used to be that you'd hit the road for adventure, but i hit the road this week and had no adventure. and that was fine with me. if you know me in what we call the real world, you know that i'm not such an adventurous guy. i find most of my thrills between the covers of a book. but let's not go there now...

the industrial-scientific culture that i call my own has made it safe for me - on one day - to jump on a speedyjet, blast off to buffalo, and drive up to mississauga ontario canada - and then on the next day drive back across lower ontario, michigan and indiana to this comfy room in northern illinois. safe. and only minimally inconvenient - the flight was half an hour late. i met no bandits, rescued no distressed damsels, faced no insurmountable physical obstacles. safe and sound.

but of course i didn't do all of these things. they were largely done for me and to me. i was driven to o'hare airport by my good brother jay. i was flown to buffalo by the corporate services of american airlines. i was picked up and driven to canada by my good brother leonard. and then yesterday leonard, all his worldly possessions, and i drove to joliet, illinois - from where my good brothers bill, rocco, and leonard drove me back up to mundelein. in all, i probably burned fewer calories than does my average trot around the carmel high school track. ah well.

randomosity:

wednesday morning time from mundelein to o'hare airport: 1 hour 25 minutes.

wait time at o'hare before departure: 2 hours.

airlines do not want non-english speaking japanese tourists sitting next to emergency exit doors. they will take whatever time is needed to rearrange your seats.

flight time from chicago to buffalo: 1 hour 10 minutes.

a canadian border guard might look like a pleasant young woman who only wants you to have a great time in her beautiful country, but... that, in fact, turns out to be just who she is. welcome to canada. enjoy your stay.

mississauga ontario is a huge new place just west of toronto. it reminds me of the far west side of joliet - on a much more massive scale.

watching a bit of canadian television made me feel as if i had slipped into a parallel universe. it was somewhat familiar but oddly off. all i found from the states was dan rather and an episode of "ed" - neither of which were very good. i found a few french-language stations...couldn't catch a word of it.

my good brother leo takes me out for a tiny tour and food. mississauga's lakefront at the mouth of the credit river is cool and spooky right where it leaps out into the bigness of lake ontario. people stroll around. newness of concrete and decorative planting.

drive time from mississauga to joliet: about 9 hours.

a united states border guard might look like several hours of stupid questions while the sniffer dogs sniff and agents unpack each of leonard's 59 boxes looking for drugs, bombs, canadian bacon, etc., but the conversation goes like this:

bg: country of birth?

us: u.s. ... u.s.

bg: what's in the truck?

len: my personal belongings. i'm moving back to the states.

bg: okay.

len: uh... wha... that's it? we can go?

bg: nods

len was kind of outraged. he had carefully labelled each box and listed its contents and estimated its value. he had all of the paperwork from his entry three years ago. he had his passport. he (and i) had worried over my lack of birth certificate. none of it mattered. but we were happy enough, of course. and it was great to be back in the u.s.a.

u-haul trucks should have cd players. instead, they have odometers that read 111757.7 and doors that vibrate wildly from side-mirror wind-resistance. but the a/c was fine...and with some encouragement the truck could handle 70mph.

the gary-hammond stretch of 80-94 needs to be nuked.

made it to the carmelites of joliet in time for diner. found myself in my old spot next to rocco. deja vu all over again.

I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?

Ralph Waldo Emerson