Last Thursday, the 25th of August, we were invited to Toronto to the home of Leslie Martin Moody for a family get-together. She and her husband Cecil have a really neat old home situated in downtown Toronto. The place is in one of those old downtown neighborhoods with mature trees and 1920's stately old homes ... an absolutely gorgeous place. Here's our hostess Leslie showing off her BBQ skills on the porch.

Ok some family stuff.  Bill Martin, Jo-Anne's dad had a single brother Ed who has since passed away. Ed had three kids; Leslie, Cherry (yep, she married a guy named Hill), and Randy and these are the people and offspring who were invited to the BBQ.

From left to right above are: Cecil the Irish husband of Leslie, Cherry her sister, Leslie, Hillary who is the daughter of Randy, in red, who is Leslie's brother. And to the right of them is Rick, Jo's brother and Mark Carducci who is the boyfriend of Rick's daughter, Danielle.

Above Cecil and Cherry are listening to Rick talk about the plant that he brought.

And above are Leslie, Rick, Cherry, and Randy as the light began to wane in the backyard. And then Rick, Cherry's son Scott, and Adam who is Leslie's son.

And here below is Mark we talked about earlier with Danielle, Jo's dad, and Leslie.

And a nice one of Leslie and her Uncle Bill as they talked about her late father and her family ... really neat.

This was a really great evening in the city and I think all the relations had a chance to chat with people they either haven't seen before and just heard about, or haven't seen in a long time. Most important was for Bill Martin to see his brother's children and their offspring that he had heard so much about over the years.

A wonderful evening and the weather was a perfect 68 for the event in the garden and the food, wine and family gathering couldn't have been better.

Wicked weather!

Above is a picture from 2007 on our first RV trip to Meaford. This is the most recent picture of the little park in Goderich, Ontario that we have, where we always stop for lunch. When we stop for the night in Port Huron, Goderich then is a good place to stop for lunch the next day and there is a Tim Horton's as well as this little park with a huge parking space for our machine and a great dog walking spot as well. To the right is a 200 foot drop to the lake below. Goderich is on the east shore of Lake Huron between Sarnia and Tobermory, not too far north of Grand Bend where the Martins used to live.

OK, so what you say about the old news. Well, the little picturesque town of Goderich was slammed with an F3 tornado last Sunday doing extensive damage. In the far background in this picture on the left is a church spire which now has been heavily damaged as well as the rest of the center of the town. Right now they are saying one person was killed and 37 injured ... wow.

They have rightfully billed themselves as, "The most beautiful town in Ontario," and in time I will assume they will restore that look. This is the first serious tornado of that strength since 1996 and quite a surprise for this whole area. In addition to that we had  the F1 tornado recently near Meaford so maybe the weather patterns are changing?

Oh Boy, Another Garage Sale!

Here's Rick at 432 Farrar Street holding just what you always wanted ... hockey goalie leg protectors. Hey, the Schwinn bike to the right is a classic! Last Saturday, we held a garage sale to remove some of the memoribilia that has accumlated at the house prior to any sale. Actually it has been a pretty slow market and though we have had the place for sale for about a month, we've had only about 6 couples come see it.

All that having been said we do have one couple that has been back twice and we are hoping they will present a formal offer fairly soon. We are crossing our fingers and hoping that we get a firm offer so that we can help in the moving process before our annual trek back south.

Actually it was a fun morning with some really great weather; upper 60's and low humidity ... extremely comfortable for moving stuff in and out. After it was all over we made another run to the town trash place for the remnants to be disposed of.

The garage sale process is made easy in a small town like Meaford. There is no need to advertise as every Saturday in late summer is garage sale time. Then the realtor brings sale signs to the house for you to display in the streets when you are open for business ... you can open when you want and quit when ready ... cool.



Here's a nice shot of a boat about to enter the Meaford Harbour entrance just by the lighthouse. The water was a spectacular turquoise this week.

And this one shot through some wire art at the harbor. This is today's sailing class which is getting ready to head out into the bay. However, the winds were pretty strong and gusty ...

and a couple of the students ended up getting a bit wet. But they did get the boat back upright, showing they were capable of graduation. The outcome for students failing the first autorotation landing as we were helicopter instructors was a little bit more catastrophic, eh.

These guys were so fat that they had to use the public boat ramp to get ashore!

And here is your erstwhile blogger trying to get that neat photo of some of the campground art which is placed near the entrance of the park.

And while we were at the harbor we partook of the ice cream shack for some pralines and cream. Pretty pricey at $3.25 for a single scoop ... but good stuff.

Fall is upon us!

We just noticed the fruit tree in front of the RV has begun to turn color and shed its leaves and the silver maples are about 25% turned as I write.

The hay and other grains are rolled up for the winter, either to be plastic wrapped or stored in the barn.

The Queen Anne's Lace and goldenrod in the fields are mature and quite lush this year.



And the geese are finding places to stage their southward travel. This pond has more thatn a hundred of the honkers stocking up for the winter trip.

This is a short season, but the hints of nature let us know it is time to start planning our migration to the south and we are doing just that. We are still planning on leaving Meaford and the Roebuck Campground on the 15th of September and heading to Thunder Bay and then toward Duluth.

Ok, we're insane ... but now the details.

For some time we have looked at the brochure for a place called the Scenic Caves Eco Tours near Collingwood about 20 miles from here. Sounded interesting and it even included a zip-line ... which from my helicopter days should be fun ... see some caves and do a zip, eh.

Here's our class posing at the lodge prior to embarking on our "Eco Tour."

Well, wait, what is all this paramilitary gear crunching up into my groin and why am I not really smiling anymore? It took about 20 minutes for the initial suit-up and safety class.

Then off to the real "ground school" where we learned how to hook up the multiple caribiners to the multiple safety cables to keep us from dying .... woah ... just a second! The instructor kept saying, "make sure you only unhook one clip from the cable at a time as you go around the trees ... " Uh, OK?! What happened to just walking around the trees on the ground and talking about them ... ?

Then we were off on one of the most fun, harrowing, work, exciting and challenging experiences of our lives.  We climbed a ladder up  a tree for about 25 feet to the initial platform and then began the "tree walk." It was incredible and incredibly strenuous!

Here's Jo walking along the 2X10 planks holding onto the two cables as we went from tree to tree, sometimes 60 feet above the ground ... swaying with the breeze. You can see how far between the trees the boards are stretched with some of our classmates far in the background.

And here you can see a corner as we struggled past the 15th tree. Somewhere I thought there were supposed to only be 6 trees we were to traverse ... my mistake, eh. You can see a classmate behind Jo about to make the corner in space by unhooking his safety cables and re-hooking after the 90 degree turn ... all 60 feet up in the trees. This whole trek took well over an hour and we were exhausted ... the pace was fast, relentless, and scary ... wow that was about it for these two old guys!

We finally reached the 16th tree and rode a practice zip line down 300 feet to take a well deserved break before hiking to the caves. The day was a beautiful 75 degrees ... nice day for a stroll among the maples and grottoes and was a pleasant relief after the tree thing.

We then hitched up for the finale which was a 1,000 foot zip to the valley below. Here's Jo getting her last rites ... rather the last rules on how not to die once you step off that platform into space.

And jump she (we) did! Actually you just keep walking down the stairs ... and as the saying goes ... "watch the last step, it is a doozy!" The trees here are about 200 feet below you and it is really wild but fun experience.

Like I said it was an adventure of a lifetime. We'd do the zip lines again as they were just plain exhilarating fun ... but the tree walking part could have been about an hour shorter to still enjoy it without the seemingly endless trek. The whole afternoon was about three hours long and something we will never forget ... Tarzans we aren't!

On Saturday the 6th we went about 40 miles to the east to the crossroads called Edenvale and their small general aviation airport. While the airport is small this event as the billboard says is the largest fly-in in Canada and we believe it. I had to admit that I have flown a number of them, making me the antique as well ... I know you already knew that!

There were over 150 planes of mostly older vintage and some really well maintained antique ones. The same goes for the auto part of the show. There were probably over 150 cars as well and these were some real classics in various stages of restoration. This particular one is one of my favorites as I remember it from the time I began to drive.

The highlight was beautifully restored B-25 Mitchell bomber with some awesome nose art.

And a special treat for our friend Ed Beth (LTC ret) who flew the Tutor for several years and still lives in Moose Jaw and trains pilots where this plane is part of the Snowbird flying team.

And this little guy which actually was flown in here and drew quite a crowd to gawk at what two chain saw engines could really do!

And this even smaller guy which was piloted around the hangar floor by a pilot to be.

After walking for an hour absorbing the planes and cars we hit the airport eatery with its cute name. However the food was mediocre at best, but paired with a couple of Creemore ales was a relief after all the hiking.

Then from the restaurant porch we watched the B-25 literally fire up and taxi away to do some touring of the area and then return.

Super day and a really well run event with a huge participation!