Philip Glass, Korn and graffiti art

There are two ways of driving from Guelph to Lindsay. For several years I have taken Highway 401 most of the way. On a good day it can be faster, but because it cuts through Toronto, the traffic is unpredictable and it can run anywhere from 2½ to 5 hours one way.

The more direct route follows Highway 9 through Newmarket, then zigs and zags along country roads. It's a little slower, especially if you get stuck in a long line on a two-lane highway, but more predictable. When my daughters first moved to Lindsay I tried going that way, but invariably I would get lost. I grew up in Essex County, where the farmland is cut into nice even squares. As ruralrob and emjaybaxter can attest, Ontario gets less even and less square the further you drive east. At the time I tried to learn that route, I was still angry about my daughters moving in the first place. Those long drives would put my in a foul mood, and getting lost in the dark did nothing to improve it. So I started using the freeway exclusively, convinced myself it was less stressful. I would rather spend the trip on autopilot and sit in a traffic jam where all I had to worry about was the car in front of me, rather than watching for traffic lights and landmarks in the dark.

Today I learned a lesson in how we create our own misery. To be honest, I was prejudiced against the back route because my ex-wife suggested it was easier. Today, fearing holiday weekend traffic in Toronto, I took the back route for the first time in four years.

It is much, much better. I picked up a road map so I wouldn't get lost. I drove there and back again in five hours, two hours less than I expected. Safer driving, too. The only annoyance is getting through Newmarket itself. The rest of the route runs through attractive, rolling countryside.

A grey landscape still, it slipped away hypnotically under the rippling veil of Philip Glass's Violin Concerto (I had to watch the speedometer carefully). Thanks to draco_kc for recommending that music. Thanks also to bremo and his partner, who gave me the HMV birthday gift card with which I purchased the CD, along with soprano Magdalena Kožená's French arias (you can read my rave about that one; "Nuit resplendissante" still chokes me up every time I listen to it).

On the way back, Marian started talking about censorship again. She mentioned a video in which a band trashes a CD store to express protest against the recording industry.

"That's Korn, isn't it?" I said.

She stopped in mid-sermon and stared at me, wide-eyed. "How did you know that?"

"One of my friends was talking about it."

"One of your friends listens to Korn?"

"I don't know whether he likes their music or not," I said, "but he agreed with the statement they were making."

"You know more about Korn than any of the kids in my school," said my 12-year-old daughter. "You are the coolest person in the world." (Thanks grandiva1968!)

The next topic was graffiti art. ruralrob and androkles would be proud. Marian asked if she could borrow my camera for a day sometime. She wants to find some graffiti and photograph it. Apparently she has tried drawing some on paper.

I have a few photos of my own to show her. But thanks to LJ I know about a long alley off Queen Street in Toronto that is full of graffiti. I told her we could stop there on Monday on our way back to Lindsay.

Now maybe someone will refresh my memory so I can find the entrance to that alley?

Mountsberg

Today Jon had Sylvie, me and my daughters over for lunch. It was a quiet gathering. We all have colds except Brenna. Afterwards we sat out on the balcony in the sun. The weather forecast called for rain. It couldn't have been more wrong. This was a perfect spring day.

Jon showed me the second bedroom in his apartment. It would at least be big enough for a bed and office space. It has early afternoon sunlight. I asked him whether he would be interested in looking for a larger place together, and he is open to the idea, although it's doubtful we could afford anything much better. On the way home, I talked to the girls about of moving into Jon's place. They surprised me by saying they think it's a good idea.

Then I took the girls to Mountsberg Conservation Area, where we ended up spending several hours. There was a maple syrup demonstration, chainsaw sculpture, a raptor rehabilitation program, hiking trails, an 1870s barn converted into a climbing pavilion, and many other things to see and do. In the small lake we saw an osprey perched on a nest platform. In the marsh, the spring peepers were in full chorus.










Mountsberg is only a 20 minute drive from here, but the last time I visited was 20 years ago, while I was a biology student at U of Guelph. The park has been developed considerably since then. I showed the girls the place where I came with my ornithology professor to band birds. The birds were caught in long sheets of mist nets (nearly invisible) arranged along the edge of the meadow, then weighed, banded and released.

The meadow is gone, replaced by a huge swath of empty lawn.

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