Cross country

I started my big trip alone, heading out to Western Canada to get
married. Due to an expired passport and a Wawa washout I ended up taking
the ultra-long Arctic circle route. This added about 8 hours of driving
time to my trip but as a silver lining I got to visit with a long-time
friend and his growing family.

The drive from central to western Canada was interesting. Northern
Ontario was flatter with more working farms than I expected. I've
always pictured it as Canadian Shield covered in Evergreens not that
there wasn't a lot of that too. My most vivid memory was the warning
sign along the highway that I was approaching the last McDonald's for 510
kms (gasp!).

Nipigon is a beautiful area and I would definitely like to canoe it
someday. After Nipigon was a long stretch of highway north of Superior
that I bicycled in my cross Canada trip of 2008. Zooming by in an
auto mobile is very different than bicycle speed. My memory of north of
Superior on bicycle is that it was long and hard and repetitive – the
one section of the ride I just wanted to get over with. But now that
I've got both perspectives I’d have to say bicycling was better.
On a bicycle you have the time to appreciate where you are and what you
are doing. Highway speed doesn't really allow for that.

Manitoba was much as I remembered it - rough roads. It’s main
distinction on this trip was the the massive amount of road killed deer
(at least until I hit Wisconsin) – one of those was being eaten by a
bald eagle. Bald eagles are big birds.

I didn't see much of Saskatchewan as it was pretty much covered in
fog or darkness. Creepily like the deer respected the Manitoba
provincial boundaries the fog respected those of Saskatchewan - and the
cold Alberta.

Alberta was cold and snowy. It was the coldest and snowiest
jurisdiction of the whole trip. It also had the best beer. And I got
married there.

A week of living

I just spent week working for room and board at Blue Mountain Biodynamic Farm in Alberta and now I feel like a chump. Not for the week of  free labour but for the 15 years of trading my life for the mountain of junk that is either contributing to the landfill problems, occupying second hand store shelves or worst of all, anchoring me to the wage slave economy.

Sure, some of that stuff will be useful to me when I start living for real but I probably could have accumulated that in 5 years of living frugally. So OK, only 10 years truly wasted making other people wealthy.

The week on the farm makes me more than ever want to make the jump and soon - even if I can't see the bottom. It's not like farming isn't easy, the days are long and not always pleasant and there will always be an inescapable connection to the market economy but the work has some things that no job has ever provided - satisfaction and a sense of purpose. And its not as hard as our elite would have you believe, the hard parts are the same as for any small business.

And maybe farming is not for you, maybe you hate fresh air, getting dirty, manual labour or watching things grow but if you are having trouble finding happiness despite the security or a "good job" consider entrepreneurship. The detractions of insecurity and struggle aren't really detractions - they are living.

Road Rage

Some observations from my recent long road trip.

People who should not be allowed to drive ever again:
1. blind People
2. drunks
3. children, of any age
4. people talking on their phones
5. people texting
6. people reading print material
7. ruberneckers
8. people who do not understand the use and purposes of the external lighting array of their auto mobiles.
9. minivan drivers

Vehicles we need to get off our road system:
1. those silly Chromed up Hummers with race rims
2. low rider pickups (can you say abomination?)
3. all the "full size" SUVs (really just buy a short bus, it would be more appropriate)
4. all the SUVs that don't have off road tires and dirt
5. the Sexima
6. minivans
7. the GTXxx
8. e-bikes

Vehicles we need to see more of more of:
1. micro cars
2. motorbikes
3. scooters
4. vehicles with a matte finish