Things started out well enough. As we'd gotten to the campsite in Connecticut at about 1am, the office had been closed. I think the guy running the place was surprised in the morning when I came to him to settle up. Perhaps his pity for honesty was why he only charged us half-price, since he knew full well that he never would have known we were there.
We made our way to Boston and on the way I had the boy finish up the rest of the states and capitals. I also have found that I need to get him caught up on music. He had no idea who Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, and a host of others were, not even Metallica and Guns N' Roses. He knew who Ozzy Osbourne was but didn't know about Black Sabbath; he wanted to hear "Paranoid", but when I played it for him he didn't like it since it didn't sound the same as the fifty- year- old Ozzy that he has on the "Ozzy's Greatest Hits" CD he took from his older brother. Dear Lord! I have so much work to do.
Boston was where it all went downhill. I never thought I'd say this, but driving in New York is a downright pleasure compared with Boston. I hate Boston with every ounce of my being. I got into town easily enough, taking the interstate into the heart of the city, but it was when I tried to get to Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox, that I started to lose it. Every other city in America has signs for major landmarks, but apparently the field where the world champions play is a big secret. I mean, I passed it on I90 well enough (within 200 feet), but there was no exit within five miles of it. I turned off at the next exit with the thought that I'd skirt the interstate on side roads until I got back to it. No dice.
Forget Knossos. The boroughs of Boston are a labyrinth. Shay and I got the unintentional scenic tour as I burned up gallon after gallon of precious gasoline in my foolish quest for a baseball game. I was sure that I'd seen people in the stands when we'd passed the stadium and it was about the same time that the game had started in Philly the day before. I was a man on a mission. Come hell or high water, I was going to get us to that damn game.
It would be one thing to hate Boston simply because it was apparently laid outby a drunk guy on a donkey, like San Antonio is claimed to be, but the real reason I despise it is the people. I asked no fewer than six people how to get to the stadium. Two of them looked at me as though I had a digit growing out of my forehead and walked away, the gay guy wearing the frilly flip-flops sent me to the outskirts of the city, the postman sent us up near Harvard and MIT, the woman was clueless, and, finally, the plumber, replete with butt hanging out of his pants when he leaned over to get some PVC out of his truck during the conversation, mocked me for being so lost and then gave us good directions. Even then, when we finally got to within sight of the stadium again, I took what I thought was the most straight- forward route and ended up having to double back five miles.
I finally parked the car, having expended nearly every cussword known to man as I ran the gamut of foreign ones I know, and we walked to the stadium. The game should have only been about halfway done as it had only taken me nearly two hours to get to the stadium, but there didn't seem to be much activity in the park and the entrances and exits were all shuttered. The uneasy feeling of gross stupidity that I get from time to time (most of the time…my little secret) struck me as I went to a hot dog vendor to find out what was going on. When he told me that the game wasn't until 7pm, I let out a laugh, turned to Shay and told him he got two free punches for my being an idiot. He gleefully slammed me twice in the left shoulder and I told him to add one more for good luck, which he did, right on the same spot as the other two. Now we both have sore left shoulders. Yes, I'm definitely teaching this boy how to find the humor in having a bad time.
We got back in the car, as we didn't feel like waiting any longer in that cesspool, and made our way to Canada. On the way I made sure to stop us in New Hampshire (he forgot Concord again! I've started punching his leg so that the bruise on his arm can heal. Oh, and don't call the cops, when I'm saying I'm punching him, I only mean full strength…I mean, barely tapping him), so that I could show him the state landmark, the Old Man on the Mountain. If you want to see it, look at a NH coin. Of course, considering that the rock formation collapsed two years ago, which I remembered reading about in Germany, I thought that it would be funny to make him look at something that wasn't there. It was.
Canada was interesting for the hour we were in it. We crossed the border into the customs and inspections site and, after an hour of a very gentle but thorough full body cavity search (okay, they just tore apart the car), they politely informed us to get the hell out of the country, since I had a pistol in the glove box (which I'd told them about). I was actually thankful for them letting us go without arresting me since the immigration officer was a bit wary of me transporting a minor across international boundaries without written permission from his parents (I didn't even know if Elizabeth had told Shay's father).
Returning to the US was worse as I was mocked by the Department of Homeland Security Officer. After hearing why we got turned back and finding out that I used to be in the military, he said, "You used to be a captain in the Army. Don't you know you can't take firearms into a foreign country?"
"We were allowed to take them to Germany. You just had to register them."
"That's Germany. We're talking about Canada."
"Yeah, but they have guns there. I just thought I'd have to register the pistol."
"Is the pistol registered here?"
"No." (Keep that in mind, any of you who cross me)
He took my expired military ID (for what reason I don't know), gave me a look of disgust and then went inside to stroll the lobby (which I watched him do from the car) before he came back, handed me the ID and told me to go away.
We actually did manage to make it into Canada because I dropped off the pistol, for safekeeping, at the police department of a local town. I showed the Canadians the receipt that the Newport, Vermont Police had given me and they let us roll right in.
Canada, after all that hassle to get in, is actually a let down. I don't know about the other provinces, but Quebec is just a pain in the butt. I thought I had seen the end of the metric system when I flew back from Europe, but, sure enough, there we were, now traveling in kilometers again.
I also thought that speaking French here would be like people speaking Spanish in Miami or El Paso, in that everything was still basically in English. Nope. We stopped to get something to eat and I had to open up my repertoire of five French phrases to try to accomplish that. As usual, my brain threw out German, Spanish, and Italian, which only confused the living hell out of the waitress and me. I ended up getting a chicken wrapped in a flour tortilla and Shay got a piece of barely cooked chicken with no flavoring. Basically, the ripped they leg off the bird, stuck it on a stick, let some flames lick it for a few seconds and served it.
After a fun hour of getting monumentally lost in Montreal, which is really difficult to do considering that we weren't looking for anything specific, I finally found a cheapo motel, where we crashed for the night.
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