A confession and apology

Well - as some of you who know HBB may have already guessed, HBB wasn't on a road trip at all. For those of you who don't know HBB - I apologize for allowing you to be misled by my words, however, I have to say that while I might have misled you - I didn't actually lie in any of my blogs. Read them carefully again.

I'm not sure in which category LED and Sunny fit but I appreciate the comments and felt a wee bit bad - but I needed to do this - I apologize and I'll explain later.

Yes I did wake up late - I did face south - but I never said I did it in the cities (or towns) I mentioned. The weather reports and pictures were obtained from many hours of searching the internet. Do you know how hard it was to find seasonal appropriate pictures (especially in late winter) of these towns!




I was thinking of entitling this blog - The top 10 reasons to take a fantasy road trip. I probably learned more about these towns and know them better than if I had actually driven there. Not to justify my actions, but it took me about 2 hours each day to prepare each blog.


Ok - The confession and justification. HBB needed some time to himself. I was getting burnt out at work and wanted a week to myself. If you know me that is nearly impossible. Every day at school I get asked about 200 to 300 questions. I was tired and wanted to spend time with myself. I actually like me.


I could accomplish this by actually going on a trip and spending over a $1000 or I could not. But if I stayed home I knew I would get people phoning or emailing asking how I was etc. God love those people but I needed to get away from the world for a week.

I turned off my phone, never checked my emails, and only left my place for food and booze during the entire week. It was great. I haven't talked to anyone in 7 days - except for unavoidable "would you like fries with that" or "would you like extra cheese on that" when ordering food. I feel refreshed and ready for the final stretch at school beginning next week.

To emphasise my point - I now have about 40 emails to respond to, and close to 15 messages on my answering machine - most of which are from students who don't read my blog - and who obviously don't listen in class (triple exclamation point here)!!!

So what did HBB do during his hiatus from the real world? Well I lived in my fantasy world of course. I read several books, played a bit of online poker, watched a lot of TV, got my DVD's organized (mostly), played a bunch of WoW. Generally I spent a week being only accountable to my bladder and stomach. Such a sweet week it was!

OK - now for the top 10 reasons to take a fantasy road trip.

10. - You can save $200 a day.
09. - You don't need to get your oil changed every 7 days!
08. - Never miss your favourite TV show.
07. - Reservations are easy.
06. - No need to go through Buffalo or Detroit.
05. - You don't have to spend $10 in a laundromat.
04. - You can put an entire chocolate bar on your pillow each night.
03. - Time, distance and money are no problem.
02. - You can sleep in well past check-out time.
01. - You can do it while spending the day in your underwear!

Day Six of the Quest for Kingston

I must admit - HBB is getting bored. Almost time to come back to reality.

But first - where is it warmer than Kingston, Georgia (50 degrees today) and a Kingston that has a sufficient population for there to be a university? Where you ask!

Did I mention that Atlanta is only 30 minutes away from Kingston, Georgia and that Atlanta has a large international airport which has many direct flights south. South to Kingston, Jamaica man!

It was 85 degrees in Kingston, Jamaica Today. Nice! Perhaps this is where I should have gone all along.

Day Five of the Quest for Kingston

Got up late this morning - up too late the night before. Anyway - just a mere 2 hours south of Kingston, Tennessee is the real small town of Kingston Georgia - population 746! Do you think that a university is located here - or a motel? The good news is that Kingston, Georgia is only 10 minutes from Rome and 30 minutes from Atlanta.

I'm not a civil war buff so I don't get the historical significance of Kingston but in case your interested a train (called The General) was stolen - and that's all there is to this town.

But Rome - now that is a different story. As they say - Rome is where the heart is!

Day Four of the Quest for Kingston

Given the conditions yesterday, the idea of heading south was very appealing. The temperature in Kingston Tennessee was a beautiful 50 Degrees today - with no sign of snow.

Kingston, Tennessee is about 400 miles due south of Kingston, Ohio and amazingly enough about the same size in population - approximately 6000 people. The fact that there are motels available here and not in Kingston, Ohio is probably due to the close proximity of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park which is about 40 miles south east.

Kingston has two claims to fame - pretty good for a small town. The first and most boring is the coal fired plant which used to be the largest in the world when it was built in the 50's - the smokestacks are an impressive sight.








The second and most interesting is that it was the state capital for a single day in 1807. Why only a day you ask? Well apparently the white man promised the Cherokee nation that if the the Indians gave up their claims on the land in the surrounding area that Kingston would be made the capital city of Tennessee. The Indians did just that and true to the white man's word - Kingston was appointed the state capital - though just for the day. Seems the Indians didn't have a very good lawyer.


Kingston is (well it was when steam boats were in fashion) a port town - located on the Watts Bar Lake. Though it is a port town - no Queen's University is located here.

Day Three of the Quest for Kingston

Actually - there was too much snow and the driving conditions were brutal today - so - I decided to spend the entire day inside. Except for the forced trip to buy alcohol of course.

Maybe tomorrow I shall venture forth.

Stuck in the snow HBB

Day Two of the Quest for Kingston

I was up relatively early this morning and looked westward out of the window. I had a vision of the next Kingston - Kingston, Ohio. Located just 500 miles away from where I was - that's about 800km. Not that long of a drive though as most of it is on I-80 west. A person can make good time on the interstate.

Now Kingston, Ohio (if you can believe it), is smaller than Kingston, PA. A town of about 1000 people - obviously no university to be found here. In fact the town is so small they don't even have a place to stay. Luckily there is Comfort Inn in Circleville which is 10 minutes to the north.

Now the interesting thing is that Kingston, Ohio was originally known as Ingston. I don't know who that is but there is a street in town named 'K Ing' street. I guess they named it that before the unification of K with Ing.

Circleville is not much more interesting than Kingston - that is except for the town water tower. Tomorrow will be interesting as they are calling for about 3 inches of snow - today it was close to 50 degrees F.

Day One of the Quest for Kingston

A few weeks ago some of my students from the past enquired as to if and when I might be coming to visit them in Kingston. In response to their requests I thought about going on a road trip to Kingston.

Though I was up reasonably early this morning (considering it is March break), I ran into a few delays and didn’t get into my car until around 11am.

This is a picture of Kingston, (Kingston, Pennsylvania) as you drive in from the better known (and much bigger) town of Wilkes-Barre. It is a a small town a mere 700km from Alliston but most of it on the interstate. Though a nice town it is small and there are only a few options for dinner. Luckily Kingston does have Angelo’s Restaurant with the world famous special - One Pound Cheesesteak.

Though this is certainly Kingston, there is no Queen’s university to be had - thus no one I know. I guess this is the wrong Kingston. I think another Kingston is located to the west. Maybe tomorrow - now it is time for survivor, later a good book, then beddies.