Right Here In River City!

A mother knows when it gets too quiet in the house something's going on.  I suppose it's just the same here at Rancho Notorious...

Where's Daniel?  Surely he's not still on the road.  We've heard he's back in town, so to speak---so perhaps he's just stuck on recollecting a day that fails to excite him.  Perhaps he's distracted by more current events---weddings, gardens---deer that need their ass kicked.

No, no---it's just that hobby I wrote about in the past---the one under the title V is for Very Interesting, But Stupid.  It's all that handsome Realtor's fault---the one with the delicious little ears.  He kept calling my husband, luring us on with one wanton listing after another.  Finally the combination seemed right, and we fell for the siren call of full frontal riverside living.

Looking south from our dock

I have long questioned the meaning of forever.  It is at best a spiritual term, for everything around us is forever forming new relationships.  At this very moment the minutest of matter is sloughing off and shacking up elsewhere.  Just take a look under my chair. We rewrite history to suit our needs.  Then we look back again---wisely or foolishly, but usually with a strange, visceral fondness---and rewrite history once more.

A house is not quite a marriage, but it does have its ongoing affairs with repairmen.  Even a house designed by yours truly is an island in time, drifting at a different speed from what we call reality.  My eldest aunt can't believe I can leave my "little jewel box" behind, but then she admires the unabashedly thick old growth board and batten cedar siding on the house we're purchasing.  But to tell you the truth we'd need to spend more money to anchor our Rancho Notorious away from the shoals of what we perceive as diminishing returns---and we decided we might as well spend our money elsewhere.

The view from the dining/living room.  The wall beyond the lovely ceiling fan will be removed and replaced with a four foot tall cabinet to further open up the view and make the kitchen less isolated

Nothing's perfect.  We're switching out fire for floods, but since the former is always the more common and destructive threat in California, I'll take plenty of water, thank you.  Being on some half acre of ag land in the heart of River City, we even have the right to pump water directly from the river.  The sloughing of Mother Nature has left behind top soil thirty feet deep, and a deer was last seen in the vicinity some hundred years ago.  It's a gardener's paradise---unless I discover that the tree squirrels are suburbanized delinquents that devour every bud and blossom in sight.  The pecan tree is suspiciously lacking in nuts, but at this point we'll blame the lack of a pollinator.

The house is far less glamorous than the one I reviewed earlier this year, but for what it lacks in the detritus left behind by 'gay hoarders' it makes up for in what I call foreclosure madness: the propensity for superfluous flash and trash over serious repair.  The nearly flat roof leaks and the 1958 aluminum windows are as brazenly ineffective as Jayne Mansfield pouring out of her cocktail dress.  Still, we're getting it for less than half of what it sold for last time---and its 'real' value, once the house and grounds are restored to my whimsical if not entirely good taste, falls somewhere in between.  My artistic mind has devised light fixtures made of vintage ColorFlyte Melmac for the kitchen....

What would June Cleaver do?  Who cares?  Let's paint over the Millennial grays with chocolate brown made gay with bright red windows and soften that relentlessly long eave with climbing Rosa gigantea hybrids!

We're fortunate in that we don't have to immediately sell our Rancho Notorious in order to pull this off.  My husband would not have it any other way.  There are projects to finish at the ranch before it can be put on the market anyway.  We can grin and bear the twin expenses of roof repair and quality windows at this house before winter comes, and then focus on making the ranch as charming as possible for the New Year of Selling.

You can be assured of many more adventures in home rejuvenation in the years to come.

A Conspicious Lack of Industry

Tuesday, 16th April 2013

Map: Webster, New York to Sandusky, Ohio---342 miles

We breakfasted a la business class at the Hampton Inn---rubbing elbows with the suits, chatted up by the relentlessly cheerful staff.  We stood out in boots and plaids, and upon hearing of our journey one of the skirts behind the counter was ready to join us.

The first forty miles of the day was via Interstate 390 to Geneseo, New York.  Golden morning light made the rolling countryside attractive but left a stranger unprepared for the view driving into town on US 20A.  Cresting a low ridge, we suddenly came upon a long view dropping like steps over the farmland to the west.  It was very clear, and it seemed if it was just a bit clearer we would have been able to see all the way to Lake Erie, about sixty miles away.

Geneseo is a charming little university town threatened by its exurban status to Rochester.  It does seem to be striking a balance, though---with projects like the restoration of a beautiful old high school for university use.

West of Leichester we turned southwest on Highway 39, driving through rich farmlands to Castile.  The sky was rapidly darkening as we climbed a bit towards Bliss, where the countryside again broke out into a beautiful step down view.  Huge wind generators spun below gray violet clouds.  A large sign at someone's farm screamed NO FRACKING WAY.  Fracking is particularly contentious in New York state, where it's not allowed---while many farmers are reaping huge profits from it in Pennsylvania.

As we dropped down to Arcade, I tuned onto Radio Zoomer---CFZM 740---courtesy of the amplifying effects of Lake Ontario some 75 miles to the north.  Lake Erie would have the same effect on the signal, allowing us to easily listen in at up to 200 miles west from the transmitter---almost to Cleveland.

Spanish blue bells

I must admit I've lost the location of the following two photographs.  Nothing definite comes from studying Google maps, which has already saved me several times, but it's safe to assume this town was somewhere between Springville or Gowanda---although I'm not promising it's Collins.  At any rate, the Spanish blue bells in the lawns around town were fantastic, and the first sign of spring we had seen in four days. I was also duly surprised to see a rainbow flag flying off someone's porch, for the town seemed inhabited predominately by senior citizens.

A darker blue form of Spanish blue bells.

We dropped down into Gowanda, zigzagging through town and then along a charming Main Street.  It looked a lot like a movie set, and indeed it was used for the Steve Martin vehicle Plane, Trains and Automobiles (1987).  Less charming was a peculiar odor to the general area---like something less than wholesome cooking.  We never saw the source of it.

After pausing in the bustling city of Fredonia, we took a beeline side road under the New York Thruway and out to Lake Erie.  A light rain was falling now, draping the landscape with a dreary veil.  Still it was interesting for the thousands of acres of grapes, something a Westerner doesn't expect to see in New York state.  Wineries waited impatiently for the tourist season.

Looking east of the harbor at Barcelona, New York.

I served off and down to the tiny harbor just below Highway 5 at incongruously named Barcelona, New York.  Not that it isn't a charming little village, but it could never stand in for Spain.  Looking east, we could see waterfalls dropping into the lake.  On a clear day it must be a beautiful sight, but the weather didn't dampen our enjoyment of the scenery much.

We drove right through Erie, Pennsylvania on their Bayfront Parkway---through a waterfront redeveloped for pleasure instead of industry.  It's very attractive but feels removed from the city just above the bluff.  The parkway shifted back up into the city and then made it's way westerly through decades of suburbia and then exurbia on Lake Drive.  Lake Erie was never in sight, but the little farms and crossroads were attractive.

The lake came into view again at Conneaut, Ohio as we drove down Broad Street and right down to the little harbor.  The town had a sleepy, off-season charm---a far away feeling that I'm not sure would survive the warmer months.

Glimpses of the water, estates and parks passed by as we continued west on Ohio 531 through Astubula to Geneva-on-the-Lake, the latter a place to avoid at all costs during the warmer months.  On this cool overcast day it appeared to be an empty carnival---tidy and expectant.  Old trailer courts with vintage trailers vied for my attention midst the rental cottages.  Everything had the look of a long held tradition, largely ungentrified.  It's a prospective long gone way out West, where speculation and rapid expansion have no patience for such settings.  I'm glad I got to see it---on that day, not in high season.

We had to head inland to old US 20 at this point, and then west again towards Cleveland.  Old motels and half-forgotten crossroads made it an interesting drive, and I had long forgotten any worry of heading straight to the waterfronts of these big old cities.  After connecting to the old Lakeland Freeway and driving through a stretch of somewhat seedy old blue collar neighborhoods, the cityscape opened up again to a revitalized waterfront, clean and breezy.  All the factories were gone, with their attendant grit and grime, and the scene was expectant, proud.  Perhaps there's reason to be, but if this was an equitable world there would have been a compromise for the environment and our economy.  Fundamental goods like steel can be manufactured with less impact locally and globally rather than simply drawing a curtain over the poisoning process by moving it half way around the world.

Once past Edgewater Park, we connected onto Clifton Boulevard---very much a pleasant surprise.  Designed in a grand style some 120 years ago, it still moves six lanes of traffic along nicely midst wide tree shaded medians.  Upper middle class homes and apartments in Beaux Arts, Tudor and associated styles lined the way like dowager duchesses---maintaining their distance from the rush with quiet dignity.  They wore a patina of consistent maintenance instead of a new-found glory.  Children walked home from school, the youngest accompanied by both men or women.  It was an uplifting scene.

The boulevard narrows into Lake Road, lined with lakefront estates both old and new.  Occasionally a more modest house appeared, allowing the peek of the lake from around their small dimensions.  One, well maintained but giving off the air of despondency, was for sale---and I wondered how much it was worth, and how little the house would be valued in comparison to some McMansion.  The view from the street would be filled in someday soon.

There's a gradual shift as US 6 continues towards Lorain.  The estates are left behind, and then the twee small town feel of Avon Lake falls away to the dead end feel of old blue collar neighborhoods.  I know the name Lorain from circa 1930 ads for gas ranges---in particular, the Lorain automatic oven temperature control, which took the guesswork out of baking.  I looked around as we drove along, wondering where that factory was, but all there was to see were the largely lookalike houses and an occasional electric plant that lorded over all like face brick castles.  Major cross streets were empty of both commerce and traffic, but the town looked clean and respectable along Erie Avenue.

We checked into Knight's Inn on Cleveland Road on the outskirts of Sandusky---a motel with a common Google complaint of being noisy, but being off-season I assumed that would not be a problem.  Aside of the busy train tracks across Cleveland Road it wasn't, but the motel had a palatable spiritual vibration---a residue of running, thumping and splashing way into the summer nights, peaking at around midnight, when the Cedar Point amusement park would likely close.  It was easy to tune out, though---and the dirt cheap room was clean.

Rear of condemned fitted native stone block building, Sandusky OH

Driving on into Sandusky is interesting only for the plethora of dubious tourist attractions that vie for Cedar Point's traffic.  Gray sky met gray asphalt---yet that was more comforting than the aspect of a hot and humid summer's day.  Eventually this is passed by for old blue collar neighborhoods and a downtown trying to maintain its dignity, with fair results.  The waterfront, stripped of manufacturing, eeks out a living via ferry traffic, pleasure boats and fishing.

We came down to the waterfront to eat dinner at a fish joint recommended on Roadfood---The New Sandusky Fish Company.  It turned out to be as much a fish market as a fish fry place, providing a minimum of seating and ambiance.  That usually portends great food, but first we had to figure out what we wanted from the limited menu.  The man behind the counter bore a striking resemblance to my dead friend, right down to his plush beard and an expression as if I was trying to pull something off and not succeeding.  He looked over at my husband and then back at me.

"You can't grow whiskers like he can, can you?" he finally asked, his tone knowing but friendly.

I was taken aback, because my mustache is always ignored---I presume because most people don't say anything at all if they can't say something nice, let alone that it grows in the shadow of my husband's publicly revered, luxuriant handlebar.

"No-o," I finally replied, touching my throat.  It was a cool day, and my shirt wasn't unbuttoned enough to show my hairy chest. 

"My dad's the same way," he smiled---taking my no as an affirmative.  "He can go without a shave for a week and his face just looks dirty."

I smiled wanly, realizing that there was no gaydar going on---only a mirror image of his familial situation.  No use explaining that my beard is just has thick as his, although I was tempted to say Well, you ought to see my back hair!

Cedar Point from Sandusky's waterfront

We shared a combination dinner of perch and walleye out on a picnic table under occasional raindrops.  The fish was good, but not extraordinary.  As I ate, I recalled deliciously fresh and succulent white fish in Mackinaw City, Michigan.

Calling Gloria

Sometimes a vintage radio appears on eBay that's an obscure little gem.  The obscurity may start right from a poorly thought out title, in this case: Vintage Deco Tube Wood Table Radio.  That narrows it down to about twelve hundred radios at any one time.  Like a chorus girl, she's lost in the lineup.  She's got to have a name.

Calling Gloria.

Her face is familiar.  As far I know only one company had dial like that, and that was Remler Radio of San Francisco.  But her name is Gloria---or so she claims, with a brass-plated accent.  She was once pretty, but her birds-eye maple complexion shows the ravages of time.  A highly qualified makeup man can fix that, if she has redeeming qualities.

Turn around, dearie.

Nice rear.  Oh, nothing special, really---just a four tube tuned radio frequency circuit with transformer.  But nice because she wears her union card proudly: Bruner's Radio Service, Santa Rosa, California.  At first I thought of Bruener's---a San Francisco furniture store that was established way back during the Gold Rush and became a phenomenon of sorts, with stores all over the Bay Area---but then I notice the different spelling.  So Gloria isn't quite the department store 'house brand' I imagined---although still a rebadging of a Remler radio.

Another nice touch: Gloria is date stamped---February 1[-], 1937.  Sure she's fresh, but we're more interested in keeping track of her.  Let's pencil in 1937, since it smudged when stamped.  Dating would not interest Remler or any other radio manufacturer; that's what serial numbers are for.  This was likely done by a Bruner's clerk the day Gloria was sold so to keep track of her warranty.

Here's a mild shock: While Bruener's Furniture sank into bankruptcy in 2004, Bruner's Radio Service is still alive and well in Santa Rosa---although now dealing more with two-way communications than consumer electronics.  I'm having a suggestion of deja-vu, a recollection of considering Bruner's for radio restoration when I lived in San Francsico some twenty-two years ago.

Gloria's starting price was right---twenty bucks.  She might have flown under the radar and out the door for that, but I restrained myself.  After all, I have to control myself from excess collecting by insisting that my California brand radios have the stations printed on the dial, and Remler didn't feature that until some time later.  I was a bit surprised when she caught on and climbed into the sixty dollar range.  Did the local history catch someone's attention---even Bruner's attention?  Gloria flew the coop for $92.78---surely making the seller happy.

Rude Reentry

Monday, 15th April 2013

Map: Saint-Zotique, Quebec to Webster, New York---264 miles

Dawn at Saint-Zotique, Quebec

A ruddy winter's dawning glowed through the unshaded windows of our fifty dollar once DeLuxe room at the Motel Rive du Lac.  I got up and went into the dingy kitchenette and inspected the stained Mr. Coffee before brewing a pot.  I handed a cup to my husband still in bed, and we sat and watched the colors warm and the waterfowl troll for breakfast.  Eventually the sun peeked over, and an orange glow spread westward over the dock.  I ran out in my nightshirt to photograph the scene and then darted back in, thankful that the heat had finally dropped out of space above the suspended ceiling and warmed our room.

Sunrise at the dock on the Fleuve St. Laurent.

The water was hot and shaving with the light behind me wasn't as annoying as I expected.  We packed Patsy Prius and headed out, passing a number of cars parked in front of the lesser rooms.  I wondered about their condition, and the price the guests had paid for them.

We planned to drive for awhile and then stop for breakfast, but not atypically we drove a lot farther than we expected before we found a cafe to stop at.  The border with Ontario was quickly reached, and then the mailboxes along Highway 138 slowly switched from French to English names.  Lancaster seemed as likely a place as any to find a meal, but despite a rather busy early morning appearance we saw nothing open at that hour.

The view from Summerstown, Ontario

Highway 138 returned to the edge of the St. Lawerence, swaying by retirement and summer homes.  The restaurants were still closed for the season in Summerstown, but the views were pleasing.  The water was so clear you could see the rocks on the bottom, and the lavender gray light painted the land and waterscape a nostalgic, bittersweet shade.

The name of the highway changes to Montreal Road as one nears Cornwall, so it was not surprising when we found ourselves in a neighborhood reminiscent of the French-infused cities in the state of Maine.  Twenty-four percent of the city's population claim French as their first language, although the commercial signage rarely reflects that.  It's a very bilingual way of life, where the public tongue is English and the private is French.

Prom Dresses: Babydoll drag or future mother-in-law's Dreamcicle chiffon.

My husband pointed out the King George Restaurant, a venerable eatery with its name awkwardly spelled out in gold face-brick, but I drove on---looking for something more interesting.  We never found it, but enjoyed circling back around and looking at the many old concrete block homes along the way.  The food at the King George was satisfactory but unmemorable, the view amusing from our booth.  We spent most of the meal commenting on the tacky dress shop across the street.

Unbeknown to us, the landscape west of Cornwall and continuing for some thirty miles to Iroquois was greatly altered by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958---but I did notice the whole stretch looks like a tidy, well planned rural roadside commercial and residential district, circa 1960.  Towns were wholly or partially submerged by the project, and relocation efforts were conducted by an international design competition.  Historic buildings were moved to a site called Upper Canada Village, a living museum.  Now the consolidated villages of South Dundas has a museum quality themselves---removed from through traffic by the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway to the north, they sleep until summer.  In the 1990s Ontario removed the provincial highway designation from the main road we drove on, providing an even deeper sense of isolation to the the low forest and islands.

The ubiquitous McIntosh apple was discovered in 1811 at nearby Williamsburg, Ontario---growing midst a thicket of second growth forest at an old farm.

The Iroquois Locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway

At Iroquois my husband wanted to detour to see one of the seaway locks on Harkness Island.  An adjacent park and huge parking lot suggested it was once a popular tourist stop, but the rough asphalt and the fact that the gift shop was for sale indicate it is now low on the scale of interest.  We stood there for awhile, I recalling learning about the Erie Canal and St. Lawrence Seaway in high school---wondering if that kind of history of commerce and transportation is even covered anymore.  Nothing happened while we were there---I suppose that shipping also has a season, just like tourists.

The countryside returns to a full sense of history west of Iroquois.  Old farms nestle close to mid century modern homes along the St. Lawrence, and the towns of Cardinal and Prescott seem livelier. Perhaps this is because they're close to Brockville, an old and long upscale city once home to lumber and transportation titans.  Driving into town, the St. Lawerence is lined with magnificent old homes---turrets putting on airs in a reception line.

The dowager queens of Brockville, Ontario

Brockville was also our last chance to visit Canada's top tourist destination, Bulk Barn.  Since Patsy Prius's GPS is largely indifferent in Canada, we had to stop and ask a woman at a gas station for directions.  My studies of the store locator map that morning proved helpful---we were only a block away from the store.  Being that we were now in a British-esque province, I could find those delicious wine gums in the candy section---as well as other curious items, such as coconut flour.  However, I'd soon be lamenting the fact that I didn't buy enough of their high quality flavored black teas.

We were so intrigued by the glacially groomed, granite studded landscape on the old highway west of Brockville that we failed to see the short and easy connection back to the freeway and the border crossing into New York.  So with irritation as the waste of time and the trepidation of impending annoyances, we continued almost to Ganonoque before making the connection and then headed back to the Thousand Islands port of entry.  This border crossing is very touristy---a plus at that time of the year, since there are no tourists.  Only one car was ahead of us, and they soon passed through.  Of course this meant the agent would be on the rather bored side and may pull out all the stops on interrogation.  Our passports were handed over, our relationship lied about.  One is never sure how to answer that question when your country doesn't recognize your marriage but your state does; however an agent has never countered our assertion of being friends, either.  I'm under no delusion of privacy.  Someone that spends more time looking at a computer screen than your face has much more information on you could ever give him off your cuff.  He typed and read a little more and then said:

"So you're telling me that you drove all the way across the country just to spend two days and nights in Quebec..."

If I was in the driver's seat I would have given him a Zsa Zsa Gabor bitch slap, but I only glared off into space as my husband once again went into even more details of who we visited along the way.  This kind of government mandated insolence is just disgusting.  If I was trained for violence, do you think I'd crumble under such obvious machinations?  Eventually he and/or the computer was satisfied, and he handed back our passports and lifted the gate.

"Welcome home," he said a bit too cheerily.

Oh, fuck off.

My husband drove on for another grumpy twenty miles through the most unwelcoming part of upstate New York.  The farms along New York 180 have gone feral; the old homes imploding and the mobile homes exploding from either social or chemical disaster.  Tourist services were weed choked.  It was a shock after being in Canada for several days, where the countryside always displays a veneer of respectability, if not good taste.

We switched drivers down at the old mill stream in La Fargeville and continued south southwest through an improving landscape on New York 3 and 104.  Unfortunately there's no through roads along or very near the shores of Lake Ontario, and there's a distinct feeling of missing out on something when the lake is occasionally seen from afar.

At Webster we splurged on accommodations at the Hampton Inn---mainly because there was nothing cheaper that didn't have a bad reputation.  I find this kind of generic luxury interesting---I can see the appeal of the predictability of it all, and at the same time how it isolates the guest even more from the community they're staying in.  It would be easy to stay in such places every night and drive the Interstates all day and have nothing to say for yourself except that you slept very well.  Which, of course, we did.

We had family diversions on my husband's side in Webster, though---nieces and nephews grand and otherwise, not to mention their better halves---half of whom I only had acquaintance with via Facebook.  We met at one's rented farmhouse---a virtual time capsule of a post war remodel of a circa 1900 house, save for some Carol Brady wallpaper in the kitchen.  Via my postings on Facebook they knew I'd be enthralled and chatty about the details---right down to the wall tile in the bathroom, which I declared looked like the advanced stages of colitis.  The ceiling was ultra-coved into a tunnel effect and covered with gray subway tile---essentially giving the feeling of going under the Hudson or walking into some Automat shrine.  The basement was a maze of storage and somewhat sinister prep areas for the turkey operation the farm once was.

Nieces and nephews---grand and otherwise---and their significant others.

We carried on our revelry and frank observations down the street to the local Red Robin, where I considered a cocktail but settled for caffeine.  It was a thankfully quiet night there, so we could hear one another and mostly just disturb the staff.   Our ginormous fresh salads pleased both me and my husband---he so much so that he thought it was a worthy stop four days later.

But that's another story.

Do You See What I See?

Last Monday my husband had cataract surgery.  It's his second time around, so he knew what to expect and wasn't all that nervous.  Still, in medical situations more than anywhere else he points out to anyone within earshot that I'm his husband.  The results have run the gamut of a rude Yeah, I know and then pointedly ignoring me (in return we filed a complaint and nixed that nurse practioner from any further contact with us) to Together fifteen years?  You could show us straight folks a thing or two.

When the post-op nurse came to retrieve me from the waiting room, I could tell she was at ease with the relationship.  Still, she was a woman of a certain age and accustomed to the traditions of marriage---which apparently includes a similar age among the two parties involved.

We were walking down past the numerous patients recovering in their curtained surroundings when she asked me: "Have you had cataract surgery?

I glanced over at her, my gray-blue eyes surely flashing just a little.  "No."

"Oh."

It was, of course, only her way to make her small talk seem both professional and personal, but I considered what she saw in me---perhaps a sexy sixty-something, but the question merely made me feel a fugly forty-five. 

For once my husband looked his age and a bit groggy.  He lay there listening to the nurse delineate all the dos and don'ts---a list she surely mumbles in her sleep, although her delivery at that moment was again striking that balance between professional and personal.

"Okay, then," she announced.  "You're free to go."

We all held our breath for a moment, not quite knowing what to expect from one another.  My husband slipped from the gurney and though steady enough his body language expressed an uncertainty.  Subconsciously I heard something---was it the nurse, saying take his hand---and so I did.  Hand holding comes naturally to some couples, and it's certainly lauded between men and women, but since it's not publicly permitted for us, it isn't a habit of ours outside the gayest of ghettos.

So there I was, gently holding my husband's hand as we paraded past the patients.  From their blurry perspective I was merely a good son, holding Daddy's hand, while the nurse walked ahead us, casting glances back at the married men following her.  I was starting to have an identity crisis.

The nurse smiled up at me when we reached the door:  "Perhaps we'll soon see you too for cataract surgery."

My husband snorted and I gave her a bristly smile back.  "I don't think so.  My vision is still nearly twenty-twenty."

"Oh.  Well, aren't you lucky."

Somewhere in the back of my head I could hear myself screaming at her I'm only forty-five years old, but my tight, upturned lips kept my thoughts to myself.

"Then I guess we won't see you two again," she continued as she opened the door.

We thanked her and turned to our audience looking back at us from the waiting room.  I dropped my husband's hand.  With a soft slap it hit his jeans, a signal to move forward.

Snow and Sun in Quebec

Sunday, 14th April 2013

Map: Quebec City to Saint-Zotique, Quebec---246 miles

It had snowed again overnight in Quebec City, but since it was a couple of degrees Celsius it was not sticking to the pavement or sidewalks.  West southwest at Montreal it was already partly sunny, so we didn't expect to have problems driving in that direction.  And we didn't---although it was a bit dicey after we got of Autoroute Felix Leclerc and drove into Saint-Augustin on Quebec 138.  It was snowing heavily there, and had been doing so for quite some time, judging by the slushy highway---but Patsy slogged on through without mishap.  The snow soon stopped falling after that, and for a couple of hours thereafter it was merely a dreary winter's morning.  We drove in the opposite direction when Patsy was new some nine years ago, but since that was a late May day and the road was clogged with convertibles and motorcyclists enjoying a warm weekend it was hard to match up anything from that day.  The naked trees and flat gray light made it a different place.

I did recall at Donnacona that last time I had missed the turn for the old alignment through the heart of the city, so I made the point of taking it this time.  It was so dark that some of the street lights were on, and a few people moved about for coffee and donuts before church.  I didn't make it through the most interesting part of town though, as the bridge over the Jacques-Cartier River was closed for renovation.  We had to wander through tacky 1960s-70s residential streets to again connect to Quebec 138.  Donnacona was once a thriving pulp mill down, so these homes reflected the middle-class aspirations of the time with designs more often reserved in America for dentist offices or similar professions.  Think of wood siding on the diagonal and soaring roof lines with clerestory windows, or glittering panels of crushed white offset with pink or aqua siding.

Eglise de Saint-Francois-Xavier at Bastican, Quebec

Gradually the gray lifted over the fallow fields and murky Fleuve St-Laurent, rising higher and higher until the sun burned through from time to time.  I stopped to catch the silver sun shining off the typically silver steeple of the Église de Saint-François-Xavier at Bastican.  By the time we reached La Pointe-du-Lac, there were patches of blue to match a cheerfully purple Quebecois cottage.

Atypical color for a typical Quebecois cottage.

From La Pointe-du-Lac we could see a cold copper peak on the horizon along the St-Laurent, evidently a cathedral with a very broad skirt around it, like a witch's hat.  As we rolled into Cap-de-la-Madeleine we could see it peeking around houses and trees, so it was obviously a worthwhile detour.  Up close Sanctuaire Notre-Dame-du-Cap is a stupendous basilica in the round---and although officially Norman-Gothic in style, it also displays liberal applications of Gothic Moderne and Mid-Century Modern.  It's theatrical to the point of being campy---otherworldly enough to stand in, with appropriate props, as a Siamese temple.  When consecrated in 1964, it must have symbolized the advancement of the Catholic Church into the Brave New World---a world it has since retreated from.  Compared to the latter-day jail-like Our Lady of Angels in Los Angeles, Our Lady of the Cape is an exuberant celebration in trying something new.  Since Sunday mass was in progress, we didn't see the interior---which photographs as properly solemn yet grand.

Would Cecil B. DeMille approve? (Google Image)

It was all an escape from the gluey stench of pulp mills and chock-a-block brick tenements that more or less remain to this day.  We wandered through these, trying to connect to Autoroute Felix Leclec to make some time west through Trois-Rivières.  We continued for forty miles through more fallow fields and naked, stunted forest---all made duller by the lack of something humanly quaint or crappy to focus on.  Studying the motorists passing us by on the left and the sky were the only forms of entertainment---blue billowing gray and white.

We exited at Berthierville onto Quebec 158 and headed south and west across the prairie to Joliette.  Farms and their upturned bathtub shrines for Mary provided interest, as well as my perverse need to drive into the center of cities to see what there is to see.  At Saint-Lin–Laurentides I didn't even have to go astray, as there was no other way to proceed except through the heart of the scrappy old town.  We sat in post-church services traffic, witnessing some very unchristian like behavior.

A few miles before Saint-Lin–Laurentides we passed a syrup house restaurant Des Erablière Aux Rithmes (The Seasons of the Maples), also very popular with the church crowd despite a rather disreputable road house look.  We considered stopping for lunch, but it was so crowded we drove on and eventually settled for a pedestrian meal at Subway in St. Jerome.  My husband said he had a hard time recalling all the names for vegetables for the making of our vegetarian sandwiches---and the slightly slangy, indistinct French spoken by the teenagers was sometimes confusing.  In retrospect, I wish we had braved the crowd and had a more interesting dining experience.

The ProLite Eco twelve foot trailer.

St. Jerome appeared to be still under the affects of a hard winter, as mountains of dirty snow filled vacant corners on the gritty south side of town where we had stopped.  We drove through downtown, which was marginally nicer, and then out to the light industry area just west of the Autoroute des Laurentides to visit the Roulette's Pro-Lite trailer factory.  Their little showroom was packed with folk putting a down payment on springtime---it was not the quiet scene we were expecting.  We waited for the salesman my husband preferred---perhaps he was picking up on some homophobia from the other, but in a crowded room resonating with a different language I was pretty much shut down and just tried to stay out of the way.  We noted the improvements on our favorite 750 pound model over the one we saw last fall in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, mainly sleek frameless windows and LED lighting.  Eventually the preferred salesman was available---very pleasant and smooth, and segueing between French and English effortlessly.  Of course he complimented my husband's French, and without fuss jotted down the prices on their little glossy catalog and gave it to us.  Twelve thousand dollars, minus a couple hundred at the current exchange rate.  We could take five similar month long road trips like the one we were on at that moment for the same price. In spite of all the driving/travel we do, we'd be hard pressed to really get our money's worth out of a new trailer.  If we bought at all, we'd follow the suggestion of the salesman and go for the occasional trade in.

We spent the next hour and a half traversing the autoroutes in and out of Montreal sprawl and out towards Sallyberry-de-Valleyfield---only to hastily exit when we realized the freeway bridge over a section of the St. Laurent had a toll.  We made our way down to the old bridge and crossed directly into suburbia and Canada's greatest tourist attraction: Bulk Barn.  Long a cultural icon in Ontario, it has only recently moved into the Far West (British Columbia) and its closest neighbor, Quebec.  We have found that the stock varies from store to store---here they presumed Quebecois would not be interested in British Wine Gums, that delicious not too sweet confection akin to Gummi Bears.  Oh well, we'd just have to stop at the Bulk Barn in Cornwall, Ontario the next day.  Meanwhile there was quality bulk teas to stock up on, different cocoas---coconut flour, hmm---something interesting to bake with.  The cashier was a teenage girl with an OMG attitude and high-pitched voice my husband could not understand.  Being a new store and new on the job, she sent the store's pretty boy off  a couple of times to find the price code on several items.

We retraced our route, crossing back over the St. Laurent on Boulevard Monseigneur Langlois and then west on Quebec 338 to Saint-Zotique.  Our bargain basement Priceline room for the night was at the riverfront Motel Rive du Lac, a rather shabby looking midcentury modern building of glittering granite blocks.

"How did we get this room for fifty bucks?" I asked my husband as he directed me to drive right up to the water.

I opened the door to our once DeLuxe waterfront apartment and immediately saw why it was only fifty bucks.  The new goldenrod paint did not hide the fact that these were distressed accommodations furnished with thrift shop furniture.  At least it was reasonably clean and the mattress comfortable.  The battered kitchenette was overstocked with garage sale items, the bathroom sink had no mirror over it---one had to turn around to shave in front of a mirror on the opposite wall.  I turned the heat on and found the heater was hidden above the suspended ceiling, so we probably roasted the manager's apartment upstairs before we felt anything.  Best of all were the homemade drapes on homemade flat rods that made it nearly impossible to draw them back.  We tugged and yanked and propped them back with whatever was handy so we could reveal the picture windows and the million dollar view.

One of the views from our once-DeLuxe room at Motel Rive du Lac

There.  Just look outside.  The weather had cleared enough to offer beautiful skies and far views.  The water changed colors as the sun went down, and suddenly the light caught the windmills some fifteen miles across the water and up on the hills to the south.  For a few minutes I watched the long, undulating line of them spinning in the wind, and then the light sank into twilight and then night.  The windmills winked red---sometimes in waves, sometimes in florid disharmony.  We never drew the drapes.

Four Miles Afoot in Quebec City

Saturday, 13th April 2013

Where We Walked


The streets and sidewalks of Quebec City had been swept clean in our sleep---the hard white lines softening into a gray and black world as the morning passed in leisurely fashion.  My husband sat at the large window, recalling his New England past, and then as I continued to write he wandered down to the tiny dining room to find our little acrylic breakfast box.  The box contained things like cups of apple sauce and such, but there was toast to be made, bagels and cream cheese and cereal, apples and oranges.  He sat down there for awhile, having a rudimentary conversation with a German couple who spoke very little English or French.  They had been visiting their airline attendant daughter, who lives in Montreal.

At St. John's Gate.  Quebec City

After I finally finished and sent out a blog entry, we took the bus down to Parc de l'Esplande.  Initially my suburban mentality was surprised on how crowded the bus was, until I considered Saturday was the urbanite's day to shop and socialize.  We disembarked and crossed the park to Rue Saint-Jean, but away from the nominally gay neighborhood and east through St. John's Gate into Old Town.  It was about lunch time, and the restaurants were full of the young and the restless.  The blocks between the gate and the city hall seemed very hip but unpretentious---authentic, I'd say.  I kept my eye open for a particularly interesting place to eat, but my husband was indecisive---and feeling awkward about my minimal French, I wasn't going to drag him somewhere.

We continued down Rue de Buade, falling into the more touristy zones down near the ramparts.  Being out of season, the neighborhood was deadly quiet, and although the buildings were interesting I could not dismiss the superficiality of it all.  Without people going about their everyday affairs the history is reduced to a showcase.  About the only excitement under the bright gray sky was sheets of soft snow sliding off the roofs and exploding onto the sidewalks.

View of the Fleuve St. Laurent from Parc Montmorency

Of the very few tourists about I noticed a young man who was noticeably autistic or the like.  He liked the snow falls and studied the roofs that had heavy accumulations.  He decided to settle under one and within a minute he was rewarded with a dump of snow on his head.  The snow action always made pedestrians jump and than gawk at the source, so it wasn't until then that they seemed to notice him.  Perhaps some of the onlookers were his family---at any rate, everyone held their breath, waiting to see his reaction.  After the shocking rush of cold, he broke out into laughter and everyone else---not seeing that he set himself up---relaxed.  I paused to consider if he just made a lucky guess or, like many other people with a different outlook on life, had a sense of the impending that we're too busy to notice.

Funiculaire to Le Chateau Frontenac

Being cheap, we resisted the Funiculaire du Vieux Quebec and climbed back up and around to the copper-roofed palace-like Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.  We continued along Rue Saint Louis, lined with small expensive hotels that offer a rather dreary prospective off-season.  My husband commented that he was glad we didn't splurge for a stay in this part of town.

Instead of heading back to that exciting stretch of Rue Saint-Jean, we headed west back through the gate.  I suppose my husband was looking for some gaiety, but the guy out cleaning the sidewalk tables at Le Drague Cabaret Club said they were only a bar.  So we ended up at the Hobbit Bistro down on the next block, a nice little restaurant just coming off the lunch rush.  Our waiter, a most handsome dark blond, spoke both French and English, so we were often switching between the two.  I ordered buffalo ravioli and my husband ordered a seafood pasta---both excellent.  Behind us a large Quebecois family was finishing their meal, and in front of us, at the front window, a middle aged couple carried on a quiet conversation in English.  Eventually my husband commented that the man gave off interesting, pleasant energy---which was true, but hard to describe.  A sort of unobtrusive masculine strength.

We sat left of the topiary at Bistro Hobbit

Our next destination was Boulevard René-Lévesque and a bus stop, but I suggested that we just walk back to our Maison Roy.  It wasn't that far, and it was mostly flat to slightly downhill.  Actually, it was about two miles, quite a walk after already covering a couple of miles of hard pavement in cowboy boots.  But it was interesting to study the housing along the way---mostly duplexes and quadplexes.  Every ten blocks or so brought us into a new decade---the architectural styles segueing from Beaux Arts to Moderne to Streamline.  Most fun was watching the occasional pedestrian approach us in the opposite direction.  Often we were greeted with a friendly bonjour, but one young woman gave our quasi Western attire a look over and us a most bemused smile before her cheery greeting.