Days Sixty Five thru Seventy One.....
(Yeah....'nother huge jump, I know)

Much like Odysseus had.....

......it's been a trying journey home for me.

After a Zen weekend of doing absolutely nothing but vegetating on the beach at Lake Huron with good friends, I was set to head home towards Portlandia.....

.....sometimes, things never seem to go as planned, do they, then?

- My mum foned me and was rather distraught that I was not going back to Western new York....she wished to see me again before I took of home to Portlandia.

- I NEEDED a Windows machine to plug the brand new resume software into....and no hotel lobby computer or no Kinko's computer station or no library computer would have been terribly keen to allow me to install it.

I had planned to begin the employment hunt when I got home (thus, I had left my resume on my computer, which currently has no monitor plugged into it, and I wasn't gonna ask my friends to go hook up a monitor, and then try to find said resume and references and cover letters in my computer files), but a couple job postings with closing dates of July 10th just looked too interesting to ignore, soooo, it was back to my sister's house........

- My friends Gord and Sonya were gonna go camping with me in Wasaga Beach, Ontario Thursday on my way out West.

- My friends Staranne and Kimmer were having a party Tuesday Night.

- A bar that I literally did grow up in (Sutter's, at the University Plaza by UB's South Campus at the Amherst/Buffalo border) ended it's lease and the property owners were not going to renew and that part of the University Plaza was slated to be torn down in a month or so.....Sutter's, like the Amherst Theatre next door to it, are literally landmarks, for all intents and purposes. I was urged to have one final pint there.....


Factoring all of that in, I had to come back to Buffalo for another four days.....

Did NOT really wish to deal with my family, so I called The Seneca Niagara Hotel and Casino. They felt badly about kicking my ass last week.....and gave me a room for three nights comped.

Ya gotta love THAT.....three free nights in a four-star hotel. I could easily deal with the Logan Echolls lifestyle (living outta a nice hotel room) for the better part of a week.....


.......man, talk about failure to exercise one's better judgment!

'Cause, as it turned out........

- Gord wanked on the camping deal at Wasaga Beach....

- Staranne nixed the party due to some sort of issue with her paramour's mother.

- No, Sutter's was NOT closing anytime soon....just a really bad piece of mis-information.

As the British would say: "Oh for fuck's sake......."

Well, at least I was able to use the Business Centre at the Seneca Niagara gratis, and perfect and fax out two job application packets, and I did hang with my mum forra bit, and had time to hang with my sister in Niagara Falls....Plus, I did manage to catch up with my friends Darryl, Staranne and her paramour Kimmer at one of my favourite watering holes, Alternative Brews (but the pic I took is M.I.A......sorry, guys).

So, literally, between having zero Internet access at the cottage on Lake Huron (which was actually a VERY welcome break from the Web), and spending the past three days writing a completely new resume (with this resume-creating software), cover letters and references, I've been ignoring the daily missives on this thing!!! For that, I apologise.

Few pics of Lake Huron......





Fridge hadta be stocked......











Cool sunset pic over Lake Huron....for some reason, the lake was extremely calm that day. Had never seen it like that before....










Bink and Banker provide a quick tune-up on The Helix on Sunday Afternoon....



And finally, a generic beach video of nothing really of any significance...



Don't quite know WHY Donna has a pained expression at the end of this vid.......tape ran out....


Took off Thursday Afternoon from The Seneca Niagara and cheated and took nothing but Interstates (or, the Ontario version of Interstates, which are Provincial Highways numbered in the 400's [i.e. - the 401, the 403, the 402, the 427, etc.]), and made it the 400 kilometres Thursday Night to some town in Michigan called Imlay City. Caught a Super 8 at a really good price just ten minutes before the sky opened up into a drowning thunder and lightning storm.....

Mackinaw City, Michigan tomorrow......

Oh shit!! Riiiiggghht.......almost forgot - the rest of the ride home -

JULY 17th thru JULY 19th - Rapid City, South Dakota

JULY 28th thru JULY 31st - Reno, Nevada

AUGUST 3rd thru AUGUST 5th - Kelowna, British Columbia

AUGUST 5th thru AUGUST 7th - Seattle, Washington

AUGUST 8th thru AUGUST 10th - Rockaway Beach, Oregon

AUGUST 10th - Cedar Hills, Oregon - End of tour!

THINKING about trying to have some sort of small (or large) get-together at Rockaway Beach the weekend of the 7th! Lemme know if you is into that idea......

-E-