200 Years

There is a lot of ads on the TV and radio about the war between Canada and the USA back in 1812. Wow, that was 200 years ago and our borders are still fairly open. I don’t normally write about political stuff and your wondering what this blog is about – we still are in our RV, enjoying all that both our lands offer. You can read more on the war of 1812 here.

When John & Di were down, Di gave Barb a newspaper article about the ‘Patchwork of our Past’. It is a Barn Quilt Trail that was created to tell a story of the events during the War of 1812 from a woman’s point of view. Barb & I still try to set one day aside each week to tour our area in search of wondrous scenes or adventures that are in abundance around our lands. So, Barb went online and downloaded more information into her Kindle and we set off to find and tour this Barn Quilt Trail in our area.

Click here to view that  web site for this trail. Each Barn Quilt has a narrative that explains the Quilt. We decided to do this trail by area and started on the area closest to us – Brant County.

Here are some of the pictures of this art. We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed finding them.

 

 

Thursday was the monthly Escapee Chapter 18 luncheon  held at the Manchuria Garden in London, a Chinese buffet. Lots of camaraderie and of course food. We ate with John & Di, Jack & Barb & Ray & Donna – I’m sure you remember those names. Anyway, Barb had to get a wheel barrow to get me out to the truck as everyone there held me down and forced me to eat too much! I had arranged for truck service – I could go on another tirade here and moan about the goofyness of getting an E test on our diesel engine since all they do is observe the exhaust for 5 minutes while the engine is running and then ding me $39.00 but I won’t. While we waited for the truck service, we met up with Ron & Vicki – long time friends,

Vicki was Barb’s neighbor before we married. We had an  enjoyable couple of hours visiting. Back on the road home and we decided to take the ‘scenic route’ and what do we find? More Barn Quilts! What a neat surprise.

These are not part of the war of 1812 story but interesting just the same and their story can be read here.

This weekend is the Civic Holiday here in Canada and the park will be full again. We try to keep our heads down and don’t do much as the ‘worker bees’ get out on the roads for a holiday. But there was a huge garage sale event in St George on Saturday and we had to go and try to find more rocking chairs for me to cane. I’m sure we hit almost every street in this small community in search but none were found. Garage sales are the ultimate in recycling, moving your junk to someone else so later they can put it in their garage sale!

With that pearl, I will let the dust settle on this posting. Hope all is well out there…..

Company’s Coming

Quick, hide, they’re coming! Ahhh, we can’t. They have come to join us here for some chit chat, a few brewskies and maybe some laughs. That is John & Di, Ray & Donna (aka crusty) and Jack & Barb, fellow RVers that enjoy getting together. John managed to reserve 3 sites side by each and after they roll in, we all exchange grand hellos and hugs. Barb & I leave them to set up and await under the awning. When John & Di pulled in, we could see something hanging down below the trailer that didn’t look normal – we’ll get to that later.

 

All set up and the catch up begins – we haven’t  seen Jack & Barb since the Escapee Escapade at Goshen in 2010 and Ray & Donna last fall. You can review last years antics here. So we had a lot to talk about, a lot to laugh at and good times all around. Conversations were carried on through dinner and soon the dominos were broken out for an evening of Mexican Train for 8! Playing 8, the game can move quickly but the scores can get high quickly but the fun and laughs are often.

We all have our own ‘normal’ morning routines  but we soon collect at Jack & Barb’s – they have a ‘Patty O Room’ enclosure which helps to keep the bugs away – for a coffee enhanced with Baily’s! After a couple of cups, that kinda reduces your desire to do to much else but we get the bikes down and load everyone up for a tour around the campground. It’s not too big a ride, maybe 3 Kms if you do all the  roads but we get back to our camp sites all ready for another beverage.

 

It’s time to investigate what is hanging down on John & Di’s trailer – holy crap John, it’s nothing too serious, it’s just half a leaf spring – the helper springs have completely disappeared! The front axle only has the spring set attached to the front shackle, the rear half is gone so not too much holding that axle in place – one good bump and….. So a plan is set – we’ll take off the broken parts tomorrow and the guys will head off and get a new leaf spring and replace it. It should be an easy job once we get the old set off – what’s that saying? ‘It’s never easy’!

It was Mexican Train each night after a dinner. Thanks to Jack & Barb for setting up their screen room so we could play out doors at night.

 

 

Today is fix it day. The first challenge is to get the old hardware off the trailer. We had blocks of wood everywhere, several jacks and a little guy to go under the trailer – yea Jack! The going was a little slow getting the old nuts loose and pounding the bolt plate off etc. Jack & John did all the heavy lifting while the ladies, Ray & I sat in the shade keeping an eye on the hard workers. By 10:30, all the old stuff was off and we were in the truck heading to the local RV shop to find a new leaf spring. No luck there except they did tell us where there was a parts distributor that does retail. We tried Princess Auto first but no luck again so off to the other guy. By now we have been out a couple of hours but John & Di didn’t want to stay for the rest of the summer so we had to carry on and get the parts.   

Back at the site now and it shouldn’t take long to put the new spring in. There I go again, nothing is easy right? We had to take the rear tire off to equalize the rear spring and give us more room to get the new spring in. All bolted into the shackles but we can’t get the ‘U’ bolts to line up – oops, we were trying to use the wrong bolt holes – now it should be easy! Damn, we still can’t get the spring to set correctly on the axle! Holy shackle batman, we mounted it upside down! The shackle bracket has to be up, not down. Off comes the stuff again so we can flip the shackle bracket up and now it all fits together almost like we knew what the hell we were doing! Wow, put all this stuff away and bring on some beers!

We had our dinners together and tonight Jack & Barb hosted a fish fry after we completed repairs on John & Di’s trailer. They brought approx. 130 perch filets that they caught over a couple of days of fishing last week. They tasted great and we all had a big feed. Wow, thanks Jack & Barb.

 

The visit ends all too soon – I’m sure we could have found other problems on our other trailers to work on! Oh, we did. Donna was telling us her hot water had a terrible smell. Dianne came up with some bleach so, using the pump and the winterizing hose, we pumped bleach into the hot water tank to sanitize it. Now, I think next visit, we’ll have a list of items that we need done!

So, Friday morning our buds are hitching up and heading home. Barb & I host a ‘hitch up’ breakfast, not because we are nice, we just wanted to be sure they didn’t have a delay in leaving LOL :0)! Kidding of course. Our life is back to normal once again, Barb’s sewing centre set up and I get to get at some of our own trailer projects.

Wishing you well out there….

Golf - Finally

After spending a terrific week with Ann & Bill in the Finger Lakes District of Western New York, we headed back to our camp site in Canada with a detour to Terri and Mark’s cabin. They arranged with the farmer at the end of their road that we could drop our rig in the barn yard for the weekend. When we arrived, Dan & Diane came out separately to greet us and invite the four of us to their corn roast and bonfire on Saturday. We were soon packed and on our way to the cabin (less than 2 Kms away) to wait for Terri and Mark to arrive. Barb had dinner preparing in the slow cooker and the beer was getting cold.

We had a nice laid back weekend which is different when with Terri & Mark. Usually, there is a project to be done but this time, we wandered through a antique flea market looking for more chairs for me to cane but found nothing that was not over priced. We also stopped at an estate sale. Wow, I can’t believe what we saw. There was plenty of black mold lurking in the corners of this home with lots of water damage in one corner of the house. The carpets were grimy and looked thread bare in places. It is almost a crime what conditions some seniors have to live in!

We decided on a round of golf at the course on the ski hill – Holiday Valley. We had a great time regardless of our score. Barb & I have not played since we met Jim & Lydia at Wanne Lake in Georgia in the spring of 2011 (you can catch up on those fun times here)! But, this is where our ‘expectations rule’ comes into play, if you have a lower expectation then you always have a good time! It is a challenging course and playing with Terri & Mark was fun. After, we had dinner in the club house pub – ahhh, more cold beer.

On Sunday, we had coffee and muffins out on the front patio area, the sun was warming and it was great. We had a rousing game of Bocce Ball. We left early in order to get back to our camp site and be set up and ready for friends John & Di and their cronies. All 3 couples are arriving with their rigs on Monday and we are hosting dinner. We had plans to see some sights and do some bike riding but were advised not to plan anything, easy for us.   Anyway, we had an easy border crossing again – it will catch up to us, they can’t all be this easy, it’s their job to make it uneasy. The drive was uneventful thank goodness and we got back home and set up in time to watch the end of The Open. I think every golfer out there felt sadden for Adam Scott. It was really tough luck but Ernie Els is an excellent champion too.

This is a short post to be ready for the ‘gang’ arriving tomorrow. I hope all is good out there where you are.

Another Adventure

We arrived back at our campground from our visit with Dick & Marcia by mid day on Thursday and whew, we are whooped! We had plans to get our linen cupboard doors in the bathroom completed for our trip next week but neither one if us  could move out of our easy chairs!

The doors had louvers in them and were a pain for Barb to clean so she wanted them changed to something more functional and less upkeep. We took out the louvers and routed the backs so a Plexiglas panel could be set in. We then bought the decorator bamboo printed film to cover the Plexiglas . We also had to install some trim to cover the slots that the louvers left behind so Friday we were off to shop for all the bits and pieces to finish this project for departure on Monday. So, a little stain, then some varnish, cut some miters, tack and glue and we’re ready to lay the Plexiglas . We decided that it would be easier to apply the film before we place the Plexiglas into the door opening. Now add the new hinges and voila, new linen cabinet doors!

Monday, we head on down to the Finger Lakes District in western New York to visit friends Ann & Bill. We arrived mid  afternoon on Monday and checked into our campground. The site they assigned us had a large pine tree at the back of the site that would not allow us to back in all the way – unless we use the back of the rig to push a few limbs out of the way – not an option. Anyway, we moved to an adjacent site and once set up, we try to locate the TV satellite. This is our first time since converting to HD so we’re interested on how easy or difficult to it’s going to be. Well, it seems to be more difficult, it took us an hour to set it up and get TV service, we’re hoping it will improve with more experience. Finally we’re ready to meet up with Bill and Ann and went out to dinner at the North Shore Grill on the north end of Lake Conesus. We had to wait so Bill suggested I try a new beer that is brewed locally and it was great! Finally a table is available so there we are, on the patio, overlooking the lake and watching the boating world go by. Life is good, we had good food, cold beer and great company – it can’t get any better than this.

Tuesday, Ann & Bill had a busy day planned for us. Because we enjoy waterfalls, we went to Letchworth State Park which is known as the Grand Canyon of the East. We started out at the overlook of the dam. Poor Ann & Bill were surprised to see the very low water levels and were nervous that this trip was not going to be as they expected. The water was so low that they were digging out river silt at the bottom of the flood side of the dam and moving it up stream – not sure why since it will end up at the bottom of the dam again. The picture  here shows the dam in normal operation with water flowing over it – wow, what a difference to what we saw, there’ll be no white water rafting today!

There are 3 sets of waterfalls here so onto the Lower Falls.  To get anywhere near the falls, we had to hike down lots of uneven stone steps but the effort was well worth it.

Bill suggested we have lunch at the Glen Iris Inn. On our way there, we pulled into an overlook to view the river gorge and saw several vultures riding the thermals and soaring overhead. A couple of the birds flew over to a ledge and settled so we could take photos – wow they are big and ugly.  Then we arrived at the Middle Falls for lunch but with the heat, we decided to have lunch in the air conditioned Inn before we view the falls. Lunch was great but was that because of the food or the much needed cool air?  

 

 

After lunch we ventured back out into the heat to view the Middle and Upper Falls. The 2 falls are situated close together so we walked up to the Upper Falls and they too were stunning. All in all, we had a wonderful day prowling around the park. Even with a lower water level, all the falls were stunning. We made our way back to Ann & Bill’s for a cool beverage and more nice cool air conditioning. After, we went to the local BBQ – the Three Legged Pig – for dinner.

Wednesday we toured the High Falls in Rochester after we lunched at one of Rochester’s  local micro breweries, Rohrbach’s. The heat from yesterday has moved on and today was more comfortable so we sat out on the patio and enjoyed lunch and the company. They sell their brew in half gallon jugs so I just had to take one with me! Onto the falls in Rochester. It’s different seeing a waterfalls right in the heart of a city. Rochester has rebuilt many structures of the past in and around High Falls for businesses and tourism. It was pretty spectacular to see. The city converted an auto bridge to a foot bridge that gave you the best vantage point of High Falls.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                 Our next stop was the George Eastman home and museum. It is beautiful, opulent and would have been wonderful to have lived in – of course the fortune that comes with it would be necessary! That evening,  Ann & Bill had us in for nice dinner. Technology (GPS) is great as we would have been lost for sure with all the twists, turns, hills and valleys we had to navigate to get back to our own rig in the dark..

 

 

Thursday, we met Jeff and Candy –  one of the girls doing the Row Robin Quilt with Barb & Ann. They are touring from     Kentucky and stopped here to visit friends and join us for lunch.  They had just finished visiting with Marsha another one theRow Robins.  Of course, the talk at lunch was mostly quilting, quilting and more quilting, for the ladies anyway.  Since it was a long drive we made a day of it and toured around that area of the finger lakes.  Back to our place for dinner and after warm farewells, we’ll see Ann & Bill again in January at the Plantation.

 

 

I think this blog is getting a little thread bare so I’ll close for now and get the next one ready.

Michigan will Never be the Same Again

Last week, we took off on an adventure to Michigan to visit our friends Dick & Marcia T in Grand Rapids. It was an adventure because we left our rig in Ontario and roomed at Dick & Marcia’s – and they still considered us friends when we left! They have a beautiful condo with an almost self contained apartment in the basement walkout. They would be waiting with breakfast ready as we made ourselves presentable first thing in the morning! Great hosts, I recommend their little B&B for a 5 star rating!

We arrived Monday after an uneventful drive over but James (our GPS) could not find their address so we called for directions and they met us nearby and guided us to their place. After some much needed catch up and chat, we went to Rush Creek golf club for a delicious dinner. Dick & Marcia toured us around their community and then back to their comfortable condo for more chit chat and a few adult beverages. Before we knew it, the sandman was calling and we said good  night to a great day.

After a delicious breakfast and a short side trip to the hospital – Marcia works with some other gals to make hats etc for their hospital, we were off to the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids. We took the tram through the sculpture park and enjoyed the narration and antidotes of the tram driver. After, we walked through some of the other outdoor exhibits and then ventured indoors through the various gardens and displays. Soon, Dick felt that we had enough culture and deserved to go back to the condo and sit on the deck and test some of the products of their local brewery! Somehow, while sitting there gazing out into space, Dick tricked me into helping him power wash their deck boards the next morning. Oh well, a small price to pay for such a fabulous visit.

Wednesday, deck washing day! We got at it early enough that the sun didn’t beat us off the job. Once done and both the laborers were cleaned up we were off again to Grand Haven to wander and stuff. It is a cute little town, not unlike some of our lake coastal summer tourist towns. We saw several fish charters return with smiling faces on the fishermen. We walked along the board walk checking out the yachts and other people. There was scurry of activity up ahead – the local fish cleaning station with 3 guys and a gal, busy with sharp knives slicing and dicing. The young lady would be any fisherman’s dream girl because after she finished the filleting the catch, she went down to the charter boat and ‘swabbed’ the decks clean! The catch was lots of Steelheads and Rainbows, giving the fishermen lots of quality filets to take home. It was pretty interesting watching the pros filet these beauties.

 

Back in the car and on down the road to the beach. Don’t worry, I did not go out on the sand and play beached whale – Michigan is not ready for that event, in fact, neither am I! We walked out on the breakwater to the lighthouse and back. Lots of people around, kids jumping in the water, daring each other. Lots of folks like us, just wandering and enjoying the sun and fun around us. You notice I’m not mentioning the bikinis, this is a family channel! Anyway, the sand was super hot so Dick and Marcia sat under a tree while Barb & I ventured across the Sahara to the water and Barb was able to dip her feet in the waters of Lake Michigan – she has dipped her feet in all of the great lakes now. I wonder what challenges lay ahead now?

 

Our tour continues south along the Lakeshore Drive toward Holland and dinner at the  Boatwerks. We sat outside on the patio and watched the marine world go by as we had an excellent meal with great company. With the help of a crane and a few sticks of dynamite, we load back into the car and head back to the condo to renew Dick & Marcia’s skills with Mexican – opps, that should be Michigan Train. After a couple of games, we retire to the sun room for more quilting chat while Dick and I solve other serious world  issues.

All too soon, our morning of departure arrives. Dick and Marcia made sure we were completely full of breakfast before we head out. Before we got out their neighbor came over with a strawberry pie so we stayed for a breakfast dessert, oh yummy.  It’s always a sad time to leave, after hugs and gratitude's, we climb aboard the big black truck and point it toward home.

It was a wonderful visit – thank you Dick & Marcia.