I Care Douchebag

It never ends with this guy...look at his body language of entitlement...and how he thinks he knows what Canadians are caring about...ugh he is so creepy...

I like the comments on Youtube

Hometown Girl

After we left Portland and our awesome hotel room pretty early the other morning...we started to head to Seattle for lunch. We got into downtown Seattle through tons of traffic and parked near Pike Market. We walked around the market...and I was showing places that I used to hang out in and visit since I was a kid. It was always a big deal to get to Seattle when I was a teen to look for jeans and jewelry and check out the Pike Market. The place really hasn't changed since the 70s and thats kind of wonderful. We walked through downtwon and past the art gallery (where Nick Cave has an art show of all things!) and to the older side of the city. We had a great lunch ina pub and as it started to get cold and rain made our way back to the car to head north.

Traffic was totally nuts and got even worse the closer to the border that we approached. Finally we are the next car to go through customs to Canada and as I slowly drove over the nasty speed bump (I am absolutely violently diametrically opposed to speed bumps and one way streets btw) the muffler and exhaust pipe was ripped off the bottom of the car. We drove up to the customs booth sounding like a dragster. I'm not kidding. Stagg insisted I take a picture of the broken muffler for the blog. There it is resting on the pavement. We got through customs and I drove to the nearest service station...which was in an area of White rock, B.C. The service station had a tiny corner store and gas pumps. Uh oh. I phoned my brother-in-law in Vancouver (about 40 minutes away) who was waiting for us to let him know we had arrived and to meet the family when we crossed the border. Instead I described what happened. He said, get some wire and tie the exhaust pipe back to the chassis and then get car fixed downtown Vancouver. Made sense. The store didn't sell wire, but another customer was listening to my questions about hardware stores and she started telling me how to get to Home Depot. All right! As I tell the very worried Stagg what our plan of attack was, the same woman yells over that we can follow her to her garage and she has wire...and she will help us. Only in Canada!

We pull up in her alley and I drive the car unto a wee hill and climb under the car and start wiring the muffler up. Unfortunately...I didn't do it tight enough and as we said goodbye to our kind helpers I could hear it still dragging. Ugh. We pull out of the alley and away with the bloody muffler still dragging. I park on a side street of this quiet gated community neighbourhood...and another neighbour sees us comes over and I tell him what happened and how I failed to tie the pipes up sufficiently and he says hes got a special hydrolic jack he's never used and he will help us. Only in Canada!

Problem is...its just so rusty under my car we can't have faith the jack will hold...but at least he got to use it and check it out. My sister now calls to see whats going on with our car and arriving in Vancouver. I fill her in and my brother-in-law heads out to save us. He gets to us in about half an hour, lays down bricks and planks drives the car up the "hill" of wood and bricks, we stick big stones behind the back tires and he he ties rope around the pipe...and I follow him back to Vancouver...our oldest nephew has also come to help and Stagg drives downtown with them...whicle I drive the crazy loud hot rod and park it in the back alley.

We are lucky this stupid contraption fell off just where it did and my brother-in-law is so handy. We were so happy to be in Vancouver and my sister made us lots of hot food and we have been here for two days and I get to show Stagg my "hood". We are going busking today...as its rained the last couple of days but today is sunny.

Its so wonderful to see my funny sweet cute best nephews in the whole world and they adore Stagg and we've been just having a great time. Even as we approached Portland and up through Seattle I could feel myself relaxing and enjoying being home...the Pacific Northwest is my stomping grounds and my haunts and home and it feels so good to see the ocean and tress and even the endless rain! And I'm excited to show Stagg the whole area...and catch up with friends and family out here...more later...

Boise And Beyond

A lot of you don't know this, but I had done some contract work for the CBC Newsworld during the 90's. It was some of the most fun working I've ever had and a time period very dear to my heart. Some of the footage and research I did was used and some of it wasn't which is fairly typical of the situation...but always rewarding for me. I was attending a friends wedding in Vegas and the CBC asked me to look into "alternative" lifestyles in Vegas...real people off the strip kind of idea. So I had filmed a lot of interviews with locals who were in the tattoo industry or second hand clothing industry, star gasses for ufos, landscapers and construction workers etc etc. As a side project I thought I would offer the CBC a visit to Area 51. Now this wasnt before X Files so I was a little going as a long time interest in conspiracy theory and X-Files fan...( story didn't get used actually). I had been looking for this so~called UFO experiment way back on another road trip with friends in the early 80s. Maybe growing up west coast and for directory a mum who believed in alien visitations I was a little ahead of the tome once the 90s it got so widespread. I hadn't found this sign (if it even existed in the 80s I wonder?) but I did some work and figured out how to get to Area 51...and I spent a day out there taking pictures and filming. I saw a lot of military aircraft and tinted windowed security vans and the odd freak and student out looking for ufos.

So we leave Las Vegas a few days ago...and we are heading to Boise Idaho because I have spent a fair bit of time in "the west" but Stagg hasn't. He hasnt been to Wy. or Montannna or Idaho...so I figure we can get to Boise. And we're driving and things look familiar from the route the gps has given me and dagnabbit if we don't come right up to the turn off to Area 51. I couldn't believe it! I actually had taken a still photo of my friend jumping in front of this very sign. when I can I will cross reference that for you when I get my picture albulms from Toronto some day. I just was flumoxed to see this sign again I never figured I'd be out this way again. Of course...the ufo secret study research location is not here but another couple hours away...but still...to see this funny sign again really threw me.





So my photo taking has become sort of erratic the past week. No logic. I didn't take one picture of Boise Idaho and it is a very clean friendly pretty town. Stagg is always going to have some funny stories to tell about the place. The best place to be homeless in United States. The homeless people we saw were dressed way better than us and people were talking to them, joking with them, they looked healthy and well fed. We stayed ina hostel (long story) and went out for cocktails and walked around the downtown then went a pub for supper. It was delicious...gourmet upscale mac and cheese. Everything seems upscale in Boise. It might be the Denmark of America. Denmark being one of the happiest places to live on earth (Blue Zone Theory). And I just simply didn't think of taking pics. I've been there a number of times and the evening just flew by. We got up pretty early the next morning and headed to Portland. Stagg has also never been to the Pacific Northwest...and we thought we would stay in Seattle but I wasn't able to drive that long...felt pretty tired and realized that Portland is like the new Barcelona so we should check it out, heh heh. So the following pics are from Portland in no particular order. We found a pub and Stagg got some local brews to sip, I had a vidka tonic. We had an amazing upgraded hotel...just awesome...and we could cook dinner there and so we did and just watched a bunch of tv into the late night. We had visited an outstanding old school record shop, Powells, some outdoor sculpture etc etc.

Hot Tub Time Machine

You have never seen two people more happy to find a hot tub and a pool. We checked into the Golden Nugget...three nights!

We had a great visit with some people in the hot tub, an Acadian from Nova Scotia and his wife. He plays in Lafayetter LA all the time. It felt so good to be in Vegas!

Stagg surprised me by going right to Freemont Street to busk! We got kicked off right away but we walked down the street to the Neon Museum area and had terrific sucess. We saw all kinds of people, talked to a lot of them, sold some, and just had a very interesting view of the city.





We had to go to the Peppermil now that we were all cleaned up...a real fave place! As seen in movie "Casino". They have changed a few things...tvs and now the cherry blossoms are dark red not pale pink. Nice to clean up and put on the stillettoes.

Stagg Vs. New Mexico Or Four Seasons In One Day

Okay. My theory on when it all fell apart has something to do with eye contact.

While I was setting up the tent I saw a few kids and a couple in a camper. I waved to a woman camper who looked a little like me and we smiled Hi! Stagg was very busy finding wood for our camp fire and to cook. When we started the fire it became quite a bonfire and was a little intimidating even reaching for the trees and we got a little unnerved. But then cooked up our burgers and ate them so quickly because we were starving and the weather was quickly growing cold. It had been blazing hot all day while I drive north from the Carlsbad Caverns. I mean skin cancer hot. Stagg and I have the ridiculous burn/tans from driving through tropics and dessert for weeks. But then in the New Mexico mountains the temperature just stopes. We had to get inside the tent and under our blankets pronto. Yes I said blankets. We don't actually have sleeping bags. Just three huge blankets. Bit once in the tent we could feel it warm up and it would be fine. About five minutes after lying down we hear really wild loud running and a guy yells "Lander are you still alive!?" then weird breathing and weird snorts or laughter. Hmmm. I think that it might be the two teens I saw earlier in faux military clothes and boots. I close my eyes. Then the wind comes up so inyensely it begins pushing the tent around. The tent is acting like a sailboat in high seas. The walls of the tent actually bend and touch my face. I pop open my eyes and hear people running. I hear animals outside under the trees. And there are silhouettes of people walking Right Outside Of Our Tent!!!! Oh shit. I can feel adrenaline jab into my chest and arms. Lay still. Don't move. Hopefully Staggs under the blankets and can't see this. One beat. Two beats. Stagg sits up. I see him in the dark and he looks as freaked out as I feel. He makes a signal to be silent. I nod. We hear animals or footsteps through the trees beside our campsite. We hear running on gravel. Stagg whispers " I'm going outside" I say "No". We lie down. I start to analyze the shadows. One set of shadows looks like a Crouching animal the others like humans. Okay think about this. The shadows look like they are outside the tent. I unzipped the tent afraid. It's people using the comfort station but their shadows are cast yards away on our tent. Okay. The crouching animals are bushes. Whew. The wind continues to blow our tent sideways and Stagg has had it. We go outside and try to see people running. I try to explain the shadows the wind. Stagg is wired. I am not convincing. We hide in dark blankets watching the teens run through the woods and visit each others tents. Not reassuring to Stagg. We hide and watch for at least an hour getting colder and colder and I realize I have to sleep if I'm going to drive tomorrow. They can kill me in my sleep. Stagg won't go back inside the tent. I force myself to hide under a blanket despite all the creepiness. I am exhausted. I sleep for 2 or 3 hours. When I wake next with the whole tent moved several feet by the wind I crawl out and Stagg is still wrapped in a dark blanket performing covert operations on our camp. I drag him into the tent. He is frozen and completely freaked put. He warms up and then I realize what we have to do. It's 4 in the morning we grab a couple of our blankets and lock ourselves into the womens washroom with my cell phone and the lights on bright until the sun comes up. No more Blair witch project. We got to get a grip. We warm up. The phone recharges. We go outside looking at the sky. The second I see a glow I hauled down the tent and crunched it up stuffed into the back sets and we tore off down the mountain. The radio came in and we found classic rock station we could sing along to till we found gas and coffee.

I don't know how but I managed to drive a couple hours exhausted till we found a little motel and we checked in and went to sleep at noon. We still hear the haunting sounds of banjos....

Stagg Vs. New Mexico

We are a lean mean camping machine. Well. Almost.

I mentioned last week that we have had good days and bad days, ups and downs on this trip. Let me qualify. Or remind visitors...Stagg Did not do camping. He doesn't even eat outside on a patio when I met him. So it's not an exaggeration to say he has been less than enthusiastic about going into a cave or cooking on a camp fire or wearing flip flops. He never wore flip flops before. And well... Of course who do the mosquitoes bite? Not me. Not even contact on me. We got bug repellant but poor Stagg still had bites all over his feet and legs. So it's been up and down for him and he's really been trying to enjoy "nature".

So... We leave the Carlsbad Caverns and start driving. I've got my eye on a state park near some mountains north in the state. I've been navigating most of the trip through gps on my phone...in fact I'm using my phone right now to post this too. We have a big atlas too but it's not always easy to tell exactly where a state park or campsite is going to be. I also have tried to reserve online a campsite when I am able or when I know our exact timing on the road and plans. So I thought we could get up to the Manzano mountains the early evening after the caves. Oops.

We just made it with about 20 minutes before dark. The last 80 miles of the drive were the longest 80 miles ever. Stagg and I had a gloom hanging over us because setting ip a tent in the dark totally sucks. And getting wood to make dinner is impossible. We got further and further from gas stations and stores. Ghost towns. Colder and colder weather in the mountains. But not only did we finally find the campsite we got set up. Stagg found wood and I got the tent set. All really fast and at the exact same moment as the sun went down. Whew. Then we set up the fire with a grill and I made hamburgers. Delicious.

Then all hell broke loose...

Splunking?

I don't know how much more "nature" our dear Stagg can handle...but he is a good sport and agreed, reluctantly...to go into the Carlsbad Caverns with me...

Okay, our camera just can't get pics down in the caves...



Happy April Fool's Day from New Mexico!


Where to next...????

xxxoooo dear friends!