The Travelling Cue Ball

After leaving Washington, it was an overnight stop in Philadelphia before heading up to New York. The main reason behind the return trip to New York was for New York Comic Con. Like the convention in San Diego, New York Comic Con caters to all things pop culture. Unlike San Diego, New York concentrates more on comics rather than the big movies and television shows. I was hoping to pick up a couple of sketches but most, if not all, were way out of my price range and budget. It was good to get an idea of cost so there’s always next time. One of the best moments for me was on Day 1. While lining up to get into the main floor, comic great Stan Lee (creator of Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men etc.) decided ... read more

Well here I am sitting in a coffee shop on the Upper West Side nursing a hangover and headache. Let’s get the Boston update up and out there. After making my way to the airport I had to run the Oh so familiar gauntlet at Canadian/USA border customs. I faced the usual questions - “What are you doing here?”, “Where are you from?”, “What do you do for work?”, “Are you currently employed?” etc. etc. The flight out to Boston was delayed by two hours due to some strange flight restrictions imposed by authorities in Boston. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t get off the plane so we were stuck on the tarmac until take off. Fortunately for me there was a wide selection of movies so I kicked back and enjoyed my free coffee and peanuts. ... read more

Wow two updates within a couple of days ... either you guys are very lucky or I've got some spare time up my sleeve. So here we go with the Saskatoon update. After weeks of living in dorms and talking to perfect strangers, it felt great to be heading back over to Saskatoon for some R & R with some old pals. Rich and Cei-Cei were nice enough to provide me with a comfy bed to sleep in for a couple of days - something my back really needed after all these months of lugging a duffel bag around. I may be stubborn but I refuse to travel with a stroller bag. I find there is nothing masculine about running for a bus or train with a stroller bag. The evening of Day 1 saw us ... read more

If I learn anything from this road trip, then it would be to book my hostel accommodation in advance … well not too far in advance. Some may call it tardiness but I prefer to call it “travel flexibility”. In the end I got stuck with a bunk in the Downtowner Inn. Despite the excellent looking exterior this stink-hole ticked all the boxes for dodgy accommodation - flame retardant mattresses (they must rent beds to pyromaniacs in the off season), filthy floors, shoddy exposed electrics that would make Mike Holmes have an epileptic fit, bunk beds built out of plastic straws and don’t forget the bugs. My travel motto has always been “It’s just a place to sleep, so I’m not fazed.” I think my motto is now “It’s just a place to sleep, so I’m ... read more

Well it’s raining in Toronto so I guess I’ve got time to add another update. Okay let’s see … Seattle was my last city in the US for the month of August with September 1st marking the start of the Canadian leg of my overseas road trip. Before leaving town I was able to chat with Paul who was in San Francisco. He actually texted me sometime in the early morning but I was getting my beauty sleep of course. Poor guy had a stretch of bad luck with his QANTAS flight back to Sydney. Seems there was a “contained explosion” in one of the engines which forced the pilot(s) to dump some fuel and return back to San Francisco. After hearing his story I was hoping that all of my future flights would be incident ... read more