Transportation tales

Ship Sighting

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• by Lizann Flatt
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This past weekend I found myself in Owen Sound. (Minor hockey. ’nuff said.) Historically the city was quite the important shipping hub since it’s on Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. I got all excited when I saw this ship at the warf.

It was huge. The size is difficult to convey in a photo.

It was getting dark so the light isn’t great. I zoomed in a little which made for a slightly better pic.

Then I felt the need to get all artistic. I call this next one “Massive Transportation Device as seen from Personal Transportation Device.”


Okay, so it could use some work on a lot of levels.

Too bad I didn’t have the courage to photograph the guy just to the left of my vehicle here, the guy who attempted to drive up the driveway to the ship and got stuck. (Yeah, what driveway? There was a path through the snow, not visible to the human eye in this photo, up to the ship. Apparently someone had used it, but I wasn’t gonna try.). So anyway, this man got stuck at the very start of this supposed path and was gunning his engine and spinning his wheels as I took this shot. Ahh, the sound of Canada in the winter.

Country Gal Hits the Big City

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Woohoo! I was off to Toronto for the OLA Superconference to do the Mega-Book Launch with CANSCAIP. Now I’m just a country*** gal so going to the big city in the WINTER is a big deal. I exercised my transportation options. Here’s how the journey went:

1. Walked to my car. Drove to the bus stop (hey, it’s about 26 km so I wasn’t walking!).

2. Hopped on the Ontario Northland bus. It was a smooth and entirely uneventful trip.

3. Disembarked at the terminal, walked to the TTC enduring the stares of fashionably footed ladies at my functional and admittedly clunky winter footwear.

4. Got on the TTC subway and, after much jostling, got off at the right stop, recovered from momentary disorientation back at street level, backtracked after walking in the wrong direction, and

5. Reached Destination! Phew!

Now the trip back was somewhat more entertaining due both to the weather (snow storm) and to those sharing the bus with me. So the trip looked like this:

1. Slogged through more slush on Toronto streets than any human should ever have to experience in their entire life. I don’t know if my pant cuffs will ever recover. Oh yeah, and don’t discount the heart-stopping excitement of having a ball of slush flung by highspeed winds off a building narrowly miss your head. But no one questioned my unfashionable and clunky choice of footwear today…so there!

2. Waited at bus terminal and watched the pigeons stroll under the seats and between feet. Admired the “Do NOT feed the pigeons” sign. Concluded it does little good.

3. Hauled bags to the bus lineup, gave sympathetic look to those still waiting for bus to London to show up as I skipped to front of the line with others headed north. Got on the Grey Hound.

4. Selected comfortable seat. Bus ride was underway when the unmistakable Fetid Aroma of Rectal Turbulence engulfed me from behind. I am surprised I am alive to write this. WHY do people do that??? Said stench occured at regular intervals for the first hour of the trip (and you’re asking yourself why didn’t I just get up and relocate myself but, well, the answer to that would probably get into the psychology of being raised to be a nice, polite little girl so we won’t go there). At stopover the offending individual disembarked and I silently rejoiced. But darnit if he didn’t get back on and sit right back down before the bus took off again. So I waited…and waited…and waited to be accosted with the same stench but–wonder of wonders!–he must have dealt with the root cause of the problem. Yippee!! But I spoke too soon. Suddenly a gagging wave of Old Spice or something leapt upon me, causing my eyes to water and forcing me to filter my O2 through my turtleneck. Ever heard of the saying “A dab’ll do ya”? Obviously NOT. But I was thankful for small mercies. At least it was better than the previous olfactory offense.

5. Bus gets behind a plow procession so next leg of the trip takes at least twice as long as it should. Having finished the book I’d brought along, I spend the time watching the reflection of Casino Royale in the window coming from the portable DVD player of the kid in front of me.

6. Man who has missed a bus to his destination gets on and proclaims to one and all that he will take a taxi to his destination once we’re at the next station. His cell phone proceeds to ring at least every 5 minutes. No kidding. Now there were a lot of cell phones on that bus but this particular guy had his particular phone go off particularly often. And he was obviously arguing with someone on the other end. Phrases like “I’m going to get a cab…” and “I missed the bus to…” and “What am I supposed to do…” and so on informed all the rest of us of way more detail of his life than we ever wanted to know and for sure didn’t ask. At one point, and this is at least after 10 calls, the guy yelled, “I’m on the &@## bus!” And take it from me when I say that, at this point, I think we all wanted to grab the phone from him and yell “Look, he actually is on the &@## bus!” Sheesh.

7. Wearily disembarked at destination station. Brushed snow off car. Scraped ice off windsheild (Note to self: Do not park with windshield facing road where it will be exposed to slush thrown by plow subsequently freezing into inch think gunk which is impossible to see through and even more impossible to remove in a timely manner). Drive into snowstorm.

8. Reach HOME!

***Disclaimer: term refers to preferred habitat and is not to be construed to relate in any way to preferred music genre despite eponymous similarity to country music band Rascal Flatts.

A Detour

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• by Lizann Flatt
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Sometimes when I’m writing it seems like things magically come together. It’s probably not magic but rather the fact that most of my brain is obsessed with a topic so I just find myself seeking it out wherever I happen to be.

Earlier this summer my family and I were out and about and we took a detour because a sign said pretty much: This way to covered bridge. We discovered this amazing historic site–a bridge built in 1881 in West Montrose. It’s now one of the only covered bridges in Ontario and, according to the blue information sign, was built because horses much preferred to cross covered bridges since they weren’t distracted or spooked by the sight of water down below their hooves. Pretty neat since Let’s Go!: The Story of Getting from There to Here is all about transportation history.

But as if that wasn’t enough, just after I took those photos I heard a clip-clopping that could only be horse’s hooves. It was a surreal moment as I wondered briefly what century I had entered when I crossed the bridge. I watched and listened in awe as a horse and buggy trotted across the bridge and carried on down the road.

It almost seemed a shame that I had to drive away in a car. Almost….