Leigh and Brooks left on Sunday the 15th at 2pm as scheduled but the events leading up to the departure were interesting at best.

On Saturday the 14th as we had been borrowing Bill Martin's Taurus as we lent ours to the kids, I decided to get it over to the squirt wash as we had trashed it pretty good. I washed it up a bit and then moved it over to the vacuum station ... all in the light 40 degree drizzle typical of the season.

Once I parked it at the vacuum station and had gotten done I went to start it and ... nada. Brother in law Rick came over and we got a new battery and tried without success to get it started.

So then we had to call a tow truck and have it towed to the nearest Ford dealer to wait for Monday to have the starter replaced.

OK rainy cold day and the crisis was averted, eh.

We then went to the Alphorn restaurant to have schnitzel which was excellent and then went home. We left the kids at the Thornbury condo because we were to pick them up there the next day and take them to Toronto to fly home to Dallas on Sunday.

Well .... at 10pm Leigh called and said that Brooks was having a severe pain in his leg and needed to go to emergency ... now. They had already called the Meaford emergency room and the staff was waiting so we got in the car and drove the 10 miles over to Thornbury then the 10 miles back to Meaford to the hospital here.

They were taken care of quickly and the doctor on call came in and with a shot or two of morphine and muscle relaxant Brooks was able to go home at 5am. Total cost was $265 for the evening in emergency ... if it happened in the US you could have just added a zero or so to the tab.

We then picked up the kids and grandson at about 9am and got them to Toronto for their scheduled flight back to Dallas.