Blair's Blog

On Saturday,we spent the morning touring about St Catharines – first stop was the Avondale Dairy for ice cream. When Brenda was a kid, her folks would take her and her brothers to get ice cream each June to mark the end of the school year. Brenda would always get a banana split. So that’s what she got this time, too. The kids all had tiger ice cream in cookie dough cones.

From there we did a bit of touring around the town stopping to see Brenda’s old home on Vine St, her elementary school and the street where she had her paper route. In the afternoon, we drove out to Beamsville to Brenda’s cousin Connie’s place. Brenda has over 50 first cousins on her dad’s side of her family and they had a reunion. 23 of the cousins were able to attend. Brenda had quite a fun afternoon and evening reconnecting with some cousins that she hadn’t seen for many years.

Sunday was our travel day. After checking out of the motel, we had a bit of time to drive past a few other places in town. The first two houses where Brenda lived, the two houses where her grandparents had been and the church where we were married. And then we were off to Toronto to catch our flight to Ottawa.

At the gate for our flight we ended up sitting down right across from one of Brenda’s cousins from her Mom’s side who was flying home from Edmonton with her husband. It was quite the unexpected pleasure to see them and even nicer to be ale to spend the evening visiting with them at their home just south of Ottawa.

On Canada Day,we got up and going to see all of the action in and around downtown Ottawa. The crowds were huge and there were street performers, displays and food carts of every kind. Most of the streets were closed to car traffic and the entire city center was one giant pedestrian mall. Most of the galleries and museums were free admission for the day. So we struck our own commemorative medallions at the mint and toured the national gallery. By 5:00, we were foot weary and headed back to the hotel for dinner and a bit of a rest. The kids all went swimming at the hotel pool and then we decided to just stay at the hotel and watch the fireworks from our balcony, rather than dealing with the crowds in the dark.

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Marineland! Today we were in Thorold at The Inn at Lock Seven.   A great little motel where all the rooms face the Welland Canal. After our breakfast we head to Niagara Falls and went to Marineland.   It was overcast and drizzly on the 20 minute drive there so we stopped at Walmart on the way to buy umbrellas and ponchos. For the first couple of hours, it looked like we would be ok and that we would stay dry.

We saw the beluga/seal/dolphin/walrus show, fed the deer, saw the killer whale and got a bite of lunch. Then we decided to make the long trek to the rides. It’s quite a walk. The park was pretty quiet so we had no lines for any of the ride and would get off & right back on again.   Thst was actually a bit rough for me, I just don’t do as well on the spinny rides as I used to!  Our fortunes started to change on the 2nd trip on the Sky Screamer – the intermittent drizzle turned to a steady rain. By the 3rd run on the Dragon Mountain coaster (4 loop the loops!), it was pouring. The ponchos and brollies just weren’t enough so we sploshed back towards the main gate – just in time for the final dolphin show of the day. By the time it was over the rain had stopped, so the kids legged it back to the rides. By the time Brenda and I caught up with them it was really pouring.

That was enough – we splashed our way back to the rental van, cranked up the heat and head back to the motel. Picked up a pizza on the way and ate on our balcony watching the lakers “climbing the mountain”  on the canal.

It was a pretty fun day!

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Today we took a trip down memory lane on a moped- with stops at the drama club, McDonald’s on Memorial and Montego Bay.   After arriving in Toronto late last night we were off to Orillia for the day. Brenda lived in Orillia during high school (grades 9 to 12).  So it was a bit of a trip down memory lane – Brenda hadn’t been back since the summer after she graduated.

We started off dropping by ODCVI, the Orillia District Collegiate & Vocational Institute and were able to tour the building which hadn’t changed appreciably.  It was so cool to see Brenda recalling some of the events & things of that time, and even chatting to the current drama teacher. It was fun for the kids to imagine their Mom in school! We even got a brief rendition of Brenda’s “Montego Bay” performance on the stage of the girl’s gym.

The next stop was out of town to Weber’s for burgers then we drove past the two houses where Brenda had lived with her family – Lankin Blvd in town then out by Lake Simcoe on Orkney Beach Rd. Brenda told the kids about how she had to use a moped to get back into town whenever she had work or youth group – and, because the top speed was less than 50 km/hr, how she had to take the long way on side roads.

We spent an hour walking around downtown – to the Opera House where Brenda was an usher, past the old Sam’s record store location. Finally, on the way out of Orillia, we stopped at the McD’s where Brenda worked for 4 years and got drinks for the road.

Once the nostalgia tank was full we headed for St Catharines where we will be for the next few days.

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We are on our way to Ontario for holidays. A family reunion, Canada Day on parliament hill, a few days in Montreal. Gonna be fun!

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