Would you like to take a survey? - Part 9
Greetings and salutations, my faithful readers (that is, if anybody does actually read my blog...haven't gotten any comments in a while!) Well, this post is going to be a fairly long one, so you might as well settle in and make yourself comfortable :-)
First off, I wanted to mention an anecdote from our time last week in Lacolle, which I realized I forgot to put in my previous post! Last Tuesday (the 12th) was our day off while in Lacolle. A bunch of us decided to enjoy the afternoon by going to Parc Safari. As the name suggests, it's a safari-type drive-through theme park, similar to African Lion Safari in Cambridge (Ontario). Located in nearby Hemmingford, it was a quick 10-minute drive from our hotel in Lacolle. It was a lot of fun! Got to drive around and see a lot of exotic animals up close. A few of them - from zebras to camels to llamas to Ankole-Watussi buffaloes - made their own extremely close inspection of our van! They came right up to the windows! Made us all a bit nervous at times, especially our driver Diane! Fortunately, the animals were quite peaceful (they were probably just hoping we would give them some food!); our van managed to escape without a single scratch :-) Afterwards, we all went into the walking section of the park. Got to see lions, tigers, hyenas, Japanese macaques, chimpanzees and black bears, among others. The lion/tiger compound was pretty cool - we walked through a glass-domed concourse or walkway, where you can see them up close! One tiger was sitting comfortably right in front! We all got some great photos of that (I'll upload all my trip photos to a website sometime in November when I get home)! The macaques were also interesting - very cute and funny, especially the little baby ones! Overall, it was a great experience. We all had a lot of fun and enjoyed our little expedition very much.
Now then, on to Ontario. This week we were surveying the Thousand Islands Bridge border crossing - between Lansdowne, ON and Alexandria Bay, NY. The site itself is located on Hill Island, linked to Wellesley Island on the U.S. side. The scenery is just beautiful here! Very picturesque - indeed, I've taken quite a few great landscape shots while I've been out here. Gorgeous, inspiring views of the St. Lawrence River and the islands within. Fantastic cottage country.
The hotel we're staying in is a Days Inn. Located in nearby Brockville, it's about a 20-minute drive to and from the site. Not too bad here, though far from exceptional. My room was fine, but others in our group reported funky smells and imperfectly clean rooms. Indeed, poor Eric (my crew chief) found a used condom and a half-cooked slice of bacon in his room!!! Not impressed at all. However, the hotel does have a gym. I made it a point to work out there every day all week - each session lasted about half an hour to 45 minutes. I'm quite proud of myself for that, actually (I don't normally go to the gym) :-)
Working at the site itself was pretty normal. Surveys went well. My side was covering the southbound side going into the USA from Canada. Traffic volume was rather low until Sunday, when things picked up quite a bit. We managed to do 50+ surveys during our shifts on Sunday and Monday. That's very good for a border crossing (we usually average 30-40). Morever, it was made even better by the fact that we had an OPP officer on site with us at all times to flag and divert trucks into our survey lanes! Unlike in Québec, we were not allowed to direct traffic ourselves under Ontario law. We had a different constable every day. They were all very nice, friendly and helpful. We would laugh and joke around with them between trucks; very open and informal atmosphere. We would often collectively critique the driving abilities and navigational skills (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) of passersby. Having a cop at our service right there really made us feel safer and more at ease when dealing with difficult truckers. Indeed, truckers generally seemed much more willing to take the survey with them nearby! Granted, nearly all truckers we survey are quite helpful and cooperative regardless of police presence, but it was still a psychological booster for us surveyors.
I find I especially enjoy working and doing the surveys in Ontario. Aside from the fact that this is my home province, there are more English-speaking truckers - since English is my first language, I'm obviously more comfortable interacting with people in that language. Moreover, Ontario truckers seem to be exceptionally nice and friendly. Indeed, I would often find myself slipping into a Lanark County accent (officially, the Ottawa Valley Twang) when talking to truckers! For instance, in true Canadian fashion, I would punctuate my sentences with the word "eh" - our most glorious expression :-) Aside from being mildly amusing, it actually seemed to put a lot of truckers at ease - that they were talking to a "normal" guy, and not some arrogant teenager or stuck-up university grad ;-) Nevertheless, there were enough Quebec truckers coming through for me to keep my French sharp. Also, we wound up being lucky by not going out west - I saw on TV that southern Alberta and Saskatchewan were hit by a snowstorm this week! Upwards of 10-15 cm! Ouch.... Glad we aren't there in the middle of that!
Here's some more detailed anecdotes from the week:
Friday: I managed to break two of the crappy folding chairs during the shift. A new record for me :-) As a result, I decided to bite the bullet and buy my own, high-quality chair. Went to Canadian Tire and picked up a good one. 250-pound weight capacity, steel-reinforced. Basically, if I break this one, I'm just not meant to sit on folding chairs!
Saturday: We attempted to pull a great prank on Dan, the crew chief on the northbound side. Our OPP guy that day - Paul - was a great sport. We had him go over there and try to escort Dan into Customs, claiming that he was too close to the border (Dany recently married an American and is currently applying for US residency; however, until it's approved, he is forbidden from entering the USA). However, Dany figured it all out early on and we were foiled. Still, Dany was still a bit paranoid about future prank possibilities :-)
Sunday: Busy day. Both Eric and Josée (a fellow surveyor and team member) were gushing about how cute our OPP officer for the day was. On a personal note, my mother drove up to the hotel in the morning for a visit (Brockville is only about an hour's drive from Carleton Place). Had lunch in the hotel restaurant with Eric and Dan. It was very nice!
Monday: Our crew (me, Eric, Josée & Anne) left early to go visit the 1000 Islands SkyDeck. It's an observation tower located on Hill Island, right up the street from our survey site. Was pretty impressive. Spectacular view of the area from 150 m (400') up. Took lots of pictures. Afterwards, we relaxed by the nearby playground. However, we all made the mistake of taking a spin on the merry-go-round. Needless to say, we were all a bit dizzy and slightly nauseous for a while when our shift started!
Tuesday: Day off. I had to get up early (7:00 a.m.) to drive Dan down to the site to pick up and return the cargo van loaded with our survey equipment. Had a delicious, huge, high-calorie, high-carb, high-fat breakfast as a "reward" for my diligence: 2 scrambled eggs, pancakes, French toast, bacon, ham, sausage, home fries, toast, apple juice, and a cup of tea. I had a nice, prolonged nap back in my room after that! That evening, the whole group went over to Diane's parents' place (they live in the Brockville area) for a nice barbecue. Was a lot of fun - good times were had by all!
Tomorrow (or later today, if you want to get technical ;-), we're headed to Niagara Falls. Going to be surveying the border there for a week. I'm really looking forward to seeing the falls up close and in person! A lot of people have mentioned the idea of taking the Maid of the Mist tour boat ride on our day(s) off - hopefully that plan gets off the ground! If not, I'll just go by myself regardless. Should be fun! After that, we'll be Fort Erie for another week, I believe. Details will follow in my next post.
Until the next instalment, my friends!
First off, I wanted to mention an anecdote from our time last week in Lacolle, which I realized I forgot to put in my previous post! Last Tuesday (the 12th) was our day off while in Lacolle. A bunch of us decided to enjoy the afternoon by going to Parc Safari. As the name suggests, it's a safari-type drive-through theme park, similar to African Lion Safari in Cambridge (Ontario). Located in nearby Hemmingford, it was a quick 10-minute drive from our hotel in Lacolle. It was a lot of fun! Got to drive around and see a lot of exotic animals up close. A few of them - from zebras to camels to llamas to Ankole-Watussi buffaloes - made their own extremely close inspection of our van! They came right up to the windows! Made us all a bit nervous at times, especially our driver Diane! Fortunately, the animals were quite peaceful (they were probably just hoping we would give them some food!); our van managed to escape without a single scratch :-) Afterwards, we all went into the walking section of the park. Got to see lions, tigers, hyenas, Japanese macaques, chimpanzees and black bears, among others. The lion/tiger compound was pretty cool - we walked through a glass-domed concourse or walkway, where you can see them up close! One tiger was sitting comfortably right in front! We all got some great photos of that (I'll upload all my trip photos to a website sometime in November when I get home)! The macaques were also interesting - very cute and funny, especially the little baby ones! Overall, it was a great experience. We all had a lot of fun and enjoyed our little expedition very much.
Now then, on to Ontario. This week we were surveying the Thousand Islands Bridge border crossing - between Lansdowne, ON and Alexandria Bay, NY. The site itself is located on Hill Island, linked to Wellesley Island on the U.S. side. The scenery is just beautiful here! Very picturesque - indeed, I've taken quite a few great landscape shots while I've been out here. Gorgeous, inspiring views of the St. Lawrence River and the islands within. Fantastic cottage country.
The hotel we're staying in is a Days Inn. Located in nearby Brockville, it's about a 20-minute drive to and from the site. Not too bad here, though far from exceptional. My room was fine, but others in our group reported funky smells and imperfectly clean rooms. Indeed, poor Eric (my crew chief) found a used condom and a half-cooked slice of bacon in his room!!! Not impressed at all. However, the hotel does have a gym. I made it a point to work out there every day all week - each session lasted about half an hour to 45 minutes. I'm quite proud of myself for that, actually (I don't normally go to the gym) :-)
Working at the site itself was pretty normal. Surveys went well. My side was covering the southbound side going into the USA from Canada. Traffic volume was rather low until Sunday, when things picked up quite a bit. We managed to do 50+ surveys during our shifts on Sunday and Monday. That's very good for a border crossing (we usually average 30-40). Morever, it was made even better by the fact that we had an OPP officer on site with us at all times to flag and divert trucks into our survey lanes! Unlike in Québec, we were not allowed to direct traffic ourselves under Ontario law. We had a different constable every day. They were all very nice, friendly and helpful. We would laugh and joke around with them between trucks; very open and informal atmosphere. We would often collectively critique the driving abilities and navigational skills (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) of passersby. Having a cop at our service right there really made us feel safer and more at ease when dealing with difficult truckers. Indeed, truckers generally seemed much more willing to take the survey with them nearby! Granted, nearly all truckers we survey are quite helpful and cooperative regardless of police presence, but it was still a psychological booster for us surveyors.
I find I especially enjoy working and doing the surveys in Ontario. Aside from the fact that this is my home province, there are more English-speaking truckers - since English is my first language, I'm obviously more comfortable interacting with people in that language. Moreover, Ontario truckers seem to be exceptionally nice and friendly. Indeed, I would often find myself slipping into a Lanark County accent (officially, the Ottawa Valley Twang) when talking to truckers! For instance, in true Canadian fashion, I would punctuate my sentences with the word "eh" - our most glorious expression :-) Aside from being mildly amusing, it actually seemed to put a lot of truckers at ease - that they were talking to a "normal" guy, and not some arrogant teenager or stuck-up university grad ;-) Nevertheless, there were enough Quebec truckers coming through for me to keep my French sharp. Also, we wound up being lucky by not going out west - I saw on TV that southern Alberta and Saskatchewan were hit by a snowstorm this week! Upwards of 10-15 cm! Ouch.... Glad we aren't there in the middle of that!
Here's some more detailed anecdotes from the week:
Friday: I managed to break two of the crappy folding chairs during the shift. A new record for me :-) As a result, I decided to bite the bullet and buy my own, high-quality chair. Went to Canadian Tire and picked up a good one. 250-pound weight capacity, steel-reinforced. Basically, if I break this one, I'm just not meant to sit on folding chairs!
Saturday: We attempted to pull a great prank on Dan, the crew chief on the northbound side. Our OPP guy that day - Paul - was a great sport. We had him go over there and try to escort Dan into Customs, claiming that he was too close to the border (Dany recently married an American and is currently applying for US residency; however, until it's approved, he is forbidden from entering the USA). However, Dany figured it all out early on and we were foiled. Still, Dany was still a bit paranoid about future prank possibilities :-)
Sunday: Busy day. Both Eric and Josée (a fellow surveyor and team member) were gushing about how cute our OPP officer for the day was. On a personal note, my mother drove up to the hotel in the morning for a visit (Brockville is only about an hour's drive from Carleton Place). Had lunch in the hotel restaurant with Eric and Dan. It was very nice!
Monday: Our crew (me, Eric, Josée & Anne) left early to go visit the 1000 Islands SkyDeck. It's an observation tower located on Hill Island, right up the street from our survey site. Was pretty impressive. Spectacular view of the area from 150 m (400') up. Took lots of pictures. Afterwards, we relaxed by the nearby playground. However, we all made the mistake of taking a spin on the merry-go-round. Needless to say, we were all a bit dizzy and slightly nauseous for a while when our shift started!
Tuesday: Day off. I had to get up early (7:00 a.m.) to drive Dan down to the site to pick up and return the cargo van loaded with our survey equipment. Had a delicious, huge, high-calorie, high-carb, high-fat breakfast as a "reward" for my diligence: 2 scrambled eggs, pancakes, French toast, bacon, ham, sausage, home fries, toast, apple juice, and a cup of tea. I had a nice, prolonged nap back in my room after that! That evening, the whole group went over to Diane's parents' place (they live in the Brockville area) for a nice barbecue. Was a lot of fun - good times were had by all!
Tomorrow (or later today, if you want to get technical ;-), we're headed to Niagara Falls. Going to be surveying the border there for a week. I'm really looking forward to seeing the falls up close and in person! A lot of people have mentioned the idea of taking the Maid of the Mist tour boat ride on our day(s) off - hopefully that plan gets off the ground! If not, I'll just go by myself regardless. Should be fun! After that, we'll be Fort Erie for another week, I believe. Details will follow in my next post.
Until the next instalment, my friends!
posted by Blake @ 1:23 a.m.
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