Martoons

Hi mARToons fan!

Yeah, so following up on yesterday’s cartoon, I started to hang out at Tim Hortons. It was my nightly ‘outing’, which is about as good as you’re going to get in a place like Prince George BC when you’re new, haven’t yet befriended anyone and want to get out of the house.

The pickup truck headlight problem isn’t specific to Tim Hortons.

One night I was driving back from the Prince George airport and a pickup was racing in the opposite direction. It was night.

The truck’s headlights were absolutely blinding. “He must have his high beams on” I thought so I flicked mine to remind him to dim down.

His response? He then actually turned ON his high beams and the whole front area of his truck lit up with about a dozen spotlights.

A lot of vehicle headlights out there are way too bright.

*

Travel log day 3: The Great Canadian Gravel Grunt. A driving trip from Saskatoon to Ontario. Highlights, good deals, and rip-offs.

Today made it to Thunder Bay. This burned-out old city is full of good deals and nice people. Didn’t need to buy one of those expensive fold-out maps from 7-11. Just asked people for directions.

Great deals: The hostel on Lakeshore Road $25. The owner actually talks to you. He’s spent decades traveling and teaching all over the world.

Great Deal2: The swimming pool at Lakehead University. $4. Exercise is essential to break up long periods of driving.

Highlights: Started to see the famous Ontario lakes. From T-Bay down to Nipigon you catch glimpses of Lake Superior. Vast. Mystical. Calm. Recedes from roadside all the way back to the horizon, uninterrupted except for little islands and juts of land. Best part: Almost no cottages on most of it. This is Canada!

Rip-offs: Marathon, Ontario must have copied the blue-print from Kenora for how to suck tourists dry on accommodations.

Both Marathon hotels looked full so I inquired about bed+breakfast. The sign on the door says “No Vacancy” but I knocked anyway. The lady had a room or two. Her price: $130.

I can understand that when it’s summer and she’s got a line-up for each room. But come on! This is off-season.

So she’d rather keep rooms empty than come down a bit for a weary, lone polite well-dressed traveler. Is this serving the public?

She makes a few calls and dispatches me off to some other mythical location, which I couldn’t find and ended up driving another 200 km in the dark to finally find a $135 rip-off room in Wawa.

All in all it was better than sleeping in the car. The hotel room though had no bar fridge. I travel with a cooler and ice pack to keep basic foodstuffs refrigerated. Not today.

More adventures tomorrow! 

Cheers, mARTy West, editor, clickmARToons.com

Contact me at west_martin@hotmail.com, or text (Canada) 250-613-7525.