Hot Days of Summer

It has been excruciatingly hot here as it has been all over North America these past few weeks. Makes it even more difficult for us oldies to get outside and do any biking or even walking. We tried some geocaching in LaSalle park but were not successful and did not find any caches – too hot for patience. However, we did find a nice public boat launch so we can finally get the kayak wet again. Here is an example of a cache hidy hole in a cemetery near by. It is suggested that a geocacher carries gloves etc. when reaching down into a hiding spot in case a critter has set up house.

Barb made good use of being indoors by continuing on her Dr. Who blocks and she is working with a group of ladies from the Plantation on a summer block swap for another quilt. It is a surprise for the ladies so I don’t dare show anything here or they will lynch me.

We did have some excitement here, we got rid of our 13 year old swivel recliners and bought two Lazy Boys that fit nicely into our space. They do not swivel and that is taking some getting used to but they are comfy enough to catch a little shut eye from time to time!

New neighbours have moved into the spot across from us. Friends are coming in for a visit and we reserved that spot for them so in my amicable manner, I jokingly, informed them that they will have to move their rig for a few days and our friendship began. A few happy hours and a new card game later, we have someone in the park we can kick around with.

This heat always brings other undesirable weather – thunder storms. On Friday, July 19, at about 5PM, we had a sever thunder storm hit the area, taking many gazebos with it. Randy & Norma only had their`s set up for a few days when the wind turned the frame into a pretzel. The screen walls survived but not much good without a frame to put it on.

 

 

Barb`s sewing machine is acting up so we took it into the sewing machine doctor on the Saturday. We were completely unaware of the destruction Hamilton had suffered during the storm. When we arrived at the shop, they were closed because of the lack of electricity so we had to go back on Sunday. We saw some big trees that were toppled over in the wind with many crushing any cars and trucks that were parked underneath.

Well, the heat has broken after the storms. We’re ready for Bill, Ann, Dick & Marcia to visit for a few days. Stay tuned for more on that later. Hope all is well where you are….

Quiet Times

 

The last time I wrote, we had just arrived back from our Escapee chapter rally in Kingston. After a somewhat hectic week, it was a welcome reprise to do nothing but that is not usually in the cards. We still go out and attempt to find some geocaches – not too successful lately but not discouraged, we`re learning. We`re also looking for a new venue to get our kayak wet again, it`s been a long time since we were on the water.

 

 

Barb has been busy with the various quilt projects she has underway. She follows several other quilter`s blogs and picks projects from there to work on. She has finished one project that she joined from the Carol Doak`s site. It turned out beautiful and the colours are magnificent as she snuggles under it on the left. Barb also started a hand embroidery project featuring silhouette figures of Dr. Who. This is all hand work  and she has turned the 1st six into a table runner. Way to go Barb!

Last season, we picked up an inexpensive patio set to adorn our small but cute site. Late in the year, we had a very quick storm come through and damaged our awning and knocked over the umbrella and glass table. Yes, you guessed it, the umbrella pinched the table and it shattered like an auto window, thousands of glass pieces everywhere. We kept the legs with the intention of building a wood top similar to our small camp table but when we priced out the wood, we ended up picking up a plastic table for half the price of wood! It seemed like a good idea at the time, more to come on that decision later.

We have been out on the bikes and always take time to smell the flowers along the way. This is a great area for bike and walking trails. We also found some geocaches nearby the local casino but they took some serious searching to find. Some geocachers find some unique places to hide their caches.

Our youngest daughter had us over for a belated father`s day luncheon. Dean & I took it easy on the deck while the ladies made lunch. Dean had to fire up and work the grill and I continued to hold down the lawn chair. I do enjoy other`s doing the work, somehow the food tastes better!

 

We hope you enjoy our adventures and we’ll be back to share more soon…

Back to the Routine

The rally is over and we’re on our way back to our summer perch and try to find some normality. We stop off to visit with our daughter and grand kids. The kids have all grown like weeds over the winter. After a nice visit and watching the kids play in the playground, we were back on the road toward Toronto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we’re almost through the mega lane freeway, traffic comes to a grinding slow down and as you can see the cause in the picture. Wow, lots of flame and smoke there. We were delayed but not too long as it just happened, the fire crew arrived as we were coming upon the accident. Since we have been experiencing this life style for 13 years, one could argue that the odds of us having an accident are getting ‘better’ but of course, you can not think of it that way or people would not leave their homes.

Monday was Nathanial’s 8th birthday and we decided to park in Terri’s driveway to save the drive back and forth from our campground back into Toronto – about an hour each way. So, according to tradition, someone else cooks when we are traveling so thanks Terri! We had another nice visit as Mark’s mom is in town and we were able to catch up with her.

Terri has a nice big counter which seconds as a quilting table when Barb is there! We don’t have room in the rig for Barb to easily pin her quilt top and back together for sewing so she was able to make use it during our visit.

 

 

Nathaniel is 8 today and Corrie invited us and Dean’s sister Bonnie over for dinner and to celebrate Nathaniel’s birthday. Corrie & Dean experiment a little with meals and Nathanial wanted a BBQ pizza cooked on a cedar plank. They prepare the pizza from scratch and shape it to the ‘plank’, dress it up with the toppings and cook it on the BBQ. Interesting and it tasted pretty good too. After dinner, Nathaniel opened his birthday gifts but did not get one from us – we mailed it at the end of May and he hasn’t received it yet – ya gotta love the postal service.

 

 

 

While we were at the rally in Kingston, we attended a presentation on Geocaching. We have wanted to try it out and a couple of years back, bought a Garmin handheld GPS so we could. After a few false starts, the durned thing went in a drawer! We have often watched at other rally’s and escapades to see if anyone was offering a ‘how to’ session and now we’re off. It is a fun way to get out and about, tramping through woods, over hill and dale to find a ‘cache’. We did 9 the first time out and learned some important things to do: 1/ use bug spray! 2/ set a way point when you leave the truck so you can find your way back! 3/ carry a knapsack with supplies as some of the hikes are over 1 kilometer. Our second effort wasn’t so successful but after we contacted the cache owner, we learned how to get started on a puzzle cache so we’re anxious to try again.

Stay tuned for more to come…..

Escapee Chapter 18 & 41 Rally

Our club chapter had a combined rally with the New York chapter in Kingston, Ontario. We left our summer perch on Friday, May 31st and made our way across the big smoke of Toronto to visit with my brother in Downtown Whitevale for a few days. The traffic was a typical Friday and moved fairly well with no real stops. As usual, our parking spot was ready and waiting right in front of Larry’s house. We haven’t been in for a year or so and we took a few extra ins and outs to get it where we wanted it – it has to be in the right spot to have clear line of sight to our satellites! Once set up, it was happy hour so the 3 of us sat in his Florida room catching up on each others winter activities – Larry to Costa Rica and Florida and our adventures in LA. Later, we headed off to our favourite fish & chip shop for dinner and back to Larry’s Florida room to watch the evening come in.

On Saturday, we were invited to watch Cody, one of Larry’s grandkids play soccer in Markham so why not, it was threatening rain with wind, what a better way to spend an afternoon! It must have been our karma because Cody’s team won. After a quick stop at the LCBO, we were sitting back in the Florida room with another happy hour. When we’re there, we usually provide dinner as our camp site fee. Barb made up a huge lasagne and asked Larry to invite some neighbours over. Lloyd & Marion, long time friends and David stayed for dinner. It was fun and to top it off, it was Marion’s birthday so what a celebration we had.

Sunday, we’re back on the road to Rideau Acres campground and the rally. The traffic was fairly light and we arrived without incident. Others we know got there ahead of us but then Pat & Carolyn only live in Hasting, not too far from Kingston. We were expecting Bill & Ann to arrive shortly after we did but they had a little longer drive – about 4.5 hours, stop at the duty free – thanks Bill and cross the border to boot. While at Larry’s, we made up a pulled pork dinner and had Pat, Carolyn, Bill and Ann over for a rally welcome dinner. It was good to see our friends again.

 

 

 

Monday, we got our bearings, found Walmart, The Beer Store and other important places of interest. One was the Kingston Brewing Co, a nice little place with good beer - We had their very own Dragoon’s Breath Real Ale - and good food. On our way back, we found John & Barb – another Ontario couple we met at the Plantation stopped on the side of the 401 with a blown tire. We had to do a loop at the next exit to go back to see if we could help. They were waiting for Emergency Road Service but we stayed and chatted for a bit then continued on our way.

On Tuesday, we were invited to spend the afternoon with Ross & Pat, another Escapee couple at their cottage on Sharbot Lake. We met Ross at the docks in the village of Sharbot Lake and he chauffeured us across the lake to their little piece of Heaven or as I coined it, their castle on the rock. It is a beautiful setting, the deck overlooks the water lapping on the shore and the cottage in nestled among the pine and birch trees. No road access so all supplies have to come in by boat and you know that you are on your own. We had a wonderful bbq lunch with lots of fresh food and cold beer, what a day. We are so lucky that our travelling adventures have brought us such friends.

So far the weather has been great but today, Wednesday we had some rain but thankfully, the morning and afternoon presentations are in the club house with no affect on us. It also did not interrupt the pot luck dinner held in the club house. Lots of camaraderie and good food abound.

Our Discovery boat cruise of the Kingston harbour was scheduled for Thursday but our spirits were dampened when we awoke to more pouring rain. It’s been a wet season so far and the next few days do not look great for us. Bill, Ann & Barb & I ventured on down to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes. The special exhibit was called Hundred Year Storm and has demonstrations, pictures and story boards on the worst disaster on the Great Lakes in 1913. The exhibit also has a video on the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. There are lots of theories and studies out there while this exhibit and video shows the extensive research conducted at the labs in Newfoundland using 360 video and computer simulations that show what it may have been like in the bridge just before the ship went down. Wow is all I can say.

The museum is also housed in the original dry dock when Kingston was a major ship building port. The back of the museum housed the pumps that emptied and filled the dry dock back in. In the dry dock is one of Canada’s ice breakers off the Great Lakes. In the recent past after this ship was retired, it used as a B&B in Asia. After finding asbestos on board, it was brought back and adopted by the museum. The ship is open for a self guided walking tour but is in disrepair and needs funding to restore properly. Our government would rather spend money on Senate salaries instead of restoring some of our historic properties.

The Discovery boat tour was not much of a discovery with all the rain and the ships speaker system was less than desired so we sat and kibitzed as we toured around the harbour. I’m sure the audio recording and the tales by the captain would have been entertaining if we could have heard them. Our dinner after the cruise was at the Lone Star in downtown Kingston. The service was great, our waiter was very entertaining and we had a good time. Ann was showing us what crazy things she used to do when she was young and crazy, now she is just crazy, especially when her and Barb get together!

Our US rally hosts organized a bbq for Friday evening with a comedic singer after our meal. What a great time, an excellent bbq with beef and pork with all the trimmings, including deep fried Oreo cookies! Yes, that’s correct, a deep fired cookie. They are an acquired taste or maybe it was the texture but I just had

to try one or maybe 2! I found out that it is possible for too much laughter with Roger James entertaining us, my sides hurt from laughter. There was no reason why anyone would go home hungry for food or fun, it was an excellent evening.

Our next rally event we looked forward to was an evening tour and meal of Old Fort Henry. We were to meet after the Fort closed and had a private tour of the officers quarters and dining room. After, we were seated in the Officers Mess and asked to act like the Officers of the era. That means not to be polite to the servers and that can be difficult for a Canadian! The food was good and the experience created good memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday was hitch up day and many fellow Escapees left fairly early. Some were staying to attend another rally in up state New York. We were going down the road to visit with our daughter and grandkids.

Hope all is well out there and please come back for more soon.