The Spectater

The next few days are a bit of a blur. I also didn’t take any notes. Heather headed back to Calgary (but not before getting screwed over by London once again), we met up with a bunch of out-of-town people at a brunch hosted by Lesley’s mom, and then everyone else headed back to their respective homes.

The second (third?) part of my trip was just getting started, and I hopped in a car with Lesley, Eric, Paqui and Ana to head back out to the Weaver farm. The heat and humidity kicked in big time on the Sunday, and Bill took us on an amazing boat ride on Lake St. Clair, where we got to swim and enjoy a nice breeze! We then snacked on some wedding leftovers, opened presents (well, I watched), and jumped back in the car to drive to Windsor. We arrived at Gisele and Bernie’s late Sunday night and basically went right to bed.

The days seemed to just keep getting hotter and hotter. We all headed out to explore downtown Windsor, to wave to the people of Detroit on the People Mover (I still don’t believe that’s the real name), and to visit my special request: the sculpture park. Which I might have reconsidered had I known it would be about 500 degrees out that day. There was, of course, more eating, visiting and resting.

Tuesday, we were off to Niagara Falls. It was still crazy hot, and Ana and I suffered in the car while Paqui and Lesley checked into the hotel. Paqui wasn’t too sure about the sneaking in arrangement, and I think Lesley was having second thoughts when they gave her the guilt check-in cookies (only two of them, of course)!

We spent the day exploring Niagara Falls, doing the Maid of the Mist (very refreshing) and taking tons of pictures. Then it was siesta time at the hotel before we made our way out to dinner. I don’t know if it was the wine talking, or if we were just developing a closer friendship, but Paqui told a joke, and then, when I didn’t get it, she said “are you a leetle bit thick?” For the record, Paqui, it’s pink, and not ping

After dinner, we went to check out the falls at night, and had a very amusing encounter with a raccoon. I pointed out the Canadian wildlife to our Spanish visitors, and Lesley quickly jumped in with “They attack! THEY ATTACK!!!”. He didn’t attack. Though that didn’t stop Ana from saying “He iiizz about to attack!” when the little guy started rubbing his hands together.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and drove to the butterfly conservatory, where Lesley was a very brave girl and faced her fears. Now that she’s a married woman, she’s letting herself go and facing her fears! We also made a stop at the floral clock for me, before making our way to Anik’s place in Toronto. We had lunch there and watched the Spain/Germany World Cup game (yay Spain!). In the evening, we headed to downtown Toronto, where Eric’s friend Scott had invited us for a BBQ and a tour on his sailboat. We had an amazing evening (we were even picked up on the sailboat!) with great views of the Toronto skyline, and had to explain to Paqui and Ana that this kind of thing doesn’t happen often. Or ever.

The following day we did some shopping in Toronto, talked Paqui into buying some shoes, and then jumped in the car to head to Kingston. Or at least the direction of Kingston. We were stuck in traffic and took far too long to get out of Toronto, but we made it eventually to meet up with Eric for dinner. On Friday (happy birthday, Eric!), we had just enough time to do a little shopping before jumping in the car once again for the drive back to Ottawa. The rain hit just outside Ottawa, but that didn’t seem to cool things down much!