The Travels of the Agnew Family

After a walk around the town and lunch, Sonya headed back to Toronto. It was a great visit and gave her car a good run. After four years there's less than 6,000 km on her car.

Ed's sister Sonya, who lives in Toronto, made the trek to Walkerton for a mini-vacation. We decided to take her to a couple of our favorite places on the Bruce peninsula.

First stop was Wiarton to take a quick look for Willy the famous weather predicting groundhog. Again, no luck in spotting him, so we went for a walk around the beach area and stopped in the museum that is housed in the old railway station. The station itself is a museum piece ... it's a round building with high ceilings that stays nice and cool in the summer.

Second stop was Lion's Head as we wanted to go back to the Lion's Head Inn. Another great meal was had.

Zaph was suitably spoiled at the restaurant. Both waitress's working the porch brought him bowls of water and the people at the next table were quite happy to spend some time petting him.


After lunch we walked down to the beach where you know who just had to get wet. This duck was quite funny. Ed ran out of sticks and stones to throw for Zaph so he started throwing sand balls. The sands balls would split in the air and land in a lot of pieces. We think the duck thought Ed was throwing food and was ready to fight Zaph for it.

I think Lion's Head does a really good job of showing off Georgian Bay. I'm sure there are a million places that are just as beautiful, but this is one of my favorites.

I asked the young fellow working at the marina how Lion's Head got it's name and he said people can see a Lion's Head in the point of the escarpment. Personally, I can't see it.




Last stop of the day was Sauble Beach. Dakota the golden retriever would not go into the water until she saw Zaph playing in the waves.


Back home, Zaph and Sonya relaxing with alligator.

Today was the Upper Canada Open aerobatics competition at the local airport. The planes do a lot of the moves that you see at an air show but they do it at a higher altitude so it's a little harder to watch. Still it was fun to watch. What was even more fun to watch was the pilots practicing their maneuvers on the ground -- the pilots were walking around moving their arms and bodies as they would when they were high in the air in their airplanes.

A reporter from the local paper called their contact person at the airport and said their camera couldn't get pictures of the planes flying, so was their anyone there who could send them some photos. As Ed was there with the big lenses, the answer was yes. The photos below are Ed's photos that appeared in the paper.


This collage of photos appeared on the front page.




Mark Stewart from Erie Pennsylvania flew this plane winning the competition.




This Pitts special flown by Hella Comat who flies out of Waterloo-Wellington Airport won second place.

These last two photos weren't in the paper but I liked them.

Cheat sheets are fastened to the control panel to aid the pilots.


You need a friend to help start this plane as the propeller needs a spin.

Zaph has had a few boring weeks, so we decided he needed a trip to the beach and Ed needed to go geocaching. I called Rob and Ellen at their cottage and asked if they wanted company, they did so off we went.

First thing on the agenda when we arrived was checking out the rewiring Rob had done ... Ed said he did a great job. Next thing on the agenda was the beach.


A little chilly for the rest of us but Zaph thought the water was just fine.




Geocaching took us up the west side of the Bruce Peninsula.

Zaph really wanted to test the river out.


It's been awhile since this dock was useful.


The cottages in the distance had waterfront access when they were built.


Ellen's stepfather had a cottage at Pikes Bay. As Pikes Bay didn't have a beach, the kids were occasionally driven to the beach at Old Woman's River. Much to Rob's amazement we found the beach. Today it is part of Black Creek Provincial Park.

Each summer our town has a busker festival. This is an event for kids ... $2 gets a child a wristband, adults are free. The wristband allows the child to do all of the activities like bean bag toss, face painting, playing on the obstacle course, etc. As Ed has not seen the busker festival (Zaph and I had walked by it one year and Zaph really didn't like it) he decided to take is camera and check it out.


Don't know what all the busker acts were but this fellow was showing off his reptiles. In my opinion this is one brave girl.


If I was a little younger I would really enjoy the obstacle course .... who am I kidding I probably would have tried it if they let me.


Recognize this fellow? Energizer's head office is in Walkerton.


The clock tower on Victoria Hall.

We've had a pretty quiet few weeks. I made one trip down to Burlington but other than that we've pretty much hung around the house. Zaph has been under orders from the vet to "stay quiet". He's currently on some medication that seems to have corrected the problem though we are still in the stage of determining the lowest dosage that will work.

This has allowed us to actually do a few things that we've put off for a long time .... there are pictures on my bedroom walls and some in the newly finished basement room.

My brother had two weeks of Vacation spanning the end of July and beginning of August. Ed, Zaph and I invited my mom and brother up to our place for a couple of days. Ed smoked some trout for them, which they really enjoyed as they both love fish. The next day all of us headed to Rob and Ellen's cottage in Sauble Beach. It was really nice of Rob and Ellen to let me bring up family to their cottage.


Rob made my mom's day by taking her on a tour of Sauble Beach in his TR6. My brother spent a few hours on the beach. Ellen, Zaph and I hung around the cottage while Ed and Rob went geocaching.


Rob noticed this single pine cone in the tree and thought something was fishy. Good hide.

Another wonderful day at our neighbor's cottage.