A Whitby Ramble

Whitby is actually starting to feel comfortable and familiar. Church today almost felt like we belonged. And after church, what better to do on a Sunday afternoon than have a luxurious nap and go for a lovely walk by the lake! If you drive south down Brock Street, past the 401 you get to the lake. There is a green p parking area but if you keep driving you get to the Kiwanis Park. The path that goes through the Kiwanis Park is part of the Water Front Trail, which stretches from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Montreal (or something like that says Ken). We walked for a couple of kilometers.

In the Kiwanis Park area the beach is level with the park, but as you walk further along the path there are bluffs. We had quite an adventure! We walked along the path and then at the Scout symbol we turned right and headed towards the water. Low and behold there was a path all the way to the water - no cliff!














We started walking along the water back towards Kiwanis Park. It was slow going over the rocky terrain and Ken had his doubts about our chosen path. It turned out that he was right to have
concerns.














As we walked further along the beach we came to a small waterfall - really small but when it got to the beach it was lots of water - a wide gulf, a chasm even. What we were to do? Did we go through or go back? Going through meant cold wet feet. Walking back meant walking back. Our only option, scale the cliff. It felt slightly dangerous, but not really. The bluff wasn't too high.


So here we are back on the path, enjoying another sunset. Life is good.

The Things Whitbyites Do For Fun

Where can you see African Drummers, War of 1812 Reenactors, your local MPP and children milking a statue of a cow? The answer is the Whitby Fall Fair. It's probably not nice to slam your new town but as far as fall fairs go, it was lame.

I think I liked the cow milking activity the best because it was something new to me. For the sake of clarity I did not actually milk the cow as only children seemed to be doing that, but I did enjoy watching the kids squirt each other with "cow" water.




























And while we are on the topic of fall fairs, we made an attempt to go to the Lindsay Exhibition yesterday (September 22). We didn't know what to expect. I was looking forward to pig and duck races and Ken was very excited about attending the tractor pull. Well, it was all for naught. We drove to Lindsay and the line up to get into the fair grounds was ridiculous. You don't expect to sit in traffic in Lindsay but there it was. Ken decided that no pig, duck or tractor was worth the wait. Perhaps someday I will get to see pigs and ducks race, but until that day, my life will be incomplete.

The Return of the Lantern Festival

Here are a few of the pictures that we took at the Chinese Lantern Festival which takes place at Ontario Place. We enjoyed it so much last year that we decided to go back again. We went on September 15th. It was a beautiful night - a little bit cool but beautiful. We enjoyed strolling along the water enjoying the amazing lanterns. I was prepared for the spectacle this year but the lanterns are truly amazing. They are larger than life and each one requires hundreds of hours of work to create.

These pictures are of the terracotta warriors, who were built to accompany China's first Emperor into the afterlife, for his protection and further military aspirations. The terracotta warriors were statues but many of the Emperor's closest entourage were buried alive with him. The tomb was discovered by farmers digging a well in 1976. The tomb is still not fully excavated.
















































These pictures represent our fascination with lanterns that incorporate dish ware.



















Notice the spoons and cups, cool huh?



















And of course, the obligatory photo posed with a Panda!














Check out the blog entry on last year's Lantern Festival - October 2006.

The Last Week of August

I can't believe it's already the last week of September and the first day of fall. The last week of August doesn't seem like that long ago and yet there are already more than four thousand kilometers between then and now.

After coming home from a wonderful road trip we were thrust back into reality. It was time to move, but we had to finish packing. I had to get ready for school and let's not forget we had to find a car for Ken.

First thing on the list was packing and moving. The packing was slow (well I was in slow motion, Ken was awesome) but it got done. Next came double checking that we still had a moving crew. In all of the commotion of August there had been some miscommunication and the guys we thought that we're going to help us move weren't able to. We found out that we were without help the day before we were moving. I was panicked. Enter Sonia, Ben and Kevin. At Sonia and Ben's wedding reception, Sonia had mentioned that she thought they would be able to help us move. I called her Monday and she told me not to worry. At 10 o'clock Tuesday morning she and Ben and Kevin came to our rescue. They were the best moving crew ever!

On Wednesday and Thursday we finished up at the old apartment and started to unpack the new apartment. Thursday afternoon we thought we better start looking for a car for Ken. We visited three different used car places. The first place was in a back alley and according to carfax, the Accord that we looked at had a history of inconsistent odometer readings, something like 100,000 km's were unaccounted for. The second place looked better but the car Ken was interested in wouldn't even start. The third place had two different cars that seemed pretty good. One a Toyota, the other a Honda, both 5-speeds and both seemingly in good condition. According to carfax the Toyota Corolla had been a total right off in 1998. That left the Honda Civic and making sure to be "better safe than sorry", the final say went to carfax - and the Honda Civic with a clean record, was the winner. Meet Chip, Ken's new car. He's a good little car and he and Petunia are now best friends.

And so begins the Whitby chapter. We'll be here for a year at least. As for what comes next, your guess is as good as mine... well mine might be slightly better, but not much!

The Road Trip

On Saturday, August 18th, Ken and I embarked on a cross-Ontario McCartney family tour. Our first stop was in Gananoque where went to celebrate the wedding of our friends Sonia and Ben. It was a lovely garden party in the backyard of a bed and breakfast. Sonia and Ben both looked radiant.


From Gananoque we made our way to Ottawa to visit Ken's sister Jenn, her husband Eric and their two boys Konrad and Anders. We went to their ward on Sunday and afterwards we went on a drive to Val de Bois to see their "cottage" property. They plan to build a cottage in the next few years. It's a beautiful piece of land and we enjoyed a lovely picnic. On Monday we went to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. I wish the museum was closer to Toronto as it would be an excellent place to go on a field trip.


After the trip to the museum we set out for the longest leg of our trip, Ottawa to Sudbury. On the way we stopped at a "chip truck" for dinner. For Ken the "chip truck" is a quintessential small town summer experience - one that he misses. For me it was a new experience. Our chip truck wasn't an actual truck but was a small house like structure that served hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries and of course poutine.



The next day, Tuesday was our science day. We went to Science North and Dynamic Earth. I was very excited about going to Science North. I had never been before and was really excited about going. I wasn't disappointed and we both really enjoyed our time there.

After a quick bite of lunch we ventured over to Dynamic Earth. This is a new museum that Ken had heard about and wanted to go see. I knew it was about mining and I had read the blurb in the travel guide that said that you go down into the mine, but I didn't really believe it. I really had no idea what to expect and I wasn't prepared for the adventure.

When I read the blurb I thought "no, they won't take average, ordinary people down into a mine, that doesn't make sense". However, they do actually take average, ordinary people down into the mine. I was worried, scared, I would even venture to say that I was terrified. I didn't want to go into the mine and by the time I actually realized that we were going to go down into the mine it was pretty much too late to back out.

As it turned out we only went 65 feet below the surface and it was interesting. I felt very uneasy on our 45 minute tour and it took me a while to calm down afterward, but I did it. It was an interesting experience. The tour was through the history of mining. We walked through a series of mines: The century mine, the mid-century mine, and the centuries mine showing what mining was like in 1900, 1950, and 2000 respectively.



After leaving Dynamic Earth, we headed west toward Manitoulin Island. Ken's parents moved from Brighton to Manitoulin in June and this was our first trip to the new homestead. It was amazing to both of us that the only bridge on and off the island is a one lane, wooden swing bridge that looked like it might collapse and any moment!

Manitoulin wasn't exactly what I expected. The landscape was much more varied then I thought it would be. Ken's parents bought an old farm house in Gore Bay. They have already put in hundreds of hours of work fixing up their home and it really shows. We weren't much in the way of help but Ken and his Dad did manage to tear down the deck while we were there.



It was lovely to spend time with Ken's parents. The took us out for dinner in Gore Bay and to the falls in Kagawong. On Thursday Ken and I drove around to explore more of the island. We went to the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation heritage museum and art gallery. From there we drove through Manitowaning and on to Wikwemikong. In Wikwemikong we visited the ruins of an old church. From there we drove back to Manitowaning and enjoyed lunch at a place called Musky Widows and in Manitowaning I found a "Manitoulin Pig".



On Friday we left Manitoulin and headed east, back through Sudbury and on to North Bay to make our last stop on the McCartney Family tour. We stopped in North Bay to see Ken's sister Laura, her husband Keenan and their son William. We enjoyed a fun evening of conversation and even burned a few bears (check out Laura's blog).

The next morning it was back to reality. We left North Bay to head back to Toronto, to moving and school. We had a wonderful vacation exploring new places and spending time with family.

For all of the road trip pictures follow the link to Wendy and Ken's photo album".