A couple of facebook groups/pages/whatever spam me from northern Ontario. Highways 17 and 11. As much as I hate being spammed, I am interested in their posts (to a point) although I do not (and will not) *follow* them.

It’s bad enough living in the Great Lake State and having to travel the I75 SUV Speedway to get to and from the yooperland in the winter especially when the Big Mac Bridge closes, which it has a LOT recently. I cannot imagine what it’s like to have to travel Ontario highways 17 and 11 in the winter. These highways are waaaay north and, well, winter isn’t over in northern Ontario. It isn’t over in the yooperland or even here on The Planet Ann Arbor although we are dry and even sorta warm today.

One thing I am particularly interested in is that folks in these groups often blame what they call “flip-flops” for crashes and such. I have sussed out that “flip-flops” are semi drivers (“transports” in Canananada) who have immigrated from I dunno Pakistan or India. Places that don’t often get snow. The implication being that they are driving in sandals. Um, probably not and if they are, they likely have a sturdy pair of snow boots in the cab. They have immigrated to Canada (I think) because they want to make their lives better. For what it’s worth, most of my recent ancestors immigrated to Canada. Difference? They came from Scotland and Ireland, etc., so we are white. I’ve known and worked with many brown-skinned people and I just don’t see that skin color makes a difference.

Are these new citizens being trained properly for snow driving? I dunno. If not, that’s mostly on the companies that hired them. Make no mistake, I have complicated feelings about this but flip-flops is a derogatory term and some of these folks are probably bad drivers but others will rise to the occasion and LEARN.

Even seasoned snow drivers occasionally encounter black ice or whatever and land in the ditch (or worse). I have, although the time I’m thinking of I only landed just off the median JUST outside of Sault Ste. Siberia. I came to a soft landing in deep snow and a state policeman aka my junior high geography teacher helped us get towed out and sent us the last couple miles on our way without any tickets or anything. I mean, we weren’t drunk (yet). I was rattled enough that night that I let my BFF Sam (archaeologist, not dog) drive us down to the Alpha for Bar Night. Bar Night is the night before Thanksgiving when all of the college students who are back in their hometown meet up. At least until they reach a certain age and have children of their own or just want to turn in early.

I am trying to duplicate a recipe I had around here for YEARS. I got it from My Dear Uncle Harry and I think the title was Ethiopian Beef Stew. It had apples in it and I *think* potatoes. I have tried numerous times over the last few years to find it with no luck. I am doing a “Morrocan” stew instead. It has beef and apples but not potatoes. I think it will be okay. I wish I had some couscous to cook with it but tonight rice will have to do.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2026 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.