Monthly Archives: October 2023

Pickup Trucks

02 Monday Oct 2023

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Or “What’s The Point Of Them?”

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of pickup trucks. Much of my animosity has been derived from my fellow Airstreamers, or most of them at least, who are implacably opposed to towing their Travel Trailers with anything else. Of course, I don’t tow our Airstream with a pickup truck. The arguments are long and tedious and essentially boil down to “I want a truck because they’re big and manly, and I’ll use my towing requirement to justify the spending of huge amounts of money that are required to buy one”.

But am I right? If you look at the concept of the truck, a rugged utility vehicle capable of carrying loads in the bed, then there’s definitely a market. If your business is towing goose-necked trailers, hauling freight, or dirty and odd sized equipment, then the pickup is for you. It’s a workhorse, and usually a capable one, albeit that the basic technology is pretty ancient.

The problem is that the modern truck has become a status symbol. The engines are huge, the wheels are huge and the radiator grille is huge. They sit so high off the ground, too. Certainly they have all Mod. Cons. these days, as is demanded by the consumer, but for all that they’re still just a utility vehicle. A very heavy, un-sprung body on twisty steel ladder frame, with live axle leaf spring suspension, isn’t the best format for a modern vehicle capable of some quite high speeds. But it is, apparently, what the punter wants. The thing is, people buy these gas-guzzlers for their status value primarily and will never, ever, use it for its intended purpose, that is, hauling stuff. They will use it to tow their $150K Airstream when it really isn’t a great match for such a smart trailer, but they will also use it for their daily commute, to go shopping, even to go on holiday. What they won’t use it for is, God forbid, putting messy and heavy stuff in the bed.

A pickup is really bad at driving, too. It’s heavy on gas, has too high a Centre of Gravity to be safe, has ancient body on frame technology, and rubbish suspension. Why are they so popular then? Well, it’s all about having a big one. Vehicle that is. The owners sit up high, and feel all manly and powerful, usually entirely unaware of what dreadful vehicles they are really driving. Is it true that the size of a man’s vehicle is inversely proportional to the size of their wedding tackle? I wouldn’t know, but it’s a fair old theory.

Here’s a proper Airstream tow vehicle…

North Shore, Lake Erie

01 Sunday Oct 2023

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Or “We’re Really Luck To Live Here”

We live not far from the north shore of Lake Erie, in Ontario, Canada.

We haven’t always lived here, or indeed in Canada, and that is perhaps what helps us appreciate what a lovely place it is to live. Certainly it’s not exciting, there are no high mountains (or even hills!), or deep valleys, but it is bucolic, and pleasantly so.

We drove along the old Talbot Trail for a while, one of those ruler straight roads built by the settlers to allow both access to land, and to get from Lake Ontario to Windsor and Detroit. Because it’s been superseded by the 401 freeway, it’s a very quiet road and you can drive for ages without seeing another vehicle, and yet it’s wide and well surfaced. We use it in preference to the freeway if we’re not in a hurry, and it’s to be recommended for easing your blood pressure. The road links some of the old farming communities; Blenheim, Guilds, Morpeth, Palmyra, Eagle, and Wallacetown, to name but a few. It was in Wallacetown that we took a dive south and followed Fingal Line for a few miles, and that it is even quieter than the Talbot Trail. It also has a few dips and turns as it negotiates some of the valleys scored into the soft land that’s close to the lake, to give some nice relief from the flat and straight of the land further west.

All along this lake-side, east-west route, is intensively farmed land, with Corn and Soy Beans stretching as far as the eye can see. At the westerly end of Talbot Trail, there are far fewer trees and far larger fields, but that vista gives way to more trees and smaller fields as you move eastwards. Because it’s an old road, it’s lined with many mature trees, some native to the area, some not, but as this trip was on the last day of September, most were beginning to turn for winter, with yellow, red and brown showing up in among the green. It may not be as spectacular as Algonquin, but in this more gentle countryside it looked fabulous on a sun-drenched day.

The roadside ditches are filled with Asters, Goldenrod, and Sumac, with the remnant of Milkweed still around after their summer bloom. Despite the heavily farmed fields, it seems that the native plants are not going away, and that pleases me.

Of course all that I have described is the post-Contact world, tamed by generations of European settlers. Pre-Contact, the entire area would have been wooded, mostly Carolinian Forest along the lake’s edge, and populated with native people. They had their own routes to travel, of course, naturally made and never using a ruler on a map. It would be wrong of me not to acknowledge that, and of the treaties broken by successive groups of incomers that took the land from its native population, broken by the people who drew those straight lines and cleared the forests. We can’t go back, but we can accept that we Europeans are recent interlopers and really do not own the land, despite what the maps say. It’s fitting to note that we drove this trip on September 30th, National Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, and did acknowledge our presence on stolen land.