Airstream Camping 2025 - Still Here at Rondeau

Thursday dawned, still dry, still storm free, and this despite every weather forecast known to man saying we were in for a deluge. I'm not complaining of course, and I think we were very lucky to avoid a big one today after everything went misty and quiet for a while in the afternoon, which is a sure sign of an impending storm. But no, the mist lifted, the wind picked up a little and the sun continued to shine. Excellent.

It was another quiet day. Reading, tooling around on the Internet and generally recharging our own batteries. Lots of people left their sites today, and for a while it was comparatively deserted here on the South Campground, but come the witching hour of 2pm they started rolling in, all set for the long weekend. We've long known that folks like to arrive for the weekend on a Thursday, which is great if you can get the time off work I suppose. I'm still wondering how we managed to snag Site 16 for the week that included the Thursday night. When you camp here, you're supposed to put your camping "ticket" on the post at the entrance to your site, and that says when you're leaving. I've been quite surprised to see so many people here at the start of the week are booked through until after the long weekend. They either have massive fresh water and waste water tanks on their campers, or they're using the campground's facilities, because we can only practically go three nights without a top up and a top down. I'm grateful that Ontario Parks have a stay limit of two weeks, otherwise the selfish people among us would book these places solid for the summer.

We did take a couple of run-outs, though, one to get some crisps from the convenience store at the park's gate, and another to drive up to Craves Poutinerie in Blenheim, for what is known in certain parts of the UK as a "Chippy Tea". Chips (fries) and Poutine, eaten in the car while we idly watched the people watching the baseball in the park opposite. Actually I liked the idea of a chippy tea, not only because I like my chips, but because it was all so spontaneous. Of course, the not very defrosted Gumbo in the fridge also influenced our decision. We can have that tomorrow.

This being the Canada day weekend, it stirs up some mixed emotions. We're not flag wavers and never have been, despite both being naturalized citizens of this country. I like it here, and I'm happy to be a Canadian, but this nation was formed on the backs of the native people, under colonial rule which, to this day, marginalizes the indigenous nations within Canada's modern day borders. Treaties are still broken and land still stolen, so it can be tough to celebrate around the flag. But this past year, our orange friend south of the border has done a great job in uniting Canadians, including us, against his ridiculous imperialist claims over this country. Even Quebecers, not normally great believers in the nation of Canada, have slipped in behind the flag and are presenting, at the moment at least, a united front on all things Canadian. So this year, while not flying the flag, we may just have a thought or two about being Canadian and about how fortunate we are not to be the 51st State.

The day ended in an odd way for me. I was feeling a bit sleepy, so at about 8:30 I went to lie on the bed and read a while. At just past midnight I woke, feeling seriously groggy, and discovered that DW had done the same thing on the sofa. What a pair. Still, I guess that's what this trip is all about.

Packing up tomorrow, and heading out before the serious rush. Happy Canada Day!

Happy New (Camping) Year

Welcome to 2025, at least in Airstream terms.

Last week we extracted dear old Towed Haul from the dealer's Winter storage lot, and dragged her home to commence our fifteenth camping season. That said, actual Airstreaming will be suspended until we return from a mega-trip overseas in mid-June.

We'd paid for storage up until the end of April, and had planned to get the old girl out on May 1st. That didn't work for us, but as I tried to arrange a pick up date with the dealer, their service department was completely swamped and I spent a week trying to get someone to call me back, given that phones were not being picked up beyond the reception desk. In the end I had to resort to e-mailing the owner, which resulted in a call, and an appointment was made for May 9th.

We duly rolled up at the dealer's place, it's an hour's drive away, only to be told that they'd "dropped the ball" and the Airstream hadn't been prepped! Being retired now and therefore cool AF, we both dealt with this news in a surprisingly calm fashion and, when told it'd all be sorted in about 45 minutes, we repaired to the big city (London, Ontario), and made our way to the British Pride Bakery where we could pick up some British food items, including a nice Cornish Pasty (which obviously hadn't been anywhere near Cornwall), and a big sausage roll. If you're a Brit, you'll understand. I also picked up a Cadbury's Twirl chocolate bar for the hard pressed Peggy back at the dealer's place.

We weren't quite done with the problems, either, as we had a call from Peggy to say that they'd lost Towed Haul's keys, but they'd found a spare that would fit. DW explained what our keys looked like, and by the time we arrived back at the dealer's lot, not only was the Airstream ready to go, but Peggy had found the keys. The dealer adjusted the invoice in recognition of our trouble, I handed over the chocolate bar, and we were set and ready to go. All's well that ends well.

The first tow of the season is always a bit of a worry, especially given the state of the rusty old hitch receiver. But, the Toadmobile was duly hitched to the trailer, electrics and brakes connected and tested, and off we went. We usually take the old Talbot Trail home, an 80/90 Km/hr back road that runs parallel to Highway 401, and that busy Friday afternoon was no exception. It's easier on the Toadmobile, easier on the gas, and easier on my nerves to go that way, even if it takes about twenty minutes longer. The trailer followed us straight and true, though, no twitching about and no surprises. I drove at the speed limit and managed a healthy 18.1 Km/100 litres, which is almost exactly 13 miles to the US gallon. Sure, we were lightly loaded and we had a slight tailwind, but that's not bad given the stickiness of the rather excellent Michelin LT tires on the trailer, which do increase the rolling resistance.

Back at the ranch, I had to back the old girl onto the driveway while avoiding the eldest's broken down car which was occupying one side. Still, I did it in one go and was feeling very pleased with myself. Our four-year-old grandson was on hand to help unhitch and put the stabilisers down, and I have to say that it was very nice to have Towed Haul back on the driveway. Of course, she has a winter's worth of grime on her, so cleaning is due, but that that can wait until I get a cooler day.

We have a few trips planned later in the Summer, but right now our focus is on the mega-trip, which I will document here as it unfolds. In the meantime, welcome home Towed Haul, and happy (camping) new year.

Plymouth (The Original One) 2024 - Homeward Bound

We had an interesting trip back to Canada, starting with the very nice taxi driver who hailed, he said, from Czechoslovakia (not the Czech Republic or Slovakia, you will note). Very chatty and with a better command of English than me. He was driving a Toyota Prius, which seems to be the choice of taxi drivers in provincial towns, as that model of car has conveyed us around quite a lot.

On Plymouth Station, waiting for the London train, we watched with interest as an empty five-car Hitachi set rolled in and stopped halfway along the platform, waiting it turned out for a similar five-car set to arrive from Penzance. At Plymouth, they were to be coupled together to make a ten-car train to London. Only they didn't couple together. The fancy self-coupling system failed, and after twenty-five minutes of the railway people trying, we were about to have the whole train cancelled on us, even though there was a perfectly serviceable five-car set right in front of us. Sanity prevailed, though, and the set from Penzance was abandoned while everyone piled onto what should have been the first half of the train. Once again, all seat reservations were cancelled and the train became very busy. Of course, running late were were going to get stuck behind stopping trains, and despite the "Train Manager" asserting otherwise, the slower trains did delay us and our original twenty-five minutes late became forty-five minutes. It wasn't an issue for us because we'd built a big cushion in our plans, but the poor guy across the aisle was chuntering the whole way as he was going to miss his connection at Reading. 

 

Apparently we could have claimed compensation for the late arrival of the train at Paddington, but frankly I couldn't be arsed. 

The Heathrow Express from Paddington to the airport is indeed an express, albeit an expensive one. Fifteen minutes into the airport from Central London is not to be sniffed at, though, if you've ever had to negotiate traffic and transit in that big city. We didn't pay the top fare, though, because we are smart people.

We arrived at the airport with no more issues, checked in and went through security. I had the whole body scan treatment, shoes wiped and everything, because I'm special, and we headed into the huge shopping mall, sorry, departures area, to await our flight. Given this was a Saturday afternoon in October, it was horribly busy in there, so we opted to go out to the departure gate straight away. I say straight away, but we had our sandwiches first. Who wouldn't?

As with the flight two-weeks ago, it pushed back bang on time and we were heading west in our surprisingly uncomfortable Airbus A350 seats. Also like the outbound flight, of the three meal options offered, two were curry. What is this obsession with curry? Naturally they'd run out of the non-curry dish by the time the meal cart arrived at our seats, so I was well and truly buggered. The flight attendant was beside herself that I had no food, and searched the entire aircraft for a non-curry meal but couldn't find one, so I went hungry. Given that I had eaten a month's worth of food in the previous two weeks, it really wasn't a hardship, but why give up a reason to feel aggrieved? Such a crappy choice of meals kind of calls into question the whole idea of having two out of three meals essentially the same. Don't worry, I have let British Airways know my displeasure, as you knew I would.

In Toronto it all went smoothly. I had filled in the ArriveCan app on my phone before departure, so our customs declarations were ready to go when we went through the passport scanner. People of a right-wing bent here in Canada get very upset at the mention of that App, built as it was to ease the COVID limitations. Me, I'm very happy to be able to do stuff on the app and sail through the airport with comparative ease. If you're a Canadian arriving home by air, the ArriveCan app is the mutts nuts.

Another bit of app automation is the Park N Fly airport parking. I logged the fact that we'd arrived in the terminal, agreed the price (already quoted when we dropped the car off) and immediately was issued with a bar code with which to exit the parking lot. The bus from the airport to the parking lot was driven by Michael B, a jovial man of Jamaican heritage who crammed lots of people on, which was a good thing because he wanted to get people home, and talked himself into a load of very good tips. The car was waiting at the lot, so we loaded up, used the app barcode to get out of the lot, and then we were on our way. That's the kind of app that makes me glad I have a smartphone.

We didn't have to go too far, which was good because even though it was only 9pm in Toronto, our bodies thought it was 2am. We had a room booked at a Marriott hotel in Mississauga for the night, about twenty minutes from the airport. When you just want to get your head down, the general state of the place isn't too important, but this hotel could have been a little more on the ball. The poor woman on Reception was on her own and rushed off her feet, our room was decorated in the current hotel room vogue of "Dark", and the single beside light didn't work. DW tried calling reception, but the aforementioned Reception clerk was too busy to answer the phone, so a visit to the desk was required. The maintenance man turned up quite quickly and fiddled with some wires to get the light working, which did at least make the room usuable. While he was doing that, we took stock and decided that the housekeeping at this hotel could have been a wee bit more thorough. It wasn't horrible, but at nearly $200 a night for an out-of-town hotel room, you can expect better. Indeed, the whole room looked tired, although that seems to be the norm these days.

We did get to bed at a sensible (Toronto) time, and I slept through until 2:30am when I was woken by people crashing around in the corridor outside. I went back to sleep, although DW had a similar experience at 3:30am. I guess that's what happens at hotels close to airports. I was wide awake at 5am, though, and while the dawn dawned, listened to an podcast about the rise of Hitler, as you do. It's alarming that the similarities between old Adolph and today's right-wing populists are striking.

We had planned on a vegan breakfast at a local Copper Branch outlet, but it was closed this Sunday morning, so we set off down Highway 401 in glorious sunshine and way more traffic than should be allowed on a Sunday. A word about driving the the Greater Toronto area; it's friggin' crazy. The speed limit is 100kph, but to find anyone else doing less than 110 would be a miracle. The general speed in around 120, with many going much faster, and weaving between the many lanes in order to make progress. They drive feet from the back of other vehicles at this speed, too, and it's no wonder there are so many rear-enders. There's a new High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane on the way out of Toronto, but unless you're doing at least 130, people are trying to drive over the top of you. I don't use that lane unless the main lanes are slow because I don't want to drive that fast, I don't want to use so much fuel, I'm not in that much of a hurry and I don't want a speeding fine. That last one is never going to happen, though, because the Provincial Police have given up enforcing the rules. They won't stop anyone unless they're going fast enough to merit having their car impounded - it's known as Grandstanding I think.

Anyway, apart from the lunatics, the people driving in the middle lane, the trucks using the left-lane and the tailgaters, it was a very pleasant run. The temperature reached 22C (October 20th!), and the red, gold and yellow trees were spectacular in their autumn colours. The traffic did thin out as we went westwards, and we didn't really get held up the the construction zones. We did stop off in London (Ontario) for a different vegan breakfast at Odd Burger, then in was a gentle run home with no other distractions that US plated cars driving significantly over the speed limit as they made their way home. Call me a crusty old git, but I do think visitors to another country really should have a stab at obeying that country's laws. When they know that they're never going to get caught, though, I guess it's a free for all.

 

That was the run home. We've had better travel experiences, but we made it in one piece, which is really the most important thing.

Last Run. Short Season. Thursday.

Thursday is packing up day, and we'd decided to get a way a little earlier than usual, so we were both up with the lark. Well, I was, not so much DW.

The weather was still good, and the gazebo had dried out, or at least on the outside. The roof inside was wet with condensation, so as we took it down for the second time this trip, we didn't fold it up tightly, just threw it loose into the back of the van.

The rest of the packing up went to plan, and I took special care to put things away properly, given that Towed Haul is headed for her winter sojourn next week. So much to plan were we that it was almost dead on noon when we rolled off the site and made our way to the dump station. It was there that things took a slightly sideways twist, although not in a bad way. I was about to get grumbly because the Park people had decided to change the fitting on the sewer station's water hose which meant that I couldn't connect it up to the black tank flushing system, when we were approached by some very nice people who had apparently been reading these blogs. They recognized the car, and the trailer, and engaged us in animated conversation, and asking us all about the tow vehicle and it viability. I was a bit surprised to meet someone who had read the blog, although these were not the first, but they weren't camping in the park, just visiting. It got me thinking that I should conclude this, the final trip of our thirteenth season, with some well chosen words about the combo they said would never work.

Before I go there, though, I'll just mention that the waste tanks were dumped successfully, I couldn't get the clear plastic hose extender off the hose and had to stow it in the rear bumper storage compartment until I got home. Our run back was without incident, there was virtually no wind (when you live in an area heavily populated by wind turbines, you notice when there's no wind), and the fuel mileage was down to 16.4 litres per 100 kilometres (the smaller the figure the better), so that was a win. We deviated from our regular route after we were stuck behind one of the double-trailer tomato trucks that ply our roads at this time of year (field tomatoes are big business here and French's Tomato Ketchup plant is just down the roan in Leamington), and drive very slowly. Our final backup onto the driveway was good and we were ready for Charlie's arrival home from school in good time. A very good day, I think.

As to the combo they said would never work, well it has worked for thirteen years with nary a hiccup along the way.

As you'll know, we tow our 28' Airstream (around 7,000 lbs loaded) with a 2011 Toyota Sienna Minivan. This tow vehicle offends the sensibilities of just about everyone who tows a travel trailer because, well, it's not a pickup truck. But, you may also know that North America's most respected towing authority, Andy Thomson, set the Sienna up and said it would work. He'd been in the business for 40 years at that point and had set up thousands on non-truck tow vehicles building his entire business on his reputation. He is Airstream's towing consultant after all.

So many people told me that the Sienna wasn't a proper tow vehicle and would either conk out on the road, or have us all killed in a fiery crash. Even friends looked at us pityingly and wished us good luck and hoped we didn't come to regret our choice, all said with drooping eyebrows and looks that said "you WILL regret your choice". But, we had gone to the best for our setup, and as I will elucidate, he was right on everything, everything he said. All of the naysayers, conversely, were entirely wrong.

A tow vehicle doesn't have to be heavier than the trailer, that's the first thing people get wrong. If tow vehicles did have to be heavier, what size would the tractor unit on an 18-wheeler towing a 53' trailer have to be? We were told that the "tail would wag the dog", but after all these years towing I have never felt the trailer pushing the Sienna around, nor have I ever experienced a "sway" event.

The next thing people get wrong is power. The Sienna will churn out around 270 brake horse power, but actually only ever uses about sixty or seventy when under way. At maximum load, I only ever saw 120bhp required (measured using a ScanGauge) once. The Sienna feels strong on the steepest grades. Not fast, for sure, but strong.

Then they told us the Sienna would never stop the Airstream, but that's wrong, too. The trailer has four braked wheels which will stop the trailer on their own. The Sienna's brakes, discs all round, are pretty good for a car, too. 

Front wheel drive can't be used to tow a trailer they said, and again they were wrong. Yes, when towing I can spin the front wheels, but I can do that when not towing as well. In fact I've only ever lost traction twice with the FWD when towing, and that was applying power on steep, gravelly roads in camp grounds. Indeed, where I've seen pickup trucks spinning their rear wheels to get a trailer moving on wet grass, I've never had any wheel slip at all, and have hauled our trailer out of muddy and wet grass on numerous occasions without ever spinning the front wheels.

Apparently you can't use a unibody constructed vehicle to tow a trailer. After thirteen years towing, I think the Sienna has shown that in reality, a unibody does work.

I've had people tell me it's illegal to tow with the Sienna (it's not), and that my liability is too great to be insured (no one has ever produced a documented case of such a thing happening, although the incidence of "I know a guy..." cases is high). I've even had people say to my face that it was impossible for the Sienna to tow the Airstream, despite the fact that it's sitting in a campground, so patently having been dragged there by the Sienna. 

Actually, it all gets a bit wearing and as people newer to towing than us join the online groups, I go through the same loops as I've described above, over and over again. Every one knows what's best for me, and I'm a poor sap who'd been conned by an unscrupulous salesman, this despite a total lack of experience towing using anything other than a truck.

The Sienna is really a very good tow platform with it's forward weight, independent, low-slung and wide stance coil spring suspension, and six-speed automatic gearbox and is a better design than any pickup up the road.

Of course, I didn't just buy the Sienna and a hitch, and drive off. The hitch receiver had been modified to limit the torque at the hitch head and transfer the weight more effectively to all the available axles. There's an electronic brake controller, a second transmission cooler, weight distribution and sway mitigation systems in place, all of which are essential to make everything work safely. There's the key statement, to make everything work safely, and it so patently does as thirteen years of hassle-free towing demonstrate. 

Apart from the additional transmission cooler, and brake controller, the Sienna is bog standard. It has 230,000 kilometres (143,000 miles) on it and still has the original transmission. I'm not sure how many changes of tires it's had, but it's on its second set of shocks, new ones fitted as routine maintenance rather than as a result of a failure. I've just had the rear section of the exhaust system replaced, and one suspension strut was renewed at around 75,000 miles. It's only on it's second fill of synthetic transmission oil.

That's a lot of information, and I wouldn't be surprised if you fell asleep reading it. The crux of it, though, is that despite all the bad stuff that's been said and written about our setup, it's still going strong and has been entirely safe and entirely reliable throughout. I would love to think that we've challenged people's ideas about towing with a non-truck, but sadly If I put up a photo of our combo, I'll be hit with "it'll never work" nonsense all over again.

Anyway, that's a wrap for season thirteen. Hibernation starts next week, and we're looking forward to season fourteen.

No wheel slip pulling off a waterlogged site.
The puddle is formed in dip made by trucks spinning their rear wheels.

Last Run. Short Season. Wednesday.

 Nowhere to be this Wednesday, so it was a slow start for us both.

Surprisingly, not only didn't the promised thunderstorms show up in the night, it didn't even rain. Not a drop. Putting the gazebo away in the fading light wasn't necessary, nor was weighting down the groundsheet we use in the gazebo to prevent it from blowing away. The temperature was even bobbling around 19C. Where had the weather gone?

I consistently praise the campground's "Comfort Station", that is the shower, toilet and laundry block, and today was no exception. Certainly the campground is very quiet this week, so the shower cubical was dry and clean thanks to little usage, but the copious hot water was an absolute delight this morning and really set up the day for me. I could use the shower in the trailer, but why have to eke out the onboard water supplies when I can go mad in the Comfort Station?

On the way to have my shower, I said hello to a couple who are camping with their three under school age children. The kids looked clean and pink, dad looked OK, but mum looked a little ragged around the edges. She said they were good kids, but not necessarily when taking a communal shower. I can't cope with one kid, let alone three. Still, camping is great for the little ones, so well done mum and dad for putting in the effort.

For breakfast we had crumpets. If you're not British you might not know what crumpets are, so have a look at the Wikipedia definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumpet. There are scads of people who will offer the "best" recipe for crumpets, but you can't beat a shop bought, mass produced crumpet, at least when you've been brought up on them. The problem with these crumpets, though was that they were frozen, and we have the world's worst electric toaster on board the Airstream. For reference, it's a Black and Decker model, and looks quite nice, but it can't toast anything properly to save its life. Even with a regular, unfrozen slice of bread, you have to put it on maximum power, and run the cycle twice, just to get the bread even slightly brown. It's hopeless. I wonder if it wasn't designed by someone who didn't really know what toast is? More likely, though, even when it wasn't cheap, it's made from cheap, inferior components. It's made in China, for sure, but the manufacturers will only build to the specification they're given, and B&D is a Canadian company, shame on them. We have promised ourselves a new toaster for next season. The crumpets, with three cycles on maximum power, turned out to be passable. For the non-Brits, if you ever try them, don't be tempted to add jam, or even Marmite, to the piping hot crumpet. You only need plain butter or spread for the authentic taste.

Just before lunch, and given that the weather was looking far from the rain that had been forecast, DW suggested a drive out to Ridgetown, just to have a walk. We're camped in a place with lots of walks, but Ridgetown promised to be free of bitey bugs, so off we went. The town itself is typical south western Ontario, full of wooden houses in tree-lined, grid-patterned street. We nipped into the residential areas north of Main Street and meandered around to a little park we'd visited before. Then we followed the small stream that flowed though the park, up the hill and onto the south side of town, enjoying seen the start of the autumn colours in the trees, and listening to the bird calls. Ridgetown lacks any modern development, at least in that area around the centre, so the streets are broad and straight and most of the houses date back to the mid nineteenth century. We walked a big square, north and south of Main Street and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Back at the campground, we set up the still slightly wet gazebo again, pulled out the slightly damp chairs, and positioned ourselves inside for an afternoon, enjoying the bug-free environment. I fell asleep in my chair, and for far longer than perhaps I should have because I woke with a very stiff neck and the start of a niggling headache. Getting old sucks.

After supper we put some music on inside the trailer and spent the evening chatting and putting the world to rights. Again, no TV, which is a feature of more recent camping trips we've made. I'm certainly not desperate to be watching TV, and our stay away from home is our chance to do things a bit differently.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is packing up day, and we have decided to get moving a little earlier than usual, thanks to a commitment at home. I hope the weather holds, because apart from Monday night, the weather's been glorious for late September.

Last Run. Short Season. Tuesday

 A different start to the second day's camping, at least for me, as I jumped into the car and headed back into town. At 7am!

I had a breakfast appointment with the world's greatest school bus drivers (it says here), but I wanted to do double up the run with a haircut in preparation for our travel to the UK. It had been raining in the night, quite significantly if the puddles in the campground were anything to go by, and yet I hadn't been woken up by it. Anyone who's been inside an Airstream in the rain will know what it's like to be inside a drum; it's very noisy, but clearly I have become used to it.

That said, on the run back to town, just a few kilometres north of the park, the roads were dry. So, it was localised rain then.

While in town, I dropped in at home to shower and get a change of clothes, then headed over to the Links Golf Course for breakfast. I did get my hair cut afterwards, a process I do not enjoy, although I always like the end result. Then it was back to Rondeau.

We went out for a walk, given that the rain was holding off, but didn't stay out as long as we'd have liked. In the summer it can get very "buggy" in the park, although it's not usually so bad in the autumn. Unfortunately, the east side of the peninsular seemed to be under attack from some horrible little flies that were, to say the least, a bit nippy - as in bitey. We met a woman pushing a baby in a buggy and the poor baby was getting bitten, this despite there being a net over the buggy itself. We put up with the nipping for only a few minutes before retreating to the safety of the trailer and its nip-free environment.

 

 

The remainder of the day was spent in full relaxation mode, doing a whole lot of very little, which was the aim of the trip after all. 

Just as the night was drawing in, and with the prospect of some heavy rain and thunderstorms, we decided to take the gazebo down and stow it in the car, it being largely dry at this point. I say largely dry, but what rain and mud it had on it was quickly transferred to me and my clothes as I manhandled the beast into the car. Still, we didn't want the thing damaged in a storm, nor did we relish having to take it down wet, so it was looking like a wise decision.

The opportunity to spend time simply unwinding should never be underestimated. Sometimes to sit and do absolutely nothing is good for the mind and the body. There are many people who are not happy unless they're busy, and many that think to be constantly busy is a virtue. Well, that's not us thankfully, and we both enjoyed just sitting around chatting and idly browsing the Internet for, well, nothing of any great value. We didn't even fire up the TV for a movie, but put our brains in neutral and relaxed. 

That is the essence of quick and easy camping.

Last Run. Short Season. Monday.

 

Here we are, back at Rondeau, and back on site 16 of the South Campground. Same old, same old, but easy when you're in need of uncomplicated camping.

It's been a short season for us, with other travel at either end of the summer, and our usual self-imposed hiatus when we don't camp in July and August. I say self-imposed, but since COVID it's been impossible to get camping reservations at Provincial Parks during the school holidays, unless you're prepared to get up in the middle of night when the booking system releases the sites, which I'm not. There's the double irritant there of some 44% of booked camping reservations that are never taken up, which is a product of people over-booking blindly, usually to make sure they get something, then being happy to swallow the cost of not taking up the site. But I digress.

We're heading off to the UK in a couple of weeks time so after this trip we'll clean Towed Haul up and put her into winter storage, around a month early. The camping season in this balmy part of Canada now runs into the first couple of weeks of November, but we've opted not to camp late this year,

September's weather has been hot and dry. I was in the pool up until last week, and still watering this year's new tree plantings, such was the fine weather. So, our first real rain came at the weekend, and now we're looking at a very wet couple of days here at Rondeau. Still, a wet day's camping always beats a dry day's working.

We hadn't really cleaned the trailer up since the last trip, but I re-sanitized the fresh water tank, and cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, even if I didn't get the duster or the vacuum cleaner on the job. I had worked hard at maintaining the batteries over the summer, and even though I'd hooked her up to the house's power a week before so that I could run the fridge up ahead of time, I was pleased to note that when I hit the electric jack button, she sprang to life without a hiccup. 

When you've not been camping for a while, there's always a nagging thought that you're missing something, or not doing something right, but we loaded up, and hitched up, all without incident. We use something called a Weight Distribution System on our trailer hitch, and put simply it acts a little like the handles on a wheelbarrow and pushes the weight at the hitch ball both forwards and backwards, to spread the load over all the available axles. In order to get the system attached, I have to drop the tongue of the trailer onto the ball of the hitch on the car, lock it in place, then lift car and trailer up together a couple of inches using the trailer's jack so that I can get the mechanism hooked up. Dropping it back down and letting the weight distribution system take the strain is always a worrying time because if anything is going to break, that's the time it will do it. Happily, it all went well.

All loaded and hitched, we put our grandson into his seat in the back of the car with strict instructions to watch the trailer and let me know if it became detached. He's only four, but even he didn't fall for that one.

On the way down to Rondeau, we usually negotiate Indian Creek Road, just on the south side of town. I think the various tranches of sewer work in the street has made the road sink in places, and watching the trailer in my driver's mirror as it lurches up and down over the dips and rises in the road surface is quite alarming. Still, both car and trailer seem to deal with it.

I think we must have had the wind at our backs this day as the drive down to the park was very smooth and easy. I record the gas/petrol usage as we go, and it bottomed out at 17.4 litres per 100 kilometres by the time we arrived at the park. That looks seriously scary as it's more than twice the usual consumption, but it can go up around the 20-21 mark if the weather's against us. It's a fact that steep hills don't really bother the tow vehicle when it's under load, but driving any length of time into a stiff headwind really puts some strain on it, and the gas mileage suffers. Given that the Airstream is quite aerodynamic compared to other trailers, I hate to think about the gas mileage you'd get with a taller, flatter-fronted model.

Down at the park we filled up the fresh water tank, then dumped out what was sloshing around in the waste tanks so that we could start completely empty. We camp three nights at a stretch, usually, and the tanks will deal with three showers for the missus, and all the general toilet and water usage that ensues. We are careful with water consumption, not least because there's a finite amount of water, and a finite amount of capacity in the waste tanks. However, we manage the fine balance between supply and waste quite well these days. One little trick you can do is to tip any washing up water you have into the toilet. That has a two-fold advantage of both keeping your toilet solids from drying out in the Black tank, and spreading your waste Grey water across the two waste holding tanks. 

Backing onto the site was fairly easy, which is one of the reasons we like this site, but we readjusted because there was a lot of Poison Ivy in the bush right next to the trailer and, as I have to get down the side of the trailer when setting up, we thought it wise to move the old girl a couple of feet away. Again, we do this sort of thing a lot when we're camping, so repositioning the trailer isn't a tough job for us anymore. I should perhaps add for the benefit of my European readers that these North American trailers weigh a couple of tons and have to be moved around using the tow vehicle; there's none of your grabbing it by the handles and manhandling into position.

Because we had Charlie with us (his mum had followed us down in her car), I strung up our fairy lights inside the camping gazebo, and set a camp fire, which is something we rarely do. With an inquisitive four-year-old around, you have to be super-vigilant with a fire burning, but we cooked some vegan sausages over the flames and no one was harmed in the process. Of course, we all stank of wood smoke, but I guess that's what camping's about.

Once the young people had left us, we settled into our grown-ups' camping routine of relaxing, relaxing and more relaxing. The beer and wine flowed, as did the chat, and we settled in for a few quiet days on our own. The weather had stayed dry all day, too, despite the forecast saying rain. Sometimes these things just work for you.

Columbus or Bust - Sunday

 

Sunday was going home day, so not too much to report, other than the journey. We had anticipated heading out to Baltimore this day, but rejigged things and used our Saturday more productively, and now all we had to do was pack and drive.

The Airbnb was a really nice little place to stay, a two-bedroomed family home in a good neighbourhood, on a quiet street. I’d guess it was built just before, or just after ,1920 and in it’s Dutch Barn style was good and solid. Some of the doors and windows looked original, and quite a lot of the internal wood most certainly was original. Downstairs, some modern wood flooring had been put down on the original surface, but the stairs and the upstairs floors were all thin boards and as squeaky as you like.

In the kitchen and dining area it was fitted out as any family home would be, with everything you’d expect to find in a modern kitchen. The front room wasn’t dominated by a TV because the owners had installed a ceiling mounted projector and a self-deploying screen. Add the good stereo speaker system and Apple TV and it was a very good home entertainment system. Not that we needed the facility, but we used it out of curiosity.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but the front door opened straight into the living room, although outside the door was under a copious porch area. Fine in the summer, and the storm door showed that, but for the winter, maybe not. The front porch was set up nicely to sit, it was north facing so shady, and the rear of the house had a nice deck with patio furniture and a couple of shade sails, which you’d need as that was south facing.

The neighbourhood of Clintonville is today quite trendy, with a fair bit of gentrification, especially towards the river. North High Street was booming, and the presence of niche restaurants and Pride flags gives you an idea of the local ambience. Indeed, the bulk of the area looked to be untouched by modern life, apart from the cars lining the streets, which is nice to see in a country where tearing down the old is a national sport.

Prior to departure, we did a quick dash down to the vegan bakery again, just to top up supplies you understand. Sunday traffic was light, so it was an easy run down North High Street and back. As quite large cities go, I have to say that Columbus is a very nice place to be.

Ready for the off, we loaded the car and headed northwest, towards Findlay and the I75. Trusting to Google Maps again, the lady in the device took us up alongside the Olentangy River for quite a distance, which was a nice drive on a Sunday morning. I had to stop for fuel and was once again slightly perplexed as to what happened to the requirement to add your Zip code to the gas pump in order to verify your credit card. Obviously, we don’t have a Zip code, us being Canadian and all, but there was a neat little workaround you could use. It took me a second, this time around, to realise that I’d put a PIN number in and that was the required verification. When we were taking the trailer on long runs in the USA, they were still using the magnetic strip on the credit card, not the chip as they do now. Perplexedness solved.

Google had us heading up to Upper Sandusky this time, on a multi-lane highway, which is how I thought we’d arrive on Friday. I think because Google finds the quickest route based on live traffic conditions, it must have decided that the construction works at Stratford would have delayed us too much so sent us down the smaller country roads through Kenton. Either way, progress was pretty good.

We stopped again at Bowling Green, on the northbound side this time of course, not too far north of Findlay and not too far south of Toledo. It was still scarily hot, and you don’t understand that until you get out of the air-conditioned car. Our snack lunch was taken quickly!

Toledo was negotiated, then were back in bumpy Michigan and pressing onto Detroit. As we approached, the sun was glinting off the new bridge, and I have to say that it looks even more impressive than in the (many) videos on YouTube. The bridge deck is one span now, but it’s not likely to be open for another year yet, which is a year too long in my book, especially as we were about to negotiate the Ambassador Bridge.

The Ambassador Bridge is ninety years old and has developed into the busiest land crossing in the US and Canada. Unfortunately, it has suffered from a chronic lack of investment because it’s privately owned. Betraying my socialist leanings, I can’t help thinking that its lack of development, and even basic maintenance, has suffered in the name of profit. It also predates all the main highways, so at both ends, traffic is dumped straight into either Windsor or Detroit, and not on a nice, speedy highway. The new bridge isn’t privately owned (phew!), and doesn’t shy away from highways, with Ontario’s Highway 401 being extended right to the bridge on the Canadian side, and a new connection with Michigan’s I75 being constructed on the US side. The future looks bright, but for now we’re stuck with the old bridge. Remember I was talking about Chip and PIN credit cards? Well, the Ambassador Bridge still uses the magnetic strip technology, which is slow and awkward – see, no investment.

Twisting roads get you up on the bridge, and then drops you down onto Windsor’s Huron Church Road. But not before the Border Service people have had a squint at your passport. Normally, crossing back into Canada is quite easy, and there are rarely queues. Unfortunately, on this Sunday, there were lines a plenty, so it was on with the patient heads. Once at the kiosk, the young woman was polite, professional and friendly. I handed her the passports all open to the right page, then made sure all the car windows were open so that she could see inside, which are two simple things you can do to make transit much easier. She’d taken her time with a few of the cars ahead of us, but we breezed through and I’m fairly sure that my little tricks to ease the way went some way to helping.

Then it was Huron Church Road. Three lanes either side, with a built median and lots of Stop lights. It pays to not get stuck behind trucks because they tend to move off from the lights slowly, but this day the centre lane was full of trucks and the right lane was full of people dithering about whether they wanted Tim Hortons or McDonalds. Once they’re moving, those big rigs really move, and it’s a 60kph limit there. I’m doing early 80 and I’m being harassed by one truck behind me because he wants to go faster, so he dives into the right lane and starts a passing move on me. He gets about two thirds of the way past then realizes there’s a slow vehicle in his lane, so on goes his blinker and he starts to move into my lane. Ordinarily I can’t be bothered to fight these idiots and I just move out of their way. Today though, two things made me hold my ground. Firstly, diving to the right to pass is a moving violation, and that’s on top of the speeding. Secondly, I needed one of the two right lanes to make the turn to the 401 a few yards ahead, and I wasn’t going to be pushed out of lane to miss my turn because of a twat like that. So, I stayed where I was. His blinker kept going but he wasn’t going to side swipe me, and I wasn’t going to be intimidated. I won that one because he did back off. On the 401 itself, 100kph limit, he comes flying past me on my left (better), but he’s both speeding and occupying the left lane, which is also a moving violation for a truck of that size. Of course, out on the main part of the highway where the limit is higher, I breezed past him and went on my way. Indeed, I could have backed off at the point he was trying to force his way past and still have been ahead of him, but I’m damned if I’m going to let a jackass like that intimidate me. Of course, I would have yielded to avoid a collision, but while I felt confident that I was OK, then I was going to stick to my right of way. We did take a photo of his licence plate, but I doubt I will get around to reporting him. Had I had a dashcam then maybe I would have.

After that bit of excitement, it was a clear run home. Five hours in total (stops and border had added an hour) and a total distance over the weekend a few kilometres short of 900. I only started feeling a bit drowsy in the last ten kilometres, which was pretty good, too.

The football was an experience, even if the result wasn’t, and the visit to Basil was excellent. Columbus is a great city, and our house for the weekend was lovely. Now, if we could just get Michigan to fix its roads…

 

Columbus or Bust - Saturday

Saturday dawned, and with it the prospect of trying out yet another different type of shower system in the house. This one turned out not to require too much advanced knowledge, with two controls rather than one. Shower designers must fall over themselves to build ever more complex setups, usually in the guise of reducing the manufacturing cost, so every shower I have to interface with in hotels or Airbnb places is a bit of a challenge. But then that’s just me.

 

Our first port of call for the day was the “Happy Little Treats” bakery, purveyor of fine vegan things, which was about ten minutes away. Without going into too much detail, we emerged with a big box of baked goodies, and looked set for the day. 

 

Then we headed south to the rural idyll that is Baltimore, Ohio. There lie the earthly remains of a distant relative of mine, one William Franklin Mayne, and his wife Eliza Jane. He was the third born son of Henry Mayne, who left Leeds (my home town) in the UK in 1822, and set off for the New World. He started quite a dynasty on this side of the Atlantic, of which old WF was at the vanguard. The drive down was only about forty minutes, and while the land was a bit more undulating thereabouts, the fields were full of corn and beans, and the houses looked much the same as in southern Ontario. Nearer Baltimore, the houses were bigger and generally set in more land, which I supposed denoted the presence of money, although this was still all in the middle of miles and miles of fields. As we drove along the arrow straight roads lined with electricity poles, I couldn't help thinking of the scenes in the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? when a caravan of Airstream trailers rolled down such a road. I guess the road could have been anywhere in the Midwest.

 

Baltimore was just a nice little town servicing the surrounding rural area. Old WF and his family had lived in the village, known as Basil originally, but had been absorbed by its bigger neighbour, Baltimore. Today, though, it was the Old Basil Cemetery we were visiting. I should point out here for the Brits reading this that Basil is pronounced “Bay-zil” on this side of the pond; I mention that just for authenticity of course. One of Basil’s claims was that it was a stopping point on the long-defunct Ohio and Erie Canal, which was the source of its early prosperity, but of course you all knew that already.

 

Old WF had been the village doctor in the second half of the Nineteenth century, and a property developer as well, given that he owned much of the land Basil (sorry, West Baltimore) now stands on. The word “owned” is a misnomer because the land would have been appropriated from the native people that had lived here for thousands of years before European contact. Indian removal had started after the Revolutionary War, about a hundred years before WF acquired the title, and was likely either Shawnee or Wyandot land. In any talk of North America, it’s important to acknowledge these facts.

 

When we arrived in West Market Street, there was a parade underway, so clearly someone had told them I was coming. It was a wee bit bizarre to be browsing the cemetery while there were people dressed up like ice cream cones, or riding multi-seated quad-cycles, just a few yards away. Anyway, we found WF’s grave fairly easily, revelled in the general aura of Mayneness, and took some photos.

On the way back to the car, we looked carefully at a house that I thought had been built by WF but re-reading the entry in the Baltimore Community Museum Facebook page, it was a newer house we were looking at, but on the site of WF’s original dwelling. Still, it was a significant space for me.

 

Then it was back to the big city of Columbus. We’d been there before a few years ago and had remarked how clean and tidy the downtown core was. While not actually downtown now, we did get a good view of it from the highway, perched as it is on a little rise, and very nice it looked too. 

 

Back at the house, we chilled a little (essential given how warm it was getting outside), and prepared for the main event of the weekend, the match between Chelsea Football Club of London, and Manchester City FC of, well, Manchester. Both English Premier League teams were in the USA on a pre-season tour, and they were booked to play each other at the Ohio State Stadium. That’s not a soccer stadium, but as it seats 102,000, it was better for the money men than using the much smaller Columbus Crew MLS soccer stadium. When I said it was getting warmer, it was also getting darker, which was of course a prelude to a huge rain storm. It was not looking good because the Ohio stadium doesn’t have any cover over its seats. Fortunately, the storm passed quickly, but then the heat started to build, so it looked like we’d likely drown, or boil while watching the game.

 

The wise decision was taken to utilize an Uber rideshare car to get us to the stadium, and young Hassan, our driver, sped us into the huge campus that is Ohio State University. We were still some way from the stadium as we passed parking lots with spaces at $20, which made the Uber decision make real sense. When we were dropped close to the stadium, a bar, The Varsity, was full of Chelsea supporters singing and shouting, and it was more than reminiscent of the Fulham Road on Saturday afternoon than a hot afternoon in Ohio. As we approached the ground, there were many thousands of Chelsea and City shirts in evidence, plus a whole raft of other football shirts, from El Salvador to Arsenal.

Completed in 1922, the stadium is a horseshoe shaped concrete edifice that these days can hold 102,000 paying customers. It’s normally the home of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team but is often used for University events as well. If nothing else, it’s impressive. The downside was that the playing area isn’t really built for soccer, so the pitch laid out was a little narrow, and probably short as well, but from our seats up in the nosebleed section, it was difficult to tell. I have mentioned already that there is no covering over any of the stadium, so if it was going to rain then we were going to get soaked. As it turned out, it stayed dry, but the ambient air temperature that afternoon was around 30C, and when the sun shone, it was seriously hot up there on the concrete cliff face.

 

The facilities in the stadium were OK, plenty of water to be bought, and beer, and hotdogs, at a price of course. The men’s toilets on C deck were pretty awful, but that was down to the users, not the providers. There was some merchandise being sold, but the people behind us took about thirty minutes and $200 to come back with not very much at all, so that was pretty much what we expected. 

 

The pre-game stuff was all US professional sports nonsense. Mascots, crowd-cam, stupid games and a “host” trying to get everyone warmed up. The sound system was pretty good, and the DJ providing the music wasn’t bad, but it just went on too long. The giant screen at one end of the stadium was a mass of flashing images and, this being the USA, non-stop commercials.

 

When the game started, at least the music was stopped, although the people behind us did ask, out loud, why that was. They thought the music might liven things up a bit. The game wasn’t great, pre-season friendlies never are, even though things had been built up like it was a cup final or something. The referee, surely FIFA accredited, was dreadful, dishing out a penalty when City’s captain fell over in the penalty area, then handing out yellow cards for even the mildest contact between players. That didn’t help. Nor did my team being beaten 4-2. I couldn’t quite deal with the music and flashing screens when goals were scored, a camera operator rushing onto the pitch to record the players’ celebrations was a bit mad, and every corner kick was greeted with a commercial “This corner kick is brought to you by Rinky-Dinky Airlines”. That’s just not done in European football. Still, it was only a practice match, so what did it matter?

 

The 72,000 paying customers in the ground seemed to enjoy the spectacle, and I’m glad we went, because it was quite the event. One day the Premier League should organize a competitive game in the US, without all the music and the lights, and held in a stadium with a roof on, at least over the spectators. Then you’d get the crowd noise and not be distracted by Rinky-Dink Airlines every few minutes.

 

Coming out of the stadium was OK, it’s a big place and didn’t feel too crushed as everyone made for the exits. I thought it looked and felt a bit like the old Wembley Stadium in London as we headed out down the stairs but given that the Ohio stadium was built at around the same time, it shouldn’t have been surprising. We needed to walk a bit to get away from ground and the main bulk of spectators, and even when we did and bagged another Uber car, the traffic was still horrible. Mind you, the driver was pretty good with the back streets and had us home in record time.

 

It was too late to go out for dinner at that point, not least because a lot of places close at 9pm (this isn’t Europe, for sure, where places don’t even open until 9pm), so it was pizza and beer at home, along with a cheesy but moral Tom Hanks movie on the big screen.

 

Goodness that was a busy day.

 

Columbus or Bust Weekend - Friday

Not an Airstream trip, but travel all the same, so here goes.

 

Our favourite English football (soccer) team was on a tour of North America, as a warm up to the 2024/25 Premier League season. It was their penultimate game, and it was in Columbus, Ohio, just four hours’ drive to the south of us. Well, we couldn’t not go. Four hours, when you write it down, seems quite a long drive, but in North American terms, that’s local when you consider people will drive for days to cross this continent.

 

We left young William to organise the tickets, the scarily expensive tickets, and for good measure he set up a nice little Airbnb place for us for the weekend. All was set for our Friday departure, or at least it was when I’d taken Charlie’s car seat out of the minivan, and then vacuumed the collected detritus from underneath it, which included crisps, Skittles, and a whole host of identified crumbs and fluff. In a fit of excitement, I also went out and had a haircut, topped off the minivan’s fuel tank, and ran it through the car wash. What a morning.

 

Finally on the road, it was a clear and easy run down to Windsor, but the weather tried its best to spoil the party. It was very warm, and the clouds were building, so rain was surely due, and it was rain that we duly experienced. Rain so hard that the visibility on the highway was almost down to nothing at some points. This was where it became interesting. Obviously when the weather does that, you slow right down and make sure you have a good gap between you and the other vehicles on the road. Headlights are also required, but that was the first issue. Most cars here have daylight running lamps, that is headlights that are on all the time, as are the dash lights, but not the rear lights. So a good half of the cars on the highway were still on daylight running and showing no rear lights, which is a bit of a bummer in bad visibility conditions. Some did put their four-way flashers on, technically not legal but I get the idea, but rear lights would have been far better. Then people started pulling over onto the shoulder and stopping. I was gobsmacked. If you’re concerned about safety, the last thing you need to do is to stop and present a stationary barrier should anyone veer slightly off of the road in the bad weather. The good Mrs M said it was a regular occurrence in heavy rain, though I’d never seen it before, but it just seemed counter to safety. I’ve never seen anyone do that in snow, or fog, so why rain? Anyway, we had three or four more serious bouts of rain before we ran out of highway and plodded along Windsor’s Huron Church Road towards the Ambassador Bridge and the United States of America, but that was more than enough.

 

Border crossings can be fraught, and sometimes very slow, but today it wasn’t too bad despite it being the Friday of a Canadian long weekend. The fellow in the border kiosk was suitably grumpy, but asked only the regular questions about destination, reasons and length of stay. He threw in a question about the relationships of the people in the vehicle, because there were two surnames, not one, but that was the extent of the grilling. In the rain, we threaded our way out of the border complex and onto the I75 and headed south.

 

People who travel a lot will tell you that Michigan’s roads are not the best, and they’re not wrong. The concrete roads are ridged and pitted and you fairly bounce down the road towards Ohio. There were some major roadworks around the new bridge in Detroit, and again just before arriving in Ohio, but that whole forty-seven miles or so from the bridge to the Ohio State Line is just horrible, which is not great given that it’s an Interstate Highway. Ohio seems to look after their roads a bit better, and the going was easier around Toledo. We broke the run at a Rest Stop in Bowling Green (Who can forget the great Bowling Green Massacre? Google it). Ontario doesn’t have these rest stops, it only has Service Centres. Like the ones we used in mid-Michigan earlier in the year, this one was small but had parking enough for cars and for trucks, clean toilets and a couple of vending machines. No fast food, no overpriced sandwiches, and no scarily expensive fuel. I like these Rest Stops. It’s a thing here that if you need fuel and fast food then you come right off the highway into one of the many Truck Stops, or even just into a small town beside the road; it’s all signposted most comprehensively. If I remember correctly, while Ontario has adopted the British-style Service Centres, Quebec has the American-style Rest Stops. Indeed, thinking about Quebec, France’s Autoroutes have Rest Stops, or Aires. Goodness, how well travelled I am (not).

 

While at the Rest Stop, we were approached by an older gentleman who said “Where are we?”. I was torn between thinking this was a poor old fellow who’d lost his marbles, or imagining that he was an ageing drug addict. Fortunately he qualified his question by saying “On the map”, and gestured to a large road map on the wall. I was relieved for both of us. The map didn’t have a little “You Are Here” marker on it, not even a load of greasy finger marks on account of it being mounted quite high on the wall, away from children. We pointed out to the old fellow where we were, and both he and his wife looked much happier and showed us where they were heading, which was nice.

 

Back on the I75, just past Findlay, we struck off the Interstate into the country on a normal one lane each way road and headed towards Columbus, passing though some nice little towns along the way. Americans do like their flags, and so many houses have at least one on proud display. I asked an American friend once about that flag-dependence, and she said that perhaps it was because the USA is such a young country and they feel they need to establish a national identity. Given the melting pot of people here, that is most likely true. I remember being quite surprised as a kid to see a Union flag at all in the UK, and that elusive English flag, the cross of St.George, seemed only to be flown on High Days and Holidays. One thing we all remarked on was that apart from the flags, it was hard to tell the difference between Ontario and Ohio as the fields and buildings all looked pretty much the same.

 

Nearing Columbus we were back on multi-lane roads, and some quite scary driving from the natives. A dump truck joined the highway from an onramp and shot across three lanes to drive in one of the left-hand lanes, for no reason I could see. A little later, I moved right onto an offramp and a woman in a little blue Hyundai went to use the shoulder to pass me on the right before thinking better of it. Once on the next bit of multi-lane road, she went flying out to the left lane in one fell swoop. The irony of all that was that we caught up with her as we headed into the northern suburbs of the city and followed her for a while. Oh, the pointlessness of it all.

 

Google Maps Directions wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t send you down at least a couple of odd roads when it didn’t need to. We ended up traversing a couple of long brick roads; cobbled, but with bricks. It reminded me of the original Indianapolis Speedway, which was adroitly termed “The Brickyard” because the first track was made up of old bricks. I don’t think these roads were ever designed for the use they get, so the surface was dipped and lumpy as the bricks had sunk unevenly. Still, it does tend to slow you down a bit, which is good for safety, of course.

 

Our home for the next couple of days was part way down a long, tree-lined street, not bricked, thankfully. As I was working out where to park on the street, another car came right behind me, and, as I moved in, she moved in just in front of me and threw her car in reverse. Oops, I thought, she’s going to be upset that I took her space. She wasn’t of course, she was parking as well and It was just coincidence that she came in right behind me when she did. Strange things happen, sometimes.

 

The house was very nice, 1910s or 1920s at a guess, Dutch Barn shaped and full of wood features, like some great heavy window frames, internal French Doors and a great wooden staircase. Oh, and ludicrously squeaky floors. I’ll do a bit more about the house in another blog entry.

 

Having settled in, we walked up onto North High Street and down a ways to The Lavash Cafe, a Mediterranean food specialist which did some excellent vegan and non-vegan dishes. It was very busy, but with great service, and we filled our faces. They clearly rely on a fast turn around of customers because tables were being filled, then emptied, in record time, or so it seemed to me. Then it was next door to the noisy but quite enjoyable Combustion Brewery and Tap Room for a beer. My IPA was some thick, yellow-tinged stuff that looked like muddy water, but tasted reasonably good. Try as I might, I can’t get my head around unfiltered beer, I guess it’s years of conditioning. Not cask conditioning, either. Our final stop for the night was the Bottle Store for some take out booze. There was a bewildering choice, but I did manage to select a relatively local beer that I could see through, and at a reasonable price.

 

Back at base, once we’d worked out how to use Apple+ TV, the projector on the ceiling and the screen that deployed itself from a cylinder on the wall, we watched the movie Eurovision. Poor Iceland, I don’t know what you did to deserve that level of mockery.

 

Before bed, we hashed out a plan for the next day, given that the footy wasn’t until late afternoon, and we moved our visit to the dead relatives’ grave from Sunday to Saturday, and threw in a visit to a place that sells vegan donuts. Weather permitting, it looked good for the morrow.