The
Squamidian Report – Sept. 17 / 11
Issue #486
Including:
Carol & Al
The Ontarion
Hi All,
That TV commercial sure has it right, you know, the one that says “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” as it shows kid going back to school. It is so nice to see all those little and not so little monsters off the streets and back in school. This time of year is very much more the ‘new year’ than is January. This is when things start over, or get back to normal, that kind of thing. Its funny how after decades of being out in the adult world everyone still feels the back to school, back to whatever, feeling. Almost makes me feel guilty that I’m not going ‘back’ to something. Actually, I’d love to be going back to school. Perhaps take some really interesting classes such as geology or astronomy or math or history or whatever, but, I know myself well enough to know I’d fall asleep in class no matter how interesting it would be. Nap time is nap time no matter where you are or what you are doing.
And speaking of doing stuff, I finished that project in the rock room. I’ve build landings along the wall that bridge the gap between the walls and the rock face. I’ve covered the walls with 3/8s plywood so we don’t keep bumping against the insulation. Now we have access to the areas behind and on top of the rock for storage. Now we can organize all the stuff that has been thrown up onto the rock and store it in such a way that we can tell what is there and where it is. In other words, we can now use the rock room efficiently. Perhaps someday I’ll actually get around to doing that organizing. We shall see.
One thing we will definitely be doing is putting up some coat racks in there. It is dry and semi-heated and the perfect place for storing our riding gear during the off season. Currently, our riding jackets, vests, chaps, helmets and so on fill both closets in our spare bedrooms as well as part of the closet in the little room upstairs. Freeing up those spaces would be a good thing. Of course they will just get filled with other things and we will be right back where we started but at least the riding gear will be all in one place.
And speaking or riding gear, we had intended to attend the Port Alberni Toy Ride this weekend. It’s quite a big deal over there with motorcycles joining in from all over Vancouver Island. The town has a parade and there are dances and parties. The ride itself is on Saturday morning, then the parade and then the parties, in that order. Our plans had been to catch the 8:30 ferry out of Horseshoe Bay which would put is into Nanaimo just after 10. We would have then scooted up the highway and over toward Cameron Lake where the staging point is. From there, the hundreds of bikes would have ridden through Cathedral Grove, over the Alberni Pass and down into and through the town. We’d have enjoyed ourselves for the afternoon and then attended a BBQ and party at the house of one of the Port Alberni CMC member’s. We had even booked a motel for the night as the ferries don’t actually sail very late and there would be no point in cutting the day short. However, our long period of very nice October weather came screeching to a halt, with a wet front bringing wind and rain as it blew in off the open Pacific.
We are quite capable of riding in the rain but there is no point in riding in the rain all weekend. It’s not just a comfort thing, its also a safety issue. No point in taking chances. So, we are staying home. Disappointed and sad. We have made a lot of good friends through the CMC chapters on the Island and it would have been a fun weekend. Oh well, next time.
doug
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From Carol & Al
I do not know how Doug & Greg are able to entertain us week after week. I have been intending to submit the story of our trip to Newfoundland ever since we returned – a month and a half ago – and just didn’t make the time to do so. The number one thing we can tell you about Newfoundland is this: if ever you have an opportunity to go there, do not pass it up! The people, the scenery, the history, the geology, the flora & fauna all combine to make an unforgettable experience. (just remember to dress warm).
We spent the first 2 nights in St Johns where we enjoyed the colourful houses, visited “the Rooms” which are similar to the ROM on a smaller scale hiked around Signal Hill and checked out a little fishing village which is home to the brewery which makes beer from 10,000 year old glacier water. Jeff, the groom at the wedding we were attending, gave us a Tom-tom GPS which we needed as St Johns is about the worst city I have ever tried to navigate. Signs are usually missing, streets end and then start up again somewhere else and the drivers seem to think that such things as red lights are just a suggestion, not something they need to obey. The good thing is they seem too laid-back to indulge in road rage. Even with the GPS we wouldn’t have found our motel without Jeff & Paulette’s as they changed the name of the place after we booked last spring.
We spent the next 3 nights in Carbineer (where the reception was held), about 2 hours outside of St Johns but still on the Avalon Peninsula. We had an efficiency room with a kitchen that had a million dollar view of the bay. Our days there were taken up with wedding preparation and celebration.
The wedding itself took place in the village of Heart’s Desire, Paulette’s home town. We were “screeched in” by her neighbours after the wedding rehearsal. This means we had to put on a yellow Northwester, drink screech out of a shell (they let me just drink Newfie water as I do not drink alcohol and that Screech stuff is pretty powerful rum). Usually being “screeched in” includes kissing a dried cod but Tom, the local supplying everything had caught and dried some groupers so they had us kiss that instead. They had a seafood feast for us but most were too salty for my taste but I tried everything, even the squid. It had been very cold the first few days in Newfoundland but warmed up for the wedding. The morning of the wedding was extremely foggy. I had to drive the ½ hour to Heart’s Desire to pick up Tom so he could direct me to the village where a lady had made the wedding cake. It took me an hour driving through the fog and then we continued on for another ½ hour. We took a grass road to a hamlet of 6 or 7 houses. When I asked Tom which house he said he didn’t need to know, he stepped out of the car and a door opened and someone asked if we were looking for the cake lady and directed us to the correct house. Thankfully the fog cleared off and we had one of the nicest days, weather wise, of our whole trip. The ceremony was beautiful (as was the bride) and the reception was fun. It was held way back at a camp and many of the attendees crashed in bunks for the night. Al gave a wonderful best man speech and looked very handsome in his wedding outfit. All the locals were friendly and invited us to come back anytime. We didn’t meet a single local during our trip who didn’t know where Kitchener was because all of them have relatives or friends who have moved to Southern Ontario.
We next headed north to Twillingate Island. Along the way we stopped at the Aviation museum in Gander. This time we had a one bedroom cabin that also faced the water. Twillingate bills itself as the iceberg capital of the world but hadn’t had an iceberg drift by for 2 years. Luckily for us the day before we arrived the first icebergs were spotted. We took a freezing cold ride on a boat for a close-up look. There aren’t words to describe the beauty and majesty of an iceberg – that alone was worth the trip. While there we witnessed a “house haul”. Many small fishing communities were forcibly moved to larger areas in the 60s & 70s. I believe this was to deliver better infrastructure to the people such as schools, medical, etc. The people didn’t loose their homes, they were put on rafts and floated to the new settlement, a process they call “house hauls”. While walking on a trail I saw the remains of an old fishing village. The root cellars, which were separate little cement or stone buildings, were still intact. We visited another couple of museums on the island (we are history buffs). The best of the trip was a private museum which showed the story of the fishing village. They told the story by song (a wonderful folk singer/ fisherman) and by demonstrating the process of filleting and drying the cod. Both of the men involved told stories and answered questions and brought everything to life.
We next spent time on the Bonivista Peninsula. We stayed in a 2 bedroom cabin in the country. We didn’t have a water view but there was a lake. Standing at Cape Bonivista lighthouse, looking out at the whales frolicking and the waves pounding against the high cliffs we realized that the next piece of land would be Ireland and that we were closer to it then we were to BC. This is one vast country. We walked around the historic town of Trinity and also visited another museum, this one a replica of Captain Cook’s ship (similar to visiting the Hector in Nova Scotia). I hadn’t realized that Captain Cook had spent a few summers navigating around Newfoundland and drawing the first maps of the area. After a couple of nights on Bonavista we headed for the Irish Loop, back on the Avalon Peninsula. The next nights were at B&Bs so that we could tell Jackie what other B&Bs were like. We visited Castle Hill, which has been a military fort run by both the French & English and then the Americans took over during WW2, using it as a base for their ships heading to Europe. It was then on to St Mary’s Ecological Reserve, puffins & other birds. On our way back to St Johns we stopped at Cape Spear, the furthest point east in Canada. The old WW2 guns and bunkers are still there (but not operational). I guess a lot of German U-boats made their way over. Al also stopped at any Legion we saw to collect visitor’s blue ribbons for his collection and because generally speaking you run into vets who will talk that war stuff with him.
As I said in the beginning the scenery was always spectacular. We tried some interesting local dishes and ate enough sea food to make Dad jealous. I did a lot of walking and gawking. Al and I are lucky in that we travel well together, each willing to do what the other is interested in. I’ve included a few pictures for Doug to post on his sight, we put some on Facebook and if anyone wants to come over and see our whole set of pictures you are more then welcome.
Carol
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Guess it’s time for the temperatures of summer to drop a little! We’re in for a couple of days of cold around the KW area and then it’s supposed to creep back up to a reasonable 19c level for a while. I’m hoping that the early predictions of Environment Canada are going to come true and we do have a hot fall! I’m not tired of the warm weather yet and I’ll bet none of you are either! It’s usually late October before we have to pack everything away and I hope this year is no exception. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a beautiful fall season!
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Adam and I attended an interesting show last Sunday. It was the Flying Dutchmen air show out at the Waterloo Rod and Gun club property near St Jacob’s. The Flying Dutchmen are a club of model aircraft builders and pilots. We’ve gone out to watch this show for about 5 years now and it never fails to entertain! These model enthusiasts are amazing in their talents for building and flying scale model planes. They have members from all over Ontario and NY State that come to fly at this show. There was a young man that built and flies his own helicopter and he is ranked as the number two RC helicopter pilot in the world and has competed all over the world to earn that title. He put on a demonstration like I’ve never seen before! I didn’t know that helicopters could do half of the tricks in flight that he made this machine do. He was able to make the chopper fly upside down within inches of the ground and at speeds I would have thought were reserved for real helicopters. He could fly it as if it were a winged aerobatic aircraft. If you’ve ever attended an air show and watched as stunt pilots looped, rolled, stalled and flipped their special planes through unbelievable maneuvers then you’ve been amazed as I was when this young pilot put his helicopter through all of these trick moves and more. He could do everything from fly it backwards to flying it upside down and backwards at the same time. I swear there were times when he cut the grass as he pulled out of a dive at the last second before hitting the ground. He truly made the show worth the $7.00 it cost to get in! There were many talented flyers there and dozens of beautifully crafted airplanes to look at and watch as they were put through their paces by their owner/pilots. It was truly a terrific afternoon and I have no doubt I’ll be there again next year to do it all over again. It was so interesting it made everyone watching want to go buy a plane and learn to fly!
My nephew who lives in Guelph has been flying these models for about 5 years now and has offered to give me a basic “learner” plane and also to teach me to fly it! I think I’m going to take him up on his offer sometime this fall. Just gives me one more reason to hope for lovely weather this fall. Starting a new hobby like this will give me something to do other than go fly a kite!
I’m not giving up on the kites, I’m just taking a run at something new! Should be fun to give it a try at least and if it works out, I’ll be sure to keep you all posted on the results!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… GREG.
PS: Something To Think About>
When you have finished totaling up the amount of taxes you pay here in Ontario, you should have about 26% of your total income left. Thanks Mr McGuinty!
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
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