Road Trip!
It's not the destination; it's the subtitle that counts
Being the 22nd edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Road Trip to Newfoundland
Been busy the last week and a half relocating one of my daughters from Toronto to St. John’s NFLD. This involved driving to Toronto, packing her up, then driving to St. John’s NFLD with a one day visit to Riverview NB in between. Oh, and there was a dog involved; she has a great little cocker spaniel named Oz. Love that little pooch, even if he did pee on my sleeping bag the night before last, right before bed time.
I could have paid for a mover for my daughter but this really called for the personal touch. It’s a big move. Also, I love visiting Toronto, however briefly, where I lived for 38 years until recently. And it gave me the opportunity to visit my other daughter, who still lives in Ontario. And finally, I’ve always wanted to take the ferry to Newfoundland.
Turns out there’s two ferries, but the one that docks closest to St. John’s doesn’t start running until the 15th of June. So we took the one that departs Sydney, Nova Scotia at 11:15pm, chugs across the strait overnight, and arrives in Port aux Basques around 7am. It’s then a nine hour drive (if you do it nonstop) to St. John’s.
As I mentioned, there was a dog involved, Oz, or Ozzie boy as he’s often called. Every second person I talked to at Marine Atlantic had a different story about how dogs were handled on board. I had ordered kennel space for him. They booked me “large” kennel space, which I thought was fine, giving Oz lots of space. In my mind, it was some kind of large, enclosed paradise in which Oz would be at ease and my daughter could comfortably hang out with him. Turned out I could have ordered any size space cuz as you can see from the pic below you just set your dog in it’s own crate where ever, basically. Also, it was never clear that you actually had to bring your own hard surfaced crate to put in the kennel space. Obvious, I suppose, in retrospect, but still, that was never made clear. I can imagine people showing up on the boat without such a crate, just a dog on a leash. What then? Do they turn them away? I have no idea. As it was we’d packed the crate full of stuff and had to quickly unload it when we got on the boat to use it for this purpose. And then, because we’d packed the van to the brim, had to repack the crate quickly as we were docking. Naturally I had trouble fitting it back into the van, and wound up holding up traffic. But what’s a road trip without a bit of stress here and there.
When we got on the boat, we asked an employee where the dog kennel was located.
“Desk Seven,” he told us. “Outside.”
Outside! In the freezing Cabot Strait this time of year. My daughter said no way my dog is staying outside. She was prepared to smuggle him inside the boat and hide him inside her coat, or under a chair, or magically turn him invisible somehow. Turns out the guy meant outside but in a heated enclosure. Below is a close up of Oz, relatively comfortable. We checked on him a few times during the overnight crossing and one of our fellow passengers who also had a dog spent most of his time in this space, which only featured one chair, and a small rocky patch for dogs to do their business on.
Here’s a close up of Oz in his crate wondering why we were abandoning him, as all dogs do whenever they’re left alone, for however long.
I chose an overnight crossing to save time and the expense of a hotel. You can book comfortable (I assume they’re comfortable; I never actually saw the interior of one) cabins but they were all sold out. You can also book reserved seating, which is basically the seats pictured below but in a secure area… with a whole bunch of other people, so I’m not sure what the advantage is. They were all sold out too, so, Keira and I spent the night in seats like this, next to one another.
It was damned uncomfortable.
Some people brought blankets and pillows to help; many slept right on the deck. I just did my best to sleep in a sitting, slightly reclined position.
Did I mention it was a damned uncomfortable night?
Surprisingly, I managed about 5 hours of shut eye, enough to prevent sleepiness during the 9 hour drive from Port aux Basque to St. John’s the following morning (well, for the most part: I took about a ten minute nap in Grand Falls, just to be on the safe side).
Hit a fog bank (better than hitting a moose) as we approached St. John’s. The fog lasted about two days, and apparently made the CBC national news. It was rain, fog and drizzle the entire three days I spent there getting my daughter set up. We both wondered, is it like this all the time? We both already knew that it couldn’t be; she’d already spent two weeks there a couple of months ago, and I’d done a week long visit in 2017, during which I’d seen marginally better weather. But we were concerned nonetheless.
I took a bunch of cardboard to the dump on the second day. One of the workers there, a woman by the name of Di, said to me, in her charming accent, "It's the worst I've seen in all me 53 years, b'y." My daughter and I were relieved to hear that the weather was considered unusual by a long time inhabitant. But when I mentioned this to another St. John’s native, they informed me that no, this was far from the worst, and definitely not unusual. Later, when a debit machine didn’t work for me at Home Depot, I joked to the cashier, “Maybe it’s the fog.”
“Can’t be,” she said. “If so it would never work. Cuz there’s fog here ALL THE FRIGGIN’ TIME.”
Apparently the fog, rain and drizzle cleared up the instant I left St. John’s, yesterday morning. Not for me, though; it followed me almost the entire way to Port aux Basque. Constant hydroplaning. More than once I thought my van would hydroplane right off the road. I would have been better off in a hovercraft.
But I made it back to Port aux Basque sans incident. This shot is from last night; that’s my Kia Sedona in the foreground of the ship, as I was waiting to get on board for the return journey across the Cabot Strait. It was a nice clear day in Port aux Basque. Weirdly, although you see lots of blue sky in this picture, about two kilometres outside of Port aux Basque I had driven through a dense fogbank, thick as the proverbial peasoup.
Here’s me (well, my feet, anyway) relaxing on board during the return journey, in a seat with a view, just as we’re pulling away from the dock.
And now I’m home, just in time to get a slightly truncated version of this newsletter out. I’ll get back to reviewing potential distributors next week.
The Scribbler Interview
Recently I dropped by a farmer’s market in Shediac and ran into fellow scribe Allan Hudson. I featured a little interview with Allan on a previous edition of Assorted Nonsense. I also reviewed his book Shattered Figurine.
Now he’s returned the favour by interviewing me on his blog. Thanks Allan!
Donovan Street Press Books (So Far!)
Adventures in the Radio Trade
"In dozens of amiable, frequently humorous vignettes... Mahoney fondly recalls his career as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio technician in this memoir... amusing and highly informative." ~ Kirkus Reviews
A Time and a Place
“Entertaining, chaotic adventure.” ~ Publishers Weekly.
A note as well that the hardcover version of A Time and a Place now features the new cover, and is available at a much less expensive price than before.
Other Times and Places
“ …a lovely little collection of sci-fi and fantasy short stories, fun and well written.” ~ Charles P. Kelly
The Deer Yard and Other Stories
“Partly memoir, partly fiction, The Deer Yard is more than merely a good read …well-written, gentle stories, well worth reading.” ~ Ottawa Review of Books
Coming Soon
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
Re-Creative: the Podcast
Our podcast Re-Creative (hosted by the author of this newsletter, Joe Mahoney, and author Mark A. Rayner) is currently on a brief hiatus, but will resume shortly.
Appearances
Taking a bit of time off over the summer, but I’ve already booked three craft fairs for the Fall
This has been the twenty-second edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.