7 posts tagged “canada”

It's another rainy day here at the cottage. It's very, very cold for this time of year as well--if we are lucky there will be a high of 60F today. I really doubt it though.
I'm glad I brought hoodies because I'm wearing them with the hoods up--indoors.
I've not ever had to use a space heater that I can recall but both of them are cranked up right now.
I've been blog-keeping, younger son is watching 80's and 90's cartoon openings on YouTube, and spouse drew the short straw has gone to West Guilford to do laundry. Supposedly, the weather is going to improve slightly as the weekend progresses so we figured we'd get the bigger chores out of the way whilst it is like this.
Anyway what better a way to feel cheery than to look at some photos of last night's trip into Haliburton to Win Yeung for some Canadian Chinese food, followed by some sightseeing around the village.

No one home: a home at the perimeter of Stanhope Airport

Head Lake, Haliburton

Moon over Grass Lake, West Guilford

Grass Lake, West Guilford

About one-third of the biggest clam I've ever seen in Maple Lake.

It's been another rainy day here at the lake--not steady--on and off--a few sun showers. Temperatures are bit low so it was perfect to tackle more cleaning (I know).
I love to go barefoot but am persnickety about clean floors so last night I started with tile/linoleum floors and today the wood flooring. Good exercise, I must say!

I'm super happy to ditch the flip-flops and except for the odd kibble that Raven has picked from her mixed flavour dry dog food--there's nothing on the floor that doesn't belong there.
Spouse has been assembling a slider which is a gilding bench for outside. I don't know what possessed him to purchase it but he's putting each slat on and then getting to the assembly of the sliding part. I totally would not have the patience or persistence that he's shown.
He's going to have to find a stopping point soon tho' as we are going to watch the DVD of "Blade Runner." Just discovered before leaving that younger son has never seen it--he'd thought it had something do with Wesley Snipes' "Blade" movies but once I put it in context he was up for watching it. I think I've seen it 7-8 times. It's referenced so often when that genre is written about that you really can't go wrong watching it. That, and it is amazing. (For the record, I do like the original theatrical version with the Harrison Ford voice over best.)

Above and below are a couple of interesting pics I took yesterday using the waterproof housing.The water was very choppy and I'd not ever done this before so I want to get out there again and practice not floating to the top as I'm trying to get a shot of the lake floor.

S'posed to be a run of good weather after tomorrow. Have plans for The Sculpture Forest , go-karting, and canoeing. So far. :)

Silver Lake Cottage Resort, Ontario~05.19.08 edit/(webcam still--not our place--see below pics for that) 

Actually, spouse found it in the exact place where it “should have” been. The “safe” place. lol. Where I keep it with other important Canadian stuff –border crossing-card, birth certificate. I’m still trying to get a photo for my CDN passport that is acceptable to the Canadian government. . It’s come to, I’m just going to go to a Canadian prof photographer and if you think about it, that may be the whole point. I just wanted to get it done a while ago. Because from what I read, many folks* got exasperated w/American photographer’s unreliable rendering of Canadian photos that they shrugged and got it done in Canada–where apparently the Canadian residents have very little trouble getting an accurate passport image of themselves that the Canadian government will not reject. I may as well  have one done of my youngest son as now that we know he’s got dual citizenship. He has the choice either, or both(passports). If you had your choice. would you prefer to travel the world as an American or as a Canadian (living in the US)? It’s fun that he gets a choice.

Here’s the bad deal though. Canadian passports are only good for 5 years. And they cost about $30 more than the US ones for each one. Bah.

American passport are good for 10 yrs.. Supposedly, the Canadians are just a “step ahead” in the process of giving you less for your money (blame the terrorists) and the US will be dropping the years that a US passport is good to five years as well.

Have been looking for the key for about two weeks.

The key was found tonight by spouse in my dresser “summer” drawer which normally wouldn’t get used much in the winter except that I went swimming quite a bit over the winter. I’ve now surmised that I need to toss a couple of swimsuits that chlorine and usage have wiped out–and maybe clean out some of the greetings cards I have stashed in there, too. Anyway, no worries about the key–I can go on now and stress about something else. :p  I just bought a new swimsuit and it’s not a Speedo for the first time in a while. Hopefully it’s as utilitarian as I need it to be but somewhat less “one colour.” It looks good for swimming and it’s black with little pink polka dots. We’ll see how it goes when it gets here. I’m planning on swimming often this summer. In Maple Lake. :) 

*Canadians not living in Canada–there’s lots of us

EDIT/Our place that has no webcam :(

Made it!

The lake:

Ourplace

Heading out in the morning to spend Labour Day weekend at Maple Lake and to close the cottage up for the winter.
Despite the fact that we'll be driving as much as vacationing we had such a great time there last month that we couldn't bear to have it be our only visit of the year.

Forecast is for stellar weather so we should be able to get out on the Lake and for sure I'll be in the Lake as well.

Until later, y'all take care!

Maplelake3

Surprise! I have scads of photographs.

But first...
We bought our first boat,  a 15.5 foot red canoe. I had grand plans for quality family time in it but it seems that though he easily navigated the choppy waters of the Pacific in a kayak last summer, canoing on Maple Lake is not my son's "thing."

He swamped us...in the black water...with our dog Raven along for the ride.
It wasn't so bad because we were not far from our beach and my son was very shaky from the get-go
so we were more or less waiting for it to happen (though I murmured reassuringly any time he seemed to relax a bit).

So over we went and boy, was it a lesson in every living thing for him or herself. Our 12-pound dog immediately took off, dog paddling her way towards the wrong beach (any beach in a swamping, I suppose). We are all strong swimmers so I swam after Raven and collared her, steering her towards our beach. Also in our favour was the very low water level this year so we did not have far to go before we were in the shallows. We reached shore to find Raven awaiting us on our beach looking none-too-pleased about the situation.
I love the canoe though and can't wait to go again. Spouse likes it as well so perhaps we'll have Chris and Raven travel this way---->

next time.

Toasting marshmallows

For ages now, I've wanted a safer way to have a campfire in the evening so I was happy to find a portable copper fire pit. It's on legs and has a screen cover to cover it once the fire dies down a bit (I had the guys put sand beneath it on our second go-round). Of course, one always has a bucket of water handy just the same.

This pic was taken prior to my spouse trimming the bank, bushes, and taking down a tree damaged in last year's tornadoes(not the one pictured). I spent a lovely afternoon sitting here listening to the soft lapping of the waves on the beach, relaxing and reading. :)

...as of about midnight Monday.

Everyone--even our dog Raven is wiped out.
Thankfully, the trip home was uneventful save for the awful time we had with the traffic getting out of the city of Toronto. It reminded me of Chicago gridlock--and it was mid-morning--not the time that I'd have expected such a jam.

We stayed in Chinatown for our last two nights in Canada. I've heard that there are two Chinatown's in T.O.--we were in the one about 6 blocks in from the CN Tower.

We stayed at a Hotel Super 8 in the Chinatown Centre Shopping Mall complex. It was so new that they hadn't yet installed all the services but it was a lovely place just the same. Our room was sumptuous with cherry wood furniture throughout, scads of space, and very firm mattresses on the beds. Both son and spouse seemed to really like that touch.

The neat thing was that there was a Chinatown street festival just below our 3rd floor digs so we were able to walk right out and have abundant choices in Chinese notions, souvenirs, and best of all, food.

I'd picked our hotel it for it's proximity to the CN Tower and The Hockey Hall of Fame. We'd also planned to go to Casa Loma--a real castle-- in the one day visit. Unfortunately, two things got in the way way of being able to do all that we wanted.

One, due to the festival and construction closing down many roads in the areas of the hotel, we spent a great deal of time on the night of arrival just trying to access the hotel which we kept driving by, looking in vain for any way to park near it. Just as in many American cities there were plenty of one way and no turn streets and it made it all the more challenging.

The other cog in the machinery was that though the hotel accepted "animal guests" one could not leave said guest alone in the room for more than 10 minutes.
With the temperatures predicted to soar in the the high eighties with high humidity there was no way we could've brought Raven with us to Casa Loma which was where all three of us wanted to go the most.

So while the guys were sleeping I decided that I would stay at the room with Raven. By the morning there was a steady drizzle outside which was fine for roaming the castle. Raven and I stayed behind, sleeping, then reading Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows (more on that in a post to come).

***All photos of Casa Loma by my son.