First, on Wednesday, we will be unhooking the Flying Scotsman and motoring over to Michigan to attend the high school reunion then a family reunion, both of which ought to be fun. It looks like we will be in the Lansing, Michigan area from the 31st of July to the 4th of August when we head down to Ohio to hit the AF base there for a couple of days. Then back to Saugatuck, Michigan for the weekend of the 9th and then head back to Meaford on the 13th.

That's the plans and now for more touring. Last weekend we went about 30 miles south of Meaford to the little town of Creemore. I've been drinking Creemore beer and wanted to see the brewery and the village. It's a little town of about 1000 folks who are really proud of the fact that they don't have a McDonalds or Wal Mart, just the local Mom and Pop places. Here's the brewery and Jo-Anne rushing to get in ... crappy pic but they do tours and you get a free brew ... a really nice medium ale.

Then we ate at a little bakery/pie shop called Affairs which was super. The chicken wraps and tarts were perfect .... and I used to work for a living! Next to the bakery is a fine French restaurant which by the menu has a really comprehensive list of entrees to include Duck L'orange.
And in addition to the historical beer brewery part, apparently Creemore was a small but important flight training center after WWI in the JND-4 "Jenny" aircraft prior to WWII.

Here are a few more images from around the Meaford area. The first, while kinda dark, is of the main lodge at the Talisman ski area just south of town. There is also a really nice par 3 golf course in the spruce and pine trees. Behind the building here are about a dozen ski slopes that run from about 1800 feet down to 600 here at the lodge; so a pretty good run, but of course not the Rockies.

The next is a typical style of local farmhouse, while this one is particularly nice.

And because this is a large apple growing region here is the information booth in Meaford.

Eh?!

Actually, as a bilingual country every package in Canada must have both French and English markings on them. OK, for those of you that are expert Francophiles what is it? ... yep, those are Wheat Thins. Don't tase any different even with the French writing.

And for anyone who thinks that the beautiful images that I send are year-round ... nah, winter is just weeks away.

Here is a pretty view of the Meaford jetty taken from another city park; the marina where we stay is just around to the right off the picture. Almost Italian looking view. Every afternoon there are a bunch of little sail boats with their new captains taking lessons ... at least when the weather is nice. We have still have had a rain shower almost every day, but then it clears up, making everything green and the flowers beautiful. The temperatures have been pretty steady in the upper 60s to lower 70s without much variation. About 60 at night.

Just east of Meaford is Thornbury and I've shown some other pic of that cute little town. This is a picture of gormet $$$$ restaurant right on their marina. Light lunch with a glass of wine was $60 ... it was excellent as was the view ... but yeouch.

And here is the chef toiling over the pots and pans in the RV. Actually heating up some pasta to take over to the Martin's place. We figured out that this was the third time the burners on the stove have actually had gas go through them since we bought the RV a year and a half ago.

We were out and about over the last couple of days and wandered out through the local farmland which is what this place is really about. The tourists are here but the real focus is still crops and farmers in this very fertile region. First is the mustard. Believe it or not, 80% of the world's mustard comes from Canada ... and the Dijon name has been bought by companies here and is not a French trademark anymore. Anyhow here's mustard ... thousands of acres of the stuff.

And this weekend the hay was cut and harvested, some of it in the old traditional way rather than the new rolled up version. It's been so wet and cool that this was the first opportunity to cut and bale the stuff so they were all madly working the fields the last couple of days.

Then we went over to a small tourist spot near here called Walters Falls. This is a small falls which was converted to a mill over a hundred years ago, but remains a pretty spot for picture taking.

OK, and the last for today is an "eat your heart out Texas" kind of pic. This is the Martin's back yard as we got ready to barbeque with the monster blue spruce on the side. I was present when this tree was about 2 feet tall and first planted and have watched it mature in spite of being moved at least four times over the last 20+ years ... I don't think it will move again, eh. They have had so much rain and it has remained so cool ... even today at 70 degrees we had another pretty good shower, that it it very lush and green here.

Now that the 4th is over and we are back in the city park by the beach I thought I'd share some brief financial insights to the fun life.

The cost to park this big chunk of fiberglass was $35 a night in the marina for only electric service ... yep you gotta go dump the poop every three days or so. Compared to full service in Washington, Oregon, and California where you got full hookups for about $350 a month.

Now that we are in the city park again, it is still pretty stiff at $30 per night. Yes, we have sewer and power, but no TV ... at $1000 a month ... eeeuh.

Today the Canadian Dollar and the US Dollar are equal in value at the broker. In spite of that gas is $1.36 a liter here ... ok, time for conversions. There are 4 liters in a Canadian gallon but there are about 3.8 liters in an American gallon ... high school physics here, eh. Anyhow if you pass the test, it is about 5 bucks a gallon no matter how you cut it.

If you go into Wal Mart most of the stuff is about twenty percent higher for the same item across the border ... taxes I guess. On the same line of thought a car here that is, say $20000, will be $15000 in the states, and the ironic part is that the same car is built in Windsor, Ontario. Obviously they they have people going south to buy cars.

Wine is about 80% more here. All alcohol is controlled by the province and a representive on might be Lindeman's Cab which is about $6.25 at home ... here is 12.50. The cheapest wine on the shelf is .... absolutely, including Ripple, is $7.50 for a normal 750 ml bottle.

The off side to this is that the province allows people to make their own wine and the Martins brew about 30 bottles a month for a cost of about 3 bucks a bottle and that is what we are drinking. Not bad stuff and it matures in about a month. I think they now have about 250 bottles of a variety in the basement at this time ... yeah I know, what's a basement. It's a really cool, dark place, perfect for storing wine, eh, and avoiding tornados ...

Happy 4th of July to All!!

Interestingly this is Danielle's birthday. She is Jo-Anne's brother's daughter and turned 21 on the 4th ... a really ironic twist to freedom, eh. Actually she got her unrestricted drivers license and is able to drink ... all on the same day ... I'm not sure where to go with that one, so will leave it alone. Really mature young lady, though, who is attending college and I have no doubt will do very well in life.