While over in Owen Sound last week we stopped by the Billy Bishop Museum. It is the ancestral home of William Bishop who was a fighter pilot in WWI. He is one of the most famous Canadian fighters of that war as he shot down at least 72 enemy planes ... quite a feat in any conflict! The home is wonderfully restored to the look as he grew up here in the late 1800s and early 1900s before he went off to war. He actually built sort of glider that he got into as a kid and jumped off the roof of the porch here.





This is a nicely restored home and is really in the same condition that he would have experienced as a child around 1900.




There are many large models of the aircraft he flew in accomplishing his scores of victories over the Germans and they are quite detailed. In the corner here is a leather winter flying suit; while keeping the pilot warm and safe from mustard gas, I can't imagine trying to fly an aircraft and shoot down enemy planes in this thing, but he did.

During WWII General Bishop was in charge of training and recruitment and died in his home in Florida in 1956; really outstanding flyer and example for the next generation.

Yes, I know, we haven't been very prolific this summer with the Flying Scotsman news, but as the summer progresses there are a few bits of fun. Last weekend this rig showed up and the French owners began to assemble the outfit shown here.

On first glance, as the thing was being built, I kinda thought it might be an outhouse .... oooo. I mean we do have a nice public toilet and washroom facility at the park. Then as the final pieces came together we realized it was a shower ... although, as I just said, we do have a nice and very clean public shower. The problem with this thing is that they have built it on the utility side of their RV which is right in front of the next guy's fire pit ... let's see ..... I'm BBQing the weenies and watching the lady here ... three feet away ... take a shower. Yup they did! I guess we were thankful that she did it with the enclosure ... but still.

First, a couple of notes on the "park" life so far this summer. Gas is running about CDN$1.00 a liter so that is around $3.80 a gallon for us and the exchange rate is about $.97 or so, so close to par. We have found that most stuff is pretty comprable in price, except the fuel, so our life here isn't costing us an arm and a leg like it did a couple of years ago ... and on the opposite side, it isn't a real steal.

Here's a couple more pics of our recent trip to Manitoulin Island, a place in North America that more Americans should visit as a true wilderness right here at home. Of course we there to see Jo-Anne's relatives, the Purvis line, who literally run the fishing, shipping, and boat repair in the northern Lake Huron area. Here's one of their new fish tugs in Gore Bay harbor.





Near Kagawong on the island is the Bridal Falls area, a really pretty place with hiking trails and a very good interpretive setup for the the tourists.





On the major road from South Baymouth to Gore Bay is the funky little cafe called the Garden Gate. Named appropriately for this view through the gate to the house and restaurant, however, the picture doesn't do justice to the flowers and shrubs around the place.




Inside, on a rainy and cool day, we had an awesome corn chowder soup with a grilled cheese, bacon, and tomato sandwich. A couple of Earl Grey teas warmed us up for the lunch.

As we are still having a persistent propane leak in the new Flying Scotsman we headed off to Barrie, Ontario, for the closest Damon dealer to try to fix the problem. Barrie is a really picturesque town of about 120,000 about an hour and a half north of Toronto.


It is located on Lake Simcoe which is a very large lake and the waterfront with its condos and the tour boats were particularly nice. As we had all day Wednesday to be out of the RV we spent a bunch of time shopping and seeing the city. We had dropped the pets at Grandpa's place for the couple of days. Although the weather looks nice in these photos it was a blustery 55 degree day where our light jackets didn't stop the wind very much. Time on the waterfront and in the park were limited.




Because Barrie is about an hour and a half from Meaford we booked into the KOA there so we didn't have to rush the repair process. The Barrie KOA is by far one of the finest they have in the system. This is a 90 foot concrete pad located in the restricted "adults only" part of the facility and is what all RV park pads should look like.




Really nice to be out of the mud and kids and campfires for a couple of days.

For those of you with some sort of RV machine here is what the epitome of hookups should look like; including 50 amp service and two sewer openings to conform to your particular vehicle.

And just before the pizza delivery arrived from the KOA pizzeria the blogger toasts the facility with some scotch.

The bottom line on the Barrie trip was that the repair place has to order parts so we will be back, we got to see the nice city of Barrie, and got to experience a state-of-the-art camping experience.