Tracks of the StoneBear Niagara RT Road Trip: 2011

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Just passing through The Station

This is my present station; just passin' through

Tracks of the StoneBear

You never drink twice from the same stream.

This will be the last post for a while. I won't be around here much longer, maybe just a few more walks around the sun before I get out of here. Heading back out to points unknown. That's the real gift. ... taking the days as they come and enjoying them.

The rationale for the StoneBeartracks website was to journal a few observations sent back home during a lifetime of searching and exploration.

Really, it's 'cause I've used up about 8 of my 9 lives; there have been several close calls and shouldn't even be here. ...And after a lifetime of burning the candle at both ends am pretty well worn out.

The greedy part of me wants to ask the Lord... I'm gonna need another lifetime to see all the great things here on earth. There are still so many things I want to see and learn about. The reality is I am thankful for this brief moment between the eternities. Over 40 years ago made the promise that I would serve, and not waste my time / life here,... and pretty well kept my word on that.

So I made the choice to leave the rat race to the rats and take a different path. Being thankful for the blessings to take this odyessy I enjoyed it enough to jot down some notes while traveling through. The question was asked about the ITW / MARNE and many previous journeys... "?What did you learn?"

Simple answer; I learn something new every day. The journeys are just learning in different places than the usual stomping grounds. ...can't answer the overall question in simple terms/ sentence.

This odyessy took the roads less travelled, and am most thankful for that priviledge. This brief walk between the eternities has allowed some pretty good views in some really neat places over the years.

In the places traveled, learned what it was that made that place ... what it was; from crossroads / staging areas for the pioneers forming up wagon trains to head west across the prarie... to the remote ghost towns. .... to vikings crossing the North Sea. Each had their own unique histories full of answers from the ?who , ?what, ?why, ?when... ect...

I learned new things... and often learned that my earlier studying / reading/ investigating/ searching/ .... often.... confirmed earlier conclusions. Every place is interesting.

Each day offered up the opportunity to to delve into the cities, towns, regions explored. Every place was interesting in it's own way; but what made it unique in its life is that what sustained its evolution to now.

The geography, their history, its historical evolution, the archaeology, anthropology, biology, quantum physics, geology, botany, astronomy, sociology, its business / capital formation, their religion, their ancestral heritage and values, ... and what made it evolve and survive to its present state? .... and at times died there At every place, I wanted to know.

... Often reminded that it was a gift for something as simple as eating a ham samich while sitting on the docks of a fishing village in Newfoundland, or on the bank of the Deschutes river, listening and watching the clear mountain stream water flow by-- on it's journey.

Like the river on it's journey... flows to where it's supposed to be; I'll wind up where I'm supposed to be also. ... I'm just passing through here.

?What did you learn? you just have to click on the archive links .... see what each days journal / place was like. This is the best way to explain these places.

?You want to see petroglyphs?.... or Medicine Wheel in Wyoming?... or Rocky Harbor, Newfoundland,.... click around here to see.

Thank you for all your prayers for safe travel. I'll post when I can from the road. 'til then... will be dancing for my tribe. StoneBeartracks

You never drink twice from the same stream.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Welland Canal 2 Thorold

Niagara Tracks of the StoneBear

You never drink twice from the same stream.

Niagara Tracks of the StoneBear

April 09

Ontario Province Canada

Welland Canal 1

Working in a shipyard as a teenager was one of the great learning experiences I cherish. Big ocean going ships are great! Not just in size... they are engineering at it's best. You put a high school kid in a shipyard for a couple years.... they can compete with college engineering degrees. No joke.

Up at Niagara... lake Erie ....has the falls on the Niagara river. Good for tourists. Let's go where the are no tourists... where Tracks of the StoneBear likes.

Ships can't pass on the river. On the Niagara pennesula ... almost 200 years ago, they started engineering this shipping canal. ... From Lake Erie to Lake Ontario,... and out onto the sea for international ports of the world. Everything,... every commodity, raw material that is shipped out of the industrial bastion around the great lakes.... comes through here. This is the slot.

I've always liked port towns. They were wide open social, dynamic phenomenom. There's always something going on in a port town.... the bad stuff too. It's not the small town mentality where the guys are sitting around at the seed and feed talking about if it's gonna rain. Shipping workers are hard, rugged guys.

There are 8 locks on this canal, this is #7 at Thorold, Ontario. This ship passing through was light, empty,... deadheading from emptying or to load up ahead and return or go on ahead. This ship clearing the #7 Lock is heading north onto Lake Ontario. I'd like to see the shipping manifest to see where it was headed; no telling. Northern direction would have gone up the St Laurence Seaway,... Through the Northumberland Straight, up around Cape Breton, and out into the North Sea past Newfoundland.

Was good to see this. Shipyard memories from 45 years back.

****

Now i've talked about this before.... T -bird has this uncanny knack of attracting "friends" that often turn out to be the beyond wierd locals. Today, it was the Welland Canal strangler; the guy that knew way too much about what was going on around this place.

I asked "?you worked on the canal here"?

No

"?You worked on the ships and shipyards here?"

No. I just know a lot of what goes on around here.

Ooooooo K, time to go.

T- bird... he;s already staked out where he's going to hide my body... you were talking with the Welland Canal strangler.

Niagara Tracks of the StoneBear

Niagara Tracks of the StoneBear

April 09

Ontario Province Canada

Welland Canal 1

Working in a shipyard as a teenager was one of the great learning experiences I cherish. Big ocean going ships are great! Not just in size... they are engineering at it's best. You put a high school kid in a shipyard for a couple years.... they can compete with college engineering degrees. No joke.

Up at Niagara... lake Erie ....has the falls on the Niagara river. Good for tourists. Let's go where the are no tourists... where Tracks of the StoneBear likes.

Ships can't pass on the river. On the Niagara pennesula ... almost 200 years ago, they started engineering this shipping canal. ... From Lake Erie to Lake Ontario,... and out onto the sea for international ports of the world. Everything,... every commodity, raw material that is shipped out of the industrial bastion around the great lakes.... comes through here. This is the slot.

I've always liked port towns. They were wide open social, dynamic phenomenom. There's always something going on in a port town.... the bad stuff too. It's not the small town mentality where the guys are sitting around at the seed and feed talking about if it's gonna rain. Shipping workers are hard, rugged guys.

There are 8 locks on this canal, this is #7 at Thorold, Ontario. This ship passing through was light, empty,... deadheading from emptying or to load up ahead and return or go on ahead. This ship clearing the #7 Lock is heading north onto Lake Ontario. I'd like to see the shipping manifest to see where it was headed; no telling. Northern direction would have gone up the St Laurence Seaway,... Through the Northumberland Straight, up around Cape Breton, and out into the North Sea past Newfoundland.

Was good to see this. Shipyard memories from 45 years back.

****

Now i've talked about this before.... T -bird has this uncanny knack of attracting "friends" that often turn out to be the beyond wierd locals. Today, it was the Welland Canal strangler; the guy that knew way too much about what was going on around this place.

I asked "?you worked on the canal here"?

No

"?You worked on the ships and shipyards here?"

No. I just know a lot of what goes on around here.

Ooooooo K, time to go.

T- bird... he;s already staked out where he's going to hide my body... you were talking with the Welland Canal strangler.

You never drink twice from the same stream.

Welland Canal 1

Niagara Tracks of the StoneBear

You never drink twice from the same stream.

April 09

Ontario Province Canada

Welland Canal 1

Working in a shipyard as a teenager was one of the great learning experiences I cherish. Big ocean going ships are great! Not just in size... they are engineering at it's best. You put a high school kid in a shipyard for a couple years.... they can compete with college engineering degrees. No joke.

Up at Niagara... lake Erie ....has the falls on the Niagara river. Good for tourists. Let's go where the are no tourists... where Tracks of the StoneBear likes.

Ships can't pass on the river. On the Niagara pennesula ... almost 200 years ago, they started engineering this shipping canal. ... From Lake Erie to Lake Ontario,... and out onto the sea for international ports of the world. Everything,... every commodity, raw material that is shipped out of the industrial bastion around the great lakes.... comes through here. This is the slot.

I've always liked port towns. They were wide open social, dynamic phenomenom. There's always something going on in a port town.... the bad stuff too. It's not the small town mentality where the guys are sitting around at the seed and feed talking about if it's gonna rain. Shipping workers are hard, rugged guys.

There are 8 locks on this canal, this is #7 at Thorold, Ontario. This ship passing through was light, empty,... deadheading from emptying or to load up ahead and return or go on ahead. This ship clearing the #7 Lock is heading north onto Lake Ontario. I'd like to see the shipping manifest to see where it was headed; no telling. Northern direction would have gone up the St Laurence Seaway,... Through the Northumberland Straight, up around Cape Breton, and out into the North Sea past Newfoundland.

Was good to see this. Shipyard memories from 45 years back.

You never drink twice from the same stream.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

BUF to BHM

Under construction