Steam Trains & DeLoreans: BTTF 3!

On Canada Day 2012 I travelled through time. Right back to 1883. It was "the Coolest vehicle of the 1980s meets the coolest vehicle of the 1880s" in Tottenham, north of Toronto.

Our car club, which includes one Time Machine DeLorean, gathered at the South Simcoe Railway and rode the only functioning steam powered train in Ontario: Canadian Pacific engine 136. It is among a very small handful of steam trains still operational in Canada.

The boiler was warmed up the night before, and the engineer began stoking the fire around 6 a.m. Four hours later the DeLoreans began rolling in. We admired the engine, built in 1883, as crowds gathered around our cars beneath clouds of steam and smoke.

A sight to behold, everyone loved the combination of cars and trains. But a battle was brewing as the Time Machine silently faced off against the steam train. It was the power of the future vs. the power of the past, as Mr. Fusion's supreme efficiency taunted the coal-fed locomotive. Black tears rolled down the front of #136 as she pulled away from the station.

All this action really gave me a yearning to watch Back to the Future 3 again.

This hobby really is amazing. The people I've met are so interesting and fun. It's not just car-guys - the steam train is a perfect example of that. The South Simcoe Railway is run by volunteers who are doing essentially the exact same thing I am doing. They are preserving a piece of history, a piece of beautiful technology from the past. And they're doing it because they love it.

Sugar High At The Sugar Shack

Real Canadians grow beards in the winter, including the women. Real Canadians actually enjoy back-bacon. And real Canadians dip their maple sugar candy in real Canadian maple syrup.

That is how I indulged my sweet tooth on the weekend, prefering the extraordinary taste of maple syrup over Easter's more traditional eggs. Sure chocolate eggs are fine and dandy and can rot your teeth with the best, but sweet syrup, priced like a fine rare Cognac, was my sugar of choice.

Suz and I spent our holiday checking out a Canadian tradition: the sugar bush. When the sun starts hitting the ol' Maples in March, the sap starts flowing and the sugar shack starts a-boilin'.

Good ol' Quebec is by far the world's largest tooth-rotting culprit, producing approximately 7 million U.S. gallons per year. Vermont is the largest U.S. producer, making approximately 450,000 gallons per year, and making them much lower on Health Canada's Hit List.

But considering how little comes out of one stinkin' maple tree, even 1 gallon is impressive. We took a horsie wagon ride through the sugar bush until we reached the isolated sugar shack, where our tour included a demonstration on syrup being made, sampling of the sweet treat, and one enormous jackass claiming that Michigan was the world's largest producer of Maple Syrup. The experienced employee handled the situation well, insulting no-one in the process of informing the mistaken gentleman that he was incorrect. But to drive his incorrect point home, Mr. Wrong left by announcing loudly to everyone, "Google it".

Suz and I left shortly after, trodding back down the meandering path which lead to the horse-drawn wagons again. The entire forest was filled with tapped maples.

Our return trip destination was the log cabin lunch building called Ironwood, where we ate maple syrup sausages, pancakes, and apple pie followed by mugs of hot cider and maple syrup chasers. Afterwards, we blew our allowance at the General Store, buying up loads of maple sugar paraphernalia.

It was such an insane amount of sugar that, well, let's just say when I pee, it's thick and golden and smells like the true north strong and free.

Our Insight Passed Inspection

It's official! Our U.S.-spec Honda Insight has officially met Canadian safety standards according to Canadian officials, and our papers were stamped - officially! A round of Yays!

Saturday morning we brought our 2006 Insight avec CVT transmission to Canadian Tire for our Federal Inspection. We were very worried since some of the Canadian government's requirements were absolutely absurd, laughable, and contradictory to the Insight's entire design.

For example, the government required us to install a child seat safety-tether anchor. This requirement is ludicrous for exactly 2 reasons, the first of which is that the car already came from the manufacturer with one, and secondly, because it goes against all recommendations to put an infant in the front seat of a car with an airbag. Since the Insight is only a two-seater, common sense dictates that no child should ride in the Insight. Even the Honda manual states that no child under 12 should be riding in this car. Honda knows it's dangerous, yet the Canadian government, despite acknowledging the danger, still says it's okay, and even requires a tether anchor in place making it all the more easier, tempting even, for brainless mothers to strap in their unfortunate offspring.

What makes this tether anchor rule even more insane is that it only applies to non-convertible cars. Yes, that's right. We Canadians are allowed to endanger the life of our young 'uns in a convertible, but not in a roofed car. If this car were a convertible, it would not require the child seat safety-tether anchor. Babies everywhere are allowed to go flying out of crashing convertible Saab 9-3s, Mustangs and Sebrings, but must be strapped safely in place in all other cars.

But this is moot. The anchor was already in place. Which brings me to the second point of my worry: Quebec. Another requirement was to add or replace all Airbag stickers with French ones - but only if the airbags required periodic maintenance, by a French Airbag Technician. Thankfully our Insight did not need us to check the airbag lubrication or top up the pressurized inflation tanks every 6 months, and therefore did not require the sticker change. Whew.

Finally, we were worried about our headlights. After the lil' mini-fiasco we had last week with the Daytime Running Lights modification, we were not sure if we'd pass this portion of the test. However, we did, to our immense relief.

The Canadian Tire employees, like much of the world, were unfamiliar with hybrids and did not know that all hybrid cars are exempt from Emissions tests. After a short explanation of the car, they cancelled the E-test and knocked $35 off the price of the Federal Inspection.

Paperwork in order, Suz went to the Ministry of Transportation, happily forked over about $2,000 in PST, and slapped her new Ontario plates on the Insight. The forking over of the $2,000 would not seem like a happy moment to most people, but another unique Hybrid-rule comes into play which not many people know about. The Ontario goverment reimburses all PST paid on hybrid cars as an incentive to purchase them.

Amazing. After all the backwardsness and insanity that the goverment is famous for, it's encouraging to know they've done one thing that makes sense.