Tag Archives: tourists

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Fibbing Friday #293

Last week, Pensitivity101 wanted to know our definitions for these, please.

1. What is a running stitch?

It’s the sharp pain I get in my side, when I chase the ice-cream truck down the street.

2. What is the collywobbles?

It’s a Jell-O/gelatin salad with cauliflower embedded in it.

3. What is a tea caddy?

He’s the butler who follows rich golfers around, on ritzy, expensive, exclusive country-club golf courses, and serves petit fours and cucumber sandwiches at the ninth hole turn.

4. What is a stick of words?

It lies somewhere between a protest sign, and a cudgel.

5. What is a flash drive?

It’s the new sport that’s replacing streaking, where a friend transports you, standing to attention – au naturel – through the club district, in the bed of his pickup truck.

6. What is a precipice?

The leading cause of death at the Grand Canyon, is guys urinating over the edge.

7. What is a toupee?

An alcoholic Frenchman

8. What is a robin?

The price of eggs these days – chickens are getting paid in crypto-currency.

9. What is linex?

A no longer popular type of kitchen/bathroom flooring

10. What is a brazier?

That’s what a classy redneck calls an over-shoulder-boulder-holder.

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’24 A To Z Challenge – G

No matter where you go – There you are!

I’d have published this post earlier, but my Procrastinators Anonymous meeting started late.  😮

Johnny Cash sang, I’ve Been Everywhere.  I/we never had the time or money to be everywhere, but I’ve been to a number of interesting places.  Before I retired, I went with my brother, and swam in the ocean at Tampa, Key West, and Daytona Beach.  I took the wife, and swam at Myrtle Beach, and Charleston.  I told a Canadian Snowbird that I’d visited Myrtle Beach, and he asked me if I was into golf or tattoos.  Every third store on the main drag sells either golf equipment, tattoos, or printed tee-shirts – often about either golf or tattoos.

I’ve said that I had to retire, just to have the time to drive the wife and I, and daughter, to all our medical appointments.  Take last week – Please!  Monday I went to the hospital for a bone density scan.  Tuesday, the wife and I went to our Osteopath.  Wednesday was only a trip to a big mall, so that the wife could purchase a newer, better, smarter, more powerful, cell phone.  She had it for three days before she lost it!  😦  We got it back, but I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on her.

Thursday, I took the daughter and wife to their podiatrist.  Friday I drove the daughter and her little dog 15 miles to our veterinarian.  On Saturday, we went to a local German Club to celebrate the wife’s brother’s 80th birthday – a reminder that mine is looming on the horizon.  Sunday was a trip to the downtown park to get Ethiopian food at the Multicultural Festival.

This ‘getting old’ is not for the faint of heart.  I have learned to

GALLIVANT

  1. to wander about, seeking pleasure or diversion; gad.
  2. to go about frivolously and publicly with multiple romantic partners.

This week looks to be just as busy.   We have a chiropractor appointment.  I get a quiet afternoon while the wife gallivants for coffee with her ex-co-worker girlfriend.  We take the daughter with us for our monthly Costco restocking jaunt, and the wife and I hit several stores, including a pet store, for things Costco doesn’t carry.

Next week includes a trip back to a Toronto hospital for a final checkup on the wife’s last year’s abdominal surgery.  The first time, I made the mistake of driving.  We quickly got smart, and subsequent trips were by commuter train.  Easy-Peasy!  A 90-minute train ride to Union Station, and a 5 minute cab ride to the hospital.

On our second trip, we got back to the rail depot, carefully read the electronic schedule, and got on a train listed to go home to “Kitchener.”  Fifteen miles in the wrong direction, a comment made the conductor inform us that we were on the wrong train, despite what the schedule had said.  It wasn’t just us.  Another rider insisted that he too wanted to get to Kitchener, and a third said that he’d seen the same thing occur the week before.  Travelling without purpose – this is where the Gallivanting kicks in.

I’m still hoping to work in a trip to the metro-Toronto IKEA store for an exciting tour of their food court, but we’ve been so busy, we haven’t even had time to do a McDonalds drive-thru.  How about you??  Have you been able to gallivant??  😕

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Quora Challenge – Death

DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO HAS KILLED SOMEONE?

Sadly, yes!  Not police or Armed Forces.  Back in the bad old days when drinking and driving was a National Sport, in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, bar-crawlers near me didn’t foul their own nest.  If they wanted to get drunk and obnoxious, and make fools of themselves, they did it in another town, so that their wives and neighbors didn’t know about it.  😉

My uncle and a friend drove 25 miles north.  That’s where they met my soon-to-be Father, back from the War, and introduced him to my Mother, so that I could come to be.  Another local man drove to a town 25 miles south each Saturday night.

The road out to the highway used to end at a T-intersection, but with increased traffic, the Department Of Highways had installed a curved, merge-ramp.  Early one Sunday morning, three – or four – or five – sheets to the wind, he came screaming around that bend.  He sideswiped a carload of tourists, pushing them across the road, through a shallow ditch, and into a tree.

Before seatbelts or airbags, he killed the Father/driver, two young, loose, kids in the backseat, and badly smashed up the passenger/mother.  He got a fine, a suspended sentence, and a talking-to from the judge.  He owned a furniture store, and also ran the funeral home.  The dark joke was that he was drumming up customers.

Properties on our edge of town tended to be large.  My Mother bought an acre of land with her house.  A block away, another couple owned a large piece.  Their daughter grew up, and decided to marry a self-employed plumber.  They severed a house-lot at the corner of their land, and he had a house built, literally a walk through the garden to his in-laws.

Somehow, he also managed to kill someone with his work-truck.  He also escaped jail, but had a HUGE civil judgement against him.  It would have guaranteed that he and his wife would have lived in poverty for the rest of their lives.  Every dollar he made would have been seized to pay the debt

Back before there were laws to prevent it, suddenly, She owned everything.  The house and property were in her name.  The truck was in her name.  The tools were in her name.  The supplies were in her name, and he was a dollar-a-year employee, for tax purposes.  He had to be a good little boy husband from then on, because she had him right by the short and curlies wallet.

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Scriptural Humor

It cannot be found in the scriptures, but one story has it that upon his resurrection, the Lord appeared to a certain fisherman.

“I am Jesus – My death has saved all who do or will believe, and I am returned to show the Father’s love and power.“

“No, you’re not Jesus, so bug off, you’re scaring all the fish,” answered the old fisherman.

“I see thou are full of doubt. What would thou have me do to show who I am?“ replied the Christ.

“Walk across the river,” he tells Jesus.

So Jesus starts walking across the river. Next thing, he sinks and disappears under the water. After he swims back to shore, the old man says to him, “There you are, see, you’re not Jesus, you can’t walk across water!“

Jesus responds, “Well, I used to be able to do it until I got these darned holes in my feet!“

***

I remembered to spring forward….
….but I think I pulled a muscle, doing it.

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A group of Americans were touring Ireland.  One woman in the group was constantly grumbling: The bus seats are uncomfortable. The food is terrible. It’s too hot. It’s too cold. The accommodations are awful.

The group reached the site of the famous Blarney Stone. “Kissing the Blarney Stone brings good luck all your life,” the guide explained. “Unfortunately, it’s being cleaned today, so no one can kiss it. Maybe we can return tomorrow.”

“We can’t be here tomorrow,” the cantankerous woman snapped. “We have another dull tour to attend. So, I guess we can’t kiss that silly stone.”

“Well,” the guide replied, “it’s said that if you kiss someone who has kissed the stone, you’ll receive the same good fortune.”

“I suppose you’ve kissed the stone,” the woman scoffed.

“No, ma’am,” the exasperated guide responded, “but I’ve sat on it.”

***

I caught my great-grandson chewing electrical cords, so I had to ground him.  He’s doing better currently though, and conducting himself better.

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Everything happens for a reason.
Sometimes the reason is that you’re stupid, and make bad decisions.

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Instead of a swear jar, I have a negativity jar.
Every time I have pessimistic thoughts, I put a dollar in.
It’s currently half empty…

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Off The Straight And Narrow

The wife has been missing fried catfish and biscuits at Cracker Barrel restaurants.  Between COVID and finances, we haven’t been to the Excited States for over five years.  On our Ohio trip to rescue John Erickson from terminal ennui, I scheduled a stop at a Cracker Barrel in Erie PA, at approximately the halfway point, for lunch and a butt-break.

Enjoying one of these little scones is like biting into a tasty, buttery cloud.  We ordered a dozen to take with us, but our waitress only brought two more free ones in a to-go bag.  In the entire trip down, I didn’t make a wrong turn or get lost once…. Unless you count the little kerfuffle/confusion as we arrived.

With ten rescue cats in the house, and as many feral ones begging for food and water at the back door, our hosts’ kitchen is somewhat overwhelmed with bags of kitty litter, sacks of dry kibble, cases of cans of cat food, feeding dishes, and water bowls.  It is not set up to cook food, or provide eating area for guests.  We dined out each evening.

They drove out to meet us, and suggested that we join them at a McDonalds, one exit up the highway.  I misunderstood, and drove right past them to our motel.  No Problem!  They quickly followed us, and the first night we ate at an Arby’s that was unanimously agreed to be a better choice than the Golden Arches.

The next evening, she navigated us to a Mexican restaurant in the big city (? 11,000) named Fiesta Tlaquepaque.  My eyeballs crossed, and my tongue got whiplash.  Bing, Google Translate, and dictionary.com all insist that the name/word is Spanish.  It is used by a certain group of people who speak Spanish – mostly Mexicans.  It is Nahuatl, an Aztec word, which means ‘flowered walkway’ – like a bower – with a tiled floor.

The third night, we drove them down to a Cracker Barrel in Cambridge, Ohio.  John doesn’t remember ever being to one.  He loved the filling, inexpensive, home-style food, and was entranced by the tourist-trap retail maze with clothing, toys, candy, games, jams and jellies, which must be navigated, both coming and going.

I wanted to claim that we didn’t go anywhere, or do anything, but that we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.  I mean, they don’t exactly reside in a cultural center.  The closest thing to a tourist attraction would be the biggest pile of manure, outside the State capital, or the longest Amish beard.

The first afternoon, John’s wife drove my wife to a large fabric/sewing/ knitting warehouse, while John showed me all his WW I/WW II rifles, bayonets and swords, which he has used in historical re-enactments.  I retaliated by showing him some of my excess knives,  and a catalogue of coins and bills of the world.

The next day, she took the wife and I out for a cliff-clinging, nail-biting drive in the country, which ended at an Amish general store.  Their book section included two books about the Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky.  The little ‘Understanding Islam’ book got tossed on the We Can’t Sell It – A Buck Apiece table.

I scheduled our visit for a Monday and Tuesday.  The nearby craft brewery where I hoped to buy some artisanal beer, is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.  If we ever elect to do this again – and we’re being strongly propositioned – John assures me that there are several other such breweries within driving distance, which he can send me links to.

Including one serious got lost, on the way home, we traveled 1795 Km/1122 miles, and spent about $210 Canadian, on gas.  We all enjoyed ourselves, and got to know each other much better, and I got four blog-posts out of it.  Thanx for coming along for the ride.  😀

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Crystal Clear Comedy

  • Theme parks can snap a crystal clear picture of you on a roller coaster going 70 mph, but bank cameras can’t get a clear shot of a robber standing still.
    Dear paranoid people who check behind their shower curtains for murderers… if you do find one, what’s your plan?
  • The more I get to know people, the more I realize why Noah only let animals on the boat.
  • Facial recognition software can pick a person out of a crowd but the vending machine at work can’t recognize a dollar bill with a bent corner.
  • When all this pandemic stuff is over, I still plan to wear a mask. It hides the perpetual look of annoyance I have for most people.
  • I never make the same mistake twice. I do it like, five or six times, you know, to make sure.
  • Someone just honked to get me out of my parking space faster, so now I just have to sit here until both of us are dead.
  • My train of thought derailed. There were no survivors.
  • If you see someone buying candy, popcorn and a soda at the movies, they are a drug dealer. There’s no other explanation for that type of income.
  • I know it’s time to clean out my purse when my car assumes it’s an extra passenger who isn’t wearing a seat belt.
  • Dr. Oz says rubbing coffee grounds on your naked body will get rid of cellulite. Apparently you can’t do this in Starbucks. And now the cops are here…
  • Do not vaccinate health care workers first. If it fails, we’re all in trouble. Vaccinate the politicians first. If we lose a few of them, it won’t matter.
  • In the 1960s I fell off my bike and hurt my knee. I’m telling you this now because we didn’t have social media then.
  • Dear Sneeze: If you’re going to happen, happen. Don’t just put a stupid look on my face and then leave.
  • I still have a full deck, I just shuffle slower
  • We all know Albert Einstein was a genius, but his brother Frank was a monster.

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Mary Clancy went to Father O’Grady after his Sunday morning service in tears. He said, “So what’s bothering you, dear?” Mary said, “Oh, Father, I have terrible news. My husband Edgar passed away.” Father O’Grady consoled her, “Oh, Mary. That’s terrible! Did he have a last request?” “Aye, that he did, Father.” “What did he say, Mary?” “He said, ‘Please, Mary! Put down that gun!’”

***

A barber ran from his shop to where a policeman was standing. “Officer, I need your help. A guy just skipped out of my barber shop without paying!” The officer asked, “What’s he look like? Any distinguishing features?” The barber replied, “Well, he’s missing his left ear!”

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An American took a guided tour of an old castle. Before the tour started, she told the guide, “I’m afraid of ghosts. There aren’t ghosts here, are there?” The guide answered, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve never seen a ghost in all the time I’ve been here.” “And how long is that?” “About three hundred years.”

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A widower fell in love with a widow and all their children agreed they should get married. They sent out this invitation: “Phil, Richard, Karen, Allison, John, Matt and Steve request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their mother and father, Marion Johnson Smith and Robert Hanson. Because they are combining their two households, they already have two of everything, so: Please, no presents! Reception and garage sale immediately following the ceremony.”

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I Back This Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 frolicked far and free, to ferret out these foreign terms.  They’re all Greek to me – so I’m keeping my back to the wall.

  1. Novalunosis

This is a condition sometimes suffered by American tourists in Britain.  Used to homes and buildings with 7 and 8 foot doorways, they rent a Hobbit Hut of an Airbnb cottage.  The first time they head to the loo in the dark, they smack their forehead on the low clearance, and see all those rainbows and stars and moons that cartoon characters see.

2.  Wundervei

This is a word/phrase often heard from my German immigrant neighbour.  He married a controlling bitch assertive feminist Canadian bride.  Meine Frau says that I may not play golf – watch World Cup – play meine accordion – on Sunday.  I wundervei.

3.  Eramnesia

What is the term for the condition that the hapless tourist in question one gets, when he smacks his head into a stone wall, and then has a loss ofi memory?  Er, amnesia!!

4.  Witnessoja

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, doesn’t just happen to people like mugging victims.  It happened to me, because I was close enough to see what happened, and got a good look at the perp.  When his case came up, I was subpoenaed.  I don’t even know the victim, but I must want to be a good guy, and do my civic duty, ‘cuz this $24.75 daily witness fee ain’t cuttin’ it.  $24.75??!  😕  What genius bureaucrat dreamed that amount up??  It doesn’t even cover my parking.

5.  Sundreesorro

I tried to convince the wife to become a nudist.  Every time she buys a new dress, my bank account thinks that I adopted another family in Thailand.  $229 for a dress??!  If only it stopped there.  I’d like to say that I’m nickel and dimed to death on the sundries – but this isn’t dimes.
You’ll need a new pair of matching shoes – and a belt, to set it off.  A belt??  It doesn’t even have belt-loops!  And a nice brooch, and some ear-rings…. and perhaps an ivory hair-comb, to hold your coif.  Coif??! – cough, cough!!  How many zeros on that receipt??

6.  Livilence

Livilence is the working to ensure that you enjoy your existence to the maximum.  Don’t be glum, chum.  Don’t take life too seriously; none of us get out of it alive.  I have bad days – or weeks – but I don’t want to always be the bug.  I want to be the windscreen, as long as someone else gets to clean it.

7.  Seatherny

This is the official medical term for hemorrhoids.  The wife’s pet name for me is Himorrhoid, because she says that I’m a constant pain in her butt.  I’m lucky she doesn’t call me an ASSteroid.

8.  Drizzlosis

In America, they say that the Mississippi River is too fast to walk on, too thick to drink, and too thin to plow.  The British have the same kind of problem with their persistent weather.  It tried to rain, but it mist.  The entire country is so chronically damp that you can hear mushrooms grow.  In America, moss grows on the north side of trees.  In England, moss never sees the sun long enough to know where North is, so it wraps completely around trees, like a May-Day sash.  Washington State sends its condolences – and some sponges.  When If the clouds ever part, Brits are confused and frightened.  What is that strange yellow, glowing orb in the sky??  My Grandfather told me that he saw one, a long time ago.  😎

9.  Zirgwè

Zirgwè is the official currency of Zimbabwe.  There are thirty-seven and a fifteenth ffsnargs in a Zirgwè – which, in real money – isn’t!!

  1. Teresaurum

It’s a glass box, like one you would keep fish in, only you can add sand and perhaps some pebbles and make a miniature Zen garden.  Mine has some Singing Sand that we stole liberated from a beach in Myrtle Beach.  A true teresaurum is when you xeriscape it by adding some vegetation that thrives with very little water, and put a small pet bearded lizard in.

Just because all you lovely people are such great followers and readers, here’s a bonus.

What three books have made the greatest impression on you, and why??
Men Are From Mars – Women Are From Venus, A tale Of Two Cities, and Fifty Shades Of Gray….until I was gaining speed, duckin’ and weavin’ – ‘cuz the wife can’t throw that far, that accurately.  😉

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Challenge: When Was The Last Time You Did Something New?

As I (slowly and painfully) approach 79, I thought that I was pretty much finished with “new things.”  Life had other ideas.

I recently tore a tendon in my left shoulder – probably shovelling snow.  I’ve never done that before.
I recently broke a rib – while sitting in my easy chair. I’ve never done that before.
I took the wife to the big, St. Mike’s, downtown hospital in Toronto, first for an endoscopic test, later for a pre-admission appointment, and finally for a difficult endoscopic surgery.  I’ve never done that before.

If I thought that traffic problems on the North-side bypass highway were bad, I ain’t seen nothin’ like the strangely-named, lake-hugging ‘Expressway’ I needed, to reach the hospital.  About the same volume of traffic, but with two or three fewer lanes to carry it in each direction.

It was a gigantic parking lot, sluggishly flowing along like a huge glacier, at barely better than a brisk walking pace – cars and trucks cutting others off, and drivers darting from lane to lane, frantically trying to gain a little space, and time.  I’m surprised that the reported rate of road rage and homicide isn’t higher.  I could see the hospital from the road, but the overhead electronic sign said that estimated arrival time at my exit was still 17 minutes.

That’s where the map program told me to drive six blocks north, and turn left onto Queen Street, where the hospital was located.  When I reached Queen, street signs said that left turns were prohibited.  Instantly, we were lost in a maze of narrow, crowded, one-way, no-turns-allowed, downtown streets, and were half an hour late eventually reaching the hospital.

This entire trip, especially the ‘Expressway’ portion, is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart, and not one that I cared to repeat.  The next “New” thing that the wife and I are going to do, is ride a train.  We have both ridden trains, but that was over half a century ago, shortly after steam engines gave way to diesels.

What will be “New” about it, will be the fact that it will be on a Commuter Train.  Every workday, tens – perhaps hundreds – of thousands of people commute hundreds of miles, from all over Southern Ontario, by means of 12 different rail-routes to go to work in the Big Smoke, using a system called GO-Trains.

The wife and I will use the Kitchener-to-Union Station, Toronto, portion of one of them.  Our Osteopath tried to convince us to use the regular Via Rail service.  ‘There’s more foot and leg room, and the seats are larger and more comfortable.’  And the difference in ticket costs for a one-way, one-passenger ride is, VIA – $89 vs. GO-Train Seniors’ price – $9.  Six trips, times $80/trip savings, totals $480!  For almost $500, I’d ride in a sardine can.  I was born at night – just not LAST night.  Take the GO train – cheap, simple and easy – no fuss, no muss, no expensive gas, no getting lost, no driving stress, no outrageous parking fees.

Assuming that all goes well – and since the best GI endo surgeon in the world, is performing the operation, in the best GI hospital suite in Canada, there’s no reason to assume otherwise – the next ‘New’ thing that the wife and I will try, as a celebration, is to drive to the more-easily and safely reached IKEA store on the near side of Toronto.

We’ll do the tourist thing and people-watch, and have the Swedish meatball lunch, perhaps with a Carlsberg Dark beer, and maybe some lingonberry jam.

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’22 A To Z Challenge – Q

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small-town policemen, especially Police Chiefs, come and go with disturbing frequency – often one short step ahead of ‘Resign or be prosecuted.’

With manpower shortages immediately after WW II, my idyllic little town of 1800 – plus an abutting Indian reservation – had one policeman – 24/7/365.  By default, he was the Chief.  Even Sherriff Andy, of even smaller Mayberry, had Deputy Barney Fife.  It worked during the off-season, but with 10,000 tourists in July/Aug, the town soon had three officers.

Police chiefs came, and police chiefs went.  Their tenure averaged about 3 years.  The longest term was an older gentleman who bought a home, rather than renting.  He served just over 8 years, and retired in tourist heaven.

Finally, we got Chief

QUESNELL

That’s originally a French name meaning from the oak, or oak trees.  The French pronounce it like keh-nell.  He, and the Anglophone town, pronounced it queh-nell.

The summer tourist influx was now closer to 20,000, often street-smart, big-city residents.  Even the chief pulled weekend, and night patrols.  My brother was one of several unpaid volunteers for Ride-alongs.  He received minimal training, no equipment, and no authority, but two people stepping out of a cruiser can quickly change the dynamics of a tense situation.

The brother had been a snowmobiler for a few years.  The tread on a snowmobile can take a lot of wear, depending on where you ride it.  One year, just as he was pushing his machine into his storage shed in the spring, the tread snapped.

In late August, he was thinking ahead, and mentioned to the chief that money was tight, but it seemed that he would have to buy and install a new tread if he wanted to ride.  The chief replied, “What you could do is, when it gets cold and snows, don’t go out for the first couple of weeks or a month.  Then you could contact your insurance company and allege that you hit a rock or log, make an accident claim, and get them to pay for it.

The brother didn’t think that he wanted to chance that, but mentioned the conversation to our Dad.  “Why would he tell me that I should do that?”  Dad explained that this was like entrapment.  He didn’t say that you should.  He merely said that you could!  He was testing you.  This is a moral judgement.  If you’d gone ahead, he wouldn’t have trusted you – at all – especially to patrol with.

Brother said, “If he’s that sneaky and devious, and doesn’t trust me, I don’t trust him.  I’m not going to patrol with him any more.  By Canadian Thanksgiving, in early October, he was gone, and the town had yet another new police chief.  👿

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Book Review #27

Through no fault of my own, I managed to read another book which is older than me.  It is over four decades older, though to categorize it as a book, is perhaps generous.  It was only 68 pages, a couple of them being photos from a trip.  It is said to be the first English-language book produced in this German-speaking town.  I did not acquire it just to tick off a reading challenge sector.

The book:  A Canadian’s Travels In Egypt

The author:  Ward H. Bowlby K.C.

The review:  If you Googled ‘Vanity Press,’ there would be a picture of this ego trip about an Egyptian trip.  A local historian publishes a weekly newspaper column.  He mentioned that he had a pdf file of a carefully-scanned 1902 original.  He would forward a copy to anyone who asked – so I asked.

Ward Bowlby was a big noise here in then-Berlin, Ontario, at the end of the 19th century.  He had attended Ontario Law College in Toronto, being first in his class each year.  He came from a well-to-do family.  Besides generous fees, paid by other local captains of industry, he owned a large timber/lumber company during a significant period of city growth.

In the winter of 1898/99, he felt that he had earned a little vacation.  This was not your average on-the-cheap tourist-class jaunt.  Ward, and 8 of his family and friends, took a four month getaway from a cold, Canadian winter, including two months on a Nile houseboat.

They went by train from Berlin to New York City, and boarded a steamer.  Over 11 days, they visited Gibraltar, Pompeii, and Naples.  Then they transferred to an Italian steamer for a trip to Alexandria.  After eight days in Cairo, which included a visit by the two men in the party to an ‘Arab music hall,’ where they were suitably scandalized by half-naked belly-dancers, they chartered a Nile tour-boat.

They got as far upstream as Aswan (Assouan), and then returned, visiting village markets, Luxor tombs, the Sphinx, and the Great Pyramids.  Bowlby kept a daily diary of the Egyptian portion, later turning it into a published travelogue.  After Egypt, the party spent 10 days in ‘The Holy Land’ – Palestine, long before the (re)creation of Israel.  Sadly, Bowlby kept no notes about that segment of the trip.

He had 56 copies printed, and bound with leather with gilt lettering.  He autographed each copy, and gave them to people he wanted to impress.  I don’t know how common these travelogues were at that time.  This one has the feel of the quiet bombast of, This is something that I could afford to do, and you can’t.  The K. C. behind his name, above, indicates, not merely a lawyer, but King’s Counsel.  He suffixed each autograph with ‘Esq.’

The manuscript itself was as tedious as the year-end newsletter you might receive from any bragging almost-friend.  The basic story though, was like watching the Hercule Poirot movie, Death On The Nile, an interesting historical glimpse into the period actions of some monied Canadians.