The Squamidian Report – Dec. 5 / 15
Issue #706
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Here we are, again. Its December. How the heck did that happen? And now
that December is here again so fast, you know what that means.....
putting up the outdoor decorations. Years ago that was never a problem
because I simply left them up for so long into the New Year that they
ended up just being there a bit early for the next winter. That worked
out very well until 'The Wife' put her foot down and we went back
to the much less efficient system of putting them up, taking them down,
putting them up, taking them down, over and over. Then, what we
apparently wanted in time for last winter, outdoor decoration wise, was
those wire-frame decorations that are shaped like snowmen or rain deer
or whatever and have a bunch of lights woven throughout so you just
plug them in and they light up all shiny and bight. And thats just what
happens the year you get them and set them up, they light up. But,
guess what happens the next year when you set out your decorations?
Nothing! You plug in that cheap China made crap and the lights don't
come on. There is no possible way of following the tangled string of
lights that are impossible to even get your hands on to find which bulb
or more likely, bulbs, have ceased to function. The stupid things are
dead in the water, or snow if you have any of that. We now have a 6 ft
high snowman and 3 snow geese that are about as useless as it gets. So
we had to think about what to do, pitch the things or somehow salvage
them. Our solution for now was to go the salvage route. We couldn't
pull out all the old wiring and stuff in new lights, that would cost
more than we paid in the first place and would be hard to do. Instead,
we set them out on the lawn (half hopping someone might steal them:)
and picked up a couple of white light spotlights which we installed at
their bases pointing upward. That lit the units quite nicely. They
don't sparkle like they did when their own lights worked, but they do
look just fine on the lawn in the dark. For now they are again serving
their purpose.
There is one possible cravat that we will cross when we get to it, the
spotlights we found, the ONLY spotlights we could find, are LED rather
than the old fashion halogen ones we used to be able to get. LED puts
out lots of light but its cold light, they don't warm up meaning they
can't self clear of frost and snow. You know, that same problem exists
with the fancy new vehicles the run LED lighting, they can't self clear
themselves of ice and snow because the don't generate enough heat to
melt the stuff away. That same system is turning up in motorcycles.
Many manufacturers have gone to LED lighting, headlights, tail and
brake, signals, panel, the whole thing. But, it really doesn't matter
with bikes because they are not all that likely to be out some snowy
night with the rider finding he can't see because the headlights have
become covered. At least not on a regular basis. A very real up-side to
LEDs is that no one burns their fingers on them. You don't need to
worry about little kids touching them, you don't need to worry about
dried out indoor Christmas trees catching fire, at least not from them.
So, I guess that the worse case scenario regarding the LED spotlights
staked out on the front lawn is that on the very unlikely event that
our west coast weather would actually bring us any accumulating snow,
we either have to dig out around the lights or simply leave them buried
and enjoy looking at the bright spots in the snow. Face it, illuminated
snow should qualify as 'decorative', shouldn't it?
Speaking of snow, we don't got none and its unlikely we will get much
if any again this winter. Those dumb pineapple express systems have set
up again bringing huge amounts of rain and warm temperatures. To make
it worse, and similar to last winter, they also bring the temperature
inversions where as warm as it is down here, its warmer up high in the
mountains. The snow that was up there is being washed away. Very
disappointing to say the least and theres not a whole lot we can do
about it. Keep in mind that 'warm' is a relative term. I'd certainly
not want to be running around outside without a good coat and hat. So
its not exactly riding season all over again, way too cold for that and
way way too wet. But if this winter does turn out to be a copy of last
winter, biking season could be just a month or so away. That would be
nice.
And now, after being closed for the last month for their annual
maintenance shut-down, the gondola has re-opened. November is actually
a good month for them to be closed because due to the high number of
late season Pacific storms that blow in, had they been open, they would
have been closed half the time anyway. The main reason for closing for
a full month is that the lift system gets a full going-over, every nut,
bold and pulley. Thats a good thing. They had intended to do a major
renovation of the upper lodge during the closure in order to make the
food services end work better. So before they closed they measured
everything, laid out where things could or should be moved to, and
packed away all the stuff in the gift shop/clothing store section.
Then, just as they were all set to go to work on the renovations, they
discovered that the person who was supposed to get the permits had not
done so. So, without permits they couldn't do the renovations. They
made use of the time by doing other repairs and changes that didn't
need permits but they are now stuck with how it was until next time. Oh
well. Must be the west coast.
They opened yesterday so of course we went up. It was almost like a big
reunion. Everyone waving at us, saying “hi”, introducing some of the
new employees to us and even some hugs that I personally could have
done without. But yes, it was like a little personal party. We walked
our usual walk, out the Panorama Ridge Trail. We were the first people
to walk that trail in quite a while and due to the wind storms and
rains, there was a lot of branches, and debris down. So, as we walked
along, we cleaned the stuff off the trail. Thats just a natural thing
for us to do. And yes, we were asked how Lorne, Cindy and Gale were
doing.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
It seems that I’ve come to the part where I will be winding the columns
covering our trip of a lifetime down. Although we did visit a few more
historical places in London, they were interesting but not worth
dedicating a column a week to their description. So, I’ll just do what
I can to take you through the remainder of our trip and do my best to
keep it interesting. On the remaining days of our trip we managed to
roam the streets of London and spend time touring whatever we found to
look interesting. We had started out with a visit to the Recording
studios that first hosted the Beatle’s on our list but since there were
so many other historical sites to see, we dropped that one from our
itinerary. It would have been fun to visit the studios but the real
kick would have been having our picture taken mimicking the “Lads”
crossing the road out front of the “Abby Road” studios on that oh so
famous crosswalk! Before we left on the trip, I had located a website
that has 24 hour surveillance cameras watching that very crosswalk on
Abby Rd and it’s interesting to see how many people show up and
interrupt the flow of traffic to pose in single file just as John,
Paul, George and Ringo did back in their “Heydays”! There are times
when drivers show their “road rage” at the people holding up the
traffic to take a snapshot of their pose. LOL! Maybe it’s just as well
we didn’t get a chance to do the same, we might have gotten run over!
Hahahaha…..!
Rather than do the Abby Road thing, we spent a couple of days visiting
The British Museum and The Museum of Natural History that are in the
north end of London. To say the least these two museums are fascinating
places to spend time in. We spent the better part of a day in each one
of them and were tuckered out after each day trip to these amazing
collections. There are too many items of interest in each museum
to even start to list their contents. However I will say they have
everything from dinosaurs ancient Egyptian statues and if you took the
time to read the script that accompanied each artifact you’d be in each
museum for a month or more! The main difference between the museums in
London and those in Paris is the fact that the London museums are free
to the public and the ones in Paris are quite costly to get in. The
London museums were busy but nowhere near as crowed as the Louvre in
Paris. The crowds in the Louvre were mostly tourists and in the day we
spent visiting the Louvre we might have heard a few dozen people that
spoke English! The thousands and thousands of people in that museum
were the rudest people we encountered while on our trip and the
visitors to the London Museums were the most polite. To say the least,
we enjoyed the London visits better!
We actually took a couple of days just to wander around London and
enjoyed riding up top in the double decker buses. You get a much better
view from the upper deck and are above the traffic and the exhaust! We
purchased bus passes and we could hop on and off as much as we liked
for the week duration of the passes. It was cool to see that they still
have the double decker buses that have been a part of London’s charm
for many years!
When we visited the Tower of London we made time to walk along the
banks of the Thames River after exiting the Tower. They have benches to
enjoy along the river as well and we took advantage of them that day.
It was calming after the busy Tower visit to just relax and enjoy the
scenery of the river. We sat just east of The Tower Bridge and watched
as the barges and tourism boats passed under the bridge. I was
surprised at the colour of the paint on The Tower Bridge, the metal
work that supports the cables holding the bridge up is all painted a
bright shade of turquoise blue and it looks odd to say the least! I
don’t know what I expected for a colour on the bridge but I didn’t
expect a “sissy” blue! One would think they might have chosen a dark
green or dark blue, maybe something to denote the Royalty of England. I
guess the Tower Bridge is one structure that the Queen doesn’t own!
LOL! After lingering along the river, we hopped on “the Tube” and
returned to our hotel to rest up for the next day’s adventure.
The next day we took the “Tube” to central London and visited the
Parliament buildings area. Big Ben is certainly a very impressive
structure to see and it has the most impressive “Gong” that sounds to
coincide with the time of day. Part of our afternoon was spent touring
Westminster Abbey. It’s directly across the street from the side of the
Parliament Buildings and we walked right around the outer perimeter of
the Abbey before entering its structure. If you wished to enter the
main Abbey to worship, you were allowed to do so but if you just wanted
to walk inside and look around the central church where they hold
regular services, you were not permitted. Since there were quite a few
people inside actually saying their prayers and taking part in a
service, we just spent our time walking the halls of the outer edge of
the Abbey. They are filled with the many stone slabs that make up the
floors of the Abbey and are also the “Grave Markers” of many famous
English Noblemen and women. There are hundreds of years of Kings,
Queens, Princes and Princesses and of course religious figures buried
beneath the floors of Westminster Abbey and one could spend several
days at least reading the inscriptions on all of the floors and walls.
It was a very interesting afternoon indeed! As we walked the
surrounding streets of the parliamentary area I spotted one of London’s
famous red Phone Boxes. It just so happened that Big Ben was in the
background of the phone box so I asked Adam to take my picture and also
Carole’s picture as we stood in the phone booth. It was a classic photo
as we found out a few days later when perusing the contents of one of
the many souvenir shops in London. Carole pointed out to Adam and I
that she found a Post Card in a rack of cards that was a photo of the
exact same Phone Box, taken from almost the exact same angle Adam had
taken our pictures from the day we had been visiting Big Ben! How cool
is that?
In the last day or so of our time in London we were still feeling the
affects of a bug we had picked up while traveling from Paris to London
on a crowed flight. There was a young couple on the flight that were
sitting opposite our seats that were sneezing and coughing during the
entire flight and they were inconsiderate enough not to even bother
covering their mouths while doing so. I guess when you’re on an
enclosed aircraft that sort of germ spreading activity travels to
others very quickly and we happened to catch whatever it was they were
spreading that day. Fortunately we managed to ward off the worst of the
cold/flu and were still able to enjoy our touring around. On the last
evening, we had asked the Hotel clerk to order us a taxi for our trip
to Heathrow for 5am the following morning. It was an early start time
to what was going to be a very long day for the three of us. We once
again had lovely clear weather for our flight back to Canada. We
boarded the Air Canada jet at 8:30am I believe it was and spent the
next 8 hours watching movies and tracking our flight progress on the
video screens attached to our seats. We had paid extra per seat to have
more leg room than the standard passenger does and that meant we had to
take three seats in the middle row of the aircraft. That was fine with
us as there wasn’t much to see at 35,000 feet in the air. We had
another couple of women that coughed and sneezed all the way home to
Toronto sitting across the aisle from us. Carole had a medical mask
that she wore for the whole flight but I was directly opposite the
coughers and by the time we got home I was totally infected! We had
prepaid a taxi service here in Kitchener to take us to Toronto and to
pick us up upon arrival home. As planned, the driver was waiting for us
even though our flight was a half hour late arriving at Pearson. That
was a bonus way to get to and from the airport! It was well worth the
$220.00 round trip to have that convenience. I’d say that’s the only
way to travel to and from and if we travel again, we’ll do the same!
We had to ask for a van taxi both ways to accommodate our luggage and
three adults and that too was a good move! It’s hard to believe how
much weight our luggage gained during the trip and for the flight home.
It was a challenge to distribute weight among the various bags so we
didn’t get charged extra coming home. Oh well, it was an adventure all
around and we wouldn’t change a thing! We truly did have “The Trip Of A
Lifetime” and have so many wonderful memories and photos to look back
on in the years to come. You never know, we may just plan another in
the not too distant future!
I hope you’ll all still be reading the Ontarion when and if it happens again!
I’ll let this be the final “Trip” column for this year!
Thanks so much for allowing me to share our Vacation with you this time
and I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure!
Thanks once again 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>
The Queen has a poster of Burt Reynolds on her “Loo” door, I wonder who Prince Philip has on his?
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Have a good one..
the doug
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