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Posts from the road

Road Trip to Trenton

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(Trenton, Ontario, Canada)

I recently had a day-long curling bonspiel in Belleville. I accidentally left some of my curling equipment behind, and made arrangements to pick it up the following weekend. It was on this skimpy premise that a spontaneous yet long-planned road trip took place.

Murray Canal at Carrying Place, Ontario

In the darkest days of the pandemic, the only real “travel” options were for essentials. This included food. We repeatedly made plans for a trip to Trenton, a town about 100km of Kingston. The purpose was to stock up on my favourite Dutch food products from the Trenton Delicatessen. But like many things during the pandemic, our trip was repeatedly postponed. And once travel started to happen again, I somehow was never in Trenton during their business hours. Or if I was nearby, I didn’t have the time to stop in.

Old-school tattoo parlour in Trenton

Finally, this weekend, I found myself in Belleville (18km from Trenton) with a full day ahead of me and no deadlines to meet!

Sam the Record Man, in Belleville’s Quinte Mall

We started off with a visit to the only remaining “Sam the Record Man” store in Canada. The flagship “Sam’s” location was on Yonge Street in Toronto, but the chain was everywhere…even Kingston had multiple locations. It now consists of just the one store in Belleville’s Quinte Mall. Nothing replaces my favourite record shop in Kingston, but it was still fun to check out this throwback from the past.

Thai Sushi in downtown Trenton

After picking up some (non-perishable) groceries, we made our way to Trenton for lunch. Sadly, our first choice (Korean) was closed for lunch on Saturdays. As were many of our other choices. We then saw a sign for the “Thai Sushi” restaurant, and figured we might as well give it a try. Ordinarily, I am wary of restaurants that “specialize” in completely different cuisines. And I am even more wary of restaurants that have an “all you can eat” focus. But it had been many hours since breakfast, and I ignored the yellow flags.

Part of our lunch at “Thai Sushi” in Trenton

I focused on trying some new dishes, and ended up enjoying the experience. It’s always good to try salads and soups on such occasions, as they sometimes get overlooked (especially with take-out). And it was clear that many of our selections from the more obscure parts of the menu were being made to order.

Trenton Deli (Trenton, Ontario)

Anyway, we *finally* made it to the Trenton Delicatessen with absolutely no residual hunger. We could focus on what we needed for the long haul. I had fun assembling my own mixed bag of Dutch licorice (“drop“), with a nice range of sweet and/or salty selections. I even picked up a few “Hopjes“: coffee candies from Den Haag (The Hague). I don’t drink coffee but I have a soft spot for these treats that were often in the kitchen cupboard at my parents’ house. I also bought a bag of honing drop (honey licorice).

Murray Canal (Carrying Place, Ontario)

Then it was time for the kaas (cheese)! They had some fun varieties of gouda (pronounced gow-da with a gutteral “g”…NOT goo-da!), such as black lemon. Yes, it’s jet black, and tastes like lemon! But in the end, I went for a couple of cheeses that I haven’t had in a very long time: maasdam and cantenaar. The maasdam is quite mild, but the cantenaar is like a very old gouda (albeit healthier) and wins the prize as my favourite for the day. Sadly, the cheese is now gone. I’ll have to make another return trip soon.

Lots of warnings at Northport, Ontario

We decided to drive home via the northern part of Prince Edward County. There aren’t too many communities here, but it was a nice change from the busy highway between Trenton and Belleville. After brief stops at Carrying Place and Northport (see photo at the very top of this post), we took the Bay of Quinte Skyway Bridge back to the mainland near Deseronto.

Harrowing construction work on the Bay of Quinte Skyway Bridge (as seen from Deseronto, Ontario)

What I had forgotten was that this very steep bridge was being “rehabilitated”. Maybe even worse: half of it was down to one lane. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t enjoy being parked near the top of a steep bridge waiting for the traffic from the other side to cross. And when the one open lane appears to be the only intact portion of the bridge…let’s just say that I was very glad to be done with the bridge part of our journey.

Market Simeon (Napanee, Ontario)

Our last stop of the day was in Napanee. I’ve featured pictures from Napanee on this blog before: here’s a post from 2015, and here’s one from 2020. As we had fresh cheese in the cooler, we couldn’t stay long this time. But we did stop in at “Market Simeon” on Napanee’s historic main street. And what did I find there? Snert!

Snert (also known as Erwtensoep) is another name for Dutch split pea soup. And I have to say that this version tasted just right. It had some very tasty sausage and correctly omitted garlic (which doesn’t belong in Dutch cooking). It was a nice finish to a mostly Dutch early spring day. All we were missing were the tulips!

Posts from the road

Quinte Road Trip

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(Belleville/Trenton/Picton, Ontario, Canada)

Going on a road trip for my birthday…it’s the kind of thing that I always took for granted. This year, however, the situation was just a little different. I first had to ask myself if this was the right thing to do.

Enchiladas Verdes (with Horchata), from Chilangos (Belleville, Ontario)

I compared the COVID-19 numbers for Kingston and my proposed Quinte region destinations of Belleville, Trenton, and Prince Edward County. There was very little, if any, active infection in any of those places. That was essential, because I wouldn’t want to be exporting or importing anything. After loading up on masks and beverages, we headed down Highway 2 to Belleville. Or was it Mexico, en route to the Netherlands?

Chilangos (Belleville, Ontario)

For lunch, we ate on the back patio of Chilangos, a Mexican restaurant that’s been open for a couple of years. Much to my delight, they now offered horchata. It’s a milky rice-based beverage with vanilla and cinnamon, and it’s really good when the weather is warm. It was the perfect accompaniment to my spicy enchiladas.

Trenton Delicatessen (Trenton, Ontario)

After some shopping in Belleville, we moved on to Trenton. Right now, the main attraction for me there is the Trenton Delicatessen. It is a treasure trove of European specialties…especially Dutch ones. I stocked up on kroketten, atjar tjampoer, interesting varieties of true Dutch gouda, and salty black licorice (dropjes), to name a few. Although I have never spent more than a couple of weeks at a time in the Netherlands, all of these foods remain special for me. Some were introduced to me as a child at home, while others I really got to know when visiting relatives across the sea.

View from the waterfront park in Wellington, Ontario

From Trenton, it is a very short drive to Prince Edward County…also known simply as “the County”. It is “almost” an island jutting out into Lake Ontario. While I remember it as a primarily agricultural area with a famous beach (the Sandbanks), it has really gentrified in recent years. It’s now filled with wineries, cideries, and B&Bs.

Wellington, Ontario

Wellington, in particular, seemed to be totally transformed. There were sprawling new homes on the outskirts, and signs for artisanal lemonade in the newly bustling downtown. We saw many cars with Quebec license plates, even though Wellington (see photo at the top of this post) is about 4 hours from the Quebec border. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I doubt that many visitors to the County lived more than an hour away.

Home of Crimson Cider (Picton, Ontario)

After leaving Wellington, I thought it would be cool to bring home some cider from the “County”. I had no plan; I just envisioned stopping at some quaint little cidery in the middle of nowhere. Sure enough, we found Crimson Cider just before arriving in Picton. I had never heard of it before but, after a quick outdoor tasting, we had a bottle to bring home.

Glenora, Ontario (taken from the Glenora Ferry)

Rather than rush home via the bridge at Deseronto, we decided to take the ferry from Glenora to Adolphustown. The ferry (it only takes about 10 minutes) is free, as it is considered part of the provincial highway system. After another 30 minutes of driving, we were home just in time for dinner. Overall, it wasn’t an epic trip. But I think we appreciated it far more than other pre-pandemic local trips. If the conditions are right, we hope to embark on another area road trip before too long.

Posts from the road

Another Unexpected Detour

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(Belleville, Ontario, Canada)

Today was another example of how you just have to roll with it when you are travelling.

As I had been itching to get out on the road again, we drove to the nearby city of Belleville.   Our “excuse” was that today was Record Store Day and the last remaining Sam The Record Man store is located in Belleville.  Record Store Day now receives a lot of mainstream press, so I don’t think I need to describe it in detail.  In brief:  it is a celebration of independent record stores and more specifically the vinyl record format.  Lots of unique and rare records are released on Record Store Day…and only to independent record stores.  You won’t find these records at big box stores.

Alas, none of Sam’s Record Store Day offerings appealed to me.  We headed downtown to grab some lunch (Thai House – very good) and to see if there was any music of interest at the nearby used CD/record store.  While their vinyl offerings were uninspiring, we stumbled upon a DVD entitled “Radio Revolution:  The Rise and Fall of the Big 8”.   This DVD chronicles the fascinating history of Windsor’s CKLW radio station…a history that I knew nothing about, as that station essentially died in 1984 and I didn’t get involved in radio for another couple of years.  If you have any interest whatsoever in the history of Canadian radio, you’ll enjoy this documentary.

I met my wife at CFRC (Queen’s University Radio) in the late 1980s.  My band first got airplay there and I was actually interviewed as a musician there before becoming a programmer.  Once I passed my broadcast test, CFRC became the place to hang out between classes…and pretty much any other time.  It had interesting people and a hundred thousand records – what more could you ask for?  While I didn’t spend quite as much time at the station after (finally) finishing my studies at Queen’s, I ended up broadcasting at CFRC for 17 years.  Many of our closest friends today first came into our lives at CFRC (including the guy who helped me set up this blog!).

This documentary vividly brought back the characters, the fun and even the technology of our radio days.  What a special opportunity we had – all this music, with almost complete freedom to play whatever we wanted and to do so with as much creativity as we could muster.  We met some famous musicians as well as many more not-so-famous musicians.  All of them had a soft spot for grassroots radio; in fact, many of them had worked at stations just like ours.   Whevener I meet a musician today, my radio station experience is invariably the common ground.

City Hall (Belleville, Ontario)
City Hall (Belleville, Ontario)

I had hoped to take some spring photos on the way back to Kingston but fate intervened again.  The “CHECK ENGINE” light appeared in our car and we thought it would be best to get back to Kingston without stopping.  Of course, I have no regrets – our earlier-than-expected arrival in Kingston allowed us to watch the radio documentary almost right away.

Physically, then, it was a trip to Belleville.  In reality, however, it turned out be a trip through my broadcasting past (via Windsor!)…and a reminder of just how important radio has been in my life.

Stay tuned for what will undoubtedly be some very exciting adventures as I fly on Tuesday (with a stopover in Vienna, Austria) to my next destination!