After our great time in Kingston, on the 24th, we motored along the St Lawrence Seaway for a while and then came across the border into the US at Cornwall, Ontario. From there we took some small roads, ending up on the large island in the middle of Lake Champlain in the town of South Hero, Vermont. The Apple Island Resort where we landed is about a mile from where this picture was taken and you are looking at the colors surrounding Lake Champlain ... wow!

On the boat trip down the St Lawrence we went past this view of Fort Henry which was built in 1837 to protect the Rideau Canal which runs from Kingston to Ottawa.

And as Fort Henry was supposed to be a must see for the area we went the next day to see for ourselves. Inside the fort the view back toward where we were in the boat is pretty awesome and you can see why this was an important strategic point of land.

This is a really important piece of military design as the whole fort, other than the supply buildings in the above picture, is below ground level, making it virtually impossible to target from the water. The only thing visible just poking above the ground level would be the guns you see here up on the wall.

We had about a two hour tour and some weapon demonstrations and the place is really well restored and the interpretation actors in uniform are very well versed. A must see if you are in Kingston, Ontario.

On the 21st of September we arrived in Kingston, Ontario. Kingston is well known for its several military bases, especially the Royal Military College, the Canadian equivalent of our West Point.

It's also known for its location at the start of the St Lawrence Seaway and the 1000 Island park area. So for our first full day in Kingston we boarded the Island Queen stern wheeler for a three hour luncheon cruise.

Here is the lunch buffet being prepared; take a look at the old tin ceiling. While we didn't know it when I shot this pic, the man seated to the left of Jo-Anne (Ken Diamond) turned out to have served with her dad and he and Jo-Anne shared many thoughts about base life and mutual people they knew from a couple of Base Borden postings. Very small world.

The cruise was really spectacular while we ate lunch and listened to the narrative about the 1000 Island (really 1800 of em) area and the people who live on the rocks in the river like this one.

And this unique one ...

At the end of the cruise with much wine consumed the Eastern European tour group really got into the polka!

OK, this one's for Dad ... and this hasn't been touched by Photo Shop. This is the same tree I shot a couple of weeks ago when about 10 leaves had changed ... and were barely visible ... and I declared Fall as official.

On September 21st, the day we left the Memorial Park in Meaford, I shot the same tree and we can officially call it The Flying Scotsman Bouquet!

Now that the summer is over, here's a general plan for the wanderers in the Flying Scotsman ... always subject to change on a whim of course.

On Sunday the 21st off to Kingston, Ontario; then on the 24th to South Hero on an Island in Lake Champlain, Vermont.

Then to my cousin Jim's place in Sandgate, Vermont on the 27th.

You must look up all these places as there will be a geography test later in the year!

On the 29th we motor over to the Boston area for several days with another cousin, Virginia, who we talked about at the reunion earlier this summer in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Then down the coast to visit an old friend from our Civil Air Patrol days, Sandy Rose, in the Fredericksburg area around the 6th of October, ending up in Atlanta on the 10th.

Whew! Well that's the plan ... subject to change probably by the time I post this on the blog ... but the Flying Scotsman is on the roll again.

A pause here from our seemingly carefree life to talk about a more serious issue and bear with me for some editorializing. One of the reasons we have stayed pretty close to Meaford for the summer was Jo-Anne's mom, Helen, who has the awful Alzheimer's disease. The worst part of this disease is that a tremendous burden is placed upon the care givers, in this case Jo-Anne's dad, Bill. He worked extremely hard trying to keep Helen home and at one point had people coming several times a day, six days a week, but it got too much to handle. As a matter of fact, he's been nominated by the government for "Care giver of the year."

Finally Helen became too much to handle and almost uncontrollable at times and application was made for the local long-term care home with space became available in August. At that point she was unable to recognize anyone and was prone to wandering and aggression. She went into a semi-private room and is on the list for a private one. Even though you are at the control of the provincial government the process has been very timely and she should be in a private room shortly. I wish our government was as concerned about its seniors as they are here.

Now Bill's attention has shifted from caring for Helen at home to going over to the home every day to provide comfort and make sure the care givers there have as much help as they need. Jo-Anne is over there every day as well, and needless to say, it is a very emotional time for all who watch this relentless deterioration of what was a vibrant and loving human being, so there have been a lot of tears from all concerned.

The October 3rd weekend here in Meaford is their Art and Crafts Fall Festival. As part of celbrating autumn, scarecrows are part of the decorations. There are literally hundreds of the little guys you see hanging from this lamppost in the Harbour. There are also a bunch of corn stalks wrapped around the base of the post.

The little guys and gals resemble 3-foot Raggedy-Ann dolls but with pumpkin heads. On the far post one has crawled out almost to the end.

They're everywhere!

Last weekend, Danielle, or Dani, was up for the weekend as we probably wouldn't be seeing her for about 6 months. She's Jo-Anne's brother's daughter. She is 21 and going to University in Barrie, working on her degree in accounting and has about two years to go for that. She's very dedicated and goal oriented and should do well with a career ... no matter what.

As a note, if you look close at the TV you can see hurricane Ike's projected path toward Houston ... nasty old Ike.

The Old Man, The Old Dog, and The Sea

First, for those of you not in Bryan or College Station Texas, apparently mean ol' Ike did a glancing blow and while there was a lot of wind and rain, no appreciable damage was done to my parents' house, my brother's place, or our new house. Close one!

After Labor Day all our neighbors in the upper park area here in Meaford moved out leaving us all alone which was quiet but kinda spooky, especially at night. It was cheaper up there but we had no direct view of the Georgian Bay.

So we unplugged the Flying Scotsman and moved 500 feet down the hill to the beach area where there are a few more people ... and an awesome view of the bay.

And a first hand view of the storms as they come across the water and drown us!

Time goes by quickly and on September 8th it was our 36th anniversary. We've been fortunate to be in Paris several times and if not Paris quite often we have been in some other romantic destination to celebrate with a really nice dinner. So this year we took advantage of being in Meaford to eat at a special place we have driven by a hundred times but never eaten in.

I'm referring of course to Ted's Range Road Diner http://www.meaford.com/rrdiner.htm and as romance was in the air and someone forgot the camera, that website's pictures will have to do. Yes, it is a WWII quonset hut with a particle board interior that hasn't changed since it was bought war surplus in the middle of the last century.

But take a look at the extensive menu on the website. We had a bruchetta appetizer which was excellent, then I had a sea bass wrapped in roasted potatoes and Jo-Anne had a schnitzel that wasn't on the menu. Everything was perfect with excellent service and the atmosphere was about a funky as you would expect; including some bearded dude in the back playing Gordon Lightfoot on a guitar.

Romance was in the air ...

While waiting for the boat last weekend in Tobermory Jo-Anne found a new friend named Iggy. Actually Iggy could care less about the throngs of tourists about her.

The water portion of the national parks in the upper Bruce Peninsula is called the Fathom Five National Marine Park of Canada and is really a spectacular piece of the Earth. After our water adventure we went slightly south to the Bruce Peninsula National Park, a separate and huge piece of real estate on the eastern shore of the peninsula. From the park parking lot you can walk about a half-mile toward the shore through a pretty dense forest on the Niagra Escarpment ... puff, puff.

Fortunately it was a cool day and the hike wasn't too bad for the ol' guys and you end up at the craggy coastline. This little beach is called Indian beach and people get here either by the hike we took or by boat. We actually walked around and along the cliff in the center of the picture along a pretty rustic and craggy trail ... whew!

Then a little further along our rocky route we arrived at our destination; The Grotto. This is a wave and glacier formed cave that penetrated quite deeply into the coastal rock. Neat formation. And you can see both scuba and snorkel divers all around the place.

And lastly for today, Bruce's new friend, Bucky. Resemblance?

Last weekend while we were in Tobermory, we took a trip on a glass-bottomed boat called the Blue Heron, shown here in Tobermory harbor. It was a two hour trip on a really nice 65 degree day.

The first stop was for two of the area's 22 shipwrecks and illustrated why the area is the scuba/snorkle diving capital of Ontario. Looking from the deck you could see the outline of an 1800's sailing vessel just below the surface.

But then the captain takes a turn and goes over the sunken ship a mere three feet below the hull ... pretty spectacular!

After the wrecks, we headed around a bunch of islands making up the 100s of islands immediately surrounding Tobermory, finally touring Flowerpot Island. The island being named for the characteristic flowerpot shaped formations created by wave and wind action on this island.

Some of these don't need much explanation ... just beautiful. A lighthouse still functional at Tobermory. There are people just in front of the lighthouse diving into the cool water. It's about a 40 foot dropoff just a few feet from the shore ... but very clear and rocky.

Pretty coastline and crystal clear water.

And the ferry Chi-Cheemaun (big canoe) with its snout open to take on cars, which runs between Tobermory and South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island to the north for about an hour and a half trip.

OK, we had to take a break from the frivolous part of travel to do some of the serious required work in this part of the country. With the family here, we drink around 30-45 bottles of wine a month and as I've said that could be expensive if you bought it in the government store. There's an option and that is to make it yourself.

You walk into the storefront and order 30 bottles of whatever variety and style you want and the clerk puts the juice in a plastic container. $139, or about 4.63 a bottle. You break open a packet of yeast making the transaction legal, pour it into the juice, and walk out the door.

30 days later, you come back with your own bottles and bottle your brew. The clerk brings out your fermented juice containers and you do the rest.

Here is my brother-in-law Rick putting the finishing touch on a new bottle of wine. First, at the immediate front, you wash out and disinfect the bottles you have brought into the place and hang them up to drain. Then they are filled with the device Rick is operating from the plastic containers, which also sucks off the foam. Then directly behind him the big silver thing corks them as you put each bottle in.

The rookie brewmaster hard at work filling the never ending bottles. I'm not smiling ... but I don't know why as you sample as you go and there are always leftovers.

Once they are corked, you heat shrink the little cap around the top of the bottle and label it if you want. This batch will be Bruce's Baywater Bilge for a lot of obvious reasons. The guy that runs this little shop is a really happy person ... can't figure it out!

The 60 bottles for this month's run took us about 35 minutes to fill, cork, seal, and load into the truck .... and we actually made it home to enjoy. Actually it goes into the basement to age a bit longer, but it is drinkable a short 30 days from the day you put the yeast into the grape juice ... really facinating process.

On Friday, the 29th we unplugged the Flying Scotsman from the park in Meaford and headed about 90 miles north to Tobermory, the very tip of the Bruce (yup) Penninsula. We left Meaford because the park was booked for the Labor Day weekend and without a reservation made last Feb, we were evicted. Above is our new park in Tobermory with an Indian rock talisman looking over our travels.

We had planned on setting up camp in Tobermory and then taking the ferry over to Manitoulin Island to enjoy the island for the day. After figuring out the time constraints; whereby we would either be on the island for 4 hours (see nothing) or 12 hours (zzz) because of ferry sailings, and the ferry cost which was about $200 for the day's adventure; we decided not to go over to the island and enjoy the Tobermory environment.

Saturday morning we hit the local organic food joint called the Mermaid for breakfast which had wi-fi so we could find out what was going on in the bustling burg of 3,600.

For those of you in the family, here's Virginia and Colin at their 50th anniversary party that we were fortunate to be invited to in Saugatuck, Michigan. Hopefully they have more meaningful pics as mine were not so hot. Cousin Brian had numerous love letters that were written by the two parties (his parents) as they courted between the US and Scotland over 50 years ago. He handed excerpts out to the offspring in the room to read aloud representing a variety of points in the long distance romance and it was quite entertaining. Here's Virginia reading one of Colin's bit of prose herself ... very clever and entertaining theme and we really enjoyed the evening.