quick toast of shot glasses and its down the hatch, the Dude pulling deeply on his Vape, adding a cloud of vapour to the air, the Dame, a former long-time smoker, sucking in the acrid haze like a junkie to her fix. The waitress is summoned through the blue air for a short conversation and another round. And then another.

ZZ top wannabe meets Nashville Predator fan, mayhem ensues

And so it goes on Honky Tonk row. At our next stop at a cavernous cowboy bar, two ZZ top pretenders cry out for hillbilly cred with brillo brush beards that hang below their chins. A guitar duo of virtuoso abilities, they run through crowd favourites sprinkled with presentable original tunes. The saloon, which doubles as a restaurant until 9 p.m., when kids are verboten, is mercifully smoke-free. Even in early afternoon, the place is packed. Nashville Predators fans, clad in the team’s Halloween colour jerseys, are psyching themselves for the coming conflict at the Bridgestone Arena, a weak wrist shot away from Honky Tonk row.

Nothing says I may have overdone it like a late night stop for corn pancakes, hot peppers and deep fried meat

We quaff beer and devour plates of deep-fried meat and even deeper-fried vegetables in another saloon down the street, while a country band revs up a full house liberally sprinkled with Preds fans. The country look—black stetsons, Wrangler jeans, expensive boots—clashes violently with the Halloween jerseys. Where’s Carrie Underwood when you need her? The revved-up Dude takes to shouting “Go Canucks Go” between songs.

We fancy things up with a visit to BB King’s Club

Changing it up, we make our way to the BB Kings Blues club, the only place charging a cover. We pay the nominal $5 and plant ourselves at the thirty-foot bar. The club is more gentile than the honky tonk saloons. Wine glasses outnumber beer mugs and there are more glitter tops than torn jeans. But the players on stage are every bit as good, with horns, gravelly voices and plenty of blues guitar. Best of all, the bartender happily serves tequila shots.

The Dame asks Elvis for directions to Graceland, our next stop

Next up Memphis, where Elvis is in the house, and on street signs, billboards and Made-in-China coffee cups, key chains and salt and pepper shakers, in Beale Street shops, corner stores and run-down gas stations.

The Road Not Taken

December 29, 2015February 24, 2017 / The Meanderers Musings / Leave a comment

Surf, sand and siestas, throw in a couple of Marguerites and I do think we’ve found paradise

Leaving the sultry perfection of Charleston and Savannah behind, we point Big Dodge south, to the land where French Canadians famously bake on sun-drenched beaches in sling shot swim trunks, a place where a mouse and a duck reign supreme in a fantasyland of castles and pirate ships in the shadow of sleek metal missiles aimed at the stars. Or at least that’s one possibility.

The land of cotton continues on the Florida Panhandle

Florida is a magnet for Eastern Canadians wanting to de-ice their northern bodies. And what’s not to like (overweight men in those sling shot swim suits aside), white sugar beaches, cheap booze, Disneyworld for thrill seekers and the Kennedy Space Centre for real adventure seekers. Then there’s the Keys, the magical string of islands made famous by Hemingway and Buffet, where real men fish and waste away on their porches pounding back scotch and marguerites.

A whole lotta beach for a few lucky condo owners

In the end, we decide against the 10-hour drive to southern Florida and point Big Dodge west towards New Orleans. But first we instruct GPS Gertrude to find the shortest route to the Florida panhandle, the narrow strip of land on the sunshine state’s northern flank that extends along the Gulf Coast to Alabama. She takes us to a tiny town called Destin, where real pirates once plied their trade.

Who needs Disney-world when you got this in Destin

Apparently we’re aren’t the first to discover the charms of this beachside dot on the map an hour’s drive east of Pensacola, where the U.S. Navy now rules the pirate roost. With its luxury hotel and condo developments rising majestically from the white sand between palm trees and a plethora of seafood shacks, beach towel stores and surf shops, Destin brings to mind Hawaii. Folks from every northern and mid-west state have set up camp down here.

Condo buildings rise in the background as The Dog readies himself for an attack by the canine beach patrol

In this bastion of capitalism, developers buy up the foreshore and fence off beaches for the private use of the money class. Long stretches of the white sugary sand are fenced off. Wouldn’t want one of the plebes kicking sand on your Abercrombie & Fitch picnic basket. Fortunately, there’s plenty of white sand to go around.

Who says crass commercialism is dead in the south

We decide to chill out for a week at Navarre Beach and take our rightful place amongst the money class. Our campground has its own private beach, with swings and long fishing dock for watching those beautiful Gulf sunsets away from any bothersome locals. The site is close to an outlet shopping mall and a short bike ride away from several of the Dude’s beloved seafood shacks. Oldsters commute around the neighbourhood on their street legal golf carts. The temperature is mid-70s perfect and our two weeks on the panhandle passes in a sunny blur of blissful nothingness.

Late for church, Billy-Bob drops the van into overdrive and flips us the bird

The drive from Destin to New Orleans turns out to be a true meander. It involves crossing three states (Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) through a violent tropical rainstorm that beats Big Dodge’s windshield wipers into submission and forces a white-knuckled Dude to turn on his four way flashers to avoid being rundown by an 18-wheeler. The perilous journey ends in sunshine after crossing the Pont Chartrain causeway, which the Guinness Book of Records calls the longest continuous bridge over water. PEI’s Confederation Bridge seems quaint in comparison.

Dancing in the streets, on the walls, do watch out for that puddle friend

The approach to our Big Easy campground is shocking despite the reviews we’ve read online warning that it’s not in the best neighbourhood. Ten years after Katrina, the pothole-filled, heaving road to Pontchartrain Landing runs between the levy that was breached during the hurricane and a string of derelict warehouses and water-logged ditches.

Katrina ten years later, brought to life by this sculpted tree showing a battered home caught up in it’s trunk

Not to worry. The campground emerges from the debris next to a working marina. It has security patrols, a large store, an upstairs bar and restaurant with live music and is snugged up against a canal with pricey boats and new waterfront condos. The below-sea-level RV park, underwater after Katrina, is now a placid gated community of expensive Class A coaches and fifth wheels with four slides. A walk around the park reveals licence plates from most northern states and Canadian provinces, including several from far away British Columbia. Home away from home, a short shuttle ride from Bourbon Street. What’s not to like?

The shuttle to the French Quarter leaves twice a day, in morning for the geezers and late afternoon for the party animals. For six bucks the driver will drop you and pick you up again at a pre-arranged location after a day of sightseeing or a night of imbibing. Our driver, a self-described itinerant from Connecticut, cheerfully makes the trip multiple times daily, seven days a week. You meet a lot of people on the road who sign up for campground duties in exchange for free or reduced rates on staying. The mind-numbing dullness of driving the same route every day answering the same geezer’s questions is too horrible for the Dude to contemplate. He shall remain unemployed for the duration of the trip.

The infamous Superdome we are told it will never be used again as a disaster centre for obvious reasons

We’ve all seen pics of the French quarter during Mardi Gras where inebriated visitors on balconies along Bourbon street throw cheap strands of coloured beads at anyone willing to flash a little somethin’ somethin’ at whoever yells the loudest. By day, the Quarter is a different animal. Beer and liquor trucks line the streets, replenishing stocks depleted by the previous nights’ festivities. The sidewalks are freshly wet, workers hosing off the detritus of spilled substances everywhere. Given the amount of liquor consumed it’s best not to think about what you are walking on.

Freshly married in the Big Easy

Music is a Big Easy mainstay. Street players work hard and long for a buck, with random bands setting up on street corners, lead singers enticing the gathering crowds to drop bills into open guitar cases. Psychics set up shop alongside the musicians to work the overflow, with two folding chairs and a small table for a crystal ball or candlelit skull. This is the city of the evil eye. Shops overflow with voodoo paraphernalia, from tee-shirts embossed with multi-coloured death heads to the high-hatted, high-stepping devil figures who dance in shop windows.

You better have a big guitar case for the tips these guys get

Drinking in the street is strongly encouraged, as long as the libations are in a plastic ‘go cup’. Glass bottles, deemed a safety hazard, are verboten. The city is a dichotomy, leave the latticed balconies of the Quarter behind for the Garden District and you’ll discover a gentile, moneyed area where the actors Sandra Bullock and John Goodman keep mansions.

No “Go Cup” for this concoction, drink at your own peril

Our Hop and Go tour guide dispenses a valuable tidbit for geezers on a budget. World renowned white table cloth restaurants, like the Commander’s Palace and Antoine’s, offer set menus for lunch at half the price of a dinner soiree. No shorts or t-shirts allowed, of course. Dinner jackets are required at night, with the establishment happy to provide one form their freshly dry-cleaned selection. It’s hard to restrain the vibrating Dude from hopping off the bus when he hears about The Commander’s famous 25 cent lunchtime martinis. Back at Pontchartrain Landing, he tossed and turned throughout the night in anticipation and in the morning dutifully dressed in wrinkled cargo pants and a collared golf short for the day’s revelry.

Commanders Palace, let the martinis begin

Our lunch at Commander’s Palace, a short walk from the mansions of John and Sandra, is a rare foray into the lives of the other half. The historic restaurant, across the street from Lafayette Cemetery, the favourite above ground burial spot of Hollywood directors, is a study in slightly faded elegance. Multiple dining rooms on two levels are well-patronized even at noon on an uneventful weekday. Well-dressed patrons sip wine with their lunch, while immaculately turned out wait staff hover discreetly. Each table has three servers, one for cocktails, one for food and another for miscellaneous duties like determining whether guests prefer dark or light linen to drape across their hillbilly laps.

The girls are horrified when Buffy choose the dark linen for lunch

We both opt for the light linens, as one does on a sunny day.

The food is delicious, the martinis are insanely good with a full generous pour. Lunch comes in under 50 bucks, including a $1.50, six-drink bar bill, and we exit the restaurant with a light step and cross the street for an afternoon visit to Lafayette Cemetery.

The thing about a three-martini lunch, is that emerging post-lunch into daylight can disorient even well-seasoned veterans like the Dude, let alone lightweights like myself. Unaccustomed daytime drinking hits you hard, and fast. Getting down the stairs and out the door past the welcoming restaurant staff at the entrance did not prove a problem. We took our leave in a dignified fashion, crossing the street arm-in-arm, like any well-heeled happy couple filled with fine victuals might.

Disaster struck as we mounted the curb on the cemetery side, stepping carefully between boulevard shrubbery. Being the lightweight, in my light-headed condition, I failed to notice a small strand of wire strung along the curb to prevent mid-block interlopers from trampling the plants. I went down, pulling the Dude with me and we landed between shrubs with a thump on our ample (thankfully) asses.

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The cemetery view after a three martini lunch

I need not point out that in a moment like this one does not feel the physical pain of the fall but instead becomes enveloped with the acute shame of a mid-afternoon collapse in full view of the staff and guests leaving the staid Commander’s Palace. It can be said the Dude, perhaps being well-practiced in such episodes, took the collapse in good-natured stride and after a quick glance at the Palace entrance to discern our fall had gone unnoticed, regained his composure and helped me to my feet. Our subsequent giggling cemetery tour may have seemed inappropriate to other more somber visitors.

Beer cases lined up for the evenings festivities

The Commander is said to be reviewing its 25 cent martini policy.
But seriously folks, what better city to suffer an inebriated indignity than the Big Easy. Our Commander’s Palace lunch was a mere prelude to a night outing on Bourbon Street, during which the Dude paid a roaming cocktail waitress 30 dollars (U.S.) to jam six tubes of coloured water into his mouth and blow the contents down his throat. Being a Dame, I made due with one. To say the music blaring from one of a hundred or so establishments along the mile-long strip creates a party atmosphere is like saying the Super Bowl is a football game. Recognizing the limitations age has placed on our partying abilities, we retired to a restaurant in a quieter part of the Quarter, where we ate a fine Italian meal accompanied by the accomplished stylings of a veteran New Orleans piano lady who pointedly informed diners she would not play Billy Joel’s Piano Man.

What do Nefertiti and Elvis have in common? Why absolutely nothing but hey it’s Mardi Gras let the bead-throwing begin

Our stay included trips to the incredibly comprehensive World War II museum and nearby Mardi Gras World, where the giant floats are custom-created and stored in anticipation of the city’s biggest party. The cavernous warehouse, crammed to the roof with 10-foot high likenesses of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, pirates, creepy kings and queens, alligators and party animals of all descriptions, sits on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, where visitors can sit in a courtyard surrounded by their tacky souvenir purchases and watch the river flow.

‘Gator

Next up for the party-happy Meanderers: Nashville, Tennessee, where the cowgirls swoon while the cowboys croon and smoking is allowed in bars.

Y’all Come Back Now…

December 16, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / Leave a comment

If he has his way Donald Trump will have these signs deported…however the pink flamingoes can stay

Years ago I watched a movie called Fried Green Tomatoes and thought yuck. Not being a fan of the round red fruit that masquerades as a vegetable, I couldn’t understand why anyone would eat a tomato that clearly needed a few more days basking in the sun. If it wasn’t bubbling in a pot with a whole bunch of Italian meatballs I couldn’t see the point.

I have been schooled.

I lost my fried green tomato virginity in Charleston, South Carolina, a city that is clearly auditioning for Gone with the Wind part II. With its antebellum mansions shaded by massive live oak trees draped with Spanish moss, it lived up to every expectation we had for the south.

This is Miss Susie’s summer home, mind the Spanish moss it may be pretty but it bites

Spanish moss, a strange cobwebby plant that looks left over from Halloween, is neither Spanish nor moss. It drapes from trees collecting chiggers, little biting bugs that are the insect world cousins of northern ticks.

Southern people are excruciatingly polite. The lady checking us in at the RV park said ‘yes ma’am’ so many times I thought she was having a seizure. The Dude hasn’t been called ‘darlin’ this often since he was in diapers. The only way to tell if a southern person is displeased is if they preface comments with a “bless your heart”, which we have been told is code for “piss off”.

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They may be polite but you best be wearing your gun where they can see it

Southern people like their grits, an unfortunately named creamy cornmeal concoction served with almost everything, breakfast included. If y’all like your food fried, come on down. Now let me see that steak. You know how to make a perfectly wonderful piece of meat better? Answer: drench it in batter and fry it up. (See fried green tomatoes’ epiphany above.)

No visit to the south is complete without a visit to a real plantation, one without the sanitized version of slavery that Washington’s Mount Vernon offers up. They may be polite down here but pickup trucks still sport confederate flags in the back window, unsettling reminders of the less than perfect relationship between races.

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Tour guides point out the washroom facilities at Magnolia Plantation

The Magnolia plantation house, built beside a swamp where black workers literally slaved growing rice, has a gothic vibe to it. Its long winding driveway weaves past algae-covered ponds that glow bright green in the shafts of sun filtering through a canopy of giant live oaks hung with the ubiquitous Spanish moss. Perfect camouflage for the alligators that lurk beneath the surface. Hot moist air brings a sweaty sheen to the faces of all who enter. Even in late autumn. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to work in the summer months when temperatures reach the high 90’s with energy-zapping humidity.

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It’s real purty but mind the ‘gators and ‘skeeters

The plantation tour has everything you’d expect–massive home with gift shop, check; expansive gardens with white bridges spanning ponds, check; a hedge maze for lazy Sunday wandering, check; boat launch and river access, check; slave cabins, check.

The plantation mansion, with its wrap around veranda all the better for sipping mint juleps and other gentrified pursuits

The open-car shuttle to the slave quarters puts the trappings of wealth on display in perspective. Slavery kept the ‘white gold’ economy rolling. Cotton and rice fueled the economic engine of the south. Picking and growing the crops was labor intensive but if you cut out the labor costs there was money to be made. Serious money. Enough to pay for elaborate town homes (read colonnaded multi-storied mansions) in Charleston, where plantation owners entertained their genteel friends and toasted their success with mint julips after attending Sunday services.

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A slave cabin, where just staying alive was the order of the day

Our guide, a black man and noted slavery historian, paints a picture of life for slaves on the plantation. The tiny shacks beside the swamp sat well away from the main house and gardens, out of view and out of mind for the southern ladies taking tea on the veranda. Slave families staked out their precious space, with up to a dozen people crowded into two rooms. Drinking water came from a communal pump outside, which did double duty as a place to wash off the sweat after back-breaking 12-hour days in the fields. Lining up for the outdoor bathroom became a legs-crossed time to socialize with the neighbors. Geckos, roaches, spiders and mosquitoes blew inside with the wind through cracks in the cabin walls.

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A picture of some of the former occupants of the cabins in a more modern era

But the slaves were not without hope. Toe the line, show the right amount of deference and the master might pick you to be a ‘house nigger.’ Working 12 hour days in the relative comfort of the mansion before returning to your shack increased your life expectancy. A ‘house nigger’ might catch the wandering eye of the master or a teenage son, whose Christian values and superior blood lines did not keep them from coupling with the help.

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Bring your swimsuit, the water’s fine

You would be forgiven for thinking the slaves gleefully burned the shacks the day after the Civil War ended. Not so. Most stayed on, working for slave wages. The shacks were occupied with minimal upgrades, which did not include running water, until the 1990s.

After our sobering, if infuriating, history lesson it’s time to venture into the swamp and annoy some gators. The plantation’s current owners, who do not have the benefit of slave labor to keep the old place up and running, have thoughtfully served up the plantation experience a la carte. One price for the house and garden tour, a little more to see the slave shacks, more again for the swamp and so on.

Charleston and Magnolia Plantation tour 155

On closer inspection it appears we have found a rare double-headed gator in the Magnolia Swamp

We splurged (who can pass up a good swamp) but forgot to get the code to unlock the gate leading to the wooden catwalks. After a steamy consultation back at the gift shop, we enter the mozzie breeding grounds on high alert, eyes scanning low-hanging branches for poisonous water moccasins and high grass for evil lurking alligators. The danger and mystique are somewhat mitigated when we encounter two giggling young women, cell-phone cameras in hand, who direct us to a large pond deep in the swamp where a solitary gator lays motionless, soaking up the sparse sunlight filtering through a heavy cloud cover atop a partially submerged log, looking as menacing as… well… a log. We did not have long to contemplate whether it might slither off the log in our direction before the clouds closed out the sun and unleashed a torrential downpour. It rained so hard that my partially opened purse filled with water, soaking my cellphone, which required a day submerged in rice to dry out (thank you google).

The Dude’s mood, already darkened by the money shelled out for what he considered an overly pricey a la carte plantation experience, is not improved by the dousing. He continues to mutter and mumble about modern day exploitation by the plantation’s moneyed class as rainwater runs in rivulets through his matted hair and onto his forehead, forming elongated droplets on the end of his nose.

Time to move on.

Savannah trolley ride and walk about 018

Original stone roadways and stairs in the waterfront district of Savannah, wear heels at your peril girls, but bring your wallets, lots of tourist ~~traps~~ shopping opportunities abound

Some of you might remember Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a so-so movie starring Kevin Spacey in an early precursor of his evil southern gentleman persona, which he refined as Frank in the Netflix series House of Cards. The movie, with its quirky portrayal of Savannah society and picture postcard filming of the city’s many tree-lined squares, put the Georgia-peach-of-a-city high on the Meandering Maloneys travel bucket list.

Savannah trolley ride and walk about 054

Forsyth square in Savannah, one of the twenty two to be found in the city

It did not disappoint. Savannah is painfully picturesque. Walking its streets is to pine for a more genteel time, when southern gentleman in vests and suicoats held out their hands to help ladies in long dresses into the horse-drawn carriages that would carry them to glittering chandeliered ballrooms worlds away from the slave shacks. The city is architecture porn for a picture taking tourist. Every street, every home adjacent to its 22 town squares is photogenic.

Mercer House, site of “the incident”

Mercer house, featured in the movie which is based on a true story, is open for tours. Strangely, the sister of Jim Williams’, the gay accused and acquitted murderer of his rough trade rent boy, still lives there on the mansion’s second floor. Nothing like coming down for breakfast in your jammies to find a bunch of sweaty tourists in your living room.

Williams was a compulsive collector with eclectic taste that ranged from 16^th century portraitures to the mounted animal heads and large sea turtles in the library. The dining room table is set with china recovered from a ship wreck in the 1700’s. We are told he owned several other mansions and warehouses in the city crammed with art and his odd acquisitions.

Enjoying the sights, and sounds, of Savannah

In a nod to the movie, pictures of Kevin Spacey posing with various Savannah denizens of social standing rest on desks and tables in the office where Williams shot his gay lover to death. Though acquitted by a jury of his southern peers, Williams answered to a higher court when he died of a heart attack shortly after the trial. Quaintly the cultured southern gentleman conducting our tour refers to the office as the room where ‘the incident’ took place.

I told you Southerners were polite.

A Plethora of Presidents

November 26, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / 2 Comments

Somehow I expected something fancier

Did you know George Washington had wooden teeth? Learn this and many other fun facts when The Meandering Maloney’s go to Washington.

But first we have to finish with Cape Cod, home of the famous houses, rolling dunes, impossibly twee towns, expensive real estate, and the Kennedy’s.

Never, ever, wear white after Labour Day

Along the Cape, the salty sea air is laced with the smell of money. Old money. Big money. Homeowners give a shout out to the season with fall decorative displays that would not look out of place in the windows of Macy’s. Not the Dollar Store displays and misshapen gourds I’ve been known to throw together before a dinner party, but Martha Stewart dioramas. Life-size straw-stuffed figures perched on hay bales with massive, perfectly round pumpkins and gourds surrounding them, all tastefully arranged to induce maximum decorating envy.

For some Cape Codder’s it’s all about messing with your neighbours Barbies (or is that Bahbee)

Martha’s Vineyard is a must stop, even though it requires leaving the truck behind for a ferry crossing. The name is ingrained in the plebian mind as a place where the really rich and famous buy houses and hobnob with other rich and famous people. Tennis anyone? How about an afternoon of sailing on my 100 ft. mahogany sloop. We plebes take the ferry over, sans truck. Surprise, surprise, La Dog is welcome aboard, though putting a leg up on the ferry railing to let other snooty pooches know you’re around is discouraged.

Always the gentleman, The Dog refrains from sniffing butt while boarding

How many gift shops can be crammed into a two-hour visit? Answer: ten, with a stop for fudge. It still leaves time for a stroll past waterfront mansions set so far from the street we can barely see the crews of gardeners tending the manicured lawns. We dip our toes in the water by the yacht club before heading back to the ferry. After our brush with wealth, we leave Martha’s with wallets only lightened by the price of New York style pizza slices. Even Cape Codders know who makes the best pizza.

A view of the NY skyline from the turnpike will have to do this time

Back to George and those wooden teeth. Our original plan included a stop in New York, where RVers put down across the water in Jersey on sites without sewer hookups for $U.S 80. A ferry takes them into Manhattan past the Statue of Liberty. Since this is a trip without a plan, we blasted past New York with a fond wave at the distant new World Trade Centre, promising to come back another time.

Navigating the Big Apple’s freeways is like playing bumper cars for keeps. Leave a sensible 20-foot between you and the vehicle in front and a car, truck or transport will swerve past your bumper to fill the gap. Moving over four lanes to get to your exit while pulling a 10,000-pound fifth wheel dwarfs any fairground ride you’ve ever taken on the excitement meter.

We enter the Jersey Turnpike on the advice of Gertrude, who tells us it’s the fastest route to Washington but fails to inform us about the modern day highwaymen along the way. The roadside robbers disguise themselves as toll-booth attendants who cheerfully (Who am I kidding. They’re not cheerful; they live in Jersey for gawd’s sake.) demand money at frequent intervals. Stand and deliver, driver from B.C.

Leaving Foxwoods down to Washington DC night tour 070

They missed the sign about rights to your first born

The Dude literally sputtered at the end of the Turnpike when the booth bandit demanded $U.S. 42.50. After quickly calculating the risks of blowing through the booth and the high-speed freeway chase that would follow, the Dude grudgingly handed over a wad of the now spittle-soaked money we didn’t spend in Martha’s. The fact we were the only RV on the turnpike should have been the first clue.

Cherryhill Park outside Washington is the gold standard by which all other parks will be measured. If they don’t have it, it doesn’t exist. You need transportation, they’ve got it. Worried about getting around in Washington, they have an orientation session with all the stuff you need to know and stuff you didn’t know you needed to know. Need tickets for anything remotely touristy, they’ve got it. Need to eat, hey, they’ve got a reasonably priced restaurant on site that has ice cream. Feel like staying in and watching a movie. No problem. They deliver delicious pizza to your RV’s doorstep. Need clean clothes; they’ve got a laundromat the size of an airport hangar.

Note the giant Bald eagle to the right, in case you didn’t realize you were officially in the United States

Finishing the orientation session, we spontaneously purchase a night bus tour leaving in half an hour. The free shuttle bus to town is driven by a guy we’ll call Bunk, after the character in The Wire. Those who know The Dude might recall his love affair with the HBO series. He’ll even lend you the DVD’s so you can join the club. But I digress. Bunk the driver is a former basketball player, good enough to get a full ride to university. We’re his only passengers and he’s happy to share stories of his youth, the subsequent addition of the 50 or so pounds that forced him to switch from basketball player to coach of his kids’ teams and the reality of daily life in Washington, a city that cheerfully supports losing sports teams because politics is the real blood sport.

Arlington Cemetery by night

Washington by night is surreal. The softly lit city looks all warm and fuzzy from the safety of the open-air double-decker. Iconic landmarks like the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial literally glow in the dark. We were advised at the-campground-that-has-everything to bring flashlights for walking around the areas like the Vietnam wall and the Martin Luther King monument.

It is even more impressive in person, now if only all those pesky tourists weren’t in the way

The Lincoln memorial is astounding. A marvelous sculpture that rivals Michelangelo’s David for its exquisite detail, it commands the viewer’s attention from its colonnaded perch overlooking the national mall. Lincoln beats out David for his historical significance and the fact the sculptor kept his pants on.

The White House appears mundane in comparison. After a lifetime of viewing the presidential residence in the context of life-changing historical events, it seems much smaller in reality, like revisiting an old house that looms large in childhood memory. More interesting was the make-shift structure of an enterprising protester at the edge of the park across the street. A quick perusal of his placards reveals his general dissatisfaction with Keystone, GMO’s, Nuclear weapons and Justin Biebers new hairstyle.

A tale of two houses

Mount Vernon, the historic plantation home of George and Martha Washington, is mecca to patriotic Americans and a must-see tourist stop. The man with wooden teeth is a study in contrasts. A fearless soldier who defied great odds in leading his bedraggled troops against the British, he was foremost a businessman and farmer who preferred life at the plantation to the corridors of power in Washington. He kept slaves and buried them in unmarked graves in a wooded area far from the house but was a benevolent slave-owner who decreed in his will that upon his death all his slaves would become free. Most stayed on to work his farms, of which he owned five, and his distillery and mills.

Recreating the past at Mount Vernon, shameful parts and all

Perhaps the biggest surprise of our Washington stay was the city’s affordability. Penny-pinching RVers can get around on the impressive transit system, visit all the free war memorials, of which there are too many for a country that purports itself to be a peace-loving nation, and occupy themselves from morning to night without breaking the bank. Public buildings around the National Mall even encourage tourists to eat in their inexpensive cafeterias.

Wanna see this at the Natural History Museum…it’s free

How about a couple of Cold War missiles….also free

Prefer a little culture in your museums….free

How about the history of flying anyone?….you got it…free

All the Smithsonian’s are free. Gratis. I say all the Smithsonian’s, because although it is one institution the bulk of its exhibitions are spread around the National Mall in 11 locations, each with a different theme. There are 19 locations in all, 17 of them in Washington. The bigger ones, like the Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum, are so comprehensive a full day of gawking doesn’t do them justice. We spent a half-hour in the American History Museum playing the Price is Right at one of the interactive displays in the pop culture section. Overpowering, awe-inspiring, stupefying, whatever superlative you choose won’t be overstating the Smithsonian experience.

Leave it to Bill to have the weirdest portrait

The multi-level National Portrait Gallery was of particular interest, despite our limited knowledge and interest in art. The Presidential Gallery pays tribute to every U.S. president, from multi-portrait displays of Washington and Lincoln to a modest portrait of disgraced Richard “I am not a crook’ Nixon. Bill Clinton takes up an entire wall in a connect-the-dots modernistic interpretation of the man ‘who did not have sexual relations with that woman.’ Other rooms off the tiled hallways that are themselves works of art, house portraits of famous Americans from Elizabeth Taylor to the writer William Faulkner, from Einstein to Marilyn Monroe. Katherine Hepburn’s display includes her four Best Actress Oscars.

The iconic Washington monument as seen from the World War I & II monuments, which are just down from the Lincoln memorial and across from the Vietnam War memorial and they’re all fantastic, wear good shoes when visiting

With heads filled to bursting with information and a better understanding of what it means to be an American, we point the Mean Machine south, to the place where the first shot was fired in the bloody war that almost ended the American dream. (Yes, there is a Civil War memorial in Washington but in these politically correct times it is now called The War Between the States.)

And finally what’s a visit to Washington without a bit of democratic protest by a guy who clearly didn’t get the Labour Day memo about wearing white

Next: On to Charleston to experience southern hospitality and our first taste of grits.

The Dame goes stalking

November 14, 2015November 14, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / 2 Comments

You really don’t want to park in front of this guys house

I blame it on L-Pooh. She the companion of my misspent teens, who upon our first meeting in the back seat of a car driving aimlessly around the small town I grew up in, announced she felt sick and proceeded to puke on my lap. We’ve been best pals ever since.

The goofy fan photo is for my own files, you’ll have to make do with the bats on his gate

She also introduced me to Stephen King, who keeps a gothic house with bat-winged gates in Bangor, Maine. Literary snobs will sniff and shake their heads but let me tell ya, the guy’s got a way with words. Lots of words. He’s incredibly prolific and with six months of writing a blog under my belt, I have new appreciation for the work involved. He’s scared the crap out of me more times than I can count. I spent the night after reading Pet Semetary with all the lights in my apartment ablaze and still shudder when I see cherubic blond toddlers.

Just read Revival by Mr. King so had to include a picture of this vaguely creepy Bangor church

Is it still called stalking if you don’t meet the subject of the stalk, er, visit? His house is everything I hoped but alas, the King has left the building. Apparently he and Tabitha head south for the winter so I stand for a picture, Stephen King hard cover in hand, with The Dog by my side, smiling a foolish fan smile in front of the house. It was so worth it L-Pooh.

Look Ma, a smiling cruise ship in Bar Harbour

If Bangor is a blue collar town, Bar Harbour is its white collar alter ego. About an hour outside of Bangor, Bar Harbour, or Bah Hahbah to the locals, is upscale quaint. We arrive in town to discover the cruise ship fleet has disgorged its human cargo at the pier. The streets are flooded with LL Bean-wearing tourists, credit cards in hand, snatching up authentic “made in China” Bah Hahbah paraphernalia.

The Hahbah and town are lovely but less attractive when the streets are overrun by tourists shopping for that perfect tacky souvenir. Tourist towns (yes that includes Penticton) exude a kind of sadness when the season ends. It’s like the post New Year’s Eve party clean-up — a great time was had by all, but hey, who put a cigarette butt in the punch bowl.

A selection of seasonal lawn ornaments to spice up the neighbourhood

With home and native land in the rear view mirror, we play that Canadian game of gas price comparison. You know the one, where you look at the posted gas rate and mutter and curse as you convert gallons to litres and U.S. $ to Cdn $ and figure out our southern neighbours pay around sixty cents a litre. Even with the yucky exchange rate (good timing Meanderers) it’s a win win.

The fall colours in all their glory

Leaving the explosion of Maine’s fall colours behind, we head for the Kennedy’s stomping grounds on old Cape Cod. For getting from point A to point B quickly, there is nothing like the mighty interstate highways. Picture the Trans-Canada on steroids, cutting through major centres with ten lane choices and exit and entry ramps spewing traffic on and off.

The picture doesn’t quite capture the circle of hell that is Friday traffic through the Boston area

Now picture the Meanderers pulling their 10,000 pound home through Boston and environs at rush hour on a Friday, the Dude’s white-knuckles gleaming as the Dame provides running commentary on signage and lane changes, while GPS Gertrude’s robotic voice adds 30 minutes to our travel time at regular intervals. To say Boston area traffic is bad is like saying Charlie Sheen enjoys a cocktail or two.

Our route takes us through the centre of Boston, where we wistfully note landmarks in the skyline from a previous visit before plunging into a multi-laned tunnel through which traffic is proceeding at less than a walking pace, mile after dark mile. Please, dear Lord, don’t let there be a terrorist attack now. We emerge from the darkness 45 minutes later, having covered about eight miles, into an endless stream of honking horns, lane-switching, crawling traffic that continues all the way to the Cape.

We know how you feel Tom

Traffic is so bad on the Cape drivers are encouraged to use the break down lanes on the side to bypass traffic and get to their exits. Apparently breaking down is verboten during rush hour.

We arrive in darkness, after a stop at Mickey D’s for sustenance, to find the campground office closed. Luckily we phoned ahead and the thoughtful site managers have taped an envelope on the office door with a gate pass and instructions to get to our site. The Dude is catatonic from the drive, PTDD, post traumatic driving disorder.

A warm welcome and rain slickers await all of the Meanderers in Cape Cod

Now we’ve all heard the tale of Plymouth Rock, the pilgrims cross the ocean, land at the rock and voila America is born. Without them there would be no Black Friday shopping folks. Think about it.

The truth is less romantic. The Pilgrims landed at Provincetown on the tip of the Cape, stayed for about five weeks before finding its swamps and dunes less than hospitable, and headed across the bay for Plymouth.

Drinking and eating lots and lots of oysters, what could possibly go wrong (note the skull & crossbones warning)

Having recently finished a book about the Pilgrims’ journey and subsequent travails, the Dude is eager (for those who know the Dude, mildly interested would be a better choice of words) to visit Provincetown down the road. We have arrived during what is apparently festival weekend on the Cape. An Oyster festival is in progress in Wellfleet, a tiny town of narrow winding streets and lanes, lush gardens and a mix of permanent and “from away” residents. (From away is a term we learn applies to anybody not here for at least two hundred years).

Who knew oysters were so popular. Our campground hostess advises that the little festival started years ago with a few people from town getting together to shuck oysters, drink beer and trade tales about the big one that got away (which would make sense if oysters could actually move, but I digress).

If oysters aren’t your thing, there’s always fried dough, fried scallops, and pretty well anything you can think of….fried

The festival is now the equivalent of a large outdoor concert with foodies from all over Massachusetts and nearby states descending on the area to slurp oysters, wear knitted watch caps and watch competitive oyster shucking on the main stage.
But today it’s all about Provincetown. Sand dunes, dotted with scrubby pine trees, surround the town encroaching on the highway. Get rid of the townsfolk and the sand would take over the town in short order. I think I know why the Pilgrims left for Plymouth.

Sand meets road…Sand wins

On this weekend, women have taken over the town. A lot of women with short hair, sturdy boots and t-shirts emblazoned with city logos. Some travel in packs of five or six but most walk, arms linked, window shopping along the street. We have arrived during Women’s Week, one of the largest lesbian festivals in the USA. The mood is festive and P-Town (as it is called) is bursting at the seams with raucous lesbians bellied up to the bars at every drinking establishment in town, of which there are many. We spend the afternoon perusing the shops before The Dude, intimidated by the estrogen levels, suggests we push on to find a quieter place to eat drink and be merry.

A patriotic ghoul guards the entrance to the bar

Combine Women’s Week and Wellsfleet’s Oyster Festival on a small coastal highway and you have a recipe for traffic gridlock on the Cape’s main thoroughfare. If this is what it’s like in the Fall summer must be a masochist’s wet dream. After quick deke off the highway along country lanes so narrow two vehicles cannot pass, we spot a restaurant and pull our diesel beast into the parking lot.

Provincetown adds a landing strip to the beach

The candy cotton pink exterior and signage advising us we are at a Boulangerie/Bistro do not tell the whole story. The place is packed with festival-goers hoping to avoid the traffic. The owner sniffs haughtily in a French accent when informed we don’ have reservations before scuttling up a tiny table near the bar. The Dude begins to have misgivings even before we open the bistro menu expecting to find café prices. “Tabernac,” is all he can get out when he sees the full-on French menu with the various bits and bobs of animal parts the French love to eat and the accompanying prices, which he immediately begins converting to Canadian money.

Taking pity on the Dude’s glazed look the server brings him a biere and reading glasses before advising us of the fixed prix menu, which is the life preserver the Dude is looking for to avoid melting our credit card or having to head out in the gridlock awaiting us. Sometimes you gotta listen to your inner Pilgrim.

A final farewell to Bangor Maine, the home of Stephen King and aspiring gymnasts from around the world

Next…Nice to meet you, Mr. President

True North strong and free

November 8, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / 1 Comment

A glorious post-snow day in Alberta

We knew that Hell had surely frozen over when we awoke at a St. Albert campsite to six inches of snow after a May blizzard and news that the NDP had defeated the long-reigning provincial Conservatives, a historic first in the province of pickup trucks and baseball caps. A fitting beginning to our long strange trip across ‘the true north strong and free.’

There’s a new sheriff in town

We watched the federal Liberal landslide online on old Cape Cod, an hour’s drive from Provincetown where the Mayflower deposited the Pilgrims on a crisp fall day in 1622. Contrary to the myth, North America’s first European settlers did not step from their boats onto Plymouth Rock but instead moved across the bay to that location after their first landfall at the tip of the Cape proved inhospitable.

One can’t help but wonder what they would make of the continent in the 21st Century. Driving across Canada leaves this traveller with one enduring question. What the hell happened? Or perhaps better stated: How the hell could it have happened?

To call the formation of this nation unlikely goes way beyond understatement. Canada’s existence is nothing short of miraculous, with a huge capital M and ten exclamation points.

The diversity and vastness of its geographical setting is jaw-dropping. No amount of map gazing can prepare one for the experience of driving from the deserts of southern B.C. through spectacular mountain passes and across plains that stretch to infinity on all sides, over the rocky Canadian Shield past lakes too numerous to count before arriving at lakes too huge to contemplate, then alongside a river stretching from the heart of the continent to a basin too wide to see land on the other side.
Considering oneself as a part owner of this huge swath of the globe, and therefore its caretaker, is humbling in the extreme and the responsibility would be overwhelming and frightening were it not for the presence throughout of those who share the burden.

The two solitudes

While a country is defined geographically by its borders, a nation owes its identity to its people. And what a stalwart bunch we Canadians are. Canada is what happens when the world’s risk-takers are bound together under a government that not only allows but encourages their individuality and independence in pursuit of a better life.
And make no mistake, every person who left home and hearth behind for the uncertainty and inevitable hardship of settling in a new place with an uncertain future, and this includes First Nation peoples who came before the rest, is a risk taker of the highest order.

To see their accomplishments, and those of the ancestors who share their bloodline, to witness their cultures flourish and their religions on display in cathedrals, temples and domed churches, was to see the potential of the human race come to fruition in a setting befitting of our ancestors ingenuity, courage and optimism.

From the canals that harnessed the rivers providing water for the orchards and vineyards of the South Okanagan, to the roads through B.C.’s impossibly steep mountain passes, past Alberta’s derricks and gas wells that sustain our energy and the vast wheat farms of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that feed the world, to the transportation hub that became Winnipeg and the canal systems and locks of Ontario and Quebec that linked rivers and lakes to provide the country’s first highway from the Maritime provinces that built the ships and fishing boats, it’s one hell of a sightseeing trip.

What a great country.

Dr. Doom and a fond farewell

November 4, 2015November 4, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / 1 Comment

Clean sheets, water pressure and Movies on Demand, am I in heaven?

You don’t realize how much you miss having space until you haven’t had it for five months. Even the Dog is impressed as he saunters through the lobby of the Future Hotel in Halifax to our first floor room.

Leaving the Grey Ghost in Phil’s hands involved stuffing various clothes and sundries into cloth shopping bags. Suitcases are a moot point when your house travels with you. We bring to mind the Beverly Hillbillies on vacation, dog bed draped over shopping bags with clothes spilling out, as we wheel the luggage rack through the lobby.

Back to Halifax, as least the weather is good

We rationalize the Grey Ghost’s troubles as a mini-vacation from our vacation, a few days in a nice hotel room, sight-seeing around the area and back on the road.
The Dog and I renew our love affair with Point Pleasant Park and The Dude renews his love affair with the poker game at the Halifax casino.

And then Phil called.

Phil is what we’ve come to view as a typical Nova Scotian, friendly, plain-spoken with a gift for the gab, in this case a point by point breakdown on the abysmal state of the underside of our fifth wheel and a less than heartening overview of the state of repair. He’s like a cheerful Dr. Doom, happy to find his opinion of the motorhome industry has been verified. The three days has suddenly turned into a week and even that is tentative.

When in Truro be sure to stock up on underwear, lots of underwear, just ask the Dude

We head for Truro to further explore the Bay of Fundy. The motel is a step down from Halifax, but we invested in a twenty dollar rolling tote bag from Canadian Tire so we can look fancy rolling up to the our room, which is sparkling clean with a typical motel configuration and a door that opens out into a parking lot.

Truro is in mourning for a female police officer recently murdered in Halifax. A memorial in front of the police office affords family members, other officers and members of the public a place to pay their respects. It puts our recent inconvenience in perspective.

The Fundy Tides are the draw in Truro. Tourists are directed to the Salmon River at the edge of town to view the tidal bore that occurs twice a day. It’s like watching a tide come in on a river that has been drained of water. Unfortunately we have come at a time when the tides are at their lowest level. Curses batman!

A hidden gem is Victoria Park. The Dude will confirm the grass in the park is perfect for napping and the other two members of the Meanderers that the park has great trails, two waterfalls and a plethora of butt-busting stairs.

Truro’s Victoria part, this is the flat part before the stairs from hell

Though we don’t know it, our visit to the Minas Basin and the Five Islands area will be historic. A quaint lighthouse sits near the cliff on the basin’s edge, surrounded by fields of wildflowers. The tide is out when we arrive and we spot tiny bumps in the distance on the panorama of red sand. Binoculars reveal the bumps to be ATVs, parked while the drivers/oyster men dig in the sand. The sea arch, a large hole through one of the rock faces that comprise the Five Islands, is a famous area landmark. Er, let me re-frame that, the sea arch was a key landmark. Last week the arch collapsed. Not to worry, I’ve got some of the last pictures of it.

See that hole in the rock, it’s now just a pile of rubble.

Another call from Phil and more bad news, the axles need replacing. After sourcing every parts outlet in his 30-year repertoire, he locates them in Quebec but it will take time to have them shipped.

We’ve worn out our welcome in Truro and decide to head back to Halifax where we book at the Chebucto Inn. The reviews are mostly positive, though the surrounding area is given a less than glowing review. It could be charitably called industrial chic. The rooms are clean, food in the restaurant is good, and the surrounding area is a blend of condos, industry and Tim Horton’s. Have I mentioned that Tim Horton’s is a plague on the restaurant business? They are everywhere, like a donut and coffee-selling version of Walmart.

Halifax downtown, history meets condo hell

The days are spent walking the streets and along the city’s waterfront. I take the opportunity to visit a salon and shop at the Halifax mall as we wait for Phil to call.
When he does call it’s to inform us that despite his explicit instructions and measurements to suppliers, they managed to screw things up. He has to turn down other business while the Grey Ghost takes up his shop space. He’s makes a reference to the Grey Ghost as the trailer from hell.

The Dog is a poser at Pleasant Park

Finally the wait is over and we pick up the Ghost with its new shiny axles, brakes, bearings and assorted paraphernalia, which Phil feels the need to explain in detail. Coffers somewhat depleted, we head for Fundy’s western shoreline, the money shot featured in brochures – New Brunswick’s Hopewell Rocks.

Grey Ghost’s tribulations are forgotten as we watch billions of gallons of seawater cover the sand in a ritual that is as old as the earth, rising 48 feet up the rock faces in the space of a few hours. Back at the almost empty campground, where we are parked on the ocean’s edge, we view a blood red full moon eclipse while sipping Bailey’s and hot chocolate.

Moon gazing on the Bay of Fundy

The lovely languid days of Fall have begun and as promised the east coast is a landscape of burnished red, orange and gold trees. The scenic Okanagan landscape has nothing on this area when it comes to Autumn colours. We spend a couple of days in St. John before finishing up the Canadian portion of our trip in the resort town of St. Andrews. Famous resort area is code for “seriously rich folks summered here”.

One of them was Sir William Van Horne, who oversaw the construction of Canada’s railroad way back when and is among the bearded men in waistcoats in the iconic famous Last Spike picture. Not content with building a railroad from coast to coast he turned his attention to his country estate on Minister’s Island, which is only accessible by road when the tide is out. To get to it we must drive “across the ocean floor.”

The high and low tide warning signs at Cape Enrage between Moncton & St. John

His family summered on the island, travelling from their Montreal home to the island mansion, where they entertained the era’s swells with sumptuous dinners followed by brandy and billiards. A Renaissance man whose landscape paintings decorate the mansion, Van Horne was a successful farmer, growing crops and raising prize-winning livestock on the self-sustaining estate. Or rather, overseeing the people who did the actual work. And he did it all without putting his head to the pillow for more than four hours a night. An antithesis to the Dude, he viewed sleep as a time-wasting bad habit.

What is it with rich guys like Van Horne and their need to mount animals on their mantles, compensating much?

Thanksgiving at the Algonquin hotel was a trip back in time — elaborate table settings, beautifully embossed china, discreet décor, attentive waiters. I have decided yet again that I am meant to be rich. Make it so, Jeeves.

St. John NB great site for Halloween shenanigans

We are eager to begin the U.S. portion of our trip before the weather changes and the exchange rate gets any worse. For a political junkie like me, with our Canadian election season ending and the American one rolling into high gear, this is going to be fun!

Maybe we’ll see Trump or Hillary somewhere during our travels.

Hopewell Rocks, what we call the “real” Bay of Fundy. In a before shot

Hopewell Rocks, an hour later, the tourists who made it up the stairs have quite the tale to tell

Next…Paging Stephen King

The Wheels on the Bus go round and round

October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / Leave a comment

In French, Grand Pre means Big Trouble. Look it up

The intrepid Meanderers continue trail-blazing their way along the coastline of the Bay of Fundy unaware of the horrors ahead.

Hmm, a tad melodramatic perhaps but, hey, it’s how I felt at the time.

The church at Grande Pre in happier times

But first let me step back to happier times. Having left the scallops of Digby behind we wind up the coast to Grand Pre, another (yawn) historic place with ocean side camping, yada yada yada.

After staying at many, many sites we get a vibe, a sixth sense about whether a campground is right for us. Grand Pre wasn’t. The site is crowded with year-rounders, permanent people who build porches and fences and put up hokey signs. I had visions of keg parties until midnight. Not that I haven’t participated in many a last call at the bar but I’ve got the Dude and Dog to think about.

The Dog, is either enjoying the view on the Bay of Fundy or a laugh at our expense

We take a quick side-trip to Grand Pre’s historic Acadian settlement, a miniature version of the Acadian village we saw previously in New Brunswick, a mini-me of history. Post Labour Day weekend, the frantic tourist spots are winding down, and the best part is the half price sales have started in the gift shops.

When I’m down Ducks and red chairs always cheer me up

Walking back out to the Grey Ghost, our first hint of trouble begins. There’s a strange smell in the air, like something’s burning. Fire is a huge concern when you’re pulling your house on wheels. The fire exits are tiny escape windows in the living and bedroom area (one of which you may recall I squeezed through to unlock the door in blog “Musing about Mishaps” in June.)

We check the Ghost inside and out and can find no hint of smoke or fire. We decide to drive for a while and check everything at that point.

Now GPS Gertrude always looking for efficiency has us winding up a secondary highway towards Truro, which we have determined is our new destination. The drive takes us through farm country, large swaths of land with the occasional house to break up the scenery. Not a great place to be if anything goes wrong (cue the melodramatic music).

The Dude and one of our church parking lot helpers trade car stories, guess who’s stories are fake

I have taken on the characteristics of the Dog, opening the window to stick my nose out and sniff the air. What I smell is not good.

We pull into a church parking lot. You will recall that houses of worship are as ubiquitous as McDonald’s out here. Drive through a town with twenty houses you’ll probably find two churches.

We didn’t meet Pastor Rick but the rest of his flock was very helpful to us

They are handy places, even for lapsed Catholics, spots to wheel the Grey Ghost around when you’ve made a wrong turn (thanks Gertrude) and make convenient stops for food, bathroom breaks and stretching. We spot Newport Baptist church, which thanks to Kevin Bacon, brings to mind a ban on dancing. Not to worry, we’re not in a dancing mood.

Lunenberg to Yarmouth NS & touring Yarmouth 136

A rustic bathroom break in the Bay of Fundy area

I get on the phone to CAA but given that it’s late afternoon on Saturday the situation looks grim. Being in bum-tooty Nova Scotia doesn’t bode well for proximity to a repair shop.

Cue the helpful country folk. A fifth wheel at the church is the most exciting thing that’s happened in weeks. Before we can say boiled lobster, three guys materialize from nearby houses to do what guys do best–point, discuss, ponder and point some more, all the while peppering the conversation with mechanical terms that might as well be a foreign language to the Dude, who nods gravely while fighting back tears. One strapping lad crawls under the trailer and advises that our wheel may have locked up, which doesn’t sound good despite his upbeat delivery.

The gentlemen go back to pointing and pondering until one of them advises that a fella they know has a shop close by and proceeds to call him. In fact, they make several calls, all in vain, looking for help.

The Dude’s cynical take on the human race aside, we’ve found along our travels that Canadians are kind. Perfect strangers are willing to go above and beyond to help out someone they’ve never met and will never see again. It renews my faith in mankind, with the exception of the clerk from hell in Quebec City. But I digress.

While waiting for news on the Grey Ghost we stop in Windsor NS, known for a hockey museum and apparently this mural

Luckily a nearby campground has space. The site is essentially in the middle of a field, exposed and surrounded on all sides by the aforementioned year-rounders, but at this point we’d camp in a cow pasture.

Apparently Halloween has come early. Costumed children and adults roam the campsite in what we learn is a final blow-out before people shut up their units for the winter. Given the day we’ve had it seems appropriate.

Third lucky break is the RV repair shop that has left business cards at the campground. The Dude calls and books us in for Tuesday and so our relationship with Phil began.

Phil’s shop is close by and he will wait by the road to guide us in as it is set back from the street. We approach from the wrong direction, miss the entrance and whiz by Phil, continuing along the narrow road until we find a church parking lot to turn around in.

Phil’s full service shop at the end of a long dirt driveway looks even better to us than a church. A compact chatty Nova Scotian with encyclopedic knowledge of RV repair, Phil watches us pull in before calmly advising that we are missing a wheel.

“Must be back there in the ditch,” he says. “Thought it was a deer when I saw the movement in the grass.”

Nova Scotia Bay of Fundy travels & trailer breakdown 008

This doesn’t look good

The Dude and I stand in stunned silence, staring at our wheel-less axle, before the Dude mans up and accompanies Phil a quarter mile back along the driveway in search of Grey Ghost’s missing appendage.

For the next two weeks The Meanderers’ journey will be spent in various hotel and motel rooms from Halifax to Truro and back to Halifax with various side trips sans trailer. The routine includes daily conversations with Phil about his efforts to find parts, have said parts shipped from Quebec, have said parts reshipped when the wrong axles arrive, have said parts welded and welded again when the first weld is measured wrong. By the end the Dude is overheard consoling Phil, who has come to regret answering that first phone call.

Phil may be wishing he had posted this sign when the Meander’s came to call

The Grey Ghost was a challenge even for a man with a 30-year resume in RV repair. He cites manufacturer’s axles not up to the load, points out scored bearings whose scars are mute testimony to shoddy servicing and indicates worn tires that resulted from spindle nuts improperly tightened. At the end of the day, someone was looking out for us. With almost 15,000 kilometers travelled we broke down only minutes away from the one guy in the area who could help us out.

Next…Hello again Halifax and Fun in Fundy

Peggy and George – a love story

October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 / The Meanderers Musings / 2 Comments

A wee Piper on the shores of Peggy’s Cove (not actual life size)

Peggy’s Cove is one of those impossibly photogenic places. You know the type–quaint clapboard houses nestled on the rocky shore, weathered boats snugged up against the dock, colourful buoys and netting lying carelessly on the ground. I picture the townsfolk rising each morning and hurrying to stage the area before the tourists hordes arrive.

Having finished staging the town, the townsfolk scurry back into their twee houses on the Cove

It’s a working town I’m told. All those boats ply the sea for a living. Forget the twee shops with Peggy’s Cove paraphernalia, the folks who live here year-round can’t survive on the tourist trade. They fish and live in tiny little houses heated by heaps of wood you see surrounding most places in Nova Scotia.

As we circumnavigate we run into yet another picturesque village, Yawn…..

Our plan (such as it is) is to circumnavigate the coast of Nova Scotia ending up in The Bay of Fundy, which we know only as the place with those weird rock formations and a tide that rises hundreds of feet each day. (Editor’s note: the Dame is given to wild fits of imagination, Fundy tides average around 46 feet.)

Lunenburg home of the Blue Nose II and a World Unesco historic site

We end up in Lunenburg, which, sorry Peggy, has our vote for the most photogenic town we’ve seen. It’s also on the UNESCO heritage list. (Take that Peggy!) Oh, and it’s home to the Bluenose II, that iconic, multi-sailed wooden racing yacht on the Canuck dime. The original was built and launched from Lunenburg in 1921.

The Blue Nose II former racing ship, working fishing vessel and now tourism magnet

Our first order of business is to hire a carriage to take us around. The town is so old-school they still use horse and buggy. (Editor’s note – the Dame exaggerates, there is one horse and buggy for tourists.)

George has a snack before the unfortunate shovel incident

The problem with horses is they have needs that can’t wait. Our sojourn is delayed as George, our good- natured equine engine, feels the earth move, so to speak, and plops down a steaming mound of recycled hay as our group of six giggles in the carriage behind him. A further delay ensues as our human guide whips out a shovel and black garbage bag to hide the evidence.

Colourful homes are everywhere in Lunenburg, Pepto-Bismol the shade of chose for this former Sea Captain’s home

Load lightened we move on, past former sea captains houses topped with widow’s walks, where fretting wives would gaze out to sea waiting for the ships to come home. George patiently clomps up and down the streets, so used to the route that he automatically stops at a large water barrel placed in case he needs a pick me up.

Lunenburgians take the UNESCO label seriously. Houses in designated areas have plaques that outline the pedigree of the home–who lived there, what they did for a living and the year the house was built. The circa 1700s houses, with their brilliant colours, impeccable trim and window treatments, shamefully look better than the Meanderer’s circa 1980’s abode. The only designation our Kaleden house is getting is least likely to be sold by a drive-by.

Just a random shot of The Dog leaving the pub on a day trip to Mahone Bay NS

Lunenburg golf course beckons from across the Bay. An interesting course if you like hitting balls blindly over hills while waiting for golfers from other tees to hit across your fairway. The one lane track leading to the course makes for an interesting game of chicken on the way to the clubhouse. The views of town across the bay make up for the inconvenience. Oh, and it has a cannon on the course in case we get attacked on the ninth hole.

View from the golf course, for this we can forgive the golf ball dodging fairways

Taking our leave , we head around the coast and make a side trip to Shelburne, settled by British Loyalists after the American Revolution, along with a large contingent of blacks who fled the U.S. in search of a better life Surprise, surprise, the land they were given was sub-standard to that given to white Loyalists.

Unlike Lunenburg, Shelburne has a “down on its heels” feel to it. The historic waterfront is well-kept but almost deserted when we arrive on a sunny weekday. This leads to the inevitable ice-cream stop, because as you know, sunny day equals ice cream. My new favourite is vanilla with salted caramel and licorice swirls with almonds. Shelburne, I think I love you. (Editor’s note – The Dame’s love is fleeting.)

Lunenberg to Shelbourne to Yarmouth NS 044

New word learned in Shelburne – Dory – meaning small, incredibly over-priced boat

Gorged with dairy, we finish the day in Yarmouth, not to be confused with Dartmouth which is across the Bay from Halifax. Yarmouth’s claim to fame is lobster fishing and a ferry to Maine.

Our campground, about 12k outside town, is weekend home to half the population of the surrounding area, and their cousins and in-laws. We are literally the only non-Nova Scotians in the park. They are a friendly bunch, inviting us to join a game of ring toss which appears to involve throwing metal washers into containers and drinking copious amounts of the beverage of your choice. The winner is determined by whoever is standing at the end of the game. (Editor’s note – all participants safely left the playing field after the game)

All that remains from the Wharf Rat Rally is this giant beer can

The Dude’s insatiable appetite for all things scallop, leads us to Digby, self-proclaimed scallop capital of Canada. It’s also the gateway to the Bay of Fundy, of the aforementioned tides of doom.

Rally Rats escape Digby

We arrive at the end of the long weekend and the Wharf Rat Rally, Canada’s answer to Sturgess, a massive mélange of motorcycle enthusiasts billed as Canada’s largest two-wheeled party. Given the number of bikes we passed on our way in, it lived up to its billing. Boomers with expensive topped out Harleys, trikers with grandma on the back, serious bearded riders with sleeve tats, posers with sleek foreign bikes, designer sunglasses and harness boots and biker club wannabee’s, leather jackets emblazoned with logos vaguely hinting at a Sons of Anarchy vibe, roared past on their way back to civilian life.

Digby campground overlooks a peninsula where we get our first look at the impact of the tides here. Every six hours the tide goes out leaving a barren landscape of sand and waterlogged plants. How anything survives in the salt water is amazing.
A day trip down the peninsula to Brier Island gives us a taste of the fickleness of coastal weather. We start out in a mixed bag of cloud and sun and end up at the ferry to the island in a thick pea soup fog and temperature drop of over 10 degrees. Turning tail we head back to Digby.

Wow, somebody’s got some ‘splaining to do

The Dude, who has never met a nap he didn’t like to take, decides to sit out a day trip to Annapolis Royal, which is fine with The Dog, who has never met a car ride he didn’t want to take. Our first leg of the day trip is a photo-op at the Point Prim lighthouse, which in my mind is secondary to the wild rock formations which surround the place.

Bear River where a deck party can turn into a water party real quick

Photos snapped, sniffing and leg-lifting over (for The Dog, to be clear) we head up coast to Annapolis. Of all the cities/towns we’ve visited with military backgrounds, this town has the historic cred. Attacked thirteen times throughout its tumultuous history, it has morphed into a peaceful quaint little town. The remnants of Fort Anne and its earthen walls are all that remains. Oh and the cannons, can’t forget the cannons.

George clops off into the sunset

Next….The real Bay of Fundy and the Incident….

The Meandering Maloneys

A little bit of this and that

Author: The Meanderers Musings

Peabody Ducks

How To Honky-Tonk in 5 easy steps

The Road Not Taken

Y’all Come Back Now…

A Plethora of Presidents

The Dame goes stalking

True North strong and free

Dr. Doom and a fond farewell

The Wheels on the Bus go round and round

Peggy and George – a love story

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