East Coast Trip 2017 - Part 1
This is Part 1 of 2 of my trip to the east coast, taking place August 18-24 in Toronto, Halifax, and (not planned!) one night in Ottawa. This is the complete Canadian part of my trip.
The sunrise across the lake on Friday morning was quite lovely that I went outside and took pictures of it (which was uploaded to my recent August entry). At 11am, my father dropped me off at YVR. I checked in with Air Canada and after easy security, waited for my flight. At the nearby store, I bought a bottle of Cherry Coke and a package of Starburst gummies. As we boarded and before takeoff, I contemplated wanting to purchase and download a game for my phone. While I was still within the wifi zone, I decided to download the original Dragon Quest as I thought it would be a nice time-waster. It was a good thing I did too as the large plane Air Canada used was shitty. We departed after 1pm and I was cramped the entire flight. There was no outlet for my laptop, just a USB charger. I was ever so glad to be playing Dragon Quest and trying to survive the flight. Since I own the original game on my NES, playing this remake was easy and fun. I arrived in Toronto after 9pm EST as we were a little late at takeoff. Baggage claim took quite awhile to arrive and after I grabbed and exited the claim area, waited around the entrance for my host, slave Greg. Turns out he was there the entire time as I thought he would be taller. No big deal, he was kind of a handsome chub. We introduced each other and he took my luggage as we walked out the airport. We got to the UP train station and I purchased two one-way tickets for $12 each to Union Station. After about a half-hour train ride, we arrived at Union. It had a nice, early 20th century look to it but it was also going through renovations (pic above). Outside the station, we took a taxi to the hotel I was staying at, the Rex Hotel. The short cab ride showcased a MAJOR flaw with folks on the east coast, a theme that was common to a lot of people… bad and reckless driving habits! The taxi driver had a problem of speeding up in short lanes, only to hit his breaks when he needed to stop. WTF? Why not drive a slower speed more comfortably? Anyways, we were dropped off at the Rex. It was a small hotel, almost like a hostel, and the building has been around since the 1930’s. After checking in, we had to lug our bags upstairs as there was no elevator and find the room I choose was really small! I knew about the sharing of washrooms but I didn’t expect to be sharing with up to 10 other rooms! There is a medium size one with a shower, sink, and toilet plus a very small one with just a sink and toilet. I commented that if you are chubby, you probably couldn’t fit properly in the small one! Oh, and the free wifi… absolute shit! None of the two connections it had worked at all. Thank God that this wasn’t in the US as I probably would have used up all my roaming data! The bed was a double size mattress and the air conditioner worked okay. Beneath us and opposite the side of the main office was a jazz restaurant. I found later that they play until midnight but yeah, no sound proofing below us. I was hungry so we walked along Queen Street, going west quite a bit until we settled upon an A&W as most restaurants were closed. On the way, we noticed a lot of rowdy young people walking around and going to the bars and nightclubs. They were irritating to deal with that we wished they just shut the fuck up. At A&W, slave Greg wasn’t hungry and just wanted a regular root beer. I got a chubby chicken BLT, poutine, two chicken chipotle snack wraps, and a root beer to drink too. It was a good meal and we got to chatting for a bit, we walked back to the Rex and got ready for bed. After a little play time, we got some sleep.
As we were so tired, we slept in until about noon. My first order of business was to go to Northbound Leather as I had Daddy Eric’s vest (which was from there) and his Chicago Hellfire plus Inferno patches he wanted on. This is the same vest and patches he entrusted to me when we in SF. I called for an Uber and arrived about 1pm. I was texting Daddy Eric to let him know I was on the way. As I entered the store, one of the clerks says “…and he is coming through the entrance right now!” Turns out Daddy Eric was on the phone letting them know I was arriving. The most I could do was dropping everything off as the woman he wanted to work on it wouldn’t be back until next Wednesday. So I left the vest and patches in their care - mission accomplished. Within under an hour, I did some shopping. The selection of leather was quite good and there was some rubber too. I ended up buying a black rubber shirt and pants plus leather belt. About over $700 later… ouch ouch! There were some nice Muir caps. I liked this dark red one but it was a little too big. There was also a white one and it fit but I didn’t have anything in my collection for it to match. Too bad. We thanked the clerks and walked out. We were hungry so we walked a block west to the corner of Phipps St and tried a Taiwanese restaurant called Ramen Raijin. The food was pretty good. I had a black pepper beef with fried rice dish with small wonton soup while slave Greg had sweet and sour pork. I paid for us. We had to get back to the hotel to get ready for my Leatherdaddy Jim’s wedding. So we took an Uber back to the hotel and did a quick change. My father let me borrow a white shirt and red tie though I didn’t have dress pants or shoes so I stuck to my black jeans and brown work shoes. It didn’t look bad but obviously not as nice as it should be. slave Greg looked a little more presentable than me. I grabbed my camera and took an Uber to St. Luke’s United Church.
This was my first time meeting Daddy Jim after years of online correspondence and he was fucking woofy - especially dressed formally! His Irish soon-to-be legal husband, Matt, wasn’t bad either. After introducing myself to them and Jim’s family and friends (no one from Ireland came for Matt), we entered the sanctuary. The church seemed somewhat old but the stain glass windows were beautiful. Before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, I went around taking pictures of the stained glass. The ceremony began sometime after 3pm and throughout the whole thing, which lasted around half an hour, I took pictures as best I could as official photographer. It was a lovely ceremony and the piano player was a leatherman friend of Jim’s referred to as “Rocco”. After we were done, I took pictures of the newly wedded couple outside the church on the steps. There was a nice park across the street (called Allan Gardens) that would have been great to take pictures but Daddy Jim said that you have to pay for a permit from the city to take wedding pictures there (WTF???). After we were done, we crossed the street north where a school bus was waiting for us to take most of us to where the reception was taking place: the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 10.
We arrived very early so we socialized downstairs with Rocco and a (culturally) gay Jewish man named Dave for a couple hours in the bar. At 6pm we went upstairs to where the reception was being held. About over an hour later, dinner was served. There was roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots, and gravy. All of it was good and I had seconds. Dessert had a nice choice of edibles too. slave Greg had some good conversations about leather with Rocco throughout the night that they may meet up in the future for play! Daddy Jim and I texted each other a handful times throughout the reception. The DJ played some decent tunes and with a couple of speeches, there was plenty of dancing. I was getting to my prime so I bid farewell to Daddy Jim and Matt and we left about 10:30pm, taking an Uber back to the hotel. Our driver was of Pakistani origin and we had a great conversation together on the way back. We got to talking about NATO and he told us a joke he was given by his college teacher back in Pakistan (he had a degree in Engineering): NATO stands for No Action Talk Only. We thought it was so hilarious and so true! Anyways, we got back to the hotel, did some packing, and went to bed at midnight. We had problems sleeping that I only got a couple hours.
We got up at 4:15am and did the final packing before leaving the keycards in the room (as directed by staff). We took an Uber back to Union Station and found we were over 10 minutes early before it was open. We waited outside until the doors opened by security around 5:30am and we walked to the UP train station. I bought two tickets, thinking slave Greg was coming with me but he tells me he isn’t. So they cancelled my debit transaction and redo it for only one $12 ticket one-way to Pearson airport. The train was going to depart at 6am so we sat down and waited just before we had to separate. slave Greg was impressed with me and offered me free lodging the next time I ever visit the city and I said I may take him up on his offer (a leatherbear from Recon also offered it to me too!). We hugged and I boarded the train back to Pearson 5 minutes before departure. After the trip, I dropped my luggage and did security but during the wait for my flight to Halifax, there was a slight delay. I texted my host, letting him know I may be a little late. On the plane, I found in my row of three chairs that some old bitch had taken my assigned window seat. Either she didn’t know how to read the sign above or she did it on purpose. Ah well, I got the aisle seat then. Over a couple hours later, I touched down in Halifax’s Stanfield Airport. My hosts, slavechub Blake and his huscub originally from New York, Chris were waiting for me at baggage claim. Blake was a big handsome bear! After I got my luggage, they drove me back to their home in Dartmouth. Inside I met Blake’s mother and the family’s four dogs. I had samples of Knights patches that I handed to Blake as he had a patch making machine and software. My chapter needed some new large “K of M” Maltese crosses to be made up and a lot of “Lifetime Member” patches which haven’t been replenished since their creation in the 90's and is unique to our chapter (and we want to offer it to Seattle and Fresno chapters). Blake handed them to Chris and he got to work on scanning them into the system. After a small tour of the house and leaving my bags in Blake & Chris’ bedroom, Blake went to work making dinner. All together, we had chicken breast with BBQ sauce, potatoes, carrots, corn on the cob, and peas. Blake’s a good cook and was very delicious. We had McCain’s chocolate cake for dessert. After dinner, Blake took Chris and I to give me a quick tour around Halifax during and after sunset. We drove on Angus L. MacDonald Bridge and saw the shipyard in which Navel ships get serviced. We drove by Citadel Hill (which historically was a gay cruising spot! LOL!) But it was a little too dark to fully appreciate and we continued driving around downtown Halifax. We went home about half an hour later. Back at their house, we got ready for bed and I had to share the bed with Blake and Chris in the middle! Chris wouldn’t join us for quite awhile so Blake and I snuggled. I surprised him by taking out my flogger -the same one I bought at Dore Alley Fair- that I had packed and ran it around his body lightly. I started to lightly flog his balls and butt and he was turned on, wanting more and wanting it done harder. I wish I could but I didn’t want to alert his mother who was sleeping in the room next door. Still, he submitted to me and precummed, much to my delight. We went to bed shortly later but it was hard to sleep after Chris joined us in.
Monday morning I slept until near noon. Blake and I went out to do some grocery shopping as he was going to cook again as we will have a guest joining us. We first went to a meat store to pick up steaks and veggies. We next went to Sobey’s and Blake had me pick up a bag of frozen corn. Finally, we stopped at a shipping company to pick up 14 packages that are related to Blake’s balloon business that he has in the lower floor of his house. We returned home with Chris helping to take in the packages. Blake started making dinner and our guest -Rod Smith aka Paige Turner- came near 6pm. It was nice to see her again (though we saw each other briefly in October 2015 when she came for her 10th Ms. Gay Anniversary walk) so before and during dinner; we talked about current events, about what happened with fellow-Knight Paul, current state of the Knights, and about her life. She told me she got fired from her job at Costco as a product demonstrator on a false sexual harassment accusation and the complicated relationship between Costco and the company of the product she was demonstrating. The second job she got let her go because of the stain on her, sadly. She isn’t doing much drag in the gay community because she is so busy. She told me that she may visit Vancouver again soon and stay with a guy we know, Darshun Hall. Blake’s dinner was excellent again. This time it was steak, corn, potatoes, and asparagus. On top of that, he baked a chocolate cake with white icing for dessert too. After having our picture together (above), Paige left by 10pm. Shortly afterwards, Blake eventually went to bed while I noticed Chris playing Super Ghouls and Ghosts on his WiiU. He let me play a little myself. While he continued playing, we got into a long conversation about gaming in our lives. We went to bed about 1am. I snuggled and played with Blake, squeezing his balls and making him precum as he begged me to own him and have me do anything to him (in my mindset, within reason!). After some time, he got up to sleep on the couch as his back was painfully acting up.
I overslept until 1pm, which was something I didn’t plan to do. After I got up and dressed, I noticed Chris playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. After Blake was ready, we left the house to go to a nearby comic book shop. It had a good selection of action figures and figurines. Both Chris and I loved this Final Fantasy VII Remake “Red XIII” figure that I ended up buying it. We then did a couple of errands and I got a nice, scenic tour of things. I asked if they knew of any Japanese all-u-can-eat restaurants and they knew of one called Mizu in Dartmouth. So we went there and I loved the place! Lots of good selection but my only gripe was that they don’t have pan-fried gyoza (deep fried only) and no udon soups (just on a plate)! Still, I had a wonderful meal and I paid for all three of us. Blake was nice to let me check out a game shop called the Last Gamestore. I went in by myself while they waited in the van. I didn’t find much of interest but it was a nice store full of used games and consoles. They didn’t have any Turbo Grafx-16 and Duo games sadly. They had lots of NES consoles painted with different designs which was cool. Blake then drove us all the way to the popular tourist attraction, Peggy’s Cove. He waited in the van while Chris and I walked on the boulders. There were signs that told people to stay away from black rocks as people have been killed in those parts. It was getting close to sunset and I go some nice pictures. As we were leaving, we didn’t have time to stop off at any of the cute little shops around but we went to another part of the Cove where a memorial of people who were killed in the 1998 Swissair 111 flight was situated. After some final pictures, we left the Cove. Before we returned home, there was a quick stop at Shoppers Drug Mart for Chris to pick up Tylenol for Blake. We didn’t stay at the house for long before Blake and I went out again to pick up some fast food for his mom and himself. It was a quick stop at both McDonalds and Burger King and that was it. Back at home, Blake and the family had a trip planned for Toronto so they started packing throughout the evening. Chris returned the Knights patches to me and had the measurements taken. I had to contact our most (non-active) senior Knight, Lance Bergeron about the “Lifetime Member” patches but as of this writing, has yet to reply to me. Before going to bed, I watched Chris play some more Zelda: BOTW. I then had some final snuggle time with sexy Blake before he had to sleep on the couch again.
Wednesday would end up being the worst day of my trip. I got up after 8am and did some packing. I found it would be best to leave the figurine I purchased the day before plus the rubber I bought in Toronto and have Blake/Chris ship it to me with the samples of patches in the future. It saves me space and weight in my luggage. I said goodbye and thanked Blake’s mother before the rest of us headed out. Blake picked up Tim Horton’s on the way and they screwed up his order. He ordered a BLT sandwich with no mayo and to double the lettuce. He told this to the clerk three times! Chris went in to fix the problem. When Blake checked the sandwich, bacon was missing! Chris returned and got that problem fixed! Sigh… Blake then dropped Chris off at work which happens to be next door to CBC Halifax. After saying goodbye and driving off, Blake continued to the airport. We said our final goodbyes, hoping we see each other in Vancouver next year for Coronation as he is the current Emperor of Halifax. And we’ll get some real play time too! WOOF! After the usual drop off and security check, I bought a couple of Halifax/Nova Scotia shirts for myself and got some juice at Booster Juice for breakfast. There was a delay (the beginning of a bad domino effect…) in our Air Canada plane arriving 15 minutes late from the other airport so departure was 30 minutes late altogether. This wasn’t good given the transfer time in Ottawa wasn’t long enough and I don’t know what to expect when I arrive there. The flight was crappy, 2 hours of being cramped in. When we landed, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I quickly went to the United check in and I was too late to make the cut off. They had me go to Air Canada and asked if I wanted to fly to DC instead of Dulles in Virginia. I asked if they had another flight to Dulles that day and they said yes, United had a flight at 7:30pm. They transferred me to that one and United had my luggage rescued from Claims to be put on the next flight. I then returned to United and went through security and US Customs. The Customs official was a hot Daddybear: shaved head, tattooed arms, and trimmed beard! Sadly, he was a no-nonsense guy, trying to catch me off guard but I was prepared for him. He was nice to look at though. As I waited at the gate for the next 4 hours, I called the hotel that I would be a late check-in and they were fine with that. I called my host, Pat, and let him know I was coming in later that night. I ended up having a late lunch at Senate Chambers Bar/Café. I ordered a poutine and chicken fingers plus coke to drink. It was expensive but good. I returned to waiting for my flight. 7pm hits and… not seeing much of a lineup… 7:30pm hits and while there is a lineup, there is no plane so I thought it was delayed. Not long after, an announcement… the flight has been cancelled! WTF??? While the stewardess didn’t say the reason, people confirmed to me it was over “a flat tire”. Bullshit! So we were led out of the gate to grab our luggage and return to departures to get vouchers and be put up in a hotel. With only a few of the stewardesses around, it took an hour in line to be seen! I got these vouchers: 3 $13 meal vouchers, 2 taxi vouchers, and 1 hotel voucher. They wanted to put me on a flight to DC but I said I needed to go to Dulles as I had a hotel lined up there. She tells me the next Dulles flight is -you guessed it- 7:30pm the next night. She then tells me that I show take the morning flight to DC but to get a taxi voucher for free from them when I land and I can be driven to Dulles. I said I was fine with that and she put it on my account. I then left Ottawa airport and took a taxi to the Ramada Ottawa on the Rideau. I gave the front desk my voucher and I was given a floor room, outside. I called my father to let him know my progress. Before bedtime, I had pizza delivery from a place called Milano’s. It was Canadian and had a bottle of Pepsi too. I had a shower and went to bed.
I'll upload Part 2, the American side of my trip sometime soon.