yyt

-morning, i would like to buy 7 stamps to the u.s. to avoid the hst i understand that if i put them on in front of you and hand them in to you they are tax exempt. the seven stamps will make it over the required $5,00.
-$7,51
-excuse me a stamp to the states is 98¢ multiplying an even number by any number gives you an even number how can it be $7,51?
-the tax.
-but... and i explained it all to him again.
-never heard of that as he went to get his supervisor.

the supervisor arrives.
did you tell him that you were going to put them on here?
twice and put them on over there.
where’s your receipt.
he threw it out.
never heard of that. piped in the clerk again.
with the refund i headed out with the chorus from the clerk of never heard of that.

it wasn’t a good start to the day as i realised awaking at the econolodge, that i had forgot to ask for the c.a.a. discount and they weren’t going to give it to me now.

hung around woodstock thinking that to-day would be nothing but driving as i wanted - not sure why - to make it into ontario. after the super highways of new brunswick the driving was pretty automatic any way. most of the road bypassed everything and here heading north toward québec there was a fence to separating the road and the fauna. no moose signs. the scenery along the saint john river was beautiful but there was no slowing down to see it - no glitches in the road so that if one needed an excuse to stop one would be provided. it seemed that new brunswick - at least here - was living up to its identity of a drive through province. never the less - even though spitting out the driver’s side of the machine i would hit the states, i was more than happy to stay on this side of the border for as long as possible. i wasn’t ready for the paranoia and suspicion of the states quite yet.

road fatigued i decided to try to find a motel in woodstock, i had diverted through town with no luck. trying to be more human, i decided that if i had to stay on the transcanada, i would at least go into town for a meal.

that lead to a wander about town as i thought that there was potential for some snaps. i was wrong woodstock was a bilingual beloit - people packed into the tim’s, a small farmers’ market downtown, a decent bookshop felt sorry for buddy as he seemed lonely, and a food market for coffee.

-wow depressing is this - said the owner of the pawn shop i was in when to people came in who knew each other but hadn’t seen each other in some time - meeting in a pawn shop.

a person fishing from a boat in the river waved.

ah québec. as soon as the road it the border, the super highway stopped back to two carriageways, trying to pass winnebagos, towns to go through and construction.

stopped at the border to stand over the provincial and time zone borders. i should have sped through woodstock and stopped in dégelis, or cabano and of course a wander through st-louis-du-ha!-ha!. if this were the outbound journey - or even a few days earlier, it would have taken me a day to travel from rivière-du-loup along 185 to st jacques. entering québec i had left the efficient moving of traffic around populations and back to having it move through it. if new brunswick was the super-highway of the future - beating out even the 401 - route 185 was the road of the recent past.

here were chain-less motels and cheap also - the prices were half what i was paying in the maritimes - local shops. the temptation was augmented by the constant construction in the area. i reckoned that i could have pulled off and made snaps without losing too much time but i was in making time mode and wary of what would happen if i went back to exploring - the expense of the trip was now getting beyond what i was comfortable with. next time.

at rivière-du-loup the circle was completed headed south along the st lawrence - already forgetting the specifics - didn’t realise that saint-jean-joli-port was so far south - then bypassing québec reckoned that i would run out of gasoline in drummond, stopped. a mistake made by a novice. everyone stops in drummond, meaning that every gasbar every restaurant was packed, chose a tim’s as surprisingly the queues were the shortest.

craned my neck to get a glimpse of montréal again - this time the site of expo 67, had plenty of time as i hit the island during rush hour. i was back into the 21st century as there were speed cameras, red light cameras and the sureté but this didn’t seem to bother anyone.

the 40 to the 401 to dark where i try once again to try to stay in town rather than out on the transcanada. dark at trenton which also had a women’s soccer tourney and once again no rooms, got the last one - a smoker - out by the 401 once again.