(or something like that …)
A Transport Of Delight in August, 2001 A.D..
Martin Aller-Stead (ABC #5156)
Via Motorcycle from Toronto to some Eastern Reaches of Empire and onwards into Those Excited States for a Rendez-vous with AirHeads.
Put Dear Wife into cab to airport at 06:30. Fond farewell. Waves. Kissy-poo stuff. U fill in blanks.
Fling dog into kennel at 10h00 for 9 daze. Gee … too bad I can’t take 115 lbs. of wonderful black Lab with me.
Finish chores at 11h30 and load bike. Re-load bike when it threatens to topple onto little me. Try to take it off and put back onto centrestand. Consider having tow-truck as chase vehicle. Re-re-load, get rid of all liquids not essential to motor operation. Heave bike onto centrestand with grimace and huge fart. Oh well …
Roll at noon.
Getting out of Toronto is a chore … one light after another, and all I want to do is R-I-D-E. Phooey. Finally make it onto the 401 to Montréal and just listen to 4000 rpm knocking out a loving hum as Metzler meets macadam. The superslab is boring, but the idea here is to get to Québec City as quickly as possible. Gas a few times, as I ride an old R75/6 adorned by a Toaster tank and sidepanels. Makes for style but not distance. (Actually the enforced breaks are good.) Manage to divert around the metropolis by suppertime, but I am losing light to dusk fast. Find-a-campsite time comes with the chirupping of crickets and toad-croaks. Bats whisk overhead.
Camping in Québec is different from other places … most campsites are rented out by the month, or the entire season. But this little place near Ste.-Hyacinthe has one site left, and for tonight it will be rented to a dangerous, bilingual beemer-biker. Can I pay cash? Would I like to go swimming? There’s a dance later, the ringette is not done until 22h00, and …
Sweet Jesus, who loaded this pig anyway? I heave it onto the centrestand, though, and everything holds. Yippee !
The tent goes up for the first time. I have bought this tent a few days ago, with my buddy Roger, at Canadian Tire (a.k.a. "The store Canadian men love to hate"). The tent cost me $19.95, and it, with the $22.00 sleeping bag, and a borrowed ensolite, will be my home every second night for this trip. I’m a GUY … instructions, inschmuctions … finally, it looks like Donald Duck with hemorrhoids. Yikes!
Get instructions out of the trash. Ohhh … this is W-A-Y easier. Now it looks like a tent. Everything fits inside … ensolite, bag, my luggage, leathers jacket, helmet, and I zip up and sleep the sleep of the dead after spending two bits on a shower producing an unenthusiastic dribble. I smell a little oil from hot machinery even in sleep. I dream of tappets. I smile.
I have been an early riser since the time I could only drool and fill diapers.
What on earth can I do in a thoroughly tranquil "Camping" here in bucolic rural Québec at 5 in the friggin’ morning? If I dawdle too much, I’ll drive myself nuts. Yet, if I fire up, everyone will wake.
I goof off until 6, loading slowly and enjoying another 25¢ dribble. Shall I shave, or shall I ‘grow’, as the Navy puts it, for the duration? Old habits die hard … out comes the strop, and the fuzz flies off. Who IS that rugged guy in the mirror? I should do a sit-up.
And … it’s 6 … turn the key and push the tit … Schwartzehund fires up, first lick, and after a moment, I’m off, puttering down the hills I had just walked whilst killing time in the early sunrise mist, reassuring bird-calls in my ears. Ste.-Hyacinthe for breakfast.
Past Québec City the choice is clear … take the old road, hugging the river like the path that so long ago knit the Seigneuries together along this storied water. This is where Canada is an old place … the Iroquois, the fur-traders, settlers, the ‘soeurs du roi’, the firsts of my country … this is where she started. Pride and love come in a tightening of the throat, and watering eyes. I do, truly, love this place. It is in my bones.
What a view.
A little mill, now housing a tantalizing bakery, flicks past. I grab both levers, turn back and park.
Eventually, I must go. Just one more of those excellent scones, and another bottle of water please, Madam. Merci beaucoup.
Rivière-du-Loup appears around a bend. It disappears again, then jumps back into my ken. Back and forth, back and forth, then the old road climbs a steep hill and here I am, dumped into an outlet mall world, with a local tourist kiosk right across the parking lot. There are signs about whale-watching cruises, ‘crosieres ballines’, everywhere. The whales are all astonishingly anthropomorphic, splashing happily, smiling for the camera. Most un-whale-like. I pay for a ticket … 45$, be at the dock at 08h30 … but the first motel phoned panicked when the comely lassie said the client would be up on his motorcycle in a minute. No! Not one of THEM!! Hey, she replied, his money is good. Your loss. The second motel "Au Vieux Fanal", (the ‘Old Beacon’, probably where an early lighthouse used to be), is much happier to take my hard-earned dough.
I have a bountiful view of the St. Lawrence River, my bike is parked right outside the door, and a choice of 5 fine-dining restaurants are all within a kilometer of the motel for dinner. I saunter off after a little wrenching and tightening. Dinner is superb, and I spend much time making wiggle-fingers with the little kids at the next table. 4-year old eyes my savoury blueberry pie, almost drooling. "Entends, mon ami", I tell him. "La vie est court … alors, gôutez le desert en prime!" (Hey my young friend, life is short, so eat dessert first.) He grins, uncertainly. His grand-mere grins indulgently. We chat for a while. Kid eats a huge morsel of said pie. He’s gonna be a big one, that kid …
I pick up my phone messages. There are three from Gail, my dear wife, who jetted off to San Diego so early in the morning. First message was from Chicago and was just an ‘Everything is fine miss you talk to you soon love you’ message. Second message suggested slight frustration ‘I really hoped to talk to you but you must be out walking the dog hope everything is fine I’ll try tomorrow at noon love you TTFN’. The third might be evidence of some control issues ‘Are you not answering the phone because you don’t want to talk to me what is going on I hope everything is all right call me love you miss you’. Hmmm … what to do? I deleted the lot, and sent a message which said "Darling I am not avoiding you but I’m in Rivière-du-Loup getting ready to go watch whales tomorrow so I couldn’t GET your messages I am not avoiding you no no no no not at all what made you think that are we dealing with a conspiracy theory wish you were here the weather is lovely have a good time in San Diego TTFN love from me".
I check for phone messages. Mine has been received. I hold the phone 2 feet from my ear as I listen to the beginning of the reply. Later … she still loves me. Wheee !! Off I go …
Whale-watching from the ‘Chevalier de mer" (the sea-horse) is bracing. We are surrounded by about 60 Beluga whales, puffing and diving, chomping their way through dessert first. Why wait?
A little way off some Minke whales are circling a school of fish, and when the school is sufficiently compacted, the whales back off and rush straight through the seething, roiling mass, mouths open, taking in tons of fish and water. The baleen strains out the water, and a single scoop of the enormous tongue provides breakfast and snack all in one go.
Back ashore and the bike is ready to go. Off to New Brunswick.
This is the main highway through New Brunswick? New Brunswick keeps whingeing about being a poor province, but this road is fabulous, gorgeous. And VERY fast. Well, for everyone else.
Let me talk about speed for a moment. Speed is both absolute and relative. Comparative and emotional. So far this trip, from 40, Columbine Avenue in Toronto to now I have passed exactly one, yep, count ‘em, one, vehicle. It was a Lada. I was exhilarated! I passed something that wasn’t broken or dead on the road!! Or going the other way!!
I am not a fast rider. I do the speed limit (no more than 120), and am the slowest thing on the road except the poor frigging Lada.
One of the best things about being slow (both absolutely and relatively, as well as emotionally) is that one gets to read the road-signs complete, instead of having a vague impression of a green or yellow blurr then wondering why the road just dissolved into dirt or the town you wanted is two parsecs behind you. As I go ‘down’ New Brunswick the signs talk about Hartford, home of the longest covered bridge in the world. It is a one-way effort.
Instructions are to enter when no vehicle can be seen coming towards you, and go through with headlights on high beam. I do. It is eerie, the muffled relaxation of the boxer twin booming through the drum-of-a-bridge. Suddenly I pop out into sunshine again, and a VERY steep hill up and to the right. The thrill is behind me. Schwartzehund leans right and left, taking me up to the top of the steep approach, and a turn to the right takes me back out to the I-passed-the-Lada highway.
Continuing south, I am passed by another vehicle. This one, a rusting brown station wagon, slows slightly as it passes on a long uphill grade. Three Nuns are aboard, and the Sister behind the wheel is hanging on like grim death, willing this Detroit catastrophe to make it. Sister in the passenger seat waves me a Freddie-the-Freeloader hello. The back seat gives me a blessing. I breathe in … blest and giggled at all in one passage. An unusual occurrence. I shift down and putter on up. The breeze is warm. We smile, my old bike and I.
Tonight’s campsite is quite remote and has a lovely view of a river. I pitch camp under a small tree, and the sun descends on me as I saunter down to the river/beach, soap and change of clothes in hand. No one is there, so I strip straight down and lie, Salomé-like in sultry shallows. The sun has been beating down all day on this beach, and the water is tepid-to-warm as it washes the grime and grit off. I complete my toilette watched dourly by a shorebird of some sort, put on a clean shirt and comb my receding locks into submission. The soap floats away down the river.
I sleep immobile and hardly notice the dew coming down, but in the morning everything has to be wiped.
After breakfast I determine that, with luck, I can make the north shore of Cape Breton Island today. But luck does not ride with me, and I spend much of the morning having the bike chug, lose power, then mysteriously revive itself again. Finally it quits altogether. This is both a disaster and convenient. I am next to a birch tree on the side of the road. The birch tree has a telephone booth next to it. I swear. I swear well. I am glad there is no one to hear, as I rip off at volume in 5 languages. It is ultimately unsatisfying, as the bike now starts and I have no inkling why. I decide a phone call is in order.
The BMW dealer listed as nearest is in Halifax. Halifax, for Chrissake!! It may as well be on the moon. I talk to them through gritted teeth, telling them that just nipping in after a quick 5-hour ride is just not on. I am phoning from a birch tree in New Brunswick. They don’t know which birch tree. They can give me no advice over the phone, finally allowing as how they are really a car dealership and have just taken on the motorcycle line. I curse corporate BMW … who is the damnfool who did this to all of us who ride? Some overpaid cretin in sunglasses?
Halifax says that I should contact Adriaan in Moncton. Adriaan used to be a BMW dealer, for 25 years or more, winning all sorts of dealership awards until the domed thinkers in BMW corporateland decided that he wasn’t good for the BMW image. (Hint to corporateland moguls … having people in a fancy-schmancy dealership that flogs your damn cars is no use to anyone who rides. We really DO NOT CARE what the dealership looks like. We care about people and skill, integrity and availability. BMW’s policy fails on all fronts. Booo.)
I call Adriaan and talk to him. He tells me what is wrong and it sounds dead-accurate. I tell him what route I’ll take in to his shop, and he agrees that, if he hasn’t seen me in 4 hours, he will drive the route out and pick me up with a truck. I have to keep the revs down and travel in a top gear. Everything will be all right; Adriaan promises.
It works. He shows me the leaking seal into the points from the motor, explaining how the advance unit has picked up a little oil and flung it around, shorting out the points temporarily. He and his son and their other mechanic work on the bike for 2 hours, putting in new parts, checking all sorts of things and giving me a tune up. Almost free. (Note to BMW corporateland … this is called service. It is what we want. Your dealership could not provide it. Time to swallow your pride and revert to previous way of doing motorcycle business. It works.)
Adriaan inspires confidence and sends me on my way. Anyone who needs help in New Brunswick (or Nova Scotia, or eastern Québec), call him. The man is amazing. 204 Church Street, Moncton, New Brunswick, call 506 / 382 — 0262.
"Say ‘hi’ to Pat at Bavarian for me", he instructs as I chug off into beautiful downtown Moncton. Damn. The time is shot for the foray to Cape Breton Island.
I head for Halifax. Wanda Snow’s ‘Kenora B&B’ in Cole Harbour, outside Dartmouth, is a lovely and welcome respite from the road. It is raining. She lends me her washing machine and dryer. Her husband gives me a beer. The bed is soft. I can park indoors. Sweet bliss.
Well, I am instructed to meet with friends in Peggy’s Cove. Alright, it’s trite, but they actually live there, so it’s not trite, it is home. We chat, sitting on the rocks, watching the waves approach stupid tourists who venture into danger. Obligatory photograph.
We chat in the breeze. People come from all over to see this, then act disappointed because it is very small. There’s not much to Peggy’s Cove except a cove, a few fishing boats, a lighthouse, some spectacular rocks and a whacking great restaurant with long line-ups from the busloads of tourists. It is very freeing, not being a tourist but a friend.
Sue and Rick suggest stopping in Lunenburg on the way to Yarmouth. I have a ferry to catch next morning, heading to Portland, Maine, but for today I am bird-free and head down the road.
Why the United Empire Loyalists ever stayed here is beyond me … I would have slit my wrists and jumped, or just said hang it and gone back. This country is bleak. Not a little bleak … a lot bleak. Small rolling hills of scrubby pine and spruce in thickets everywhere. Lots of rock outcrops. You can’t farm this mess. The wood is tough, nothing is flat; it must have been an apocalyptic vision of 18th. Century hell.
But Lunenburg is truly lovely, a quaint town wearing its UN designation proudly. Bluenose II is moored,
and I buy a sou-wester hat to celebrate. Could Cap’t. Angus Walters have worn one just like this? I hope so …
I am getting itchy feet, and want to just get going. The road calls. Actually, the pot-holes, drizzle and fog call. What a dreadful road! Great chunks are closed to traffic until groups can be escorted through, and there are lots of areas where the surface has been removed and grooves are everywhere. However, I maintain my average of not passing anyone for quite a while, then … oops … omigawd, what is that odour? That rank smell? Them vile tones upon mine delicate palate? Of course … it is pig-poop! I am following a truckload of pigs. They are probably as depressed by the weather as I am. With a shout of triumph (though I am on a BMW), I roar past the pig-truck. It is nauseating. Pink pig parts stick out and either look or sniff. But I am wearing sunglasses, and I have shaved this morning: I am incognito to the poor porkers. Bye-bye, bacon bus. Hello Yarmouth. Beemer is purring along … Adriaan was absolutely right. I think a thankful prayer.
"That’ll be $16.00 sir, payable in advance. Here is the key. Just down the road and at the back, sir. The restaurant is open until 10. Have a good night.
Heavens! Is this the Bates Motel? $16.00??!! Yipes! It is clean, the shower has oodles of hot water and no Hitchcockian shadows. The restaurant next door, the Austrian Inn, serves fish that were in the sea 12 hours ago. It is the best I have had this trip. I linger and am the last one out.
The ferry line starts at about 08h45 but being an overachiever I am there ridiculously early and have to wander around for a while so no one thinks I am just lost or a tourist to be ignored. I leave the bike and go back to Timmy’s for breakfast. (Note to American readers … the Tim Horton’s chain, all over Canada, has a deserved reputation for good, plain home cooking. It is known affectionately as Timmy’s. Try it.) I drink lots and lots of coffee and have a bagel. Wander back to the bike, and a guy has rode up on a bicycle and is eyeing it appreciatively. We chat for a while, but it turns out he is a sky pilot and wants to talk religion so I politely tell him to sod off. He sods.
Other bikers arrive, all on Milwaukee iron with no muffler-baffles. We all chat. The ferry arrives and we are asked to load. The Harleys each start with a tremendous racket. Wife of one Harley pilot near me leans over and asks why my bike won’t start. Do I need to do a run-and-bump? "But it is running", I protest … "it idles at 800 rpm". I rev it for her. She can’t hear a damn thing, but is wide-eyed impressed. Digs hubby in ribs. "Ya hear his bike?" she bawls in his ear. "What?" Repeat. He listens. "Nope." Shakes head. "It’s running", she says. "Neat, huh? No noise." He looks assaulted.
If I ever hear the noise from the speakers of one of those wretched one-armed bandits again it will be too soon. The whole trip on the "Scotia Prince", 11 dreadful hours, elderly folk, mostly women, sit in front of the things, shoving in money, not knowing when to quit. They stare. They clutch. They smoke and mutter. Once in a while someone wins something. No excitement at all. Just grim determination.
The little cabin at the motel is a welcome relief from the slavering gamblers.
The Kancamagus Highway traipses through mountainous New Hampshire and is truly stunning. Twists and turns, short stretches of gunnable straight followed by pretzels. Whoopee! I ride grinning. This is what airheads are truly for.
With lowering skies and some effort, Schwartzehund helped me find the campsite at Branch Brook Campground. Carol Baker was there, the organizer of the "Rumble In the Woods". About 2 hours later my friend Roger from Toronto showed up, and by suppertime we had about 15 Airheads in camp.
Of course we had to ride to dinner. After eating, we rode back. Nothin’ to it, this touring business. Then down to the campfire, and the stories came out. Like a Dickens or Dylan Thomas, the embers share our stories, our fabrications, our worlds as we makes ‘em.
The hosts had to be restrained from putting on too much wood and then, when the fire threatened to gutter, from just dousing the whole pile with a can of kerosene. Eat dessert first, but this is a tad dangerous. We all move back several metres.
And finally, ready for bed. Everyone razzes me about having the smallest tent they have ever seen. I tell them that I actually store everything in the basement, and the tent is just the outward physical manifestation of the great cloud-god ‘Hung" and they shouldn’t worry about me I have oddles of room what makes you think I might be cramped and have to sleep with my knees in my ears? Eh?
Everyone snored.
Get up and go go go to Polly’s Pancake Parlour. Or Palace. Anyway, we rode for 90 minutes to get to fill our collective bellies. Whilst eating, with our bikes all lined up outside like good soldiers, the local Harley riders came riding by and seemed to consider whether or not to stop for a forkful. They got off, looked at our bikes, got back on and roared away.
We later rode to the base of Mount Washington, intending to be the first gaggle o’Beemers to ascend, but were forbidden to go up because of 110
kmh winds. Were we disheartened? NO! Were we discouraged? NO !! However, some people had started to develop saddle sores, so a few went off for more riding, (mostly the local Airheads), a couple of us did repairs in the parking lot, and some just went back to Branch Brook and went swimming.
Then dinner.
By the time we returned for the evening there were over 30 Airhead motorcycles in the camp. /5s, /6s, /7s, a few K bikes, no oilheads and a lone Harley who dropped by (probably for comic relief). All sorts of fairings and a fabulous demonstration of luggage and packing technique, from minimalist to a trailer-hauler. No Saskatchewan matched hand-luggage. (That would be identical cardboard boxes.) Then more stories. More lies.
Carol threatened to open Miss Baker’s School for Wayward Motorcyclists and Naughty Gentlemen. Which she did. In the morning. For Roger! He screamed. He writhed. He giggled. Bad, B-A-D little Roger.
But for tonight, another grand fire, and then sleep in my teeny tiny capacious mansion-tent with the basement. The morning would see the newly-flogged Roger and I leaving early as we had 1000 km to go to get home.
It is always hard to say goodbye … lingering is SO much easier.
Off to the border via I-91 and I-93. I took Roger to the village where I went to school many years ago, and became a church organist, in Stanstead, Québec. I played the organ in the Universalist Church in Derby Line, Vermont, just across the border. We enjoyed brunch in the old Dominion of Canada Customs House, next to the mighty Tomifobia River, and I showed Roger around the school. Then the autoroute into Montréal called, and we stopped next on the west island, near Baie d’urfe, for gas, powerbars and water. And ice cream. And a stretch to rest our sore rear ends, which were beginning to feel like oatmeal.
Finally, a push through to Toronto, with two more stops for gas. Saw one near-fist-fight at a gas stop when one driver insulted another over the quality of turn-signal use. Lots of finger-salutes and FAR too much testosterone.
We ignore all this as we head for home, horses that have the scent of the barn and their place in the world. Quotidian signs flit past us; "Port Hope, Brock Road, Union Road, Kingston Road"; we peel off the super-slab and slip softly down Kingston Road, two loners together, lisping towards hearth and the heart.
Then we were home.
Toronto, 2001
(With thanks to Carol Baker of Deering, New Hampshire and Roger ‘Airhead’ Botting of Toronto for some of the photographs.)