Montreal Trivia Quiz For Old Farts......Answers

Montreal Trivia For Old Farts Answers

#1 French Prime Minister Charles De Gaulle said it on a balcony at Montreal City Hall in 1967.

#2 Camp Kanawana. It is still in operation.

#3 Pom Bakery. It was located on the corner of Ste. Catherine Street and The Glen in Westmount. Was owned by the Harrison brothers.

#4 The insert was called The Weekend Magazine and Andy O’Brien was the sports editor.

 

#5 Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau.

 

#6 Chuck Hunsinger (Montreal) and Jackie Parker (Edmonton). Parker was one of the CFL’s all-time quarterback greats. Back then some players played both offense and defense.

#7 Michigan Red Hots. If you wanted curb service you turned your car headlights on.

#8 Bock beer. Dow Breweries.

#9 Franklin W. Dixon. First 10 published…..#1 The Tower Treasure, #2 The House On The Cliff, #3 The Secret Of The Old Mill, #4 The Missing Chums, #5  Hunting For Hidden Gold, #6 The Shore Road Mystery, #7  The Secret Of The Caves, #8 The Mystery Of Cabin Island, #9 The Great Airport Mystery, #10 What Happened At Midnight? Brothers Frank and Joe. Their best friend was Chet Morton. They lived in the city of Bayport on Barnet Bay. Father Fenton Hardy was a Detective. They had an Aunt Gertrude. Ring any bells?

 

#10 The Ritz Carlton and The Berkley.

#11 Walter Alston. Jackie Robinson and Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) played for the Royals as did Roberto Clemente for part of 1 season.

#12 The Magic Carpet Ride, The Whirl-Away, The Wild Mouse, The Salt And Pepper. The House Of Mirrors (not really a ride).

#13 Richard Blass. Blass and his crew locked 10 men and 3 women in a bar locker and killed all 13 of them.

#14 Denny Vaughan.

#15 Brother Andre’s heart. Construction of the dome was completed in 1939.

#16 Sarto Fournier. Lived in a fourplex. Two domed lights were installed near the walk up to the house.

#17 The Quebec Rifles who later became the Toronto Rifles. Sam’s nick name was “The Rifle”. He played QB for the Alouettes and the St. Louis Cardinals in the NFL.

 

#18 To work on construction of high rise buildings and bridges. They seemed to have no fear of heights. They made pretty good money for the times. Several died in car accidents on their way back to Montreal on weekends while being drunk.

#19 Marcel Bonin. He has 4 Stanley Cup Rings, 3 with Montreal and 1 with Detroit.

 

#20 McKenna’s Flowers. They opened a greenhouse that sold wholesale in 1852 and then opened their first retail store in 1878. They are thought to be Canada’s first flower store. Being close to the Mount Royal Cemetery was handy.

#21 Dankoff’s. Knockwurst on rye 35 cents. Maple Leaf goalie Johnny Bower ate there.

#22 Alan (The Weasel) Ross. Went to Willingdon School in NDG.  I knew him when I was a kid.

#23 Friday. Payday.

#24 Dan Gerber in a Cobra. He wore a tux with pin striped pants while racing sometimes.

#25 Walnut, Avenue, University, Regent, Murray, Hunter, Crescent, Dupont, Victor, Pontiac.

#26 Sally (younger sister), Puff (cat), Spot (dog) and Uncle Zeke.

#27 Two zippers in the front. Made of brown leather.

#28 Playland. Was owned by Moe Yacknin.

#29 Baby Huey, Casper The Friendly Ghost, Sad Sack, Hot Stuff, Richie Rich, Little Audrey.

 

#30 Manny Mota. Drafted from the Pittsburg Pirates.

#31 1959. There are stories that General Motors had a plan to get rid of streetcars in major Canadian and US cities and replace them with busses made by GM.

#32 Ground carp, whitefish or pike. About the only Jewish food I haven’t eaten.

#33 Murray Hill. Same name as the tour bus company.

#34 Ivanhoe, The Last Of The Mohicans, The Three Musketeers, A Tale Of Two Cities, Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, The Pathfinder, The Deer Hunter, Lorna Doone, Silas Marner, The Invisible Man. The cost 15 cents. Other comics cost a dime.

 

#35 Mike fink was “king of the river”  an ornery keel boat operator in one of Walt Disney’s TV stories about Davey Crockett.

#36 NBC Plattsburgh, New York, CBS Burlington, Vermont, ABC Poland Springs, Maine (once owned by Jack Paar). Who?

#37 Honda City. You could buy a red 90cc there. I remember one night in the 60s three of us coming home drunk on a 90cc Honda.

 

#38 Banks and department stores.

#39 Stripper Lili St. Cyr. She wore pasties.

 

#40 CCM, Raleigh, Norton, not very many Schwinn’s.

#41The Plouffe Family. This was before The Pill.

#42 Dorval near the Dorval Circle.

#43 American born Joe Pyne and Montreal born Pat Burns. I’d like a nickel for every time they called someone a liar.

Joe Pyne

#44 Montreal mayor Camillean Houde. Wasn’t keen on conscription.

#45 Miss Montreal.

 

#46 The Kent Theatre on Sherbrooke Street in NDG.

#47 Magic Tom Auburn entertained regularly at the Piazza Tomasso Restaurant on Decarie Boulevard. At one time he lived on Marcil Ave. near Monkland in NDG.

#48 Jim McKean. Went to Monkland High.

 

#49 #15

#50 “idiot mittens” had a string attached to them. The string ran from one mitten up the inside of one arm of a coat and down the inside of the other arm to the other mitten. The idea was that mittens wouldn’t be lost if a child pulled one off of their hand.

#51 Dick Duff, Frank Mahovlich, Bert Olmstead, Ed Litzenberger, Larry Hillman, Dickie Moore.

Dick Duff in middle.

#52 Sportsman. Plain ends. My father smoked them.

 

#53 Pow Pow. I had a Pow Pow puppet when I was a kid. His head was made of rubber and for some reason I chewed on it.

#54 Myrtle Cook. She won a gold medal in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam in running.

#55 Your Father’s Mustache. Bill Conrod and Stuart McLean once worked there at one time.

#56 A small flat wooden spoon. There was a picture on the back of the round cardboard cover.

#57 A US breakfast cereal that looked like mud. Their TV ads had a cartoon of a spoiled child who always said “I WANT MY MAYPO!!!!!”

 

#58 Yvon Durelle from Bai Ste. Anne, New Brunswick. Durelle knocked the champion Archie Moore down 3 times in the first round. By today’s rules the fight would have been over. Moore knocked Durelle out in the 11^th round. Moore played the role of the runaway slave Jim in the 1960 movie The Adventures of Huckleberry Flynn.

#59 The Autostade. (The Automotive Stadium. Capacity just over 33,000 people.)

#60 Mighty Manfred.

#61 The Sun Life Building. Once the tallest building in the British Empire

#62. Gary Eisenkraft. He opened his first Montreal folkie club in 1963 when he was 18. Between 1963 and 1968 he owned 3 night clubs. People he brought to Montreal include Ian & Sylvia, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Frank Zappa, James Cotton, and Paul Butterfield. Eisenkraft later lived in California and Hawaii. He is buried on Mount Royal.

#63 Hespeler, CCM, Sherwood, Easton, Bauer, Victoriaville, Northland.

#64 Poutine didn’t exist in 1955. Trick question?

#65 Oscar Peterson and Maynard Ferguson. Saw Ferguson once in Hamilton, Ontario.

 

#66 Boston Bruin Hal Laycoe. He wore eyeglasses while playing hockey as did Al Arbour.

#67 Gerry Snyder. He also owned a sporting goods store.

#68 The Sonny and Cher Show.

#69 Lucien Rivard.

#70 The Boiler Room.

#71 Damned if I know?

#72 The Queen Elizabeth. Saw Frank Sinatra Jr. walk through the lobby there once with an ape like bodyguard.

#73 Tex Coulter. Lived in NDG.

#74 The Ice Capades and The Shriner’s Circus. Remember 32 clowns getting out of a small car?

#75 The Chalet Bar-B-Q on Sherbrooke Street near Girouard. They opened for business in 1944. 15 cents for double bagged greasy fries up  until the early 70s.

 

#76 John Wilkes Booth who assassinated US president Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

#77 Pax Plante.

#78 Michel Pagliaro.

#79 Dr. Wilder Penfield.

#80 It was located on Mansfield Street near Sherbrooke. They took your car away in an elevator and parked it.

#81 Sen-sen.

 

#82 Loews, The Capital, The Princess, The System, The York, The Palace, The Strand.

#83 Delorimier Stadium. They stopped playing in Montrreal in 1960 and moved to Syacuse, New York in 1961.

#84 A French Canadian singer.

#85 Caughnawaga.

#86 Humpty Dumpty.

 

#87 LCC on Royal Avenue in NDG.

#88 A 1000 leaves. It is a pastry.

 

#89 Red and yellow.

#90 Cott Beverages.

#91 Jim Trimble. I remember hearing about some guy pressing his bare ass up against a window in a restaurant in St. Sauveur where Trimble and QB Bernie Faloney and their wives were having dinner. I think it was called “a pressed ham”.

#92 The Inn, Nadeau’s and Nymark’s Lodge.

#93 Streeter and Quarles.

#94 Actress Norma Shearer. She retired from the movies in 1942 and married a former ski instructor.

 

#95 Canadair.

#96 Redpath Sugar.

#97 The Montreal Voyageurs. They moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

#98 Lafontaine Park.

#99 Fort William Henry.

#100 The Empress Of Britain. There were 3 versions of this ship over the years. My father was on one of them in 1926. Some guy asked him if he would be interested in doing some rum running.

Colin T Paterson-Left Coast Mumblings December 2015.

Montreal Trivia Quiz For Old Farts

Bigger print for easy reading.

Trivia answers will be disclosed in 1 week.

 

 

#1 Who said “Viva La Quebec Libre” and where did he say it in Montreal?

#2 What was the name of the Montreal YMCA camp near St. Sauveur?

#3 What was the name of the bakery that did home deliveries in green trucks and where did they bake their bread?

#4 in the 1950s there was an insert in the Saturday Montreal Star. In the insert during the winter there was a large picture of an NHL hockey player each week. What was the name of the insert and who was the sports editor?

#5 Who chose the name of the the Place Ville Marie?

#6 In 1954 the Montreal Alouettes football team played the Edmonton Eskimos for the Grey Cup. Montreal was up by 5 points and had possession of the ball at the Edmonton 10 yard line with just a few minutes left in the game. What Montreal player fumbled the ball and what Edmonton player picked up the ball and ran it back ran the for the winning touchdown?

#7 What did the Bonfire Restaurant on Decarie Boulevard call their chili dogs and what did you do if you wanted curb service?

#8 What kind of beer was only available in the springtime in Montreal?

#9 In the 1950s a lot of kids read the Hardy Boys books. Many of those stories were written by a Canadian woman. What pen name did she and others who wrote the books use?

#10 What 2 hotels had outdoor restaurants on Sherbrooke Street in the 1950s?

#11 Who was the manager of the Montreal Royals baseball team from 1950-1953 who later went on to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Los Angeles Dodgers for 22 years?

#12 Name 4 rides at Belmont Park.

#13 Who was the criminal and mass murderer the Quebec police shot to death in 1975?

#14 What was the name of the band leader who lived in Hampstead, had a long gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, and later became the musical director of The Smothers Brothers Show and The Glenn Campbell Good Time Hour in the US?

#15 What was stolen from St. Joseph’s Oratory in 1973 and recovered a year later?

#16 What Montreal mayor once lived in NDG on Marcil Avenue?

#17 What other team did Sam Etcheverry coach in Montreal other than the Alouettes?  

#18 Why did so many First Nations men from the Montreal area go to New York City in the 1950s?

#19 What Montreal Canadien hockey player once wrestled a bear?

#20 What was the name of the florist on Cote de Neige Road near the Mount Royal Cemetery and what distinction did it have?

#21 What was the name of the deli next door to the Seagram’s Building?

#22 Who took over the West End Gang after Dunie Ryan was killed?

#23 What day of the week did bank robberies occur most in Montreal in the 1950s?

#24 What was the name of the American auto racer who raced at St. Jovite in the 1960s whose family owned a baby food company? What car did he race in?

#25 Name 5 Montreal phone number prefixes from the 1950s. (Example: Dexter 7095).  

#26 In the Dick and Jane books in grade school they had a younger sister, a cat, a dog, and an uncle. Can you name all 4 of them?

#27 Back in the day in Montreal some boys wore “flying boots” in the winter. Did they have zippers or snaps and how many?

#28 There used to be a pinball arcade on Ste. Catherine Street a few blocks east of Atwater around 1960. Do you know what it was called?

#29 Name 3 characters who were featured in Harvey comics.

#30 Who was the first player picked by the Montreal Expos in the expansion draft in 1968?

#31 What year did the streetcars stop running in Montreal?

#32 What kind of fish is gefilte fish?

#33 What was the name of the hill in Westmount where some kids learned how to ski in the 50s?

#34 Name 5 “Classic” comic books and how much did they cost in the 50s?

#35 Who was Mike Fink?

#36 Back in the 50s Montrealers first started getting US American TV stations with their antennas. Where were the US cities and towns located and what US networks did they belong to?

#37 In the early 1960s Japanese motorcycles started to be marketed in Montreal. What was the name of the big motorcycle store in downtown Montreal?

#38 What two types of businesses did the most advertising in Montreal high school yearbooks in the 50s and 60s?

#39 Who was called “the most famous woman in Montreal” in the 1940s and 1950s?

#40 Name 3 two wheel bike manufacturers whose bikes were sold in Montreal in the 1950s.

#41 What was the name of the French Canadian family shown on TV in Montreal in the 1950s in both French and English?

#42 In what suburb of Montreal was the first A & W restaurant located?

#43 Years ago Montreal radio station CKGM had at different times two shit disturbers who liked to rile people up including French Canadians. One of them was American and the other was born in Montreal. Can you name them?

#44 What famous Montrealer spent part of WW2 in an internment camp?

#45 What Montreal restaurant was known for their “Pu-Pu Platter”?

#46 At what movie theatre in Montreal did Clayton Moore AKA The Lone Ranger make a personal appearance in the 1950s?

#47 What was Magic Tom’s last name and at what restaurant did he regularly entertain?

#48 What ex-Montrealer played football in the CFL and later became an American League baseball umpire?

#49 What number did the busses that ran along Ste. Catherine Street have on them?

#50 How do “idiot mittens” work?

#51 Name 4 hockey players who played for both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens between 1955 and 1975.

#52 What cigarette brand had fly fishing as a theme on their packages?

#53 What was the name of the puppet on early Montreal TV who was dressed as a convict?

#54 What was CFCF TV’s Don McGowan’s mother’s maiden name and what did she do in 1928?

#55 What was the name of the Montreal nightclub that specialized in Dixieland music in the 1960s?

#56 What were you given when you ordered a Dixie Cup ice cream?

#57 What was Maypo?

#58 What Canadian boxer fought light-heavyweight Archie Moore for the world championship at the Montreal Forum in 1958?

#59 What was the name of the stadium built for Expo 67?

#60 What was Tom Terrific’s dog’s name?

#61 In what building in Montreal were Britain’s gold reserves stored during WW2?

#62 Who owned the Montreal folkie nightclub The New Penelope in the 1960s?

#63 Name 3 companies that made wooden hockey sticks.

#64 What was the best place to order poutine in Montreal in 1955?

#65 Two jazz greats were born in Montreal. One played piano and the other played the trumpet. What were their names?

#66 The Richard hockey riot happened in 1955. Who did Rocket Richard fight in the hockey game that night and what was noticeable about that player that made him look different than most other hockey players?

#67 What Montreal city councillor was instrumental in getting a major league baseball team (the Expos) for the city?

#68 Ted Zeigler, AKA Johnny Jellybean, was a regular on what US TV show in the 1970s?

#69 In 1965 a Montreal gangster broke out of prison and wrote then Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson a letter while he was on the lam. What was the gangster’s name?

#70 In 1967 the Winston Churchill Pub opened for business on Crescent Street. About a year or so later another nightclub opened next door that was rowdier than the Churchill and had cheaper beer. What was it called?

#71 What was the name of the pub near or on St. Lawrence boulevard that catered to the lunch crowd by carving hefty portions of roast beef?Birds flew around the pub and the rumour was that your beer was free if a bird crapped in it.

#72 Before they were a big deal on TV the comedy team of Rowan and Martin performed at what hotel in Montreal?

#73 What Montreal Alouette football player became well known for his portrait paintings?

#74 Name two events other than hockey, wrestling, and boxing that happened every year at the old Montreal Forum?

#75 What Montreal bar-b-que chicken restaurant has been in business the longest and when did it open?

#76 What famous American visited Montreal for 9 days in the 1860s?

#77 Who is credited with “cleaning up” Montreal in the 1940s and 1950s?

#78 What Montreal born singer had hit songs with “Lovin You Ain’t Easy” in 1971 and “What The Hell I Got” in 1975?

#79 Who founded The Montreal Neurological Institute?

#80 On what street was “Pigeon Hole Parking” located and what was unique about the place?

#81 What was the name of those tiny candy pellets that set your mouth on fire?

#82 Name 5 movie theatres that were located on Ste. Catherine Street in the 1950s.

#83 What field did the Montreal Royals play baseball on, what year did they cease operating in Montreal, and where did they move to?

#84 Who was Pierre Lalonde?

#85 What was the old name for Kahnawake?

#86 In 2006 Old Dutch Potato Chips acquired a potato chip company that was originated in Portland, Maine. The brand they bought was very popular in Montreal for decades starting in the late 1940s.. What was the brand name Old Dutch bought (and never used)?

#87 What high school did CBC radio story teller Stuart McLean attend when he was growing up in Montreal?

#88 What does “mille-feuille” mean in English and what is it?

#89 What colours were the match covers from Ben’s Delicatessen?

#90 What bottling company had a huge sign by the old Decarie Boulevard underpass?

#91 What former Montreal Alouette football coach was partly responsible for introducing the single post goal post?

#92 Name 3 bars in St. Sauveur from the 1950s and 1960s.

#93 What Montreal sporting goods chain went bankrupt in 1973? At one time they had stores in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Boston, New York, and San Francisco.

#94 What Hollywood actress who was born in Montreal had a brother named Douglas who was instrumental in the development of sound in movies?

#95 What Canadian aviation company manufactured planes in St. Laurent, Quebec starting in 1944?

#96 What Montreal sugar company was established in 1844?

#97 From 1969-1971 the Montreal Canadiens hockey team had a minor league team that also played at the Montreal Forum. What were they called and where did they move to?

#98 What Montreal park was once known as Logan Park?

#99 In the 1950s and 1960s many Montrealers vacationed at Lake George, New York. What was the name of the reconstructed fort there?

#100 What ship brought more English immigrants to Montreal and Canada than any other?

 

 

 

Trip Home To Vancouver Island From The Grand Canyon

 

Our plan was to spend 15 or 16 days in the US traveling from Vancouver Island to The Grand Canyon and back. Linda had sent away for brochures on Utah and Arizona and plotted our route to the Grand Canyon and some of other things we were going to see along the way there.

We only had a general idea of how we were going to get back home. We knew we were going to have to drive west through a fair stretch of highway in Arizona. We wanted to travel a bit on the old Route 66. We would then drive across California to Route 101 and head north on the coast. Linda had never been to San Francisco before and I knew that she would be impressed with the city. After spending a day in San Francisco we would continue up the coast of Oregon, cut over to the I-5 interstate highway and zip up through Washington State to the Canadian border.

We kind of winged it during our whole trip as to where we were going to spend our nights. Other than our 3 day stay at The Grand Canyon we were usually on the road by 9:00 a.m. and sometimes a bit earlier. We would start looking for a motel towards 5 or 6 p.m. Neither Linda nor I are that fussy about driving long distances in the dark.

We allowed ourselves 6 days to make it back to Vancouver Island. We had left out dog Shelby at a kennel and I was hoping he was making out OK. The last time we had left him at a kennel he had two yappy coon dogs as neighbours and didn’t seem to be disturbed by that experience.

Day 10, Monday September 21^st

We packed up our tent, gassed up the car, and had one last breakfast near the edge of The Grand Canyon. We then drove south to Flagstaff, Arizona which is about 80 miles away. We thought of going to the Sedona area south of Flagstaff but the skies were grey and we thought we would be better off chunking off a bit of the miles we still had to travel.

I was feeling a bit on the scruffy side and hadn’t brought a razor on the trip. There were some other small things we needed. It took us about an hour to find a Walgreen’s Drug Store. We had lunch at a Costco. Other than that we didn’t see much of Flagstaff.

Somewhere along the line we stopped at a Chevron gas station to fill up. I bought a road map of California and a souvenir Route 66 license plate. There was supposed to be a 2 dollar discount on the license plate. A grumpy guy at the cash took my money and didn’t give me the discount. Or a receipt! It was pretty obvious that he was stealing the money. The cash drawer never opened. For some reason I just wasn’t in the mood to confront the creep.

We were now on Highway 40 which crosses the middle of the state of Arizona. Most of Highway 40 used to be Route 66. About an hour or so west of Flagstaff we cut off Highway 40 and got on to a stretch of two lane blacktop that was part of the old Route 66. Other than some horses going for a dip in a pond we really didn’t see much of anything that stood out about this fabled highway.

 

I let my imagination wander. I thought about the Okies in The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl who took this route to get to California with the hope of finding work in the orange groves. Families, sometimes with Grandma and Grandpa and a slew of children, rode in old jalopies with everything they owned strapped to the car. I wondered about the young gals and guys who took this highway with hopes of becoming a star in Hollywood. In the late 1940s The Beat Generation’s Jack Kerouac travelled this road.

 

The construction of Route 66 began in 1926 and it wasn’t until 1938 that the whole length of the highway was paved. It was also called The Will Rogers Highway and unofficially “The Mother Road”. The beginning of the end of Route 66 happened in 1956. The US president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, signed The Interstate Highway Act. Eisenhower was impressed by the German Autobahn and thought that faster wider highways were a key component of a national defense system for the US. The old Route 66 was no freeway and only had two lanes, one going west and one going east. By 1970 nearly all segments of Route 66 had been bypassed by 4 lane highways. The highway was officially decommissioned in 1985.

I’ve always liked the lyrics to the Route 66 tune.  “It winds from Chicago to LA, more than 2,000 miles all the way.” Nat King Cole was the first to record the tune in 1946. It was written by a guy named Bobby Troup. Troup was married to singer Julie London and they both appeared in the TV series Emergency In the early 1970s. Other good versions of the song were recorded by The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, and the Manhattan Transfer. I still think Jerry Lee Lewis’s interpretation of the tune is the best. It’s hard to find on YouTube.

“It winds from Chicago to L.A., more than 2000 miles all the way. Get your kicks on Route 66.
Now you go through St. Louie, Joplin Missouri, Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty, you’ll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona, don’t forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino.....”

We pulled into a small town called Seligman. It was pretty obvious from our first sighting that it was a tourist trap. The general theme of the stores and restaurants that lined a few blocks long the highway through town was the 1950s. The local FM radio station plays 50s oldies tunes that could be heard in every store and restaurant along the strip. Images of Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, James Dean, and Elvis Presley could be found on any souvenir imaginable. Some establishments had old cars on display. The only thing we bought was a Route 66 glass ash tray that was made in China. I kind of got the feeling that we had arrived in town in a slower part of the year as far as tourists go. It seemed that we would only be in a store for a moment or so before a sales clerk tried to pounce on us.

 

We decided to grab a burger at a local greasy spoon, a place called the Snow Cap. We ordered our food in a kind of hallway that had business cards and photographs all over the walls and ceiling. A guy behind the counter squirted a fake mustard thing at me. Some of the signs in the place were quite funny. The place had been around for a long time and I think the current owners are second generation. The tables were outside under some kind of awning. We picked up our food at a window that faced the tables. The burgers were tasty and it was a fun experience eating at this off beat place.

 

Our destination for the day was to get to Kingman, Arizona (it’s in the Route 66 song) in the western part of the state. We checked into a Super 8 motel. Nothing to write home about but it had a shower and a TV. The price was right. By this time we had been on the road for 10 days and I wanted to do some laundry. The Super 8 didn’t have a washer and dryer but I was told we could use the facilities at the motel next door. I found out that they didn’t have any laundry detergent so I just washed our stuff in very hot water.

I killed some time while the washing was being done watching TV in the motel lobby. I asked the gal desk clerk if I could watch the FOX station. We don’t get FOX at home and I wanted to see the right wing nuts and their guests rant and rave. I went outside a few times for a smoke and chatted with a guy who was staying at the motel. Apparently he had been there for a month waiting for his motor home to be repaired. He was in bad shape with a number of health problems including a bad back and a weak heart. He had a supped up 4 x 4 parked in the handicapped zone. It had 3 steps up to the cab. I tried to get my head around how he could even get into that vehicle when he could barely walk. When I went back inside the motel the desk clerk had switched the TV station to some bridal show.

Day #11 Tuesday September 22^nd

We woke up early and left Kingman for California. Altogether we spent about 12 hours driving that day. We saw road signs that led to places like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Lake Havasu (Years ago the old London Bridge was shipped there from England. That’s a lot of stones.), and Edwards Air Force Base. We crossed the southern part of the Mohave Desert.

In California we saw a billion fruit trees. We also saw the cement canals that irrigated the trees. From time to time we would see a sign the growers had put up complaining about the water restrictions. Their water source is the Colorado River.

 

We found our way to the I-5, the interstate highway, and headed north. My plan was for us to spend the night in San Jose. We had no idea where to get off the highway in San Jose and find an area where there were a number of motels so we winged it. I pulled the car over to the curb and thought the best thing to do was ask a local where the motels were. The first person I talked to wasn’t very helpful but she did tell me to stay away from Motel 6 and Super 8 because they were often occupied by welfare folks and bedbugs were a problem.

San Jose is pretty expensive city and we weren’t keen on spending 300 bucks for a room. We ended up in the airport area and I drove around for a while trying to find a place that was reasonable.  Finally we found one, the Caravelle Inn. I asked the front desk guy if they had any deals on rooms. (I always do that. It’s the total extent of my haggling.) The desk clerk said they had one room left at 135 bucks a night. I told him we would take it. Then he asked us if we like an upstairs room or a downstairs room. I had to laugh. Didn’t he just tell us that he only had one room left?

San Jose

We ate dinner at a Denny’s down the street. The restaurant was mostly empty. I noticed a middle aged couple a few booths away. In the hour that we were in the restaurant they never uttered a word to one another. She seemed to be looking at her cell phone on her lap. Some folks do live very strange lives I thought.

Day #12 Wednesday September 23^rd

We left San Jose a little later than we had planned at about 9:30 a.m. It took us about an hour to get to San Francisco. I had been to the city by the bay twice before, once when I was about 30 years old and a few years later in 1981 on a honeymoon with my first wife. Several months after we got home (Vancouver) from our honeymoon I was watching the TV series The Streets of San Francisco. Michael Douglas and Karl Malden, the stars of the show who played two cops, pulled up to the curb in their car and ran up a motel stairway to th 2^nd floor. They then ran down an outdoor hallway and into one of the rooms. It was the same motel and the same room my ex and I had stayed in. That kind of freaked me out a bit.

I drove up and down Nob Hill and number of times with the idea of giving Linda a bit of the flavor of the city. We saw some cable cars but it was hard to get a good photo of them from the car. The next spot on our list that we wanted to see was Fishermen’s Wharf (also known as The Embarcadero). We found a parking lot close to the wharves. I was a bit surprised when Linda told me that she had paid 35 bucks for parking. Her reasoning was that we would probably be there for more than 4 hours and the next longest term over 4 hours was an all-day ticket.

 

 

 

I asked a local cop where we could find Dimaggio’s Restaurant. I had eaten there years before. Baseball great Joe Dimaggio was born in San Francisco along with two of his brothers, Vince and Dom, who had long careers in major league baseball. The cop told me that the restaurant had burned down years before. I later found out that this wasn’t actually true. The restaurant went out of business around 1985.

In the latter part of the 20^th century the Fishermen’s Wharf had become run down and most locals avoided the area. In 2010 over 15 million dollars was spent in refurbishing the wharf. Today it is one of the biggest tourists traps in the western US. Mostly it is restaurants and souvenir places. Being ocean side certainly makes the area attractive and there is a clear view of Alcatraz out in the bay. A pack of sea lions basked on some floating docks and you can see part of the San Francisco skyline.

Men waiting

Alcatraz

We wandered around for several hours and had lunch at a seafood restaurant. I stood outside with a number of other men while Linda wandered in and out of a number of shops. She picked up some souvenirs for her kids.

Linda and I both really like the city and would like to go back there for 3 or 4 days and explore the city a bit more. When we got back to the parking lot I got the bright idea of selling our all-day parking pass for 15 bucks. I noticed a Hispanic guy leaning on the front of a car nearby but didn’t think much about it. I walked down to the ticket dispenser machine and offered my ticket to some tourists which would have saved them some cash. It turned out that the Hispanic guy worked for the parking lot and he told me I couldn’t resell our ticket. As I drove out of the parking lot I tossed my ticket to some tourists. I don’t think the Hispanic guy was pleased about that.

We drove over to the Golden State Bridge and stopped and took some pictures and then we took the cut off to Sausalito, an upscale ocean side area on the other side of the bridge I had visited years before. Some Asian girls on rented bicycles were causing a bit of havoc by veering into the traffic. It was now about 4:00 p.m. and I wanted to cover some more miles on our trip up the coast.

 

Idiot parents?

We were on Highway 101. We stopped off at San Rosa for a bit of a break and after looking at the map we weren’t quite sure where we were going to spend the night. We thought possibly in a town called Ukiah. I can’t recall why but we kept driving after passing through Ukiah and arrived at the small town of Laytonville. We were now driving in the dark. There were quite a number of older motels along the highway here but most of them had no vacancy signs lit up. We noticed that some of the motels had diesel rigs parked outside of the rooms. We didn’t have a clue why all of these motels were booked up and never found out.

We doubled back and spotted one motel with a vacancy sign. The motel was run by an East Indian family and they were cooking some kind of curry dish for dinner when we arrived. For some reason a lot of East Indians own older motels up and down the west coast of the US. I’ve never been sure why. I do know that a number of these older places are run down and very little effort is made to replace any furniture that is damaged, carpet stains are quite common, sometimes the taps don’t work that well in the bathroom sink, and if a wall gets marked up they just paint over it. I guess on the upside the rooms are usually pretty cheap running from 50 to 75 dollars a night.

We paid 65 bucks for our room. I asked Linda to wait in the car while I checked out the room. As I walked across the parking lot I saw 3 dogs tied up to a post outside of the room next to ours. I went and got our money back and we got back on the 101 heading north. About an hour later we pulled off the highway on the exit to another small town called Garberville. We stopped at first motel we saw. It was now about 10 p.m. There was nobody at the front desk and the reception room was locked. We rang the buzzer and guy turned up a few minutes later. We were quite happy to finally find a bed for the night. A young guy was playing his guitar outside a few doors away. By the sound of his singing he won’t be on The Voice anytime soon.

Day 13 Thursday September 24^th

I got up at about 7 a.m., made myself a coffee and went outside to have a smoke. A couple of guys who were probably in their fifties said “good morning” to me as they walked passed me on their way to their pick-up truck. I had been looking at their truck. Some kind of plastic product was stacked up about 15 feet high in the truck bed and wrapped up in cellophane. I asked them if it was tricky driving with that awkward load and they told me that it was and that they were looking forward to delivering the stuff that turned out to be some products used in irrigation.

I spotted a couple of people who were stooped down on their haunches across the street in amongst some trees. Even from a distance they looked like they were in bad shape. I walked over to them. I don’t think they saw me coming. It turned out that it was a guy and a gal and both looked like they were about 30 years of age. It was chilly out and they were shaking. The gal’s face was covered in pimples. They looked like they were going coming off a high. I gave the guy 5 bucks so they could get a coffee. They were a pretty sad sight to see.

We were packed and ready to go at about 8:30 a.m. We grabbed a couple of take-out coffees at a little coffee place in town and got back on Highway 101. In writing this story I couldn’t recall the name of the town so I looked it up on the net. It turns out that that the biggest part of Garberville’s economy is centered on the growing and distribution of pot. The town even has a pot college. Who knew?

Our next stop was going to be small city named Eureka. On the way there the traffic slowed down in front of us and it soon became clear why. A herd of 40-50 elk had decided to take a rest or do some grazing on somebody’s property beside the highway. We got out of the car and took some pictures. It was a nice break from driving.

We were in redwood tree country but didn’t cut off of Highway 101 to see them. We had done that a few years earlier on a trip to Oregon. We spent some time in a big shopping mall in Eureka. I was looking for some maroon coloured deck running shoes but couldn’t find them. We grabbed some lunch and got back out on the highway.

We stayed on Highway 101 and crossed over into Oregon, a state I have visited many times. It is easily my favourite US state. We found ourselves driving in the rain for a good part of the day. It would rain intermittently for the rest of our trip back to Canada.

 

We decided to spend the night in Florence, Oregon at an older motel called The Old Town Inn. The front desk guy’s name was Corderoy. That’s new one on me. There was someone at the counter ahead of us. I asked Corderoy if they had any deals on rooms and he said they didn’t. After the guy in front of us left Corderoy told us he would give us 10 bucks off our room. He just didn’t want to make that offer in front of the other guy I guess. We asked if there were any good places to eat at in the area and he got out a map. It turned out that the old restored area by the river was just a short walk away. He started circling what he thought were the better eateries. Some other folks came in but he didn’t stop writing. I was quite impressed.

The motel has about 60 rooms and was probably built in the 1950s. You could tell that the whole place had been remodeled with contemporary furniture and new carpeting. There wasn’t much they could do about the popcorn ceiling. There was a rubber yellow duck sitting on the side of the bathtub. If you are ever planning to go to Oregon I highly recommend this place. I love it when a business does well by thinking a bit outside the box. Their website is www.oldtown-inn.com if you are interested.

 

The old town area by the river was just a 5 minute walk away. We had dinner at a really nice restaurant in an old building called The Bridgewater.

Day 14 Friday September 24^th

I got up early and took the short walk to the old town area. It was raining out. I wanted to see if I could find some place where we could grab a couple of take-out coffees on the way out of town. I found a place. The bridge that crosses over the Siuslaw River at Florence is part of the 101 Highway. I saw a number of folks out their boats doing some early morning salmon fishing.

 

An engineer named Conde McCullough built 15 bridges on Highway 101 during The Great Depression in the 1930s with federal funding through a works program that was known as the WPA. Most of them have an Art Deco influence.

 

We stopped by the coffee shop I had found and got two to go. It was busy little place with couches and old lamps and the back windows looked out on the river, the perfect kind of place for local gossip and other conversation. I couldn’t resist a peanut butter chocolate fudge bar.

 

We drove north through Newport and Lincoln City and passed by the cheese factory at Tillamook. I wanted to check out an area close to the small town of Manzanita, Oregon. It’s called Nehalem Bay State Park. Cannon Beach, an upscale kind of town with the famous “haystacks” near the ocean shore is just a few miles north.

Over the years Linda and I have done a lot of staying in resorts in places like Mexico and the Domican Republic. We’ve also gone on a lot of road trips where we would usually stay in a different place every night. For a few years now I’ve wanted to go to place where we could settle in for a few weeks, explore the area, and pick up some of the local flavour.

We plan to do that next September camping at Nehalem Bay State Park when there aren’t as many kids around. I can picture going for an early morning walk along the beach with our golden retriever Shelby with a cup of coffee in hand. I can also see us walking over to Manzanita and having a few cocktails at the local pub on some evenings. We might even bring along our kayaks. I’d like to explore a river or two on the Oregon coast. We may even stay at a motel by the beach for a few days after camping.

We drove further north and crossed over The Columbia River at Astoria, Oregon into Washington State. This was a big mistake. We should have got on the expressway from Cannon Beach to Portland, Oregon and hooked up with the I-5. Instead we found ourselves on a 2 lane highway with the sun going down. We probably added an extra 2 hours of driving. Finally we met up with the I-5 and continued driving north.

 

We got off the I-5 at Takoma, Washington and found a motel room for the night. We decided to walk across the road and pick up some take-out at a Jack In The Box. This was a mistake. It took over a half hour to get our orders. They screwed up Linda’s order so badly that they gave it to her for free. I think the gal who served us was on meth or something. She kept dropping things. The whole episode was very strange.

Day 15 Saturday September 25^th

We got up early. Our plan was head up to Bellingham, Washington, about 30 minutes south of the Canadian border, do a bit of shopping, pick up some booze, and catch the 3:15 p.m. ferry from Vancouver to Nanaimo where we live.

I found the maroon deck running shoes I wanted. We picked up 3 bottles of O’Hara’s at Costco (tastes just like Bailey’s) for $12.95 each for a 40 pounder. We had some clam strips for lunch at Iver’s and hit the road.

We got to the 3:15 ferry with time to spare. We picked up Shelby at the kennel. We both missed him. We had thought about bringing him on our trip but there was no way that was going to work. His stay in a kennel didn’t seem to upset him.

Looking back we certainly saw a lot. Some Americans can be a bit weird at times but you kind of find that everywhere I guess. Personally I think it is great country to visit. I am far more simpatico with their history than other places in the world. We’re looking forward to going back to Oregon next fall.