2018 On The Road Again #3

2018 On The Road Again #3

The train, at least in the economy section was not very full. There were lots of seats available but only a few met my rather specific needs. I like to be on the right hand side - I sleep better leaning against my right side. As well, I like to be in a seat where there is not a window column obstructing my view. In the first car there was only one seat left that met those criteria. After I talked to the conductor, got myself settled in and started to get comfortable, I realized that the seat back had lost some of its padding and there was a metal rod digging into my back. I packed up my stuff and moved to the left side of the train.

I am glad I did. The view was so much better There were numerous lakes, rivers and swamps on the left side. The sun was on that side and the water fairly glistened. It was quite beautiful and did much to make me glad that I had decided to take the train as opposed to the bus.

The gentleman in front of me is European - when he talks to his friend across from him, it sounds as if he is speaking in one of the middle European languages. He has just done something that I have never seen before, at least not on a train. The gentleman got a pot of water, plugged in an immersion heater (I have not see one of those for years) and heated the water. He then mixed in a dried food package and had supper! I am not too sure if that is allowed - but as long as he doesn't start a fire or perhaps even more likely burn himself - I imagine no one will care. The conductor strikes me as far too young and non-assertive to say much.

I would like to say that the trip has been without unscheduled stops but alas I can't. We have had two - the first was fairly short - the second seems to have been longer. While I know that I have no control as to when the train will get into Winnipeg and that my only choice (to stay sane) is to relax and not worry, it is hard not to be aware of the problems I could face if we arrive in Winnipeg after midnight.

One of the advantages of getting on the train after 5:00 PM is that bedtime comes soon. By just after 10:00 I had gotten my sleeping bag out, blown up my neck pillow, found my eye shades and was trying to remember how to get comfortable enough to get a good night's sleep.

On the Road Again 2018 #2

There are always a couple of themes to my writings as I start to head west. One is the constant background sound of Willie Nelson singing On the Road Again - I am not too sure when I adopted the song as my theme song - but it seems somehow that it does. A second theme that has emerged as been the constant lateness of the Via train.

On Friday I got an email from VIA saying that the train # 1 would be leaving 9 hours late due to equipment shortages. I think that was VIA's way of saying that the east bound train was going to be late getting into Toronto. 24 hours later I got another email informing me that the train would be approximately 12 hours late in leaving Toronto. I am now on the train, which is running almost exactly 12 hours late.

It has been a frustrating 24 hours in part because it is easy to assume the worst about VIA's capacity to keep to a schedule and that therefore we might be an additional 6, 7 or even 8 hours late. Getting into Winnipeg at some point in the wee dark hours of the morning would mean that not only would I have nowhere to stay (and hanging around downtown Winnipeg seems a really poor option), but as well I would be getting on the road 24 hours later than I had planned. I was not a happy camper. I looked at other options but 24 hours on a Greyhound bus just seemed unbearable as did spending $600 on an airplane ticket.

I suspect I was less of a good house guest at my daughter's than I should have been. We did have a bit of fun after we found a VIA website that allowed us to track the train in real time. The other highlight of the somewhat torturous wait was the Winnipeg Transit system. I emailed them to ask how late the buses ran. The one bus that I usually used seemed to stop running just after 6:00 PM. It took three emails but I got a very detailed answer that gave me some alternatives - not great ones but at least I had a plan. Quite simply - if the train got into Winnipeg and the bus was still running - I would head towards the Flying J just outside of town and hand around until early morning on Tuesday 24 hours late - but at least I would be on the road. I was much more optimistic or at least resigned to being late once I knew that I would not be stuck in downtown Winnipeg.At any rate I am on the train, what happens next - whether we are late or not is beyond my control. I might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.

2018 On the Road Again 2018 #1

The trips that I made 15+ years ago were an adventure. I, certainly on the first ones, had no idea as to what to expect. When I was working, for most of my trips ,I spent more time trying to get to Duncan and then back again than I did on Vancouver Island. My pack was impossibly heavy - it towered over my head, I walked for far too many miles looking for the perfect spot to stand and various parts of my body hurt for most of the trip. But they were fairy impressive trips - thousands of kilometers in a few weeks. I ended most of my trips with the comments "not to shabby for an old man".

Things have changed - in part because I am older and I no longer feel the need to show how tough I am but also because I know where I am going and usually it is only just one way. I have reduced the size of my pack significantly, I walk far less than I use to and while I am not in better shape than I use to be, because my annual trips are over almost before they begin - there is not sufficient time for me to damage my body. Whatever sense of adventure that may exist, is greatly reduced.

This is all a somewhat convoluted way of saying that at least technically I am on my summer trip but it does not feel like it. I flew to Sudbury. Other than my pack arriving 12 hours after I did, the trip was uneventful. I will hang around here for a week, catch a train to Winnipeg and then hitchhike west from there. Not very exciting. I will have a good time hanging out with my daughter and hopefully on the way back - I will meet a few interesting people. However, compared to some of my earlier trips , there is less opportunity for adventure. Not that I want anything really weird to happen - but just a small adventure would be nice.

There is, of course, some satisfaction in being 69 and even considering taking a 3-4 day hitchhiking trip. It is a great country populated by interesting and generous people. Perhaps the last 15-16 years of cross-country travel have left me just a little bit jaded, too comfortable in my travels across the country to get really excited. But as I typed those words, I realized that that was not true..... I am looking forward to being on the road again., even if it is only a short trip.

Doug Ford & Ontario - Scary Times Ahead??

If I had thought about it, when I was younger I would never have realized that the election of certain people would cause me to feel profound sadness. The elections of such people as Mike Harris in Ontario in the mid 1990s, Steven Harper as Prime Minister or Donald Trump in the US have developed within me with a sense of loss that has left me, for a brief time, feeling almost overwhelmingly helpless and sad. I am not too sure why - I know politics is a strange affair with frequent shifts in the public's perception of what is needed . I know that in reasonably stable countries such as Canada, the election of someone completely wrong will have limited long term impact upon the country. Except most of these individuals seem to get elected for at least two terms. and eight years is a long time - changes made during that length of time can affect the country. If programs or systems are changed or even destroyed, it frequently becomes impossible to build them back up again.

Last night as I was watching the results of the Ontario election, I had that feeling again. There was no doubt that Ontarians were ready for a change but the extraordinary shift to Doug Ford's PCs was just downright scary. It is quite clear that those who voted for Ford were the same sort of voters who chose Mike Harris. People living in reasonable affluence (in style if not in income) who want to/need to protect themselves against rising costs. Most of the people have reasonably well paying jobs, frequently shaped by union pressures, who more than anything need to believe that it is possible to lower taxes while insuring that services for them will still be available. People who on one hand want schools to provide more and more of the attention that young people need while at the same time demanding that specific groups of parents control the curriculum.People who want to be able to maintain their present lifestyle while not caring if others ever achieve that same state. People who are committed to the belief that as long as they are happy, there is no need to worry about theirs' or anyone else future.

The sad thing is that we all know how this story ends - the pundits to the right wlll be dancing in the streets, those in the middle will shake their heads and wonder how they can drag their parties to the right and the few remaining on the left will, if they are honest, just cry. Hang on to your hat - fellow Canadians in Ontario - and your wallets. You are about to be lead by someone who has little comprehension of how things work - in fact the only thing he may understand is how to promise things that can not be delivered on.

I am glad I am heading back to BC soon where I can watch the disaster evolve At a safe (at least for a while) distance.

On the Road Again 2018

The trips that I made 15+ years ago were an adventure. I, certainly on the first ones, had no idea as to what to expect.  When I was working, for most of my trips ,I spent more time trying to get to Duncan and then back again than I did on Vancouver Island. My pack was impossibly heavy - it towered over my head, I walked for far too many miles looking for the perfect spot to stand and various parts of my body hurt for most of the trip. But they were fairy impressive trips - thousands of kilometers in a few weeks. I ended most of my trips with the comments "not to shabby for an old man".

Things have changed - in part because I am older and I no longer feel the need to show how tough I am but also because I know where I am going  and usually it is only just one way.  I have reduced the size of my pack significantly, I walk far less than I use to and while I am not in better shape than I use to be,  because my annual trips are over almost before they begin - there is not sufficient time for me to damage my body. Whatever sense of adventure that may exist, is greatly reduced.

This is all a somewhat convoluted way of saying that at least technically I am on my summer trip but it does not feel like it. I flew to Sudbury. Other  than my pack arriving 12 hours after I did, the trip was uneventful. I will hang around here for a week, catch a train to Winnipeg and then hitchhike west from there. Not very exciting. I will have a good time hanging out with my daughter and hopefully on the way back - I will meet a few interesting people. However, compared to some of my earlier trips , there is less opportunity for adventure. Not that I want anything really weird to happen - but just a small adventure would be nice.

There is, of course, some satisfaction in being 69 and even considering taking a 3-4 day hitchhiking trip. It is a great country populated by interesting and generous people. Perhaps the last 15-16 years of cross-country travel have left me just a little bit jaded, too comfortable in my travels across the country to get really excited. But as I typed those words, I realized that that was not true..... I am looking forward to being on the road again., even if it is only a short trip.

So Now I Own a Pipeline

So now I own a pipeline. Not something I would have ever thought to put on my Christmas list, but who knows - I may need one someday.

Please forgive the sarcasm but I would have thought that it was obvious that there are some things that governments can legitimately  own and other things that they should never, ever consider owning. It is appropriate that the government own some infrastructure such as roads, bridges, certain buildings (e.g. Parliament, hospitals). The government also needs to own such tools or equipment (e.g. cars, computers, boats) that are required for it to its job. It can even be argued that the government has some responsibility to have some ownership in such things as transportation systems when no one else is able to do so. But never, never should  the government ever decide to buy a private corporation, one that historically made millions of dollars, just so that company faces no more risks.

That the government of Canada now owns a pipe lines raises all sorts of questions and potential liabilities. The most obvious question is there anyone in the government or its bureaucracy that knows how to create, expand or run a pipeline? Are they going to have to hire back the same company that just sold the pipeline to manage it? (speaking of keeping one's cake and eating it too). What happens if something going wrong and there is a spill? Who intercedes on the part of the country and its citizens? Who defends the rights of the citizens when the country owns the leaking pipeline?

I understand that the Liberal government has made a commitment to Alberta to insure that there is a way to get their oil  to market. I can even accept that if we believe it is necessary to transport oil to the west coast, that the pipeline is the safest and most effective way of doing it. I just cannot understand why I, as a tax payer, should have to bail out a company who got cold feet. If no private company wanted to accept the risk, then perhaps it is just a bad idea. Surely there was a better place to invest four billion dollars. Even within the oil industry, there must have been  better way to help Alberta - perhaps build refineries or even better invest in developing alternative energy manufacturing.  There is no way that Canada should have "helped"  a company that wanted to get out because it did not like our legal processes; there was no reason for us to make things easier for a company that was tired of playing by our rules.

While most Albertans may be happy with this solution, it is hard to see how any other Canadians will see this deal as a good one.  We will have to borrow the money to buy Kinder Morgan's pipeline, and then once it is all done and it starts to make money we will sell it back to them or to some other corporation just like them.

I do not want to be in the business of selling oil to the world....I do not want my government to do it either.

Boring...

I am bored. I have lots to do, people to visit, things to see. I have in fact a rather interesting life. There are even times when I wish I was just a little bit less busy. But I am bored with the news.

Just a few years ago I was "preaching' to my students that if they wanted to write better, they needed to write 500 words a day - it didn't matter what they wrote about, or even if the writing was that great. They just needed to practice the craft of writing. I myself was averaging 2000-3000 words a week. I had lists of things to discuss, the news seem to just bubble over with exciting things to think about and then to write about. Not all of it got published on the blog, but I was writing. I felt as if my mind was constantly active.

Alas, the news is no longer providing that level of stimulation. Perhaps it is that Trump dominates/contaminates the international news. The absurdities that are dribbling from that fool's mouth and the mouths of his confederates are seldom worth the effort to try to even guess what he is doing (dare I say thinking?). As the Canadian press has decided that the world can only be viewed through a lens that includes his perspective - the news is boring. Whether it is NAFTA, Korea or climate change -  his presence is so large, that  his shadow dominates everything.

Canadian politics don't seem to be that much more interesting. Yes there is the Kinder Morgan pipeline debate but that debate - like so many other complex Canadian decisions will be made by the Supreme Court. Politicians from all sides will huff and puff, they will threaten to blow down the very fabric of Canada, they will play to their constituents but at the end of the day they will live with what those nine judges say.

There is, of course, the provincial election in Ontario. If I still lived in that province I would find it perhaps an interesting debate, one that was worthy of being fully engaged in, but the election, seen from a distance of 3000 miles, looks like a movie I have seen before. A movie in which the ending is predicable  -no one will be happy a year from now. Perhaps I should be grateful that in Canada major news is when somebody who should not have,  gets invited on a trip with the Prime Minister. I guess that means that nothing too terrible is happening.

British Columbia politics, with the exception of the Kinder Morgan pipeline - are well past being passive and boring. If one was a cynic, perhaps one would wonder if Kinder Morgan is being kept in the public mind to keep our minds away from the more pressing issues of the day - to put us asleep with the mindless repetition of the same positions.

Perhaps it is because I am just jaded, or perhaps I am getting to the old man stage where I am just redundantly and uselessly cranky at everything. I do not want something terrible to happen, I am not like some junky looking for a fix of adrenalin to wake me up in the morning - but some meaningful dialogue about real issues would be refreshing.