VIDEO: The eve of All Hallow's Eve

Hey, another video! I just realized how dark this is. Oh well!

The best place to be on Hallowe'en

Last night on Julia Street, we walked by singers, musicians, dancers, artists, sumo wrestlers, post-modern art, stilt-walkers, and lots of local food. It was all part of Prospect.1, an 11-week art festival that will take over most New Orleans galleries, museums, and in some cases, street blocks. It was apparently just a prelude to tonight's festivities.

The Location is Frenchman Street.
The People are filling the block.
The Costume is the United States of America.

It's only 2:30 p.m. here, but people are already roaming the streets of the French Quarter in full costume. I found an Uncle Sam hat, but I still need to find a shirt with this great nation's stars and stripes all over it.

Obama vs. McCain: The Ultimate Showdown

My dear uncle Doug asked in a comment what the mood is down here re: presidential election campaign. Well, to be blunt, I'm not the one to ask.

On the way south, you'll observe most of my destinations have been, well, either blue states or liberal enclaves in red states. As far as I can tell, Obama's got about 75 per cent of the vote locked up.

But of course that's not the case. In Birmingham and again today in New Orleans, I heard some talk radio. Conservative talk radio. And there were some upset Republicans (the Angry Right?) on air who really do think that Obama is a terrorist, a socialist, and the worst thing for America since French fries.

Most people seem to think that Obama has it, though. So that's the update with five days left until voting day.

Where the other half live(d)

Lived, because very few people still live in New Orleans' Lower Ninth ward. It's impossible for me to convey the lingering devastation in that part of town. I'm sure words can describe the situation on the ground, but nothing I can compose would do it justice.

Four years later, the infamous markings on the houses used by search-and-rescue teams are still there -- some faded, some as vivid as when they were sprayed. Some families live in the houses, and kids walk past these markings as they run in and out of their front doors.

I didn't take pictures, and if I had I'm not sure I would post them here, or anywhere. They are already all over the Internet. And these are peoples' homes, whether the owners are dead or alive, long gone or staying put.

Come to think of it, the lower ninth has no lingering devastation. That takes the situation quite lightly. Only a 15-minute drive from the French Quarter and this weekend's Hallowe'en parties, there sits a neighbourhood -- and there are others -- that died four years ago.

It might be on life support now, and things might be improving in small doses, but a refurbished lower ninth wouldn't be a resurrection. It would be a new neighbourhood built on top of a graveyard.

That's not all there is to say. Not even close. But everyone should come to New Orleans and understand the situation. It is dire.

I did it again. I understated it.

VIDEO: Lafayette Square

A couple of hours after I recorded this, the park turned into a party. Rock band, drunk people, food, and art for sale.

Such is an evening in New Orleans.

Hullabaloo!

The student newspaper at Tulane University, the Hullabaloo, is impressive. It's a weekly broadsheet, which just looks cool. It's not a daily like so many other American student papers. But who cares? The Hullabaloo has great content that makes up the difference.

Th stories are very thorough, and writers and editors quite obviously strive to cover both sides of their stories. Their editorial this week is also worth reading: reasonable, understandably harsh, and well written.

Go Tulane! (They're playing against LSU, who I presume are their rivals, this weekend at the Superdome.)

New Orleans: This area is where the better half lives

A lone string of beads dangles from a limb on Napoleon. Beads like this hang everywhere on St. Charles. It's equal parts eerie and hilarious. While it's clear that a party happened here (and does every year), the beads really do like, well, dead. Their colour has dulled, the revelers are long gone, and everyone now walks idly by.

Behold a fountain in Audubon Park, at the edge of a golf course. Hanging out in this part of town, you'd never have guessed anything had happened in this city (contrast visible here).

The golf course in Audubon Park. In the distance is a tower at the entrance to Loyola University. People here must always be happy, happy, happy. Money does that, right?

This guy did it, too, and he did it well

One of the comments on my post about a near-death experience outside of Birmingham came from a guy named Padraic Ryan. He travelled the western United States by train last year, and he wrote a travelogue -- that's what these are called -- along the way. And he did it well. It is suggested reading.

Markets are loonie

Trading at 83 cents 81 cents, up two zero cents over yesterday's close. On this budget, every cent matters. And late last week, the dollar was down to 76 cents.

(Over the course of this post, the value of my pocketbook in this country dropped significantly. I hate volatile financial markets.)

Map update: 30 October

Made it to New Orleans!

This city might have more character than anywhere else in the world.

I'm comfortable saying that even though I have only ever been to three countries and never to continental Europe. Call me wrong if you want. I dare you to provide a better example.

(Map pending; not the greatest connection here at the CC House at Magazine/Jefferson)

Lesson of the Night: Always stay healthy on the road

I intended to arrive in New Orleans tomorrow morning at 5:30, but circumstances changed.

It's interesting how sometimes our bodies don't tell us how tired they are until the last minute. There I was on the bus to Montgomery, Alabama, thinking about the Gulf Coast.

Then, whammo! Cold sweats. As I coaxed my body into making it to Montgomery, I realized I was incredibly dehydrated. It was a very gradual process. Whoops.

Lesson: Always eat well (check) and drink fluids (duly noted) on the road, or your body will get angry and demand rest immediately.

So: Staying in Montgomery at the cheapest Econolodge ever. They gave me the corporate rate, for whatever reason.

UPDATE: It's amazing what water does. Things should be rolling by morning.

VIDEO: Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park

The Civil Rights Institute describes Kelly Ingram Park:

Birmingham's Kelly Ingram Park was the staging ground for Civil Rights rallies, demonstrations and marches during the tumultous years of the 1960s. It was in Kelly Ingram Park that Birmingham police and firemen turned attack dogs and high-powered hoses on participants rallying for human rights and simple decency. These images will forever be associated with Birmingham and Kelly Ingram Park.

And here is Thirty Days, standing near the park's northwest corner.

Only a few decades ago, everything was so much different...

This church, 16th Street Baptist, was something of a staging ground for Birmingham's civil-rights movement. It sits right across the street from what is now the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and kitty corner to Kelly Ingram Park, a square that pays tribute to those who fought (and gave their lives) fighting segregation.

Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the United States for a long time. White people and black people couldn't do anything together. They couldn't even play "an innocent game of dominoes", as the Institute puts it.

The Carver was one of the only theatres that permitted black patrons. It closed in the 80s but is back open now. One of many sites in the city that people who are just now middle-aged would remember as segregated.

Notes from Birmingham

I saw a sign for someone running to be the district judge. Fair enough, Americans elect judges. I disagree with that, but so it goes.

But now, wow. I just saw a sign for a candidate for none other than the prestigious position of Tax Assessor.

Americans elect everybody. They just elected a traffic light, in fact. It was the man (post?) for the job.

SACME, you've done it again

I picked the wrong profession. As it turns out, everyone who works for the Society of Academic Continuing Medical Education is incredibly nice. Well, two for two. The most recent example of this gallantry is Birmingham-based Jim Ranieri.

Jim rolled up to the Oxmoor Econolodge and we drove over to Five Points South, the historic-type neighbourhood in town, to grab a bite to eat.

Where did we go? Jim 'n Nick's, of course. We ate pulled pork sandwiches. I should note that mine was better than the one in Nashville -- everyone thinks they have the best BBQ, Jim says. Maybe I just didn't drown the Nashville sandwich in enough BBQ sauce.

All in all, a success. This morning was an early rise to write a post for MediaScout, so it was early to bed.

Thanks for everything, Jim!

Map update: 27 October

Distance covered so far. I think it has been 12 buses so far. There is still so far to go to get to California. Onward!

First impressions: Birmingham, Alabama

Well, everything was going fine. We were getting along sweetly, Birmingham and me. But then I saw a monument to Confederate soldiers and remembered all of that business. I'm not writing this place off, of course. After all, that monument was erected 102 years ago. Times change, right?

Tootsie's

Four Canadians and an Aussie, all staying at the same hostel, went to a bar called Tootsie's last night. I'm not big on country music (at all!), but lemme tell ya. This city shows its visitors a good time.

The REAL Gotham city

Which one of these buildings do you think is the aforementioned Batman Building?

VIDEO: Nashville at (or near) sunset

What a vast improvement over Cincinnati. Nashville has character and, as you'll see, a pretty nice looking downtown. There is also a giant football stadium.

You know what? It's a very American city.

They walked like zombies

Today was apparently the Nashville Zombie Walk. There were loads of them parading down Broadway, freaking everyone (read: old people) out along the way. They caught up with me on a bridge overlooking downtown and we palled around for awhile.

They were surprisingly nice, given that they were zombies.

Free tour of Nashville!

Late this morning, I met a guy named Don Moore. He has worked with my mom before at this organization, and he holds this position at Vanderbilt University.

After parking downtown, we walked a couple of blocks to Broadway Avenue. It looks a lot like a movie set, this tourist trap of a main drag. But it's great. In the early afternoon, music blared out of each bar and restaurant's windows.

It was mostly country. Nashville loves country music.

After eating, Don and I took a drive around the city. First on the docket: Vanderbilt. It's known as one of those Rich Boys' schools -- $38,000 tuition will give that reputation, I guess. What an incredible campus. Coming from the University of Ottawa where greenspace is quite rare, Vanderbilt was something else.

This is the student centre.

Maybe the most surprising attraction Nashville has to offer is the full-scale replica of the Parthenon west of downtown. Yes, the Parthenon. The city's founders apparently thought its plethora of post-secondary institutions gave it a distinctly Athenian feel. There is an art museum in the basement.

Don, thanks a million for imparting your knowledge of the town. Thirty Days is beyond grateful.

Transylvania: a really old school

Andrew and Rachel have both attended Transylvania University -- Transy, for short. Andrew is a senior and Rachel finished her undergrad degree there. Here's the thing about Transy.

It's old enough to be an Ivy League school (founded in 1780) and fosters the academic excellence equivalent to an Ivy League school (Andrew and Rachel are smart-plus). But it doesn't have a football team or a hockey team, so it cannot qualify for the prestigious group.

Also, the Kentucky Wildcats lost in a big way to Florida 63-5 yesterday. The U of Kentucky is also in Lexington. People laughed at the score. So did I.

Finally, the best pizza in Lexington is here, and this beer (the first one listed, anyway) is pretty delicious. I can now attest.

Lexington: a blue city in a red state

There are a few "blue" cities in a few red states. Cities tend to be more liberal than rural areas as a general rule, but some are better known than others. Austin, Texas is one, but I learned that Lexington is another.

Please cherish the photo below. The man in the middle is Andrew Owen, a friend from the NDP a couple of years back. He participated in an internship that brought a bunch of American students to various offices on Parliament Hill. He worked with me in Nathan Cullen's office.

Rachel Wilson, who kindly went out of her way to meet up with Andrew and me for a little while to catch up, interned in Liberal Mike Savage's office down the hall. Such a nice person.

Simply put, Andrew is a rock star. And he was going to a jungle-themed sorority party in the get-up you see pictured. Missing is his pair of pants. Leather (or pleather, I guess). Owen is a hero among his floormates and fraternity brothers at Transylvania University.


Unfortunately, the timing of the bus schedule meant I couldn't attend that party. Imagine the stories. Well, another time soon, perhaps.

Andrew, Rachel, thanks for the welcome.

Map update: 25 October

Progress as of 14h00. The next few days are set in stone, more or less, but after that dotted line ...

VIDEO: Cincinnati, America's disappointment

I might be knocking Cincinnati for no good reason. I might just have been trying to fill time there by recording this uninspired video. But if someone can tell me something redeemable about Ohio's southern terminus, I'll be glad to hear it.

Sitting here in beautiful, downtown Lexington, the sun is shining again.

West Virginia: beautiful state

In a recent episode of FX's 30 Days, Morgan Spurlock returned to his home state, West Virginia, to work in a coal mine.

The show gave the impression that the state is all about coal.

Well, at first glance, that's pretty accurate.

We passed numerous coal refineries and pro-coal billboards today as we wound through the Kanawha River valley on the way to Charleston.

Most of the state itself, though, looks much like the picture to the left (not mine, unfortunately). It is in the heart of the Appalachian mountains, a very old range that is mostly tree-covered -- not many bare peaks, in other words. It makes for a very relaxing experience.

(Note: West Virginia tourism did not pay for any of the above.)

A wacky day on the road

Every bus today was late. Nothing out of the ordinary in these parts, as Greyhound Canada is much more reliable than its southern parent company that rolls along most Interstate routes.

Some highlights from today, a monstrously long day that started in D.C. and ended in Columbus:

• In D.C.'s waiting room, I talked to a gentleman named Mel. He likes Barack Obama and prefers him to John McCain, but is rooting for McCain, anyway. Why? If Obama wins, Mel says, he will be assassinated. The civil-rights movement will thus be set back a generation.

• Mel also believes that the Monica Lewinsky affair was a set up; that Bill Clinton plotted to kill former commerce secretary Rob Brown; and that the Pentagon strike on 9/11 was not carried out by Islamic terrorists, but "someone else" who actually received training in landing.

• The gentleman in front of me leaving D.C., a clean-cut chap on the way to Richmond, Virginia, proceeded to shield his eyes from light by, I kid you not, wearing underwear on his head.

• Someone behind me sort of mumbled his way through the trip, doubting the existence of New Jersey and requesting corroboration from his seatmate.

• From rural West Virginia until Columbus, I sat across from a drunk Texan who was drunk presumably because he attended two funerals this week in different parts of the country, and is on his way to see his sister who is (hopefully) recovering from triple-bypass surgery.

• A crying baby ruined the trip by crying, in my estimation, 60 per cent of the time. Moral of the story: Always bring some form of nourishment for an infant.

Eighteen hours through the Appalachians

Not everything always goes according to plan. Case in point: Columbus, Ohio was not part of the plan for Thirty Days. But the way Greyhound travels the land isn't always the most convenient.

As the map illustrates, West Virginia and Kentucky border each other. But in order to get from Charleston to Lexington, you have to transfer (twice!) in Ohio: Columbus and Cincinnati.

Even though the trip cuts through part of Kentucky no more than two hours from Lexington.

All of this made today a little longer, and it's the reason I decided to spend the night in Columbus.

Goodbye, paradise

Maya (left) and Ryan, meet the world.
Thank you so very much.

And...

Meta.

VIDEO: Exclusive broadcast from D.C.

I said in the last post that there wouldn't be a picture of me. But I'm debuting a video series. It's sort of inspired by Warren Kinsella. Anyways, the first one was a bit of an experiment.

Go to Washington, take pictures

It's what you do, right? What's a trip to the National Mall without snapshot like these?

Rest assured, this might be the last picture of me on this blog. I'm not a fan of this kind of thing normally, but this is pretty much to let my parents know that I'm alive and in (fairly) good
shape.


I stumbled upon the Iraqi embassy on Massachusetts Avenue (they sound the whole thing out here, unlike in Boston). Behind me is a water-bottle delivery service. International trade right in front of me!


This is the self-proclaimed Greatest Block in D.C. -- according to the Canadian embassy, anyway. I must agree. That a museum (or Newseum!) about the development of the free press is located right beside the Canadian HQ in Washington is ... well, I can't tell you how at home I felt as I walked past.


Lots of flags, sun bursting through the clouds. Snap.

Holocaust Museum: worth the visit

There isn't too much I want to write about this museum. Suffice to say, I felt sick when I left. I guess that's part of the point. No pictures, of course.

D.C.'s National Cathedral

Ryan and Maya live in Cleveland Park, a fine neighbourhood about a 15-minute walk away from Washington's National Cathedral. West Wing devotees will remember the church from a pretty dramatic scene towards the end of the second season. Melodramatic, say some.

In that episode, the President claimed that the Washington Monument could, on its side, fit into the cathedral. I believe him. That is one monstrous church. And it's just as beautiful as the show suggests.

Map update: 23 October

This is my progress so far. Next stop is Charleston, West Virginia. The bus leaves tonight at 1 a.m. Then it's on to Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi (briefly) and Louisiana.

UPDATE: Part of the itinerary for the next few days looks like this:

D.C. to Charleston, WV
02h15 to 14h45
Overnight

Charleston to Lexington, KY
01h30 to 13h25
Overnight

Lexington to Nashville, TN
22h30 to 05h20
Overnight

Then a hostel/motel!

Nashville to Birmingham, AL
11h20 to 15h50
And then a motel, for sure!

Three nights on a bus in a row. I don't know if that makes sense or not. I think not. I guess we'll see.

Boston to Washington

Not much happened for 12 hours. But at the end of it all, I had made it Washington, D.C.
My mission for the day was to spot as many professional sports stadiums as I could from the windows of the bus. The final tally:

• Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox)
• Yankee Stadium (Chicago Cubs)
• M&T Bank Stadium (Baltimore Ravens/Stallions/Colts)
• I couldn't spot Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands. This was a big disappointment, mostly because it's the only thing in an enormous swamp. Er, New Jersey.

Boston and a trip to a newspaper

Walking around Harvard, you wouldn't think that one of the most famous student newspapers around is all that credible. Not because it looks unappealing, reads badly, or is disparaged by students. None of that is a problem. You just can't find it anywhere.

We asked a few students outside one of the cafeterias where to find the Crimson. Their answer: a shrug of the shoulders. What!?

Turns out the Crimson e-mails every edition to all students. Stop the presses! (Literally)

OK, I'm not one to advocate for the death of the print edition, but an electronic version in the inboxes of every student seems not only to be a great way to spread information, but is also cheap. Crazy cheap.

The Crimson, you've done it again.

But I still wanted to find a copy of the paper. All the stars aligned, we turned the right corner, and there was Crimson HQ. Not only does the staff occupy their own building, but the name of the newspaper is engraved in cement. In a word: badass.

For the record, the design staff seemed weirded out by my excitable request for one of their newspapers. And they were really young, which terrified me.

Spend an hour walking by people you know are eons brighter than you and you start to feel a bit uneasy.

Boston and a trip to school

The downtown core and near suburbs of Boston all share one thing in common: beautiful, well-dressed, clearly wealthy people. Everyone on the subway reads. Not the city's trash tabloid either, but real books. Everybody. And it smells, well, not bad—anywhere.

At the hostel, Thirty Days encountered its second guest cameo: Dr. Javier Vera, a TV producer who lives and works in Orlando. He also attends conventions all over North America to do with new media and the future of the business. There was one rolling through Boston, so that explained his presence.

Javier and I took a trip to Harvard, a small college just north of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. By the way, everybody refers to the state and all of its subsequently titled hospitals, schools, and streets not as Massachusetts, but simply as "Mass".

When we walked by the main church on campus, Javier and I noticed several hundred or maybe a couple thousand chairs set up. Turns out Al Gore spoke there yesterday. It was almost enough for me to stay in Boston for an extra afternoon, until I remembered that Al Gore is the most boring person in the world. But it's all part of a new initiative to green the school.

This picture, by the way, is of MIT Building Ten: The Great Dome. Two incredible schools, thousands of terribly smart people, minutes apart.

Wow.

In D.C., updates coming soon...

Sorry for the lack of posting. I am currently in Washington, D.C. and will update later this morning, photos and all. Last night, after a 12-hour trip from Boston (a long 12, not a short 12), I was too tired to want to do anything.

But I should mention that the two people currently housing me are without a doubt the coolest Canadian (temporary) expats I've ever met. Their names are Ryan and Maya, and they are studying here in the nation's capital.

They get to witness the ignorance of Americans every day and, as a result, feel more comfortable and secure about Canada's cultural superiority. They can also say they live in D.C., which counts for points right off the bat.

Travis, thank you for introducing us.

Road trips mean you have lots of time to read

I've never written a book review before in any kind of non-academic setting. Here goes.

I just read a book called DelCorso’s Gallery by Philip Caputo. It is an easy and often captivating read packed with fully developed characters. The plot’s pacing is deliberately off-balance. It is sort of typical of its genre at time, but when it came to an end, I was disappointed. This is the kind of book that ought to last an entire road trip, not conclude on Day One. Oh well.

DelCorso’s Gallery is a book about a war photographer and his tremendously colourful menagerie of colleagues who roam the most dangerous landscapes the 1970s had to offer. And also, sort of, his far-away and elegant wife Margaret. The title photographer’s name is Nick, a street-grown wannabe boxer from Manhattan’s Little Italy.

Running around the world in search of stories worth telling, DelCorso handles a camera better than anyone he knows—he thinks so, anyway—and he yearns for the explosive excitement of the front lines. DelCorso insists, more to himself than to anybody else, that it’s not about living on the edge or finding a new edge or anything that a writer could transform into a cliché. It’s just about being there, observing humans at their worst, and telling people back home, wherever that is, about the assorted evil of war.

He experiences close calls with death, both as a freelancer and earlier as an army photographer: Vietnam, Cyprus, and Beirut—the usual suspects of the time.

The story opens in Ireland. DelCorso is supposed to be shooting a man while he fishes. Who he works for and why they are there is irrelevant. What matters is that the gig is a commercial arrangement, and DelCorso hates it. He promised Margaret that he would accept such jobs over those where he might be cut to pieces by bullets.

Predictably, the fisher pissed off DelCorso, who walked away and, despite his wife’s objection, immediately jumped at an assignment in Vietnam—Saigon on the brink of Communist conquest. This is where the plot really opens up and the best characters emerge. DelCorso pals around with other photographers, stringers for various agencies who are mostly known by their last names; his teacher-turned-rival Dunlop; and one grizzled asshole of a bureau chief named Bolton.

DelCorso’s Gallery swings back and forth between the characters as they challenge each others’ cynicism, or optimism, about their chosen trade.

At times, the plot resembles those of myriad films or books about conflict in Vietnam (or, later on in the book, Beirut) in the 1970s. The dialogue is weak and unimaginative in patches, and the relationships between characters tend to remain predictable throughout.

On balance, though, DelCorso’s Gallery is one of those books that appeals simply to readers’ sense of adventure. Not just anyone can be as talented as the characters with a camera or pen, but the sense that DelCorso and his pals are just normal guys in an abnormal environment makes them at least a little relatable.

Or maybe I just love a good story about a photographer, no matter how far-fetched.

POST-SCRIPT: Reading reviews at amazon.com and Wikipedia, I notice that the author was himself a war reporter, and a Pulitzer-winning journalist for coverage of Chicago election fraud in 1972. That makes all kinds of sense. I might read his autobiography, A Rumour of War. It was best-selling, so that must mean it’s worth it.

Bangor to Boston and beyond

Tomorrow morning, after filing a story for MediaScout, I'm jumping on a bus headed to Boston. After that, the tentative itinerary sort of looks like this:

• Washington, D.C.
• Lexington, KY
• Nashville, TN
• Birmingham, AB
• New Orleans, LA
• Memphis, TN or Austin, TX
  

Friends and acquaintances are on standby.

The Maritimes in a day

I slept from Halifax until Truro, so I don't know what that looked like. Deal with it.

I am pleased to announce that the first official guest character of Thirty Days across America made an appearance in Amherst, Nova Scotia.

Welcome to the show Mike Jakeman. He worked at an Irving convenience store for nine years, went to college in Halifax to study accounting, finished a three-month stint looking for work in Vancouver. He now lives in Moncton and is paying off student loans before completing his four-year program at a Halifax-area university. Either St. Mary's or Mount St. Vincent.

Go for St. Mary's, dude. Go Huskies.

Anyways, he was one of those typical Canadians. Thanks for appearing on the show on the blog in this experiment, Mike.

Here's something notable about New Brunswick. Saint John is one of the prettiest ugly towns in Canada. And hey, if you squint really hard and imagine you are in Vancouver on a sunny day, it's downright beautiful in Saint John. Yeah, we're talking Hamilton ugly.

See ya in a month, Canada

Today was a long day. Twelve hours, two buses, two provinces, and one state later, I'm sitting in a hotel room a couple of miles northwest of Bangor, Maine. A few notes from the road:

• 10 minutes after crossing the border into Calais, Maine, and I saw a bald eagle. How freaking predictable is that?
• We passed by a 500m peak called Lead Mountain. I'm from such a boring province that this seemed exciting. You'd think Ontario, in all its enormity, would find a place for a mountain. Instead, hills. Softly rolling hills.
  
• In rural Maine, McCain-Palin signs vastly outnumber Obama-Biden. But in Bangor, the largest town east of Augusta (the state capital, also not very large), Obama signs on private property outnumber McCain's by about 6:1. There are no Obama signs on public property, where the McCain people have staked their territory.
  Rural Maine: leaning red
  Bangor: blue as Paul Bunyan's famous ox

Oh, I should explain that otherwise non-sequiturial reference. I got lost on the way to my hotel (Econolodge by the airport). But while wandering around, I came across Paul Bunyan in statue form. Bangor is one of several American towns to claim themselves as Bunyan's place of birth.

Here he is:


How exactly did I get lost? Behold.


Notice the airport. I can hear planes from my hotel room, which faces the landing strip, and as I walked underneath it along Odlin Road a Navy cargo jet flew over. It was just like Wayne's World. Whoooaaaa!

Man, another one just landed. I think the Navy is having a party tonight. Where's my invite?

The hotel room, just in case you haven't seen enough pictures:

Ocean #1

Proof: Atlantic Ocean - Bayswater, N.S.

The friendliest people since the people next door

On the way to Lunenburg, we hopped out of the car to catch a glimpse of a typical Nova Scotian scene. Not surprisingly, boats are involved. And water.

As we strolled around, a dog named Ruby ran down the hill behind us. She was apparently delighted to see strangers. Her owner followed when the dog ignored her calls. What followed was proof that at least some Nova Scotians are as friendly as the stories (I've heard stories, anyway) suggest.

The woman's name was Joyce. She was 84 years old. And five minutes after she struck up a conversation with my aunt about how she built her house, Joyce invited us inside. And we didn't lock the car doors as we walked up her steps. If you are from a city in Ontario, you'll likely understand the habitual anxiety that tends to set in after unlocked anything. So that was Joyce.

Halifax

The trip couldn't have started on a smoother note. Sloan (not pictured) were on my flight to Halifax, where they were opening for Lenny Kravitz the next night at the Metro Centre.

Off the plane and on to a bus, I met my uncle a few blocks from his place. The palace on Fairfield Road, the home of my Uncle Doug and Aunt Cynthia, was an incredible first stop:


I hadn't been to Halifax in 15 years, so I don't know if much has changed. Lots of ships, a few bridges, wharfs, and assorted piers, docks, and quays (my landlocked Ontarian instincts suggest that those are all synonyms, but they might serve distinct purposes). Heck of a town.

Rough sketch of the first leg

This is, I think, how I plan to spend the first few days of the trip.

First stop: Halifax (not pictured). On Oct. 20, I leave Halifax on a bus bound for Bangor, Maine. After that, it's off to Washington D.C. after stops in Boston and New York. Everything after that on this map might not actually happen. Come to think of it, that sort of uncertainty might come to define this adventure.

I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable with that.