The Squamidian Report – Aug. 20 / 16
Issue #743
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We actually managed to get away for a short little 3 day road trip on
the bike. It was the weekend that my motorcycle chapter was going to do
its weekend ride but that ride had fallen through. There was no way I
was going to let that keep us from getting away on the bike so away we
went. One of the members in the chapter, actually, two because they are
a couple, suggested that anyone still interested and available could
ride to their 'retirement' home in Princeton and then go from there. So
we did. We rode out last Friday, down through the traffic and
heat of the lower mainland out to Hope. From there we took #3 over the
Allison Pass and on into Princeton where we had booked a motel. Our
friends had offered their place as a place to stay but we preferred our
own 'space'. It had been a hot day of riding so even the rather
inadequate AC in the motel room felt good. We hooked up and went out
for a late dinner then made plans to meet in the morning and head out
on a day ride in and around the Okanagan Valley.
Next morning we headed out and rode to Keremeos where we stopped for a
late breakfast and then headed the rest of the way over to Osoyoos. By
then it was hot, very hot and I sure didn't like the heavy tourist
traffic but thats what one must deal with in areas like that. We took
some nice winding back roads as we rode up to Penticton. Along the way
a deer jumped out from the ditch. The other bike was ahead of us and
didn't see it. I braked hard but was not sure if the deer would pass in
front of us, behind us, or try to go right through us. Out of instinct,
Sue put out her hand the same way she'd give a 'stay' command to a dog,
as she made eye contact with it. It stopped, looking straight back at
her, with a look of confusion on its face. It wasn't sure whether or
not it was required to follow hand signals meant for dogs, but that
brief moment gave us time to get past. It ended up crossing behind us
on its way down to the lake we were riding beside.
By mid afternoon I'd had enough heat and suggested we head back to
Princeton. Riding a motorcycle in very hot weather is very tiring, you
get hotter, not cooler from the wind and your engine. We got back to
our motel after riding through some rather spectacular country, dry
rolling high hills, rock outcrops, stands of pine and so on. After
resting in our semi-air-conditioned room we rode over to their place
for an evening BBQ. A great day in spite of the heat.
We had arranged to head out early the next morning, Sunday morning and
so we were up nice and early while it was still a bit cool and
comfortable, and rode back over to their place so we could all ride
back together. The Princeton area is over run with deer and I don't
think I've ever seen as many deer in one place as I did on our short
ride to our friend's house. They were everywhere, on the motel lawn, on
the cop shop lawn, on the highway, whole herds standing in the river,
on pretty well every residential lawn and so on. I don't thinks I'd
want to ride in the dark around there. Anyway, a third biker had ridden
in on Saturday evening with the intention of riding part way back with
us. We intended to take the long way, avoiding the lower mainland and
the city, and his destination was Kamloops. So, we rode north from
Princeton on the old #5a up to Merritt where we grabbed some breakfast
and then took the equally scenic backroad up to Lagan Lake. From there
we headed northwest to Ashcroft which took up past a huge, and I mean
huge, open pit mine that includes miles of brilliant white tailing
ponds. Both ugly and fascinating at the same time. It was somewhere
along there that we saw the stain on the road that indicated some
critter had been hit by a vehicle. Then we saw the critter, a horse,
laying dead in the ditch. Wow.
The road leads past the pit mine and then drops down, way down, into
the Thompson River Valley where Ashcroft sits. Ashcroft is often one of
the hottest places in Canada and that day was no exception. I don't
know how they keep the asphalt from melting. It had been quite
comfortable up in the high plateau but as we descended, the temp rose,
and rose until it was fearsome. It was a quick ride up the old #1 and
into the air conditioned DQ in Cache Creek where we had lunch, and a
banana split. I've actually got a Cache Creek DQ banana split story but
I think I told that a few years ago. Anyway, ever since then I make a
point of indulging whenever we pass through there. After lunch and a
stop for fuel we headed up #97 to the top end of #99. That would take
us through Marble Canyon, on down to the Fraser River canyon and into
Lillooet where that third rider I mentions headed down #12 to Lyton and
we headed up over the Duffy after downing a few liters of water.
We were only about 5 minutes into the climb up the Duffy when we had
the closest call I've ever had on the bike. Scarred the hell out of us.
We were climbing through a very tight switchback. As some of you know,
these switchbacks on our roads around here are blind, you can't see
around them because they are carved into the sides of the mountains.
About half way around, a small white car, coming in the opposite
direction and therefore toward us, came around the curve so fast his
(or hers) back end was sliding out and the car was coming toward us
sideways. One of the survival rules of thumb on our tight windy roads
it to always stay as far from the center line as possible because there
seems to be an endless supply of idiots driving too fast or not paying
any attention. I was well over to the right and somehow the back end of
that car missed us. Once I realized we were ok I was very concerned
about the other bike. It was out of sight behind us around the curve.
He had heard me curse loudly into our intercom system and had pulled as
far to the right as possible. That car managed to gather it up a bit
and rocketed past the other rides and on down the hill. I truly hope
he, or she, runs off the road somewhere without taking anyone else with
them, and removes themselves from the gene pool.
Now, you may be thinking that incidents like this tend to point out how
unsafe riding a motorcycle can be. Well, think about it this way, if we
had been in a car under that very same condition, even though we'd have
been as far from the center line as possible (see above rule of
survival), we'd still have been hit because a car takes up ¾ of the
lane where a bike takes just ¼. In a car we could not have escaped a
collision with the speeding, out of control white car. Anyway, we were
all fine and the riding temperature up on the Duffy was quite nice. As
we dropped down the other side and into the Pemberton Valley, the temp
rose again to painful levels. We stopped that the fast food place to
cool down and rest a bit then headed on down through Whistler to
Squamish. We parted company with the other bike as they live in North
Van. Basically, a great weekend. A bit on the hot side because
after a rather cool slow start to summer, its here with a vengeance. In
fact, by Thursday it was 36.5 degrees here, which was also the hottest
place in the country. Thats painful. Mind you, the humidity was just
11% so at least there was no humidex stuff to suffer through. In fact
its too dry, the forest fire rating has gone though the roof, and thats
not good at all.
Oh, we put about 1250 km on the bike over the weekend. Just fairly easy riding.
And this is cool.... we went to the gondola last Monday. Nothing new
about that. We went on the bike and when we got there, there were a
hundred or so bikes there with another hundred on their way in. They
were the Blue Knights and they were from all over the continent. The
Blue Knights motorcycle club is rather exclusive. They are all members
of or retired members of some form of law enforcement. Cops, prison
guards and so on. It was pretty neat with our bike parked with theirs.
One of them even gave me a Blue Knight pin that I've waisted no time
showing off.
Anyway, now you know why last weeks addition was a bit late coming out.
I couldn't be bothered trying to send it from some motel room anymore.
I'm getting grumpy that way.
doug
****
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, we are home safe and sound from the
American South. We arrived home at 10:30pm last Friday after a long
drive. When we were driving the long and boring I-75 north through Ohio
we intended to stop over night and finish the rest of our drive home on
Saturday but when I looked over at Carole only to find that she was
fast asleep at almost 5pm, I decided to keep on driving as we passed a
sign reading 125 miles to Detroit! I figured we’d be less than two
hours to the border and then it would only be three more hours to our
destination of Kitchener so, what the heck?
Anyway, I guess I should start at the beginning!
On Wednesday August 3rd we started our journey south to Tennessee. A
few weeks earlier, we got to talking about just getting away for a few
days by driving somewhere! I mentioned that maybe we could drive to
Branson Missouri to take in a show or two at one of their many theatres
owned by big music stars. Carole said after thinking about it for a
bit, “What about driving to Nashville? Is there anything interesting
down there that we could go see?” I replied with “Sure, maybe we could
attend The Grand Ol’ Opry to see a show!” Later on that evening Carole
went on line and checked out the upcoming shows that were scheduled for
the Opry. She found that one of her favourite singers; Carrie Underwood
was scheduled to appear there on August 10th. We decided to book a pair
of tickets to her show and drive down to Nashville for the event. So
off we went! The easiest way to drive that far south is to drive to
Detroit via the 401 and take I-75 South. It runs to Cincinnati OH and
from there it’s a nice drive to Louisville Ky. It just so happens that
Louisville is directly north of Nashville by a little more than a
hundred miles. That meant we could be there in approximately 12 to 13
hours if we wanted to drive straight through. Not being as insane as I
was back in my younger days when we used to vacation in Florida during
the 80’s where I’d drive 23hrs straight through from Kitchener to Tampa
only stopping for gas, food and pee breaks! LOL! I figured we’d take
our time and maybe stay one or two nights in a motel on the drive down.
As it turned out we stayed two nights in motels. We arrived in the
Nashville area on the afternoon of the third day and since we didn’t
have to find the Opry until Wednesday we decided to keep on driving
west from Nashville to Memphis and maybe take in a tour of Elvis’s
“Graceland Estate”. Now neither of us were big fans of Elvis but since
he was and is such a famous personality we figured, why not? So upon
our arrival in Memphis we stopped at the tourist info centre outside
the city and picked up some information as well as a couple of
souvenirs. From there we drove into the east end of the city and found
a motel. We booked it for a three-day stay and began to make our plans
for the stay. We had picked up several brochures boasting the
attractions of the city of Memphis. Of course the biggest attraction
was the Estate of Elvis Presley, which just happened to be on “Elvis
Presley Blvd”. We headed out to find Graceland the very next day and as
luck would have it, we were not closely situated to it but we only had
to drive two streets to get there. The problem was that we were a half
hour drive through town. We left our motel and only had to make three
turns to get us to Graceland. I made a left almost directly out of the
motel onto Germantown Pkwy and 15 minutes later a right onto Winchester
Rd. Once on Winchester Rd, the next turn would be onto Elvis Presley
Blvd and Graceland would be on our immediate left or right (I wasn’t
sure which side) but apparently just around that last corner! Well,
according to the shitty tourist map, we should turn right so I did!
Well, Elvis Presley Blvd just happens to be in one of the old and very
ghetto filled parts of Memphis. As we drove north and surroundings
became worse and worse we figured I might have turned the wrong way.
Carole took a look at the tourist map and figured we had better try
heading in the other direction. I made a u turn and was careful not to
upset any other driver as I did so. I didn’t want to get into any sort
of a road rage situation in a very “Dark” part of a very big and run
down city in a strange country! We didn’t see any friendly faces in
that seedy part of town so we wanted to keep moving! Eventually we
found our way back across Winchester Rd and guess what, there it was,
GRACELAND in all it’s glory! It was on our left but we were directed to
our right into what turned out to be the starting point of the “Elvis”
experience. The 10-acre site across the street from Elvis’s mansion had
been developed into a car museum, a theatre site, several souvenir
shops, a large parking lot and a parking spot for Mr Presley’s two Jet
Aircraft, one of which was named the Lisa Marie after Elvis’s daughter!
We spent I believe $38.00 each on a pair of tickets for the mansion
tour. We could have spent another $38.00 each for tickets to walk
through his airplanes but were told that the five minutes it takes to
walk the isles of the two planes wasn’t worth the cost! So, we settled
for the mansion tour only. It took over an hour of waiting in line
outside in the tremendous heat of Memphis (100 F) before we were
invited to board a mini bus. The bus took us out of the terminal,
strait across the street and into the driveway of Graceland. It was a
total of 2 minutes on the bus but safer I guess than trying to walk or
run across the busy street to his house! The “Mansion” is located on
13.5 acres of lush green and well-treed land and is very well looked
after. What a stark contrast to the other junky houses and run down
business buildings and overgrown cemeteries we had passed on the rest
of Elvis Presley Blvd! We found out that Graceland was built before
most of that area of the city and was virtually in the country when
first constructed.
Once inside the home, we were asked not to
touch anything but we could take as many pictures as we liked. I guess
that Elvis had strange taste in decorating to go along with his
truckloads of money. The home was a mixture of custom made and store
bought furniture that Elvis had picked out himself. He had a 12’ long
white leather couch custom made to fit his 24’ long living room and
it’s still in very good condition to this day. The home is said to
contain 10,000 square feet of living space but to me it didn’t seem any
more than twice the size of the houses in our own neighbourhood here in
Forest Heights. I guess if we had been allowed to tour the second floor
of the house it might have seemed as large as it’s measurements! The
house was itself a normal layout with a center hall plan. When you
enter the front door, there is a living room on the right, a dining
room on the left and a staircase that leads to the upper floor about
10’ in the front door. There is a hallway-leading strait in that leads
to a large bedroom behind the living room. The Music Room is off the
end of the living room and contains a lovely Grand Piano that Elvis
used to play to entertain his guests. The kitchen is behind the dining
room and is your typical 50’s/60’s kitchen. Its counter tops are
laminate and the cupboards are white wooden doors with chrome handles
and knobs. It’s quite a big kitchen and still has all the old
appliances and counter top gadgets of the day! It’s said that it was
one of Elvis’ favourite gathering rooms in the house to meet with and
cook for friends. The commentary that went along with the tour was
spoken to each person on the tour with an I-pad and headphones. You
could take your time and move from room to room at your own pace. Elvis
even had a room he called the Jungle Room. It had exotic furniture and
huge green plants and looked like it belonged in a Tarzan movie! Two of
the most interesting rooms were located in his basement. The one that
intrigued me was his games room. It had a large pool table that he
purchased used when he got out of the army in 1961 and it still has a
tear in the green cloth at one corner of the playing surface where a
friend of Elvis’ had tried to make a trick shot and tore it with his
cue! The room itself has the walls and ceiling covered with heavily
patterned material that was custom installed by 6 people he hired to do
the job. The ceiling has a center point like a large button and the
material runs in pleats from that point outward to each wall and right
down the walls to the floor! It’s a very weird way of decorating a room
but that’s what Elvis wanted! The other interesting room is his private
TV room. It’s all done in yellow and has a wall that contains 8
television sets. He wanted to be able to watch different channels all
at the same time and back then this was the only way he could do so!
The home was interesting to say the least but the commentary about
Elvis’s life was very enlightening. He as a very talented man and his
talent earned him huge amounts of money! We were told that Elvis was a
very very generous person indeed! He thought nothing of giving lump
sums of $100,000.00 at a time to hospitals and charities in Memphis. At
that time, $100,000.00 was equal to one Million dollars in today’s
money. His daughter said she had never seen a time or situation where
when asked for money or help that Elvis refused to give! She said no
matter who asked for help, he was willing to do so in a moments notice!
He even purchased many homes for people who needed one but couldn’t
afford one for themselves! Although he was so very generous it wasn’t
widely publicized and Elvis wanted it that way. He wasn’t the kind of
person that needed recognition for his good deeds and that in itself
impressed me. I had no idea he was such a giving person!
Anyway, to finish off, Elvis added to the home
and property by building a squash court behind the house. He also took
a liking to horses after making a western movie with Dean Martin so he
had a barn built out back and purchased several horses of his own. To
this day the Estate still has horses kept on the property. One of the
other tack buildings on the property has been converted into a
showplace for all of Elvis’s gold records and other awards given him
over his career. I believe they said he has on display more than 180
gold records etc. It was indeed impressive to see several entire large
walls covered with so many gold records and original copies of same.
Last but not least, there is an area not far from the swimming pool
where Elvis and members of his family are laid to rest. Each has a
large granite slab gravestone laid over it that tells details of each
family members life and death. Elvis had a twin brother who died at
birth and even he is buried beside Elvis.
It was an interesting tour and one that we are very glad we took the time enjoy!
Well, I think I’ll call this an end for this week.
I hope you’re finding my ramblings more interesting than boring and if
so, I’ll continue the tale of our trip next week! Thanks for tuning in
and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The
Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend thinking!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
|