2004 August Archive at Rik Abel

Well, we made it all the way to Toronto (7250KM, give or take) without incident. Well, almost. We did lock ourselves out of Thor (our redoubtable, 23-year old Volvo 240 Station Wagon) outside of Laramie, but thankfully Bob (Adrienne’s dad) is a genius and had wired a spare key under the car, so we were able to get in without smashing a window, which was nice. Very nice.

I will post at more length about our journey just as soon as we get an internet connection in the apartment, which should be early next week. Right now I am in an internet cafe, and time is money, so this will have to be brief (got to find work, you see…).

Initial impressions of Toronto are very favourable - it seems to be an extremely diverse and cosmopolitan city, with a lot going on culturally, and a quite “European” feel to it. Peter Ustinov once described it as being like “New York run by the Swiss”, which doesn’t seem to far wide of the mark, but it is not as anally tidy as that might suggest. Our apartment is right in the heart of downtown (near Bloor-Yonge) which is great - it is just a short walk to numerous restaurants, cinemas, bookstores, grocers, etc etc, and a seven minute walk to the law faculty for Adrienne.

So now begins the process of settling in and adjusting to our new surroudings. Adrienne will be starting her classes in two weeks, and I will be attempting to find gainful employment, hopefully as a freelance web designer, but I’ll be getting something part time to pay the bills in the meantime. I’m really looking forward to discovering what Toronto has to offer, and to making some new friends here. James, we must arrange those drinkies soon! I’m looking forward to meeting the GTA Bloggers!

More reports to follow…

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Tomorrow we will be setting off on our road trip to Toronto, via the USA. We are driving down the west coast, stopping off in Seattle and various oceanside parks in Oregon and California, before arriving in San Francisco, where we will spend a week hanging out with various friends in the area. Yay.

Then it’s a cross-country jaunt on the I-80 through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, before fetching up in T.Dot (as the cool kids call it) around the 21st August, assuming all goes well and our 23-year old Volvo 240 Estate (known affectionately as “Thor”) lasts the journey. We are hoping that driving a Volvo doesn’t attract unwanted attention in the more red-of-neck states, but are confident we will blend right in at least in Berkeley, where every third car is a Volvo with a “Darwin” or “My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma” badge.

We are really looking forward to this trip, with the possible exception of the Nebraska section (Corn, corn, corn…) and I have personally always dreamed of driving across the USA. Granted, in my dreams I was usually driving a supercharged Ford Mustang, but I’m sure Thor will be a trusty conveyance.

We’ll be sure to take lots of photos and keep a journal. We may buy an old manual typewriter so that we can write on the road - this is inspired by Adrienne’s great-Uncle Alec Dalgleish, whose (highly amusing) letters written from the road during his trip to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair we have been reading, having recently become their guardians. (More on that later).

Not sure how often we will be able to blog en-route - as I imagine (I may be wrong) that we may not always be able to find cyber-cafes en route.

So, wish us luck for our epic voyage through the United States of Amnesia. We’re hoping it will be a lot of fun.