TRAVELIN’ THORNBERRIES ENJOY BOSTON TEA PARTY

This trip took place starting on Friday, May 11, 2007. It was our largest trip of that year (though not the most traumatic!), and took us through one of America's most venerable cultural powerhouses. Boston, Massachusetts.


Hello, My Darlings!

Yes, by special request I am breaking the “fourth wall” for this story, addressing you directly, my supportive readers. My hope is that I can help you to feel more a direct part of the experiences I have laboriously processed through my narrative taffy-pulling machine. Before we begin, I invite you to sit down, put your feet up, let out your gut and sip something caffeinated or alcoholic. This latest little vacation jaunt is going to be a bumpy and exciting ride!

As far back as January, Jennifer and I already had travel plans in play for seeing the city of Boston. However, we couldn’t have known at that time what to expect with this upcoming new year, 2007; Jennifer received an unexpected opportunity to change jobs and resume her career in newspaper. Unfortunately, her new work environment was economically a bit shakier than where she left, so we weren’t sure if this excursion would be the first and only one for us this year. Ergo, we made ourselves a promise that we would make it as memorable and entertaining as possible.

Ultimately, this trip would yield a set of experiences that we hope will delight and horrify you. By the way, apologies in advance: both Jennifer and I are studying foreign languages during this chapter of our lives (Latin for me, Spanish for her), and I can’t resist including a few words in the narrative wherever I can gratuitously shoehorn them. Gratia tibi! [Latin for “thank you!”]

Friday, May 11, 2007—Working Our Way Up to Get to the Bottom

Those of you who have been figurative homunculi riding on our shoulders during these virtual vacation tours will realize that Jennifer and I favor the use of wings for the lobbing of our bones across this sweet land o’ liberty. This current trip was to be no exception. As usual, we found that our local airport was too damn parochial to have a flight that wasn’t 20 percent more expensive and at a time other than 3 a.m. Our fallback airport didn’t do much better this time, so we booked our flight(s) through one we had never tried before.

At least we avoided the worst of the rush hour “cows.”

Indulge me in a quick explanation on the term “cows” as written specifically with the quotation marks.

As I’ve bemoaned in these stories before, Jennifer and I have become increasingly intolerant of the crowds that inhabit the public realm. No matter how intelligent or decent an individual, people in crowds seem to deteriorate markedly in civility, intellect and fine motor skills. I was telling Jennifer a couple of weeks ago that I often feel she and I are some of the only ones in public who are there with any sense of purpose. So many others blunder along with glassy-eyed looks of bovine blankness on their faces, acting like they just woke up and found themselves in the store or on the highway. They have to amble around sleepily, chewing their cud while they figure out why they’re there. Do you know those type of people? I’m sure you do. If you’ve never encountered someone like this before, chances are good that she or he is you. ;) For Jennifer and I, I’ve recently started applying the term “cows” to such people.

The Road of the Undead

Fans of fantasy fiction know that the term “undead” is applied to that which is dead but still animate; that is, something dead that mimics the living. Like zombies or vampires. Any of you who live near Jennifer and I will concur immediately that the term “undead” very aptly fits the highway known as Interstate 75. Honestly, has that road ever been in good repair? As long as I can remember, it has been peppered with those annoying orange barrels, pockmarked with potholes, and stitched together with mile after mile of concrete barricades on the shoulders that force you to smooch the cheeks of the irate driver in the lane next to you when you try to pass them. The road mimics a living road, but it is truly undead. I wish the state government would fix whatever broken part of it they’ve ruminated on for decades now and MOVE ON. *Snort*

Long story short here, we got crunched, diverted, routed, slowed down, shook and in general, just frazzled by spending two hours on this desiccated, undead interstate highway. And now that I think about it, I believe I’ve pointed out this road’s limits in several other vacation narratives….

Econo Bare Bono

Not since May 20, 2005, with our stay in Land Between the Lakes, had Jennifer and I been in a “motel.” We don’t avoid them or consider ourselves “too good” for them, mind you; no, it is usually because most of the places we visit require us to be close to the public transportation system. By and large, that means we end up in hotels rather than motels. And generally, the hotels in which we’ve stayed have had more goods and extraneous services available than we really need (or can afford).

But we were only staying in the outskirts of the aeropuerto (Spanish for “airport”) for a single night, and we did not see any reason to reserve anything but the bare-bone minimum of accommodations. Most of our necessities we had brought with us anyway. So Jennifer had found us a spot in the humble Econo Lodge. We took our exit, I pulled us over in the far right lane and we merrily sailed past our motel as it waited tantalizingly out of reach from us on the left side of the road. [Sigh] Three frustrated turns later, we managed to successfully reverse direction and pull into the parking lot of the snickering Econo Lodge.

Having become accustomed to (okay, spoiled by) the tie-wearing, formally courteous concierges of some of the hotels in which we’ve stayed, Jennifer and I were quite unprepared when we walked inside the main lobby of the motel and found ourselves having to speak to the receptionist through bullet-proof glass. She uttered a muffled monosyllabic murmur for a greeting, prior to having us hand our payment and reservation information through the airlock on the counter in front of her so she wouldn’t have to risk us touching her hands. Then she hulked her way to the other side of the room and proceeded to shout check-in questions that were largely unintelligible through the half-inch, virtually soundproof glass. It was like being welcomed by world-famous mime, Marcel Marceau...except less audible.

We really started to get worried when she directed us to our room, which was in another building over a long hill, around a band of trees, past a snoring sasquatch, and down a mineshaft. Honestly, it felt like the dark side of the moon. Jennifer and I immediately began to fear that we might end up parking her li’l gold car, “Tinky” in that lot, only to come back and find her stripped bare the next day. It seemed like a dilapidated, poorly maintained area with negligible security. We were kicked in the gut with a reminder of why we usually do hotels. Some expenses are worth the investment.

When we opened up the door to our room, it gave whole new meaning to “bare bones.” It was so simple, they’d even left out the comfort. There’s Zen and then there’s Econo. The entire room was faded, with ripped places, broken furniture and chipped porcelain. To our surprise, it did have a small refrigerator and microwave, though we came well enough prepared that we didn’t need them. A cooler held our trusty beer and coveted unsweetened tea (for the record, unsweetened tea is literally “brown gold” on our travels…almost nowhere sells it!)

Lights would have been nice.

Yes, I sleep on the left side of the bed, so Jennifer always gets to be “right” [chuckle]. But the light on my side was apparently blown. Not to be deterred, I unscrewed what appeared to be a bulb that hadn’t been changed since the last season of the Cosby Show was still on the air, tossed it into the trash and cannibalized a bulb from above the television; who needs a bulb over the boob-tube, anyway? Triumphantly, I installed the bulb in its new seat and tah-dah! It still didn’t work. [Sigh]. We finally compromised by removing the lampshade from the light on Jennifer’s side, so its putrid, nacreous ambience could ooze equally over both ends of the room.

Speaking of sides to the bed, Jennifer and I have gotten wa-a-a-ay too accustomed to our queen-sized mattress at home. This one was a smaller full-sized. After Jennifer called in a food order from Domino’s Pizza and we spread ourselves horizontally to grab a quick nap, the smaller bed immediately made us feel like we were resting cheek-to-cheek.

But for all its limits, we knew the Econo Lodge was only a temporary arrangement, a way to position ourselves to really start our vacation proper later. Thus, we were willing to suffer the limitations for what would only be an evening and a night. We knew that once we got to Boston, we’d check into our real room at the Milner Hotel, and it would be a vast improvement.

We ultimately turned in for an early night. We anticipated that come morning, we’d need all of our concentrative powers.

NEXT: The Usual Plethora of Airport Hassles and the life and death trip to the Hotel


Click here for Part II

'BERRIES IN A BARREL--Part VII

The Horseshoe Falls by night

Wednesday, May 24, 2006—Drop the Curtain and Let’s Go Home

By the final morning in Niagara Falls, the Travelin’ Thornberries had finally reached that point when we were sick of people and expense. Yes, we’d had a good time, gathered all of the neat observations we’re sharing in this account and were now ready to go back home. We packed our things, met with Marty, our Canuck cabbie, and headed back to the airport.

No Seats For You!

The return trip was an absolute nightmare. First of all, our ticket stubs told us that we didn’t have assigned seats on our connecting flight. That worried both of us, since we’d scheduled the trip months ago and had not heretofore been given reason to anticipate any problems. We pensively climbed aboard our plane flight to Detroit and waited interminably before the pilot started the plane. During that time, the cabin temperature seemed to keep climbing until passengers’ heads started blowing around the cabin like freshly popping popcorn. At one point, Jennifer looked up at the dead ceiling fans and in an Oliver Twist way, begged, “Please, sir, may we have some air?” Once the plane took off, the pilot kept us at such a steep angle of ascent that I was looking up at my own toes.

On the positive side, we arrived in Detroit ahead of schedule. Of course, that translated to our having to sit on the tarmac for an extra 15 minutes, since the airport staff hadn’t yet had time to unload the previous plane.

We'll Give You Your Seats 30 Minutes Before Take-Off, Idiot!

We did finally de-plane and found our next gate. Here was where we would have to get an explanation of why we didn’t have seats for a flight we’d booked in February. The woman running that gate was a middle-aged, dark-skinned individual with bleach-blond hair and a perpetual scowl. When we asked about our seats, she politely told us to come back 30 minutes before take-off. We reminded her that…um, WE DON’T HAVE SEATS, a factor that sort of had us worried. She responded politely again that she’d give us our seat assignments 30 minutes before take-off. No exceptions. No concessions.

Since this was a 2½ hour layover, we decided to get a picture of their sickly green Tunnel of Bliss and then something to eat. Jennifer aged rapidly while waiting on a set of hot wings for me while I sat at a table and safeguarded our luggage. She later had her revenge by the fact that they were the worst hot wings I’d ever chewed. Maybe if the bumbling kitchen employee had cooked the blood out of them, my stomach would have handled them better.

We eventually learned that this particular flight had been overbooked by 13 seats, and they were now trying to trim the fat. Jennifer and I hoped we weren’t the fat. We did eventually get seat assignments, but this time we were separated. The bleach-blond gate employee told us we could maybe speak to someone on the craft about getting seats together, but by this point, we were just glad to be on the damn plane. Jennifer went first and I boarded after her a few minutes later.

Of course, her seat was in First Class, while I was stowed with the luggage. Up front, I watched her get a full body massage, free alcohol, and a facial with zucchini on her eyelids. I got rock to sit on. And I had to share it. With strangers. At least they offered water. Once. It was a short flight, so I just slept the trip away and ran from the plane to rejoin Jennifer when we touched down in Louisville.

Gargling Phlegm in Louisville

I don’t know if it was the atmospheric pressures from our flight, the differences in pollens and such in Canada, or just a final collapse of my immune system because of stress. But no sooner were we on the ground at the Louisville airport, when my sinuses went ape-nuggets. Suddenly, I was sick, my throat was sore and I felt dizzy. I would be sick for the next 4 to 5 days. Still, the trip was worth it. Despite all of the challenges we endured that you’ve now shared, we do consider ourselves to have had a wonderful time up north.

As always, thanks for sharing our trials, tribulations and jubilations!

Finis

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'BERRIES IN A BARREL--Part VI

The rest of our day on the American side of the Falls requires its own entry to do it justice. That's because it included the...

Maid of the Mist Excursion

At last, we came to what would be the highest point of the trip for Jennifer. Ever since her father came to the Falls during his honeymoon in 1989 and talked about it, she had yearned to take a ride on the Maid of the Mist (MoM). You’re familiar with it. Everyone who knows Niagara Falls has heard of it. There are actually several of the little boats, all with the same name and the same mission - to take her passengers on an up-close-and-personal tour of the entire Falls system.

Jennifer and I paid our fee (in American money, this time) and rode the elevator down nearly 200 feet to the floor of the gorge. Then we had to run like watery mascara to catch the boat before it left. The boats depart every 30 minutes, but if you miss the current one, that means a wait for the next one. We had time-sensitive drink—uh, erm, business plans back on the Canadian side and couldn’t really accommodate the setback. Fortunately for us, we were fleet of foot and managed to get aboard the MoM less than a minute before she pulled out. Swaying constantly under the barrage of the Niagara River, we sniggled into our second set of disposable slickers as the craft took us first by the American Falls and onward toward the Horseshoe Falls.

We arrived and the boat came to a stop before one of the most awe-inspiring displays of my adult experience.

The Horseshoe Falls was so vast from the deck of our boat that it literally spanned the entire horizon. From left to right, we could see nothing but Falls.

We were smote with its mists, feeling like we were being deluged by a storm on a sunny day. Jennifer and I did manage to get a few pictures of the torrent, but our camera was getting so wet we had to put it away, lest we lose its carefully digitized record.

Behold, sinners! God awaits in the Maw of the Beast. Let all ye bow to the glory of the ancient power of the Falls!

It felt almost like a pilgrimage, with everyone giving up their individuality to become of one mind, one heart and one vision. All around the boat, there were people of all classes, professions and blood types who had been leveled out into a gathering of homogenous blue penitents come to pay homage to the raging God before us. Hallelujah! Yes, only a word that includes a Tetragrammaton can capture how mighty was the spectacle we beheld. The Maid of the Mist had literally carried we the pious passengers into the Maw of the Beast, a roaring water deity capable of smashing us to flinders, not with the force of its wrath, but by its inexorable sense of geologic indifference. We came out of it blessed, thrilled and very, very wet. It was worth it. To quote the Islamic Shahadah, “La ilaha illa-llahu.” (Translation: There is no God but God.) You can experience it yourself from this video clip:





Canadian Sunburn? WTF!?

Somewhere along our walk back to the room, I was staring at Jennifer’s chest. That’s when I noticed she had gotten sunburned. More, when I finally looked up at her face, I realized she’d gotten that nice feature toasted as well. So had I! We had to appreciate that we went all the way down to the beaches of Nassau, Bahamas and came back as lily-white as the day we left. But we go to, of all places, Canada, and come back sunburned!? How does that happen? I didn’t even think Canada had that much sunlight. At any rate, it stung a little and eventually healed. But Jennifer and I know about the advanced aging effect that tanning cumulatively inflicts on the skin, and we hated the fact that we had suffered relatively permanent damage to the sack that holds our guts inside.

After this eventful day, we didn’t do much else. Forking over the money on our room tab, we watched another pay-per-view movie, this one called The New World. It was another artsy picture starring Colin Farrell, in which the movie itself was longer than the story. Decent up until about the halfway point, it then started progressively making less and less sense. Ultimately, I think they ran out of things for the actors to say, so they just showed them…well, that’s pretty much all they did. The actors just stare at each other and the camera, and think that's going to carry the story. Even alcohol couldn’t give it meaning. *Yawn* We finished it because we’d bled to pay for it, but otherwise considered it 5/10 stars. Our evening wrapped up and we went to bed.


NEXT: The efforts to get home.


Click for Part VII

'BERRIES IN A BARREL--Part V

Tuesday, March 23, 2006: Niagara Falls in the U.S.

True to the metric weather report we'd watched the night before, the next day dawned bright, sunny and welcoming. Big, fat convalescent clouds hung whale-like over the lands of Ontario, and Jennifer and I were hurling glee like a chimp chucking its own dung. We gobbled the bland remains of a bland meal we previously brought (the details have been omitted from here, but ask us if you'd like them!) and made plans to revisit some of the areas we’d seen the day before. It had been our hope to get a few camera shots of the Horseshoe Falls again under sunlight, so we could compare how it differed from the gray light of yesterday’s clouds and cold.

Dazed and Confused

We didn’t want to take the long, convoluted route back down the mountainous city slopes, and we were unwilling to pay the money (and have to wait) for the Incline Railway that could take us the short route. So we decided to see if we could find a shorter route down on our own. We followed the tourist sidewalk around the hotels for about 10 to 15 minutes, finding some very beautiful picture perspectives of the rear side of the Horseshoe Falls. Then the buildings started to peter out. Then the foilage got thicker. Then the road got narrower. When the first car drove by with the license plate that said: “Je me souviens” (I remember), and a native spoke to us in French, Jennifer and I realized we had, in fact, walked all the way to Quebec. Or maybe it just felt like it. At any rate, we’d gone far from the beaten trail, with no easy path of descent in evidence. So we rolled our eyes, turned around, went a-a-a-ll the way back and headed for the steeply sloping round-a-bout route we’d already taken too many times. Of course, we’d gone another 10 minutes in the other direction before realizing we hadn’t brought our birth certificates with us; we’d need those for the customs officials during our proposed jaunt over to the American Falls later in the day. Rolling our eyes again (I think one was loose by that time and fell out on me…what a topsy-turvy view!), we went a-a-a-all the way back to our room and fetched the necessary documentation. Having lost an hour, we finally got our heads on straight, our eyes back in our sockets and our feet on the dangerous slope downward.

Briefly, we got our comparison pictures of the Horseshoe Falls. The view was much less obstructed today, now that Victoria Day was over and most of the locals had probably gone back to work. If you want to see how much more beautiful the scene was, check out this video:



The Rainbow Bridge—Where Old Glory and the Maple, “Leaves”

Our trek took us away from the Horseshoe Falls and past the American Falls from the Canadian side. Eventually, we passed through customs and walked out onto the Rainbow Bridge, which traverses the Niagara River and acts as a border between the U.S. and Canada.

Oh. My. Gawd. This view from the Rainbow bridge shows the entire gorge that lay before the Travelin' Thornberries, as the Niagara River tumbled over the American Falls on the left and the Horseshoe Falls in the Center.

In fact, right at the halfway point, there are flags for both Canada and the U.S., as well as a sign that basically uses fancy language to say, “You’ve crossed the border, idiot.”

Jennifer couldn’t resist bisecting herself with the imaginary boundary line, sitting in front of that sign with a bosom in each nation. We then finished our walk over the bridge and went through customs on the American side.

The American Falls—The Spunky Little Scrapper that Could

At last, we began to get close enough to appreciate our own country’s piece of the water falling action. Upon beholding our first panoramic view of both Falls the day before, we had come to see the Horseshoe Falls as a vast, living giant. The American Falls, by contrast seemed…well, kind of dinky. At only 1,100 feet wide, it’s less than half the length of its colossal 2,500-foot companion and lacks the characteristic crescent shape. Compared to the Horseshoe Falls’ more than half-million gallons of water dropped per second, the American Falls voids only 75,000, or almost 10 percent as much. Though the distance from the top of the Falls to the gorge below was higher than the Horseshoe (about 183 feet), the jumble of rocks at the bottom reduced even that to an inferior distance. We had pre-planned to see it just to have a Gestalt of the entire phenomenon, but thus far, we hadn’t been that impressed with the American Falls.

That changed as we got closer to it.

First of all, the American Falls is more violent. Yes, compared to the rather tranquil, steady flow of the Horseshoe Falls, the smaller one was quite explosive. There are obviously more jutting rocks and crags at its brink, which cause the water to froth and spray more. While it didn’t have the “horseshoe” shape, neither was its brink a boring straight line. We noted more convolutions in it as we gained a more proximate perspective. Here, take a look at them yourself:



Second of all, the American Falls has more ready access than its wider companion. There were places all around it where we as tourists could get within a few yards of the roaring water. The Cave of the Winds tour, which we decided not to do, allows spectators to get right at the bottom of the Falls, next to those aforementioned jumbles of rocks. In short, it was more up close and personal than the Horseshoe Falls. You don't have to take our word for it, you can see how close we got:



As you can see, the Niagara River is quite vast. There are several little "islands" going across it, which Jennifer and I traversed along a network of bridges. They included Green Island, Goat Island and Luna Island. The last one gave us ready access to the Bridal Veil, a little offshoot of the Falls with even greater crystal clarity than the views we already had.

What made the Bride so radiant this particular day was the glorious rainbow she trailed beneath her. Yes, the omnipresent mists down below caught that sunlight we’d been so gleeful to behold, and shaped it into a spectacular bouquet of colors.

We eventually traveled all the way around the Falls area, coming to our final stop at the Horseshoe Falls from the American side. Another picture or 20 went into our trusty little digital workhorse and then we decided it was time to head back. You see, it was going to be a long walk back around the Niagara River and we still had hopes of getting one last excursion into our schedule before we tried yet again to squeeze something out of that LCBO place!

The Travelin' Thornberries pause for a moment to soak in the sounds and smells of the American Falls

NEXT: A near-religious experience, when the Travelin' Thornberries come as penitents before the Maw of the Beast.


Click for Part VI

'BERRIES IN A BARREL--Part IV

II. Monday May 22, 2006: Niagara Falls in Canada

At long last, after bouncing around the area for an evening and a night, the Travelin' Thornberries were ready to see the gutload of falling gallons themselves!

The Horseshoe Falls—The Complacent Giant of Canada

Unfortunately, even though our hotel was right next to the Falls, there was no ready access to them from where we were. So we had to walk a round-a-bout route that took another 20 minutes.

The entire Niagara Falls area is essentially a huge gorge, with the Niagara River flowing through it. Ergo, the city is built on a significant slope that slants at what feels like a 70-degree angle. Jennifer and I felt like we could have bent over, grabbed our ankles and rolled head over heels like human inner tubes down to the bottom. Instead, we rappelled our way down, trying to keep our shoes from slipping and moved down the busy sidewalk.

[Sigh]

Victoria Day continued to rage around the Falls, with people cramming themselves into us from every direction. Accents and foreign tongues abounded as the Canadian love of cultural diversity rose up and cracked us over the skull. There truly were people from all over the world ringed around the Falls, a beautiful display of peacefully coexisting multiculturalism that just seemed like a gigantic oscillating pain in the buttcheeks for us. It translated to a logistical nightmare just trying to get close enough to the Falls for a view and a picture or 280.

It was worth it.

Despite the cloudy cold day, the frozen Thornberries, the Victoria Day frustrations, the crowds…the Horseshoe Falls was absolutely awe-inspiring. A massive giant that forms a semi-circle close to 2,500 feet long, we would later learn that it dumps 675,000 gallons of water per second into the gorge 173 feet below, or enough in a single minute to fill a million bathtubs.





A panoramic view of Niagara Falls

We moved as close as we could, trying to capture it on the camera from as many angles as possible. In particular, we were impressed by the “brink,” where the water moved away from the bottom of the river, hung in the air for just a split second, then fell down to the waters below. At that point, it turned a neat aqua colour and looked like pristine crystal.

What amazed Jennifer the most was how easy it would be to kill oneself at Niagara Falls. One would think there would be high fences and barricades to prevent a suicidal person or a plain thrill-seeking idiot from going over the side. But no, the fence that did exist was only about three feet high and easy to jump over. One flip and one would either be in the inexorable current and bound for the drop-off of the Falls, or standing on a small shelf of land that could easily give way and still plunge them to their watery deaths below. There were signs that warned people not to do this, of course, but nothing with teeth.


At one point, I experienced a Zen moment, when I watched the relatively shallow waters of the Niagara river, right before they reached the brink at 20 miles per hour. If I concentrated, I could see past the raging wakes and waves to the grasses and mud of the river bottom. It was similar to how a good meditation can allow one to see past their raging, fleeting, distracting thoughts, to the soothing calmness and serenity resting passively (and reassuringly) beneath.

At last, tired and hungry, we caught some delicious dinner and eventually found our way back to the room. We spent the rest of the night reading and watching the particularly intriguing aspects of Canadian television, courtesy of one of our three channels. Then it was time for bed, and the restoration we'd need for our next adventure....


NEXT: The journey to see the American side of the Falls.


Click for Part V

'BERRIES IN A BARREL--Part III

The story of our 2006 trip to Niagara Falls continues....

The Oakes Hotel

Our kindly Canuck cabbie dropped us off at the hotel with good wishes, a promise to pick us up in three days and a recommendation that we try a good German restaurant a couple of streets over. We would ultimately find the Oakes Hotel to be a good investment of our money.

The Oaks Hotel appears behind the Applebees sign.

Unlike the more expensive hotels we reviewed online, this one was closer to the Falls. When we asked the Asian clerk about checking in, however, she told us we’d have to wait three hours, because the cleaning crew hadn’t gotten around to preparing our room yet. [Groan!]

We negotiated to get them to sentinel our luggage, allowing us to go get something to eat while we waited. On discussion, we decided to take our cabbie’s recommendation and try that German restaurant, called the Happy Wanderer. Overall, good atmosphere that helped us de-stress from the trip. Danke shön, all of you!

Duty Free for Everyone But You, Eh?

After we ate and were finally able to check into our room, we went to the next important item on our agenda…beer! Yes, we always like to have some beer, wine or spirits in the room with us on a good vacation. After asking around, we learned that there was a “duty free” shop up the street a short walk. We walked all around it for 20 minutes before noticing the sign in 10-foot letters that gave its name. If it had been an elephant, it would have crunched our bones into white paste while we looked around wondering where it was…and why we felt our bones being crunched into white paste. Inside, we found exactly what we were seeking…but they wouldn’t let us buy anything because we hadn’t been in Canada for 24 hours yet. Doh!! Unfortunately, there was only one other store that would sell to us, and we didn’t think to ask where it was. It also had already closed. We were out of luck for the night. *Arrrg!!*

Sampling Canadian Hooters

So our solution was to have a pitcher of beer and some chicken wings at the local Hooters restaurant. Our server was a blond young woman named “Terri,” who helped us make the difficult decision of what kind of beer to purchase. You see, we had no familiarity with Canadian beers and didn’t want to purchase an entire pitcher of something that would taste like caribou urine. Terri steered us in the right direction, however, and we found a suitable brew to be ordered in pitcher form.

Their wings, incidentally, were quite different in flavor to our ones at home - and fantastic. Toward the end of our meal and pitcher, the televisions around the room suddenly got louder and we realized we’d stumbled into the beginning of the true Canadian past time. Hockey. Yes, Canadians are as devoted to the religion of hockey as Kentuckians are devoted to the religion of basketball. Rippling through the “guy-Force,” I could feel the emanations of testosterone rising. Jennifer was fascinated by the introduction of the game. It was between teams from Canada and the United States; they had an entertainer who sang “O Canada,” followed immediately by the “Star Spangled Banner.” Hearing the national anthem of another country, then one’s own on foreign soil, really made Jennifer realize that we weren’t at home any more. Or maybe it was just the beer.

Before we left, we asked Terri for a picture for our record (and ultimately, this narrative). She not only agreed, but also fetched three other “Hooters girls” to pose for us. Let’s hear it for Canadian hospitality. And nice Canucks!

Thomas confidently stands surrounded by a harem of Hooters Girls. That's Terri to his immediate right. What nice Canucks!

$47 for a Bottle of Wine? WTF!?

Well, the title says it all.

Finishing up our dinner, Jennifer and I went back to our room at the Oakes Hotel. After taking advantage of the Jacuzzi that was big enough for Jennifer, me and Terri, the Hooters girl (*chuckle*), we paid the $12 for a pay-per-view movie called Annapolis (2006) and ordered a bottle of wine from room service. Yep, it really did cost $47!! We savored it the best we could, realizing that we could have purchased nearly a month’s supply for that price back home. I swear I could hear the sound of coins going down my throat with every swallow.

Ultimately, we did enjoy the movie, and afterward, we savored our room’s view of the Falls, read for awhile and went to bed. It was going to be a long day of actually seeing the Falls tomorrow.


NEXT: A cloudy day for a Fallsview experience.


Click for Part IV

'BERRIES IN A BARREL--Part II

So This is Canada, Eh?

Our cabbie represented our first introduction to the people and culture of Canada. But overall, we would slowly come to appreciate the subtle differences that exist even a short hop across the river. Though many of these observations would require the next three days, we’ll take a brief detour and highlight some of them here.

The most obvious difference was the cold. Yes, we thought the weather had been unseasonably nippy when we left Louisville. But here, it was at least 25 degrees colder. Jennifer and I had mistakenly packed for a spring vacation, since it was, after all, spring, but in our wisdom (alright, my paranoia), we also had come prepared with at least one winter outfit and our jackets. We would ultimately need them throughout most of the trip. When we commented to our Canuck cabbie about the cold, his response was to lightheartedly say, “Aw, you get used to it.” Possibly, but what would be our motivation to do so?
Jennifer and I frequented many of the restaurants and Starbucks during our time in Canada. Either they’re behind the times, or they feel our American culture peaked 20 years ago, because with perhaps one rare exception, we didn’t hear any ambient music playing that was written after 1989. Everything was 80s, 80s, 80s. Most of it was good music, but Jennifer and I found ourselves wanting to Electric Slide our way to the counters, tell the managers to Rock on to Electric Avenue or Beat It and let us “put another dime in the jukebox, baby.” Maybe then we could find ourselves Puttin’ on the Ritz in a way that would let us “party like it’s 1999.”

Starbucks. Anyone who knows the Thornberries is aware of the passionate tongue caresses we reserve for the gentle, wet lips on the cup of a Starbucks venti latte. We generally get one such steamy tryst per week, an institution I’ve recently come to call our “coffee ring.” On vacations, however, we relax the rules and let our coffee ring draw us deeper into its moist embrace. We’re accustomed to having ready access to a bordello o’ Starbucks pretty much anywhere we travel. But in this part of Canada, it so available that one can be a coffee whore and open themselves up to the experience on any street corner. Yes, we counted no less than five stores in a three-block area. At one point, I stood across from one Starbucks and could still see the one we passed three minutes previously, back up the sidewalk. Inside one Starbucks, I would almost swear they had signs posted that said, “Coming soon, Starbucks.” If we’d had a car, we could probably have filled the gas tank with Starbucks coffee. If coffee is love, then there was a whole lotta lovin’ goin’ on. Of course, with Canadian prices, it sure wasn’t free love. ;)

The prices. Holy porcupine crap! We’d come prepared to face the issue of the exchange rate on our currency, and we solved it most of the time by just using our credit card. But Canada’s government is clearly different from ours. Now we understand how they pay for that nationalized healthcare system that everyone up there knows and loves. Every time we purchased something, the receipt came back on a streamer of paper as long as our arms. The top couple of inches listed the item, date and price. The rest of it was all the taxes they rammed up our colons. Wow!!

There was another unique Canadian phenomenon, and that was the prevalence of children working the businesses. Not older teenagers, but ‘tweens and pre-teens. We’re talking kids between 11 and 14 years of age. My first thought was that it was a weekend and they were perhaps just getting extra money by working in their parents’ businesses. But we were there on weekdays too and the kids were still working. Don’t they go to school? We’d also considered that perhaps the Canadian summer break had already started, since they almost certainly don’t cancel schools for bad weather. On the issue of Canadian servers, however, it is certainly worth noting that everyone who assisted us up there, young or old, was unfailingly polite and exceedingly friendly. We did greatly enjoy interacting with our Canadian brethren.

Finally, Jennifer and I endured one of the “dislocations” of the Buddha, which states that the nature of life is to be continually forced to confront that which causes us the greatest suffering. For the Travelin’ Thornberries, that means crowds. Yes, we had taken great pains to set our vacation strategically so that it fell right before tourist season and avoided the Memorial Day holiday throng. Smugly, we had assumed this would reduce the elbows and knees we’d have rammed into every part of our anatomy as we tried to enjoy our view of Niagara Falls.
Wrong.

By avoiding Memorial Day, we’d placed ourselves squarely into the Canadian “Victoria Day,” a comparable holiday in another country that brought out the same throng we’d striven to avoid. That would haunt us the next day after our arrival. Damn the Buddha for being right. Perhaps I’ll take Sheldon Kopp’s advice: “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!” *Snort*

The Travelin' Thornberries move through the Victoria Day Crowds

NEXT TIME: Welcome to the Oaks Hotel!


Click for Part III

‘BERRIES IN A BARREL:

The Thornberries Tour Niagara Falls

May 21 to May 24, 2006

This trip was planned approximately four months before it came ultimately to fruition. Despite the best intentions, however, it still came on us most unexpectedly, rearing up amidst a plethora of messy events that we could not have anticipated during its inception. Jennifer and I found ourselves involved in a complex move down the street, as well as a professional conference I wished to attend the same weekend, a social event later that afternoon and a family dinner that evening. [Whew!]

Sunday, May 21, 2006--From Here to There

Jennifer’s family was generous enough to let our bodies lie somnolent under their roof the first evening we traveled, and then drive said bodies to the airport the next morning. We rolled our bodies, still sleeping, out of bed, into our clothes and into Jennifer’s mother’s car.

Oh, dear god! It was May 21. The first official day of spring was (and correct me if I’m wrong), March 20. Is May not after March? Yes? Then I ask, where the hell was the spring!? That Sunday morning dawned crisp and freakin’ cold as mid-November. We shivered our way through frozen May flowers, comparing thee to a summer’s blizzard, until we arrived at the Louisville Airport.

The Usual Plethora of Airport Hassles

As we’ve doubtless stated in previous narratives, Jennifer and I have a very ambivalent relationship with air travel. We hate the airport crowds, the controlled chaos, the regimented way we’re pushed along like a herd of herbivores (sans only the rancher’s stun batons) and the security checks where they take our luggage and rifle through our bras and panties. However, the trade-off is speed and responsibility. We get there a little faster and we don’t have to do much besides sit and do what they tell us.

Generally, we haven’t had any major mishaps with air travel…no lost luggage, no strip searches, no going down in a hellish fireball. But this time, we hit a few snags.

First of all, we had decided to see if it was logistically more feasible to pack exclusively for carry-on luggage. We don’t like the whole baggage claim process, which is cumbersome and comes with that lurking dread that the airport will actually lose our toiletries and leave us stranded hundreds of miles from home with no toothbrushes. So we had our things streamlined down to just the “lean and mean” essentials that we could carry aboard and stow on the plane. Naturally, I worried. I always worry when it comes to details. Jennifer assured me that she had confirmed the dimensions of our bags at the Northwest Airlines Web site and they fit within the space requirements. But I was still harboring doubts, as I thought the bag I was carrying was probably overstuffed beyond the limits. Fortunately, I verified from their little display case that we had stuffability. Of course, as soon as I said that to Jennifer, I couldn’t get that goofy 1950s Doo Wop song, “Personality” out of my head [“’cos you’ve got (personality), walk (with personality), talk (with personality), smile (with personality), charm (with personality), love (with personality)…] Let’s hear it for Lloyd Price. We had…stuffability…. Arrg!

The music theme continued when we got our tickets and found out Jennifer and I would be playing musical chairs. For the first time in the four years we’ve been traveling by plane, we found that the airport had put us into two different sections of the plane. So we raised the proverbial cane to the person running our gate and he said he would see what he could do. Jennifer left me to sentinel our baggage while she visited the powder room, and it was during that time that the guy announced that our plane would be leaving from another gate. Everyone started leaving, until eventually, the only one left in the chairs was little ol’ me. Then the gate director called our name and paged us back up to the desk. I was there by myself and couldn’t haul all of our luggage up there with me, so I left it with an eye on it from behind and went up to speak to the guy…who left the desk and ran away as soon as I got there. Ultimately, it turned out that he’d gotten us seats together on the flight. Jennifer returned to find me carrying all of our luggage on my back like Atlas holding the world, standing at a different gate and trying not to scream.

With relief, we boarded the plane and allowed it to hurl our bodies across the continental United States. Our layover was in Detroit, and then onward to Buffalo. As usual, I noted the neat cloud scenery as we flew over 28,000 feet above the earth’s surface. This time, the clouds looked like undulating cottony bosoms, expanding as far as the leering eye could see. Yes, you have to love air travel.

The Kindly Canuck Cabbie

Jennifer had prearranged for us to get from the airport to our hotel via taxicab. After much research, she had managed to find and schedule one who would ferry us across the Canadian border. We lugged our bags down the escalator, there to meet our cabbie.

An ex-casino worker with bad feet, he was a kindly middle-aged gentleman named “Marty,” who immediately proved himself to be a memorable character. We found Marty where he was supposed to be found, standing next to the baggage claim area with a sign that read “Jennifer Thornberry” on it. Canadian by nationality, he greeted us warmly with an accented lilt that definitely bespoke that of our neighbors to the North. After loading our baggage for us, he chattered throughout the 40-minute trip, filling us in on the attractions of the area. Ultimately, he did seem to favor his own side of the border, letting us know that he considered the American cities in the area to be run-down slums with less entertainment than what was available on his side of the Niagara River. Jennifer and I also noticed that each time we noted something Canadian that was amusing or funny, he felt obligated to defend it. But overall, he was a pleasant guy, one who earned a positive place in this narrative. We took his picture (see above), because his speedometer was in metric units and it looked like we were speeding along at 100 mph!


NEXT TIME: The Travelin' Thornberries comment on the overall Canadian culture, and confront the problems of getting checked into the Oaks Hotel.

Click for Part II