Mummified Spiders & Canadian Shield Friendships

Clear Skies and open road greet us at the begining of this massive road trip

Today we left. The adventure began around 07:00AM and began by meeting Kate O'Malley at the curbside to pick up a sweater. Traffic in Toronto being what it is the morning commute aka our way out of town, was punctuated with accidents including a pretty spectacular double tractor trailer rollover on either side of the 427 and 401 interchange. Synchronicity like that has got to be worth some serious points.  Thankfully though this didn't affect us much as we were taking the DVP out of town and due to Erin's exceptional navigation skills were able to avoid the majority of traffic jams and get on the 401 in a timely manner.

About two and a half hours out side of Toronto, the grass lands and Carolinian forests of Southern Ontario gave way to the magnificent Boreal wood and the Canadian Shield. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the Shield, it is the world's largest exposed section of Archean rock. Formed 3.8 billion years ago - eat that creationists! - the Shield, also known as the Bouclier Canadien in French stretches from as far North as Baffin Island, as far West as the Yukon and as far East as Newfoundland. Thus on this trip it will be our constant companion, not unlike this cute, mummified spider that has been entombed in our tail light for sometime now. 

At any rate we arrived in Montreal safe and sound and checked into our hotel. Traffic was a bit dodgy getting into the city as the Ville-Marie Tunnel has been completely flooded due to torrential rains on Tuesday. 

At any rate we are very excited to get our Mutek on and very much looking forward to the performances tonight featuring Jan Jelinek, Shackleton, Monolake, Jeff Mills and many others. We're off to pick up our festival passes and start visiting with friends shortly and we'll end there for today.  I'm sure this post has enough facts to keep Brandt Kempton happy and as for music we'll share a double helping tomorrow with fest reports. Enjoy the pics below.

The Canadian Shield as viewed from the highway

Mummified Spider

Free Parking and Other Stories of the Greatness of Today

Our Broken Salad Fork: A Casualty of the Toronto Casseroles

Sometimes days before you leave for holiday are a mish-mash of errands, visits and tying up loose ends. They serve a purpose of course, but that purpose is generally to remind you of how awesome it's going to be to go on vacation.

Today had to be the absolute best day of pre-vacation in the history of pre-vacationing! 

What was so awesome about today? Let's run it down:

Footprintz: Their Autobrennt Podcast was perfect for a sunny day of errand running.

Surprise Beer: Went to return our mountain of empties today. Discovered 3 unopened beers in a case. 

Free Parking: City Hall's ticket reading system crashed today when I went to renew our city sticker. Curmudgeonly Scotsman of an attendant let me go for free rather than take time to reboot his computer. As anyone who knows me well enough knows that my biggest pet peeve is paying for parking so getting this freebie from directly within the belly of the beast is simply awesome

Getting To See Old Friends: Just found out a dear friend who I've missed for over 8ish years will be in Montreal this weekend. Awesome. Look forward to seeing you Karla!

Found a Record I'd Been Looking For: My copy of The Damned's Light At The End of The Tunnel was damaged in a storage unit flood. Found it online through iTunes today. Blasting it until I go to bed tonight.

Chatting With Ryan Kelley: Nuff Said

Mo'Money: We both got paid today!

Casseroles in Toronto: Was waiting for a friend so couldn't go out to the Dufferin Grove Casseroles tonight -- thankfully, it came to us! Got to bang our pots and pans from the balcony in solidarity with Quebec students and other Canadians participating in our very own Maple Spring! Let's hope this movement goes beyond its initial goals! Charest Out first! Harper Out Next!*

*International Friends if you are not familiar with what's happening in Quebec and what's starting to spread around the country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests

Bonus Casseroles: The march just passed by for a second time Solidarite!!

Leaving early in the morning tomorrow to get to Montreal. The adventure begins.

Fun Fact:  A cacerolazo or cacerolada is a form of popular protest practised in certain Spanish-speaking countries – in particular Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – which consists in a group of people creating noise by banging pots, pans, and other utensils in order to call for attention. What is peculiar about this type of demonstration is that the people protest from their own homes, thus achieving a high level of support and participation.

Fun Track: The Damned: Plan 9 Channel 7

Call of the Wild ...

The Camping supply pile grows ever larger in our dining room

We are now just 2 days away from setting out for Montreal. This past week has been crazy busy at work for both Erin and I as we try and wrap up all the last minute things that need to be wrapped up before one takes off for almost a month. So here we are scheduling last minute meetings, working late, leaving instructions, designing last minute rave flyers and posters, accruing more lieu time and arranging for the plants to get watered and trying to visit as many people as possible in a short period of time we have left here in Toronto.

We ate what is most likely our last meal at Clinton's tonight for the foreseeable future. Sure gon' miss those Mexi-Burgers and Wings and Quiz Night and the friendly staff of our favourite local. 

I found a bunch of old Goth CDs tonight. Importing to iTunes furiously for the trip. The air is hot. The excitement is palpable

Erin at Clinton's

Fun Fact: We learned today Miquelon is actually made up of two large islands. One with 515 people and one with 1 guy. He died in 2006 though so no one lives on the second island, Langlade, at all - Except wild horses and seals -- and us for 1 night.

Today's Jam: Crucifixion by Actifed. c. 1984
From last.fm "Actifed were an early 1980’s     Post-Punk act on the Jungle Records label. They managed two releases. Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to pull band information or images from the web because they took their name from a known brand of sinus remedy. It should appeal to fans of 13th Chime, Southern Death Cult, Furyo, Sex Gang Children and others… As he did for SGC, on Actifed’s 1984 single Tony James (Generation X) has added his production to the bands sound."

 

The Countdown's On . . .

Our proposed route takes us over 8,000kms in just over 20 days

It's under a week now until our Atlantic Canadian odyssey begins. So we thought we would start this blog to catalog our amazing journey and be able to share experiences with our friends in distant and far off places. 


As some of you may know, Erin and I decided to take a rather unconventional holiday this year that will take us deep into the remote wilderness of Eastern Quebec and Labrador, on to the amazing, island province of Newfoundland,  the French islands of St.Pierre and Miquelon - not just French speaking, they are an actual French overseas possession, through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and the New England states. 


Thanks to our very generous workplaces and collective agreements we have almost a month to complete this once-in-a-lifetime road trip. We'll be camping most of the way in Canada's extensive National Park system and transportation will be provided by our 2009 Toyota Yaris - we've decided to buy out the lease and blow up the mileage cap in style!


But before we head into the hinterlands we'll be taking in the best of digital arts, music and partying at Montreal's Mutek festival. We hope to see many of you there.

We'll also try and include soundtracks and lots of facts where possible.


Soundtrack: This one I suppose is kind of an obvious opening salvo soundtrack wise but, It's Willie Nelson, c'mon ppl he smokes weed and doesn't pay taxes!


Fun Fact: Over 7,000 people attended Mutek last year. That's over 1,000 more people than live on St.Pierre and Miquelon and roughly a quarter of the population of Labrador.