Thursday, June 9, 2011

Good friend Maclean and I went to Ottawa last weekend to present our wares at the New Art Show that took place in a lovely little park in the Glebe. We rented a van, packed it with art and hit the road. Now, being of Cape Breton lineage, it is quite natural to head east in warm weather and I have many a fond memory of vacations down east. When I was a kid,  my family didn't eat out alot, so a road trip brought the chance to stop off the highway once in a while and sit in a restaurant and order off a menu.

Now up and down Highway 401 there are shiny new rest stops that are now called ONroute. A very clever name with the abbreviation for Ontario front and center. The first one that I stopped at was near London back in January. Nice. Then on this trip we stopped at one just outside of Bowmanville. Nice. Exactly as nice as the one near London. And then there was the one near Gananoque on the return trip. Exactly as nice as every other Onroute. This made me sad.  A great  thing about road trips is the milestones that stick in your memory and let you look further down the road for what you remember on the last go by. Seeing the olympic Stadium in Montreal, the giant Potato near the great St. John River. But what is the point in marking your progress with something that is exactly the same as something  you saw a few hours ago? I bet they are saving a bit of money by making sure that whenever we go into one of these rest stops, I can find the Tim's without even looking up from my Blackberry. This would probably be very handy for all the blind people who are driviing down the road, too. Although I'm not blind, I might venture a guess that the visual impaired don't mind a little variety, too.