Point A to Point B

A peculiar problem is coming up with my D&D game tomorrow, so now is a good time to talk about it, as it directly affects the player. That problem is travel.

As some might remember from this recap last week, the players are tentatively accepting a "request" (not a "quest") to journey down to a certain border between Croatia and the Ottoman territory of Slavonia, a distance of about 140 miles. Not really that far, of course, but still, enough to raise question, how to get the player from point A to point B. Sooner or later, every dungeon master runs into this.

There are three fundamental strategies in accomplishing the displacement. The first method is "poof!" you're there. This might be accompanied by arbitrary costs of travel, the number of rations you have to scratch from your character, even possibly a roll for things that have broken or been spoiled along the way. Oh, and of course, the days of the journey are counted against the calendar. The main logic is that "travel is boring," and therefore, why not just do the Hollywood film cut betweeen the characters turning off the light and leaving their apartment and then getting off the plane, er, the wagon, finding themselves conveniently in Croatia.

Method 2 is the way all my DMs did it when I was starting out, that I myself followed for a long time: count the number of days, roll a random encounter chance for each day, fight out the random encounters (yes, one by one), then count the journey as "earned" as the players reach their destination, tired from having to fight random nobodies. This at least has the sense of the players feeling the journey's weight, if not the actual distance. It's also a good way to discourage long trips.

Method 3 is the video game solution: side quests. Let the players get there, but keep inventing problems along the way that need to be solved by insisting that the party enter this dungeon to get this gem or pour this vial of water into this lost stone bowl in the forest, yada yada yada. Thus, we turn the journey into its own "adventure," yay, so that we have to solve the adventure to have the adventure.

These methods are to get around the problem of having to verbally describe the journey taking place, as the trees and hills and streams and other travellers and houses and toll gates and fences and farms and rocks and flowers and the sun too passing overhead, faster than we are, just go by. A 140 mile version on foot is equivalent to a 35 hour journey by car... just to put it into perspective for those who haven't actually done it. Which includes most, though not all, of us.

Example of a dense map, coincidentally filling the
countryside between where the players are and where
they want to go.

My issue with the "solutions" is that they essentially flatten the world, divorcing it from the one aspect that makes it an actual world: it's a big place, requires time and difficulty to get around, and often that time spent is, yes, actually boring. On some level I'm certainly ready to cut the scene and move on... but there is very little point in my systematically making a very dense map of a region only to then utterly ignore every hex that doesn't include a monster encounter, and then ignore that hex FOR the monster encounter. This seems counterproductive.

Rather, we might as DMs conceive of the land as the experience: rivers have to be overcome, terrain navigated, lakes gotten around or employed as an alternative, hills avoided, uncivilised hexes avoided, the right road taken... while the actual covered ground is comprehended like an actual journey we might take ourselves would do. If you or I were to spend 35 hours walking, starting in Buda and ending up just off the south edge of this map, we wouldn't be bored, right? Our walking tour of Bakony would be enlightening, we'd be staggered by the food, we'd laugh about the people we'd meet, we'd be standing at some crossroads arguing over a map, trying to figure out just exactly what crossroads we were at. And when we returned home, we'd regale our friends with what a great trip it was, and how they ought to do it too, especially this part, and this part... and oh, hey, this part too.

But none of this is possible for several reasons related to D&D... and I'll try and discuss a few in no particular order.

The first, the one foremost on my mind, is agency.

There should be no doubt that I am a firm believer in allowing the players to choose their destiny. I believe firmly that a party should be able to head out wherever they want, do whatever they want, overcome whatever they want... but, uh, well... all this sort of goes to pot where geography is concerned.

See, if you just want to go one hex, a mere six and two-thirds miles, most likely you're not feeling very constrained. Hell, it's right there. From this hill, we can see that hill, and it's just one hex away. Going feels like agency. It feels like we're in control of our lives. It feels great.

But going twenty-one hexes isn't like that. First of all, if you want to get there by the shortest route, and presumably you do, then you have to pretty much take a specific 21 hexes, one after another, on a specific road, that's going to go through specific towns that you have no choice about. And when the DM tells you, oh party member, that this little village is "Totvazsony," trust me, you don't give a damn. No more than you would if you were driving from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City and discovered that you'd just passed through Ogallah, Kansas. Let's be serious... you really wouldn't care.

I may have invested the name Totvazsony carefully, pulling it out of GoogleEarth as a real life place, but that doesn't make it interesting. It doesn't thrill you. What you, the player feel, is a lack of purpose, fatigue, and a strong desire to just get this over with.

Which is, coincidentally, what you're going to feel if you ever have to take a 12 hour flight to take a 2-hour flight to take a 1-hour bus ride to a really awesome hotel in, say, Costa Rica. A bus ride and two flights, incidentally, that you're going to have to take again when you leave your really awesome hotel. Because this is what travel actually is.

When we travel anywhere, we instinctively grit our teeth against it. We retain a certain level of calm as we stand in line, so we can stand in front of another line, then be moved to an area where we might find a bench or have to stand or possibly just say fuck it and decide to sit on our luggage or the floor. We know this is what travel is. Travel is time. Often, a very boring sort of time. Boring for the players, and boring for the DM. Which is what makes the "poof!" option so enticing. Wouldn't it be great if we could just be where we want to go?

I have systematically and brutally set out to bore my players by interminably describing each hex, in order, one at a time, for as long as it takes, to give the right impression of what it's like. Why? Well, why are you beating your head against that wall?  Coming to the end of such an experience is the only way to give travel through the game world an emotional shape. Otherwise, the game world might as well not be one. Or rather, I might just as well make the block house the players have to raid just down the street there, next to the Pyramids one block over and then locate Iguazu Falls the next block after that. I mean, what difference does it make. The teleport spell is irrelevant if the DM is just going to teleport the party anyway.

The argument, however, does not actually solve the problem. If the party wants to "see the world"... and after all, what else is a world for... then session after session cannot be filled with meaningless descriptions of rocks and trees and trees and rocks... and water. There must be game in them thar roadways, else for other reasons they still don't belong.

Before I go on, I'll just check my closets first for the Spanish Inquisition, because they're bound to show up if I write this. No one obviously ever expects them. My question is this: how much "travel boredom" would a player be willing to endure, to achieve the emotional shape of travel, if experience were available?

After all, by definition, experience is "the conscious process of observing, living through or undergoing an event. "Experiential travel" focuses on deeply engaging with a destination's culture, history and environment. Yes, its a real term.

Once upon a time, I considered a system that would reflect the difficulties of travel by assigning a set number of hit points lost by a party per day of actual travel. Let us say 1 point per day, as a base line, merely to express the discomfort of sitting in horse saddles or trudging on foot, the feel of packs on backs, the unpleasantness of not sleeping in a bed, being subject to the weather, not having a decent physical toilet to sit on, etcetera. Theoretically, I imagined, a really nasty rainstorm could drain every member of a party of three hit points in the space of a half-hour deluge; a furious snowstorm, likewise; hail, for instance, might contribute. Losing the party's tent because a mule falls into the canyon, so that even when the tent is recovered, it's ripped asunder.  Steadily, day after day, the party would have to stop somewhere and treat themselves to an inn, a decent meal, a night not under the stars, a new tent, a second tent... and so on.

Two problems killed it. The first was that the effort was going to turn travel into accounting. The second was simply that the system, no matter how refined it became, would be felt keenly and resentfully. For the most part, a party higher than fourth level can largely just obliterate the effects anyway through healing, mending cantrips, the creation of food and so on. So I abandoned the idea. It was too much work to produce the wrong emotional response. It was, essentially, negative reinforcement.

So, okay, why not positive reinforcement? Why not a system that simply awards a set amount of experience for every hex travelled, to provide for the "worldliness" of the player character? 'Course, pure water hexes wouldn't count; they all look alike and most can't tell where they are anyway. And returning again and again to the same hex, well, that doesn't serve either, since we've been there and, reasonably, we can't just make every hex an eternal well of experience. No, the goal's got to be to encourage the players to travel, despite the actual tedium of the journey, so that they feel it's all worthwhile and we can still retain the "it feels so good when it stops" structure. Yes?

Of course yes.

Ah... but how much?

10 x.p. per hex?  Fair when you're first level, and yet it still means a thief would have to tour 125 hexes to do it without combat. There's always the argument that experience ought to be received for "risk," about which I agree, but then travel is a risk. If the game world is dense enough, there are storms, there are chances of getting lost, or meeting encounters, or suffering maladies, if the mechanics for these things exist. We can certainly take Bilbo's words for it:

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door..."

But then, he meant it colloquially, in the sense that the world is so interesting that you may not feel like coming home. That acknowledged, in D&D the premise remains. You enter a new hex, there is always a chance for an encounter to come and take your life. Would that, perhaps, change player opinions about wandering monsters and encounter checks if they knew, every time the check produced nothing, they'd be rewarded?

How about 50 x.p. per hex?  That reduces the 1st level thief to a journey of 25 hexes in order to reach second level. That might be a shade too generous, yes?

Now, I have players who were in what I used to run on the blog and later on a wiki as the "Juvenis Campaign," in Norway. And now they're in Hungary. If I establish such a rule, I'm sure to get a player raising hand and asking, "How many hexes did I travel through between Stavanger and Ozd?"

To which I'd have to answer, "None. You tripped and fell into a gate and came out the other side. You didn't see the hexes in between, so you get no experience for them."

But... there is another way.

In my last session, the players had just started to purchase things in Buda & Pest while considering the next part of their journey. "Buda-Pest" is an enormous city in my game, founded in 89, well before Berlin (founded in 1237), with 188,000 people. It is rich in architecture, culture, concept and aesthetic. I have felt for a long time that any such moment where the players enter a city with at least 50,000 people, or perhaps any city of 25,000 founded a thousand years before (pre-650 AD), ought to be a combination between awe-inducing and revelatory. That, in turn, could be reflected by offering not actual experience, but an experience bonus, say of 2, 5 or 10 per cent, which would last for a few days, a week, a fortnight... even a full month.

For Budapest, I might say 5% for every character's experience for the space of a fortnight, one time only, meaning they'll never get it again from Budapest. They'd have to travel to some similar city to get it again. The benefit of this is that (a) the party has a different reason to travel from place to place; (b) each new place gives it's own bonus; and (c) the party is encouraged, in a specific time period, to do something risky to take advantage of it.

Though the 5% is just arbitrary. What's needed is some calculation that takes size of the city AND age of the city in some way that produces a precise number between 4 and 15%, what I think should be the lower and upper limits of such a bonus. Paris should give 15%, obviously. But imaginatively, the very ancient and very small town of Delos in Greece... well, that must be worth something, surely. I could, I suppose, use a formula, "Presence" = population x age x distinctiveness... with the last being defined by the number of world historical sights present in the city. That is a defensible mechanism, and easily searched. Worth considering.

What if every new hex offered a one-time 1% bonus to experience for a day. That would make actual travel-gained experience better than experience gained in the same dungeon over and over. It might encourage players to want a random encounter. It would mean that travel alone wouldn't be a benefit... not unless the party subsequently risked itself while the bonus was active.

Every new idea needs a shaking out period. Any ideas?

Home

Tamara and I have completed our trip across Canada and parts of America, and are now safe at home.  The last day and a half, from Winnipeg to Calgary, went ordinarily, though we were quite tired and ready to be done.

My take on the trip is varied, apart from things I've said.  I'm certainly glad we went, despite not finding what we sought.  But after 19 days of continuous travelling, it's difficult at this time to be objective.  Mostly, it's just the old saw of home being the best place of all.  This is especially true in our case, since we're home four days ahead of our original plans, simply because we'd had enough vacationing and wanted to stop.

As I haven't delved into anything serious in nearly three weeks, I feel like an overcharged battery, ready to let loose on a long list of things.  I don't know precisely what I'm going to do next, though the Streetvendor's Guide will take priority.  Then it's certainly getting myself prepped for video podcasts, as I see this being a necessary step forward in drawing attention to my work.  Following that, some flotsam and jetsam here and there.  Last night, in a hotel room in Swift Current, I did some test work applying ChatGPT as a search engine for the Authentic wiki, and found it somewhat useful in suggesting possible sage studies and abilities.  It's really in how the system is used.

But for now, rest.  Just rest.

Stroads, across Ontario to Manitoba

Continuing from the last post, on Saturday we left Pembroke, Ontario (west of Ottawa) and travelled as far as Blind River ... where exactly a week before, we'd done out laundry in the laundromat there.  I had a chat with the owner as it was again our laundry day, made easier because I was familiar with the place.  This was the 3rd day of our journey home, and not much progress was made ... we've both gotten progressively more tired, and as an older couple we're not up to travelling 12 hours a day.  Eight or nine is about our limit.

We've cast off all interest in stopping for any reason, and this has helped us get to Winnipeg, today.  It helped enormously that it's the August long weekend, so that much of the construction that held us up on our way out east was "on vacation" yesterday and today.  Yesterday we had trouble finding a hotel at the end of the day, however, which drove us to drive later than usual, until reaching Thunder Bay.  It's always possible to find a room in a good-sized city.

We're treating ourselves to a prestige hotel room tonight.  There's just a day and a half left between us and Calgary ... and yet we're considering staying a second night in Winnipeg, just to rest before pushing home.  This is, after all, our 17th straight day of driving.

It's been something of a vision quest for me.  Travelling this way is today is very different from earlier trips I once took in the 1970s and 80s, with my parents and on my own.  Cruelly, we've encountered an identical culture across the country.  It's all too often that I've felt, looking at the streets and houses, that I'm still in Calgary.  This is particularly true of the "stroads" that are absolutely everywhere.  These are often criticised for the inconvenience and dangers they offer pedestrians, making neighbourhoods "unwalkable," but I'd like to add a point or two of my own.

Some 40 years ago, the creation of a "gasoline alley" began to appear in most mid-sized towns, where a service road was built alongside a highway featuring gas stations, fast-food joints and other shops, surrounded by pads of concrete.  From our travels, most of these side routes have disappeared, to be replaced by four or six-lane stroads where such businesses, supported by the addition of large box stores, line both sides of the street.  If a traveller needs to visit a supermarket, or buy a new pair of pants, or get some part of the car fixed or looked at, it's now necessary to wade into the time-wasting "car seas" these areas create.

From a driver's point of view, the problem is too much access from parking lots to street, with persons wishing to make both right and left turns from every driveway.  The frustration that comes from waiting to merge drives many drivers to shoot out in a mad rush to avoid having to wait ... usually forcing some other driver to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident.  This snarls and backs traffic all over the stroad's area — which is maddening.

Time and again, Tamara and I have been dragged into such areas by following Google Maps, which makes no distinction between one important road and another.  Thus, just wanting to get from one highway to another, we've been plunged into enough of these areas to hesitate entering any sizable city for any reason, if we can help it.  It's faster to divert five miles our of our way, along country roads, that get enmeshed in these institutional traffic jams.

They are a blight.  They've chewed up dozens of towns that, once upon a time, an outsider might have visited ... but now there's nothing to see, and nothing to do there, that one cannot do ten minutes from one's own house, anywhere in the country.  It's wrecked my interest in urban travel.  The truly best parts of our journey has been those driving through great isolated backcountry areas, because there's still nature to see.

And this hurts me, I think.  I have fond memories of my first trips to Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, when these places were so different from home.  But now these places are just cookie-cutter versions of Calgary.  I have no reason to go there.  And I don't think I'll ever take a trip like this again.  Something has died, and in ways I feel this trip has been my opportunity to view and identify the body.

New Hampshire to Maine, then to New Brunswick, then to ...

We left Gorham, New Hampshire, Tuesday morning, driving east into Maine.  From there we drifted down along country roads, though paved, out of the mountains and into Lewiston, then Brunswick.  At the place where I put a supposed trading post in the essay, "Bumper Cars" (and I stood on the spot), is a Shell station.  We gassed up, then headed east until taking a road to the Maine coast ... where Tamara and I met Sterling, regular commentor on this blog.

The details are private, of course, but Sterling is a hail fellow, well met, and we spent an enjoyable afternoon with each other, speaking about D&D, Traveller, sailing, his house, cooking and more.  As the house is "nearly" in the country (on the very end of the settlement in which he lives), we accepted dinner and Tamara and I met Sterling's family.  A good time was had by all.

I must say that these meetings are tremendously heartening for me.  I think there's much to be said for these sorts of meetings, to prove that voices on the internet ARE people, especially those we disagree with.  That's not to say that "meeting" someone would automatically mend rifts and conflicts in what we believe; there are many readers I would never like to meet.  With those people, however, who have consistently supported me, consistently challenged me, consistently stood up as a voice to me, I now believe that were we to know one another in person, we would certainly be friends.  It's not an illusion.  With some people, what they say online is really what they believe in reality.

It's just a damn shame we're so far away from one another.

I hope that I have a chance to meet with other readers.  I have met with two and it has been an honour.

After leaving Sterling on the 2nd, we found shelter at a quaint little Irish motel in Rockland, the room of which was one of the nicest we've encountered.  Somewhere during this journey, however, I lost interest in taking pictures.  Somehow, as I begin living my life, I forget about recording it.  That's partly because in the end, recording it in words seems better to me.  My memory doesn't require a picture.  It only asks for the time and a brief description, and I'm there.  In any case, by the time we settled in, I was too spent to write a blog post.

From Rockland, we left Maine and roamed into New Brunswick.  We restored our provisions in Saint John, took some time to witness the tides and settled in for the night.  In the worst room of our entire trip.

Let's see ... the chair in the room was broken.  The bathtub was dangerously slippery.  There was no desk, and I felt too tired to write, again.  The beds hadn't been replaced in at least 15 years and we could feel the springs as we laid down.  But as we'd slept on springs before, we shrugged it off.  The room wasn't expensive.  

To get in, the door had to be forced.  I had to get the manager to show me how, and to be honest I never got the knack of it.  Then, later, deciding to get something from the car, I found that I couldn't open the door to get out.  At all.  I pulled, Tamara pulled, but to no avail.  I was about to call the manager to come over and let us out, when I instead I remembered we had a card from another hotel a week before.  I used the card to break out of our room.  Twice.

When we laid down to sleep, it was then we discovered that while we could feel the springs, the beds had no give at all.  It's a combination I've never encountered.  Tamara, who weighs less than me, padded the bed covers with blankets we'd brought along and made out okay.  I was thankful that we'd brought a yoga mat with us; I laid this under the bedsheets, atop the mattress and slept on that.  A bit narrow, but at least it had some padding.

We did not sleep well.

The next morning (that was yesterday, Thursday the 4th), we started off towards Nova Scotia.  But then we began to talk about what we'd seen, and what we wanted to see ... and none of it seemed terribly important any more.  We'd originally meant to go to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and even Newfoundland ... but ... by yesterday morning, we'd stopped caring about that.  We talked about home, and being home, and going home.  And decided we wanted those things more.

So, just shy of Moncton, we turned around and headed west.  Yesterday, we left New Brunswick and reached La Pocatiere in Quebec.  Again, I wanted to write, but after getting our stuff out of the car in a driving rain, I didn't relish it.

Today, we've gone further west.  I'm writing from an hour west of Ottawa, in a nice hotel with a pool, which I'm going to try in about ten minutes.  We're happy and anxious to return to our lives.

Quebec to New Hampshire

Drove south out of Quebec before 9 a.m. this morning, into Vermont, down I-89.  Got off on hwy 104, looking for Green Mountains, maple syrup, the "real" Vermont and, apparently, trees.  Glad to say, we found all.  Had a great day, stayed ahead of the rain, or came to places that it had happened but not on us.  The land was beautiful, the mountains and rivers, the people both friendly and not, but altogether Vermont is lovely.  Morristown and St. Johnsbury in particular.  We happened across Fairfax early in the day and found something we didn't expect:

Crossed into New Hampshire at Lancaster and we're still here, having stopped the day early.

From Drain, earlier today:

"Canada seems like a beautiful country of natural wonders."

Absolutely.  It's why Tamara and I undertook this odyssey to begin with.  Canada is beautiful because it's incomprehensibly large.  Cities of more than a hundred thousand people are very few and far between, so that seeing a sign that the next such city is 735 km away is normal.  This allows parts to lack internet and phone service completely, even on the main highway between such cities.  We didn't encounter this in the prairies, where there are many small villages serving as farming residences or service centres, but in northern Ontario, "no service" on phone and internet still happens.  We were cut off by entering a non-service zone while making a reservation at one point.  We even found a dead zone like this within 150 km of Ottawa, the country's capital.

All this "nothing" means some spectacular scenery, some of which I've tried to photograph to no avail.  In reality, this enormous shelf of mountains looks fantastic, but in a flat picture it's nothing.  The scenery is unphotographical.  This dramatic cliff?  Here are ten like it.  This idyllic lake?  Here are 20 others.  Hundreds have no civilisation at all upon them; others have a small, quaint, homespun campground clinging to a tiny corner of it, making me remember campgrounds like it from my youth.  But while mine are gone, gobbled up by commercialism, these are still here, on the fringes of a real wilderness.  Each has yet the power to hold the memories of a whole generation to come.

We shall see what happens in the next few decades.  Canada's weather is more severe than America's.  It's summer now, but much of where we're travelling would be impassable in winter.  And even if the winter's are mitigated in the next few decades, it's made clear by this summer that the amount of wood there is to burn in Canada is enough to drive human beings back south for at least a generation.  Canada is not a refuge for people suffering the dangers of climate change.  People ought to know.

We've been checking maps for particulates, looking for fires as we've come east, and so far, we've been lucky.  Don't know about the way back, do we?

In the meanwhile, we're off into Maine tomorrow, then the Maritimes.  We were going to Newfoundland, but we've had to give up that dream.  With the distance between where the ferry lets us off on the island and St. John's, the cost of the ferry, the cost of hotel rooms, the cost of gas, we probably can't do that leg of the trip without an exhorbitant cost, so we've given in on it.  Newfoundland just isn't that pretty.  We've already seen wilderness.

There was a disaster in Nova Scotia that happened last week, that we missed.  Hopefully, that won't happen again in the next few days.

Just saying that alongside the beauty of Canada, there's enormous danger, too.  We've taken measures, we're able to get help if we need it, even in "dead" spots, as there are always other cars, and this is Canada.  Because of the weather, because of the danger, we don't care half as much about what we say to each other, as we care about being there for each other.

So we'll be fine.  If you come to Canada to visit, however, ask questions, take precautions, be equipped and most of all, be friendly.  We all need each other to get by.

Rough Travels

When travelling, sooner or later there's going to be a day when most things go wrong.  Something breaks that's vital, or it's left behind, and it can't be found in any store.  The wrong highway is taken and a hour is wasted backtracking.  Something falls out when a door is opened and scatters in a grocery parking lot.  By the time you find a place to stay, the room is awful; but you still have to live there for one night, because there's nothing else. And finally, two people, living constantly together in unfamiliar circumstances, begin to cut into each other.  It's inevitable.  You talk about it ahead of time, try to ready yourself for it ... and it happens anyway.  And in those moments, when you know you still have to sit next to this person, and rely on them, not just today but for the next week, no matter what — then you learn how strong love can be.  Because even if you're physically shaking with anger for the other person, you're still worried about them, you're still trying to make it better for them, you're still ready to hug and kiss them in an effort to make it better.

All the things above have happened in the last two days and we're both tired and miserable.  But still in love.  Still definitely in love.

I'm not telling those stories.  Yesterday, we had to do our laundry:

This is Blind River, one of many quaint little towns we've seen.  It slowed down the start of the day, which was followed by interruption after interruption before we were able to get to Sudbury.  Basically, it took us five and a half hours to travel a distance usually needing three.  Sigh.  We ended up in a little town called Laurentian Mountain, at a very backward motel.

Today went better.  We made good time into Ottawa and took a walk around the Parliament buildings.  For those who haven't been, when you climb up Parliament hill from the west, you can't really see the Parliament building at all.  Instead, you see this in the way:

Sorry, I can't say what building it is.  One of many surrounding Parliament, but I'm not up on the architecture.  Perhaps someone can tell me.  In any case, it's not until you get around the above building that the Parliament building appears, like a kid playing hide-and-go-seek.  I believe this is intentional, to fool visitors into thinking the above is the parliament (I knew it wasn't, because I'm a Canadian), until seeing the real building.

After Ottawa, the day went precisely south, both geographically and metaphorically.  That's all behind us, but we're not happy with the present motel.  I'm writing this from inside the province of Quebec, at St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu.  Southern Quebec is beautiful, absolutely.  But navigating around it, and getting snubbed by the hotels surrounding Quebecois Lake Champlain, hasn't won us over.  Still, tomorrow we're diving into Vermont.  Maybe it'll be better, maybe not.

This whole trip we've been met with an unnatural amount of surliness and disregard by the low-brow tourism industry, and by shopkeepers in general.  To put this in perspective, we got better service from urban Montreal cab-drivers last October than we're getting from people at Tim Hortons.  Seriously.

Oh, a note about Tim Horton's, the donut place.  Many people don't know this, but Tim Horton's employs an ex-shot putter when establishing any new location.  Essentially, "Lars" stands at the very edge of an existing Tim Horton's, then hurls a half-pound stone as far as he can.  Wherever the stone lands, that's where the location is built.

Tired Day in Eastern Ontario

Just too tired to write a full post; was a long day.  But I want to link the video I made yesterday while at Bruce Mines, north of Huron (where we stayed at the "Bavarian Inn" last night).  It's a plain nature video, but I rather like it:

https://youtu.be/g5bGH2JoLjQ

Right now, I'm near the Ottawa River, west of Ottawa, as we heard it was going to be 40 C in Niagara today.  It wasn't, but it's no matter.  We'll try to catch the falls on the way home.

Out of Canada and Back Again

Yesterday, Thursday the 27th of July, Tamara and I crossed from Sault St. Marie into Michigan state, driving west along the Upper Peninsula, north of Lake Michigan.  We cut through country whose geography I'd researched in the creation of this map.  The forests I'd envisioned were there, though cut back for farming ... and unfortunately, we didn't drive along Lake Superior's south shore, so I didn't seek what that looked like.

We were bound for Wisconsin.  We crossed at Menominee and Marinette, drove down to Green Bay and then along the freeways that run from Green Bay through Appleton, Oshkosh and Fond du Lac towards Milwaukee.  This last we reached just as rush hour began.

Fond du Lac was our destination.  There, as Tamara repaired to our room, I met one of my readers and patreon supporters, an occasional commentor on this blog, Ozymandias.  The meeting was a pleasant one.  Our conversation was fluid, wide-ranging and demonstrative that if we only lived closer together, we'd probably be close friends.  Which is more the pity, as we don't live near to one another, and the chances are we'll never see one another in person again.  

Though one never knows.

It's hard to express the experience exactly.  It didn't feel to me like meeting a "fan," but rather with someone who's opinion I've heard for well over a decade on this blog.  I felt greatly beholden to this man, to his support for me in bad times, and for the kickstarter I ran the year before last, and for his contributions to numerous discussions about D&D that have taken place here.  He's been an influence on my thinking and on my desire to evolve as a designer.  And to be able to tell him these things, in person, with the full benefit of my presence to convey the truth of my words, meant a great deal to me.  It's much more than thanking someone online.

Over and over, I do think the readers of this blog underestimate their influence on me, while describing my influence on them.  Every time I've been challenged, or made to doubt myself, has led to better viewpoints and epiphanies that have far advanced my philosophies about D&D and role-playing.  Which is perhaps the worst thing about not getting comments.

People often say, "I felt I had nothing to offer" ... but that is a misunderstanding of the better dynamic that goes on between those who are willing to collaborate.  It isn't about having "something to add."  It's about having something to ask.  Questions force answers that are, in essence, a demonstration of evidence.

Any time I've ever had to ask a question, I've needed to review and re-evaluate my argument, to put the answer in contexts I'd never considered on my own.  Those moments are my best writings here ... because clarity is most important of all.

But when I'm not questioned, I'm not pushed to do better.  And when that happens, my thinking is apt to stagnate.  

Which is something I hate.

Ozymandias and I spoke on matters that couldn't be discussed here ... but at every point in our conversation, he always had something to add, because he's an intelligent, imaginative, intuitive human being.  Just as most are, once deciding to commit themselves passionately to something they love.

Anyway.

After last night, Tamara and I got up this morning and headed back to Canada.  At present, we're at rest on the north shore of Lake Huron, which is so close I can hear the geese on the water honking through my motel room door as I write this.  I'm in a little village I've never heard of, whose name I'll give tomorrow, after we travel south along the coast of Georgian Bay.  We may or may not get as far south of Niagara Falls tomorrow, but there's no hurry.

I'll withhold my opinions about the United States for the time being, except to say that going through the upper peninsula and in a circle around Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin, we did not see a single Trump flag or poster, not in any city, on any building or written on any sign.  And we were supposedly in those parts of both Michigan and Wisconsin that vote Republican.  I did see a single painted motto on a decrepit barn, that was plainly aged by the weather, that read, "Let's Go Brandon."

Manitoba to Sault St. Marie

After our sojourn through backcountry Saskatchewan, some of it on gravel roads, we decided not to forgo our plans to visit Lake Winnipeg and the beach there, and instead push past the prairies.  We'd had enough of the prairies after two days and there were three hours left to drive in it to get out of Manitoba.  Crossing into Ontario, it was all trees ... and there followed three days of trees thereafter.

The little city of Kenora faces on the Lake of the Woods, which we picnicked beside, next to said wall:

Here's another view of the lake in a different direction:

The temperature was idyllic and the food was good.  We're making our own as we go along, but so far we haven't actually used the barbecue.  There never seems to be the right place to set it up, at the time we want to eat.  At the end of the day, we just want to crash and eat raw fruit and vegetables, bits of cheese, the hard-boiled eggs we're able to buy and such goods.  Most of our diet has been vegetarian, but not because we're vegans; it's just easier to get unsalted, unsugared food from the store with fresh produce.

Pictures get thin at this point.  We spent Monday night in Dryden, a depressing little burg with expensive lodging, taken up by fisherfolk.  From thence, it was down to Thunder Bay and more groceries.  The drive through the Canadian Shield hills north of Lake Superior was stunning.  Yet I didn't take a picture the whole day of Tuesday until late in the afternoon, when we encountered this fellow in front of us in a small village named Schreiber:

This fellow was making a left hand turn off the Trans-Canada Highway.  I didn't get the camera up in time to show the two big trailer trucks in the other lane, that ruffled his hair and his shirt.  We nearly missed seeing him, as we came up behind.  He's not sitting in a "turn-lane."  He's right there on the inside lane of the four lane highway.  He didn't seem concerned.

Soon after, we pulled into Terrace Bay, where I finally got my computer to work two days ago.  Here's the terrace outside our room, overlooking Lake Superior:

And here's the John Ford shot, from inside our motel room:

Somehow, after this, the camera got forgotten as we continued on yesterday, from Terrace Bay to Sault St. Marie.  That was a long rainy day along the Superior shore, though we did get out and walk along the beach for a while.  I had the phone in my pocket and it didn't occur to me to take a picture.  The signs all said the water was cold, but it felt warm to me, a fellow who's swam (swum?) in Alberta lakes in May.  I considered getting my suit on and taking a dip, but the rain caught up with us.  Tamara went swimming in Superior at 14, but she wasn't game to join me yesterday.

Today, we set out south from Sault St. Marie into the United States, where I am now writing this.  I have no pictures for today, only stories.  But they'll wait until tomorrow.

Alberta to Manitoba

Recording History.

Left Calgary early in the morning, drove down to Medicine Hat, then south to Cypress Hills.  Never been to the hills before, though it's a provincial park.  Elkwater, on the edge of the park, is a tiny summer village, no more than a hundred cabins or so.  We were stunned that it was so empty:

This is taken at 12:30 p.m., about four and a quarter hours from Calgary, on Saturday, July 22.  At this same time at Sylvan Lake, where I went to the beach a couple weeks before, it would be wall-to-wall people ... but Sylvan is just 80 minutes from both Calgary and Edmonton, both million-plus cities.  Elkwater is no where near such people.  Here's the beach, taken about the same time:

Just a tiny beach, yet mostly empty.  Might fill up through the day; seemed to be getting busy as we left at 1 p.m.  Elkwater is on a reservoir by the same name; here's a shot of the north end, then the west end:

Drove back to the Transcanada hwy and into Saskatchewan.  Temperature was hitting 38 C as we passed north of Maple Creek, a usual high for this time of the year.  As a kid in Regina, we had a lot of 100 F plus days, when Canada was still counting in Fahrenheit.

Tamara found it odd that they grew and cut hay in the space between the highway lanes, so I took a picture of it.

Reached Moose Jaw in the early evening, called it a day.  Rose the 23rd and completed the trip into Regina.  There I visited the house occupied by my grandparents, who both passed away in hospital, during the 1990s.  Their house was condemned, as it was built in the 50s and not well taken care of, and I was surprised to see that someone had refurbished it ... but it's definitely the same house I remember as a kid.  I hadn't seen it since 1987.

Went over to see the government buildings in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.  The building is rather imposing for a province with just under 1.2 million:

Finished August 31. 1908.  We enjoyed the geese on the lawn and parking lot:

Because it was Sunday, we didn't take a tour ... and anyway, we had places to be.  My grandparents, and later my uncle Tom, owned a cabin on Last Mountain Lake, sometimes called "Long Lake" in Saskatchewan.  When my father passed away, this picture from his basement came into my possession:

The picture was taken in the 1960s, from an airplane above the lake.  My grandparent's cabin is the one second from the left, a white two-story cabin with a peaked roof.  Later it came into my uncle Tom's possession.  The name of the summer village used to be "Strasbourg Beach" but nowadays it's called "Island View," because an island can be dimly seen across the lake and it sounds better.

The last time I'd been here was July, 1980.  I was 16.  I was staying with my uncle, his 1st cousin Ken (and my 2nd cousin) and their friend Rory.  They were in their 30s.  Now, what happened is difficult to relate; my uncle and I reconciled years later, in 1987 (the last time I was at the house above), and would speak regularly on the phone after.  See, he was an alcoholic.  He also died in the 1990s, of organ failure related to alcoholism.  And the others were his drinking buddies.  At some point, he forgot that I was just a kid, and started barking at me for some reason.  This ended up scaring the hell out of me, such that I ran off.  In fact, I walked a mile and a half up the road, shown at the top of the picture, to where there used to be a country gas station.  And a payphone.  I got there about 12:30 in the morning.  I phoned my parents in Regina, an hour and some away, and begged for them to come get me.  Then I waited.

When they did, they drove back to the cabin and my mother (Tom was her brother) gave him a royal screaming for a long time, as I sat in the car.  My father kept them apart.  The thing drove a wedge between my mother and my uncle for the rest of his life ... but as I said, I met my uncle in 1987 and we talked it all out.

Turns out, right after I left, they sobered up fast.  My uncle realised what he'd done, and they all realised that they'd gone over the line, and for the whole time my parents were driving up from Regina they were desperately searching the village and calling out my name.  They never thought I'd head off into the middle of nowhere, to a gas station that was closed, in the dark, after midnight.  And if I hadn't acted so strongly, things would have been sorted out in an hour and my mother wouldn't have known anything.

I don't fault what I did.  It seemed my best course of action, and of course I was just a kid.  And I don't entirely forgive what my uncle did ... but the error he made had been made when my uncle was a teenager, when he decided that alcohol was his relief from his struggles.  And his struggles were indeed many, as I learned later from other family members.  So in all, it was just a bad scene.

Anyway, Tamara and I went there so I could exorcise some of those feelings.  We drove up, I called out to the 50-something guys on the lawn of the far left cabin (call them Dave and Don), introduced myself and showed them the picture above.  They were surprised, but after some talking they told me they remembered my uncle Tom; that when Dave and Don were kids, Tom used to give them cold pops from the old cold drinks machine he had, one from the 50s where the glass bottles would come out with frost on them.  Dave and Don introduced me to the family that owns my grandparents property now (the house is gone) and after some chatting, Tamara and I left.

We drove through the middle of Saskatchewan to get down to the Qu'Appelle Valley east, seeing the back country.  I took this obvious picture of a derelict grain elevator in Dysart.  

Then we went east and spent Sunday night in Brandon, Manitoba.

I'll call it there, finally, though I know I've posted several half-versions of this.  The phone tethering keeps going out and this is now the second time I've written this post.  Until tomorrow.

Fork in the Road

Our plan has been to set out on Monday to drive across the country, as I've explained.  Our last commitment was to take place on Sunday, which has been cancelled; so we've moved our departure date up.  We leave tomorrow morning, about 14 hours from my writing this.

I have a laptop I'm taking along, and I hope to write every day ... but those who have travelled know that sometimes, a day just doesn't work out.  Still, I'm going to try.  I'm not going to pinpoint my location, but I'll give a description of my journey and possibly a map, if that doesn't prove impractical.   It's not so much that I think my readers have any interest in the journey, but for myself, so I can look back at some point when I'm 80, I'd like to keep a record.

While I'm gone, I'm setting down my book.  I'm working my way through cloth fabrics, which I've almost completed.  There's just three left to describe: jute, ramie and sisal.  I've worked my way through all the fibres, including those three, along with hemp, silk, angora, camelhair, karakul, mohair, wool, flax and cotton; the raw, cleaned fibres each have a price.   The fibres are then described as a yarn (each with a price) and then as cloths, including cotton cloth, calico, chambray, muslin, linen cloth, cambric, damask, lace, guipure, sailcloth, wool cloth, felt, karakul felt, saragoca, serge, worsted, mohair cloth, camelhair cloth, angora cloth, silk cloth, organza, satin, velvet and canvas.  Each with a price.

The book is 84 pages (8.5 x 11), and 75,000 words, a little less than 3/4 the size of How to Run and about 42% as long as I expect the book to be.  My next efforts will be to briefly discuss dyed cloth (leaving "dye" itself to later in the book where it will appear in the "alchemy" section), and then list the possible clothing types with descriptions.  This includes a small section on how to use the information given in the book to "design" your own clothes.  There's a bit on embroidery, and then it's into a section on hides, skins, leather and finally rope.  That'll be the end of the textiles I'm working on.  Naturally, there'll be more than one type of leather.

All in all, fun times.

Even at a good pace, the degree of research and the grittiness of the material make it impossible for me to move faster than I am.  It's been explained to me by friends that descriptions of the book like this are a form of cruelty, as you cannot have the book until I'm finished ... and until then, it's better for you not to think about the book at all.

This "cruelty" reminds me of hundreds of arguments I've had over the centuries of my life with non-writers or would-be-yet-not-productive-writers about perspective.  The argument on their side goes: "it isn't the writer's perspective that matters when interpreting a book, but the reader's."  I'm always on the other side of this one.

As cruel as it might be to wait for a book, it's nothing like the cruelty of having to write one, not knowing if it'll ever be finished, or if it'll be good, or if it'll turn out to be a terrible waste of time, and evidence of the author being a piece of shit.  The enormous weight of this book is upon me.  I'm the only one at present who can clearly see how BIG it has to be.  I'm the only one with comprehension enough to fully understand the enormity of the task.  I'm the one with the vision necessary, and the time taken, to patiently scrawl this thing out one paragraph at a time.  Some paragraphs are fun and easy and pour out like fine wine.  Others, however, really, really aren't, and don't.  Sometimes, my teeth are gritted as I write.  Sometimes, I have to efface half a page or more because it's not good enough, and go at it again.  And once in this damndable process now, I've lost 2500 words that were overwritten, so that the research had to be commenced as well.

I can accept that the book may not be as good as I'd hoped for, or has failed on the writing and editing, or is just a clumsy boondoggle that failed to make itself beloved.  I'm working not to have any of those things be true, but if they are, that's on me.  That's my fault.  It'll be my failure.  That's what I mean when I say, the weight of the book is on me.

But the idea that someone out there thinks that, despite their not having been part of its making, and despite having done nothing except read it, their opinion about what the book meant to do, or achieve, is more accurate than mine ... that's ... that's ...

I must turn to a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, quoted in Brene Brown's recent Netflix special,

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I'm sorry I hadn't encountered that quote in High School, or University.  I'm sorry I never got to beat any of my literature professors over the head with it.  I'm sorry I didn't have a t-shirt made so I could wear it when I used to go to various writer associations and workshops, when I thought those were helping me be a better writer.

Sorry I had to get that off my chest.  Just now, getting ready to go, I'm feeling it's a good time to clean house.

For example, I'm considering there might be a necessity for shuttering this blog.  This isn't a threat, or even a plan, but something I feel I'm being forced into.  See, I'm not even sure there are more than a handful of people still reading me.  My analytics tell me there's between 2,000 and 2,500 page views a day, yet they also tell me that in the last three months, I've had 163 comments.  Half of which are mine.

I suspect a lot of my "views" are bots.  Most of my views.

Virtually every person I know — and nearly everyone I know is younger than me — tells me that blogs are dead.  My own observations seem to bear that out.  Nearly every other blog I see related to RPG are simply pathetic; their authors are churning on precisely the same content they were writing ten years ago, with many of them having chosen a single blog post that they churn out day after day, with the barest of nuance and the dullest of descriptions, word quantity and quality diminishing into dust.  Others churn on about role-playing games they used to play, that they don't now, but they think about playing, though they never go, while droning on about how good this or that version of the game they don't play was better than some other version of the same game.

Jeebus.  Just the notion that I'm vaguely associated with this dreck is disturbing.  One pleasantness of not being on RSS feeds is that my blog isn't found adjacent on multiple lists with these blogs.

I'm being encouraged to accept the inevitable, which would mean moving from script writing to script reading.  One of many possible streaming formats, that have a possibility of encouraging new people to hear what I have to say — who haven't, because the very idea of searching for a blog is anathema to them.  A new audience.  A younger audience, not emotionally locked to role-playing they did in 1992, but still in a frame of mind that they haven't made up yet.

I have my doubts.  Speech requires energy, dramatic authority, production value, greater preparation time and familiarity with technology.  Some of this I can conjure; most of it I understand; but it would mean the end of sitting down at random and shooting out a thousand words or so off the cuff.  But what good is that, if I'm sitting here in an empty room, with words falling off my cuffs onto the internet with all the noise a falling tree makes in an empty forest?

So, change seems in order.

I'd like to know, outside of analytics, who's really here.  I understand the resistance to this sort of request.  I've made them in the past and it's all crickets.  But with this one, I'm pretty serious.  I'm writing a book just now that's going to do far better at game cons than online.  I'm increasingly in a position to put much more effort to appearing at game cons in the next year.  I'm also beginning to feel that JUST writing books might be where I should put all my writing effort into ... as well as into venues, other than this one, where the views might mean something more concrete to me, and my future as a writer.

I've said in the past that I'd be writing this blog into my 90s, and maybe so.  But if the present reader wants to see me write more often than once in a fortnight, or once a month, because there's just less reason to give my effort here, when it would be better given somewhere else, this is the time to raise your hand and comment, "here."

When I go to youtube — and that seems inevitable — and spend my writing there, I promise to tell people.  So if you want me to quit writing this blog, then just leave your hand on your lap.  Don't write "here."  Don't do anything.

And if there's actually just six of you reading this, then I'll also know that from the number of "hears" I get.  Then I'll just write about my travels in the next three weeks as a diary, and pretend no one's reading it but me.

Most of all, I'll know where to put my effort, and what's a waste of my time.  I can stumble anywhere.  I can find dust and sweat and blood to cover my face anywhere.  I can strive with my deeds, spend myself in worthy cause, dare greatly ... anywhere.

This is your chance to convince me to go on doing that here.

Would-be Travels

So, on the subject of other things ...

On May 2nd this year, my partner Tamara had a fall and broke her occipital femur, just shy of the lesser trochanter, for those who care to know.  This was eight weeks ago.  We had planned to take a vacation out north and west on the 12th, for some ten days, but this was abandoned following the accident.  For some weeks, Tamara was fairly helpless and in pain, as she's 64 and this is a hard injury for someone her age.

While I was to step away from work, I did not, and have continued along as best I could these two months.  This has reduced the number of posts on this blog and has seriously undermined efforts to continue on my book, The Streetvendor's Guide to Worldbuilding.  Still, work has been done, though I chose to focus during these weeks on editing and research, rather than ongoing writing.  The vacation was meant to be a rest from the work.  Goodness knows I need one.

This last week I've been moving back into progress mode again, though tentatively.  After cancelling the insurance on the car, to save a little money, Tamara reinstated the insurance today and took her first drive in eight weeks minus a day; not being able to drive has been her greatest woe, especially as most of the break's pain has siphoned off.  She's thrilled.  And as a result, we're making plans again.  My sympathetic workplace, from whom I'm contracted to get four weeks of vacation a year, has suggested I take two weeks together, as the year is half gone.  Tamara and I have discussed it, and agree that my vacations in the winter are somewhat less than exciting, and that perhaps I should take three weeks together.  What luxury.

This has widened our appetites for perhaps heading east, rather than our original plan.  We'd planned to roam up into northern Alberta, as we've never been north of Edmonton, and from there westward into northern B.C., where again we've never been.  As it happened, come the first week of May, all of the area we were going to visit caught fire, so that if we'd left on schedule we'd never have been able to see those places intended.  In addition, we meant to reach Vancouver and perhaps drive down into Seattle ... which meant my getting a passport.  After applying, and arranging for me to go pick it up, the government employees went on strike.  Had we left on May 12th, I'd have had to do it without my passport.

Three bad omens — Tamara breaking her arm, the world on fire, the U.S. border closed — are more than enough to convince us the trip was never meant to be.

And so, with Tamara finishing up her physio therapy, my work being amenable, and having much more time, we're now thinking of going east.  For a long time, we've considered a journey across the country, from here to St. John's in Newfoundland ... though there are concerns.  We're not young pups, though according to all our doctors we're as healthy as we could hope to be.  Tamara's able to eat only the barest minimum of either sugar or salt, which means if we go then restaurant dining is wholly impractical.  We had bought a Coleman stove for the B.C. trip and tested it out — works great!  Making our own food ensures her diet, which I also live upon since cutting sugar and salt from my body is a good thing.  But we're unfamiliar with what trial it's going to be to find a safe picnic table every day, as well as sufficient freshwater, though research tells us neither will be a problem.  Others have also assured us that we'll be fine.  We're not "campers," however.  We are dyed-in-the-wool city folk.  I haven't been camping in 35 years and never without some much smarter fellow, like my father, to tell me what to do.  So we're a bit uneasy.

Even though we'll be staying in a motel/hotel every night.

After testing, I have learned that I'm good to give Tamara a kidney, which she'll need at some point ... though her doctor has given her until November before she needs to be checked again.  But there's always the unexpected, isn't there?  For these reasons, if we go east we're going to go slowly, being ready to turn ourselves around and head home if need be.  Knowing the map as I do, Kenora in Ontario is a point we shouldn't cross without feeling confident ... as there's nothing of great interest between Kenora and Sault Ste. Marie, two places than are a goodly distance apart.

Should we take that step, we have considered plans to slip down into the States at the Sault (I have my passport), and journey through the Upper Peninsula to Wisconsin, though just as far as Oshkosh and Fond du Lac.  Tamara has a yen for fresh Wisconsinite cheese.  If we did that side path, we'd head back through Sault St. Marie, so as to get on the road to Ottawa.  I haven't been there since I was six and Tamara has never been.  We've both been to Toronto a few times, so it holds little interest.  We may go down to Niagara Falls, for despite Tamara having lived much of her life in Michigan, she's never been.

From Ottawa, we're clear about passing south of Montreal (where we were last October, by plane) and then down into Vermont, where Tamara dearly wants to go.  I've suggested cutting down through I-91 to St. Johnsbury, across New Hampshire at Berlin, through Main down to Brunswick and Bath (where the post Bumper Cars took place), then up to New Brunswick on I-1.  We might pop down to the sea here and there.

Then it's P.E.I., Nova Scotia, across the ferry to Newfoundland and out to St. John's.  Before I leave New Brunswick, I'd like to laze on the ridge at Miramichi, as the ancient song went.  We've talked about this journey, the scope of it, I've tried to explain the vast distances to Tamara and she just doesn't give a damn.  Her shoulder has to hold up, obviously.  Even if it does, and we do make it out that far, we're going to be awfully tired when we get back.  But this might be our last chance to take such a trip.

We'll have to see if the gods let us.  With one thing or another, the earliest date we can go is July 24th; the hottest time of the year, on the prairies.

A Good Time

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I didn't enjoy my holiday.  I suppose I'm a dark sort of fellow.  For example, look how grim I am when taking a selfie in front of our hotel:

I dislike the idea of taking selfies; people always look foolish doing it.  I suppose that explains my expression; I was worried about getting the placement of the hotel in the picture, not self-aggrandising myself.

The "Hotel Birks" was a very nice hotel, owned and operated by the Birks diamond concern.  Plenty of luxury, with a gas fireplace in the room, the softest, sweetest beds, wonderful pillows ... and the shower was a religious experience.  Waking up in such a place each day, retiring back to it, with a very prompt and enthusiastic staff, making us feel welcome.  I can't say anything good about the restaurant; we learned the first night that chef Henri is one of those in the industry whose opinion is "fuck your tastebuds, you will learn to taste food properly."  I worked with many such people.  My Tamara has extreme dietary needs — no sugar, no salt — but apparently these issues don't exist in the chef's universe, because we struggled explaining our need for the cooking of FRESH vegetables and meats, without sauce or marination.  We spent the rest of our vacation eating elsewhere.

Montreal is a rich, lively city, full of multiple cultures and ideals.  It's the second largest French city in the world and as such, is host to people from countries all around the world that were once French colonies, where French became the premiere lingua.  We met folks from Cameroons, Vietnam, Reunion, Guinea, Benin and Algeria.  Virtually everyone also speaks English, except plainly those who have been patriated to Canada so recently they haven't had time to become bilingual.  Alberta, some 40 years ago, was resented deeply by Quebec because of statements made by my province's ignorant right-wing politicians, but that has all plainly evaporated.  We met no resistance against our speaking primarily English, while my small amount of polite French was welcomed and appreciated.  No one corrected my pronounciation of anything, and when I ask for a translation of anything, it was instantly supplied, with smiles.

So we had a great deal of fun, rushing from place to place, spending too much money on taxis, buying very expensive dinners and otherwise setting out to bankrupt ourselves within reason.  We were strained in seeking out dinner each day for Tamara, as we were in the heart of urban Montreal and far from the many freshwater markets and independent groceries that we were able to find at a great distance and costly cab ride.  We learned much about travelling, should we do it in the future, and know better how we'll ready ourselves next time.

But see?  Positive writing is nowhere near as fascinating as negative ... and at any rate, I cannot stop being observant, even though I'm visiting a "foreign" country.  The flights did leave from the "international" terminal, though we were going from Canada to Canada.  Thus, the posts I've written about anger and selfishness.  I could write others, because like any large city with more than four million people, that's always there.  Humans have trouble managing themselves in massive groups ... it gives so much opportunity for exploitation, conniving and despair.  And that is evident, for anyone with their eyes open.  I simply cannot be blind.  So if it feels that we didn't enjoy ourselves, don't think so.  I was simply aware, that's all, and interested in writing about that.  So I will, for awhile.

I have the return of my game on Friday, and things to prepare; everyone is very excited to be playing so soon after our last session, as am I.  I have work to catch up on, and book to write, and I'm somewhat tired from the journey ... but I'll try to write here once per day.

Montreal

Just a quick post.  I'm here in Montreal, very busy, getting around.  Went up to the Tremblay Laurentian ski-hill yesterday, which is a far cry from the hills we have in Alberta but very beautiful, it being autumn here in Quebec.  From memory, I've only seen forests that are mixed deciduous and coniferous in the colours of fall ... it's was different to see hills of large fluffy deciduous only in multiple shades of yellow, orange, red and green.  Startling and worth the journey.

The Cathedral deserves a post at some point.  Saw my first Picasso in reality which, I'll admit, provided a better perspective than I've had ... but I still can't say it compares with the Bruegel or Hogarth I also saw.  I'll put together a post on the works that I saw as well.

Montreal is much more beautiful than Toronto.  My smattering of French is helpful, but in large part the city speaks English and the people are in no way smug or resistant to outsiders.  All that nonsense of the French being stuffy seems to have evaporated, although I remember encountering it in 1987.

On the whole, I would have died to live here when I was younger, but Montreal's Centreville is not somewhere a person would want to get old in.  And all suburbs are the same, really, so the life here in suburb Montreal is little different that what Calgary or Vancouver offers.  There is more culture here ... but it's no longer the culture I'm interested in.  My 25-y.o. counterpart would have felt differently, but I'm not 25 any more.  I find much of the city to be very pretentious, there is a pervasive hipster vibe here that is like poison and in many ways, the divisions in the city are disappointing and ... eerily disconcerting.  I'll write about that as well.

I'm off to take a journey around the city by boat.  It's one of those awful things that tourists do, and I won't like the other passengers ... but as a geographer, I can't deny myself the privilege of viewing the cartographic layout of the city's environs.  If I have to put up with a few rubes to do that, I will.

Oh yes, I'm definitely a snob.

Hope everyone is well.  I'll write again as soon as I can.

409 Miles

Has nothing to do with D&D, but sometimes I use this blog as a diary.  Here's our driving route from yesterday, mostly on secondary highways, a journey of 409 miles for literally no reason except to drive.  We did not do it to go any specific place or to meet any friends, nor to attend any festivals or walk into any special stores or venues.  We went just to see.

We took our own food, stood below a glacier and six hours later on the shore of a warm freshwater beach.  Including rests, the whole journey took 11.5 hours.

There is something about me that is fascinated with travel ... nothing more than the fact that the world is moving past my window.  It's connected to the map-making, certainly, and somehow to D&D, which is also about going places just to find things and sometimes kill them.  Tamara and I have enjoyed this month of getting around in the car; yesterday really pushed our physical limits, however.  Still, we're hoping on taking a week-long journey in May, and possibly one across Canada in August next year.  So yesterday was also sort of a "training" effort.

For those who might be interested, it cost about $85 in gas.  For those who might wonder, gas prices in Alberta yesterday ran at $7.24 a gallon, or $1.55 a litre.

For Pandred, Crowfoot Glacier:

The Unknown Response

Going on a trip through the Alberta mountains today, up the Bow River and then down the North Saskatchewan.  The scheduled distance is 425 miles, which we plan to do today, but what with stopping and staring at things, we may not get back until tomorrow.  Mostly, it's an opportunity to test our new car, get some experience driving it and getting a chance to see some country that Tamara and I haven't visited together.

It's interesting to note, with respect to comments going on in the previous post, that we'll be improvising everything about the trip except (a) the route and (b) what we're bringing.  We don't know where we might stay for coffee, what animals we might see, what situations might arise due to other drivers or the wherewithal of our car, what roads might be closed or routes under serious repair.  We suppose I can add (c) that we know what the weather will be.  But I haven't actually checked the area yet for the weather, and we'll be moving from prairie to mountains, to forest and back to prairie before coming home ... and if it turns out that one of those regions expects rain, we're going anyway.

If I were a DM and the players were making this journey, I'd definitely invent something to be waiting for them.  The invention would be made with plenty of time on my part, but the actual thing waiting would be improvised, because I don't know what the players might do when actually meeting the encounter.  With some things, like a group of monsters, it's obvious they're being placed in order to be killed by a party.  But with other things, such as an ongoing event like a plague, a growing rebellion, a famine or the fallout from some disaster, the expected reaction of the party is defacto unknown.  The stranger the circumstance into which the party enters, the less certain that reaction becomes, and the more requirement there is on the DM to be inventive in the immediate moment when the party performs their role.

A large problem with traditional D&D is that it expect to impose situations ... like a monster waiting for a party ... that are easily resolved because the party's response is obvious.  Whereas the party's response to something like a recent mudslide or an open riot spreading through a countryside are far less certain.  They cannot be run with a series of if-then statements.  The DM must float creatively with the party's uncertain response and be ready to judge what additional experiences might arise, on the spot, given that response.

Anyway, I better get myself organised.  We're leaving in 20 minutes.

Zounds!

On the 1st of July, I pitched $50 into the company raffle, expecting as I always do with these things that it's a good will gesture, a sort of tax on working with other people.  Many times in my life, that amount of money has made the difference between my starving and not in a given week, going right back to when my daughter was a little girl.  But it's not the same amount of money that it was in 1992, so I guess it's a little easier to part with.

The company has people far and wide in multiple countries so it wanted to give everyone an opportunity to kick in, so the actual draw was put off until today, a week after the 1st.

And yes, I won.

We're a little stun locked around here.

The prize is a six-day trip for two to Montreal in Quebec.  I suspect the company managed both tickets and stay for free, as complimentary, as I recognise the names of clients ... but, hell, why would I care?  My entire experience with Montreal is that once I spent 20 minutes in a bus depot commissary before climbing aboard the bus again on my way to Quebec City, in 1987.  I had friends that moved out there from Calgary years ago, but I've lost touch.  Not sure I'll even try to look them up.  Mostly, it's an opportunity to go somewhere glamorous.  My partner Tamara is beside herself.

So.

I'll be in Montreal over the cusp of September-October, just shy 12 weeks from now.  If there's a regular reader who's close enough that you'd like to meet — for all I know, some of you live in Montreal — then let me know by email.  I'd be glad to shake a hand or buy a drink.

A Search

This is a story about memory, and how we are utterly failed by it.

A week ago, I took a trip with friends from Calgary into British Columbia.  We travelled through Banff, Radium Hot Springs, Wasa, Cranbrook, Yakh and Creston.  From there, we took a minor road north to Crawford Bay, then on a ferry to Balfour and Nelson.  From there we went north to New Denver, Nakusp and Galena Bay, where we caught another ferry to Shelter Bay.  We drove north to Revelstoke, then back to Calgary through Golden.  Distance numbers on the map are in red, indicating kilometers.

The country is beautiful; we drove through and visited five national parks, six provincial parks and some of the most magnificent and remarkable mountains in the world.  But the reason for this strange circular journey was not only to look at mountains.  I was also looking for my grandfather.

I have spoken about my grandfather on the blog before.  Born in 1886, emigrated to Canada at 18, a Canadian veteran of both World Wars, a writer, a painter, an ornithologist and towards the end of his life, a mountain man who squatted on land he did not own, in the very country I visited last weekend.  Only thing is, I didn't know where.

My grandfather was 51 when my father was born; my grandfather was 85 in 1971, when he had a stroke and was brought by my father to Foothills Hospital in Calgary.  There he remained as a convalescent until his death in 1976.  My parents are both gone now, so all I have left of him are my memories when I was only five or six.

I remember visiting him in British Columbia, perhaps two or three times before his stroke.  I had a memory of what Cranbrook and Creston looked like ... but I hadn't been there since before 1971.  Yet I remembered the highway; I remembered there was a big house with glass windows on the right hand side, and that there was a huge lake on that side.  On the other side, the mountainside came down to the highway.  I remembered that we always drove south to reach my grandfather.  But of course, there are hundreds of places in B.C. that look exactly like this.  My only thought was to get some sense of where his house might have been.

I was certain the place had to be somewhere between Cranbrook and Creston.  It might be somewhere before Cranbrook.  But as we came down highway 93, it was obvious from the great flat valley that my grandfather couldn't have lived around Cranbrook.  And as we followed highway 3 to Cranbrook, nothing looked at all familiar.  There were no large lakes, and the mountains were all wrong.

I'd told my fellow travellers about my search on the first day, so they were on the lookout as well for clues and possibilities.  I must point out that we couldn't be on the wrong highway; every valley in this country has exactly one paved route.  That night in Creston, I must admit feeling downhearted.  There were no highways further south; Creston is only a few miles north of Idaho, and we certainly never crossed the border.

So, last Sunday, a week ago, we started north on highway 3A.  Kootenay lake loomed beautifully on the left hand side, the wrong side by my memory, while we enjoyed the journey.  Then my friend Jan called out that we were passing a "Glass House" on the left-hand side; it was also the wrong side by my memory, but he stopped the car and we veered back.

As I got out of the car, looking at the house, it looked completely wrong.  I saw large panes of glass in my mind, a tall angular roof.  Here's what we saw:

I couldn't know it, but The Glass House is a famous B.C. tourist site; but I don't have any memory in 1970 of it being anything special.  I said out loud to my friends that it definitely wasn't the right place.

Nevertheless, for the sake of stretching our legs and maybe finding a nice piece of B.C. jade, we parked the car and walked to the shop.  We were greeted by a friendly woman in her 60s.  And on some ludicrous whim, I asked her if she'd ever heard of a man by my grandfather's name.  She said she didn't, but she called her husband, asking if he might have.  Her husband's name was Eldon and he had lived there since he was a boy, back into the 1960s.

He remembered my grandfather perfectly.  For an hour, I listened as he told story after story, funny ones and serious ones; things my grandfather had taught him; jokes my grandfather had made.  It was clear that Eldon was as stunned and pleased to find the grandson of this man in his company, as I was to hear stories from someone other than my parents.  My grandfather was a recluse; not a part of the larger family, divorced from his wife and her people, out of choice.  The serendipity of the moment was ... astonishing.  I'm still confounded.  The chances of my choosing to take the journey; to have any expectations at all of finding even a scrap of evidence; the chances of this man Eldon still living in this place where he was a boy, and still remembering an old man, a man 70 years his senior, so well that he could talk and talk and talk about him.  The chances of our meeting.  It's stupefying.

My friends listened just as I did; no one felt any need to rush away.  For the next two days, we found ourselves wondering at it, as though we'd just witnessed a great historical event.

Now I'm staring at my coffee and not writing, so I must be out of things to say.