The Travels of the Agnew Family

We spent the day with our friend giving him lots of love.




I cannot believe that our favourite photographic subject is no longer with us.

Our buddy.


August 22, 2015


August 23, 2015


August 25, 2015

"You gotta eat here" went to Collingwood and ate at the The Smoke. Well if it's good enough for television it's good enough for us. On this cold somewhat drizzly day, Ed and I hopped into the Miata and drove to Collingwood for lunch.


The special on Friday is restaurant made Montreal Smoke Meat and it's only available on Fridays so I decided to give it a try. The first bite transported me a Jewish deli in New York city (I've actually never tried Montreal Smoke Meat in Montreal so I couldn't get transported there.) Ed decided to try the Brisket Lunch --- brisket and potato salad. As we traded food I can attest to the fact that it was also delicious. The Smoked Banana Icecream was good but I don't think I have the best taste buds around as I really didn't taste the smoke in the bananas.

Luckily, the skies began to clear so we did a bit of geocaching on the drive home (are you surprised).


We found this cute little bridge in the middle of no where ... beside a garden centre. I think that explained the flowers on the bridge.


I think we ended up on the Niagara escarpment and were rewarded with this view.


In the town of Chatsworth we pulled into a small park and were surprised to see a horse standing among the trees. When I looked across the road I figured it out.


The most interesting cache of the day. We found this one on the edge of a cemetery. It was placed in celebration of Halloween.

Ed gets notified by the Geocaching web site when new caches are placed in our local area. This is not something that occurs very often so Ed was excited when 11 new caches appeared. Ten of the caches were on the rail trail and even though they were rated at difficult we decided to hop on our bikes, ride the trail and look for the geocaches. We looked for eight of them and found three. We didn't feel too bad about this as only a couple of people had found a couple of them and there was lots of griping about looking for micro caches in the bush without any clues. The eleventh cache was an easy find in town. Even though we only found 4 caches --- 3 were hard so we treated ourselves to ice cream.

I hadn't been to Burlington to visit my mother for a while so it was time to go. For a change Ed and Zaph came with me. I think it was fortuitous as my mom's air conditioner wasn't working. After some probing around with a volt meter Ed determined that a fuse had blown (but it hadn't looked blown).

Ed, Zaph and I did some errands while we were in Burlington. Zaph got a new pair of light weight boots. He's dragging his hind feet when he walks so the vet suggested boots to protect his toes. Ed and I also picked up fanny packs for our bicycles. After 20 years the old packs were disintegrating --- don't understand why.

Two years ago when the competition was last held at the Saugeen airport, it was wrapped up in a day. This year weather held up the first day for a couple of hours so a second day of flying was required. The ceiling (clouds) was too low preventing the judges from seeing the maneuvers, so flying was suspended till the clouds left.


Victor's friend Jeff was competing for the first time this year in his colourful Pitts.


When you glance around the tarmac you'll see people acting a little weird. It's only the pilots walking through their routines before they fly.


Jeff's plane is very colourful and a yellow plane is easily seen in the sky, but I just loved the paint job on this plane.


landing


There was a lot of pointing going on. The competitors fly at a higher altitude than a lot of the planes you see during an air show. So a helpful point helped to locate the planes when they were in the air.

Ed put a couple of composite photos together to give you a better idea of a couple of the maneuvers we saw.






I was watching over Ed's camera with the big lens on so I snapped a few photos including this one of Ed.



A couple of the winners of the competition. It's nice to see women competing.

This weekend the 2015 Canadian National Aerobatic Championship is being held at Saugeen Municipal Airport (our local airport). Although it is not as exciting as an air show it is interesting to watch. The fellow co-ordinating the show at the airport asked Ed to photographic it and send some photos to the local papers.


A few of the different planes involved in the competition.


Rob, Ellen, Ryan and Dustin dropping in for a while to check things out. Dustin seemed pretty interested in the planes and was content sitting on his dad's shoulders to get a close up view.


It's always fun watching the planes take off and land but what's really interesting in this photo are the two guys sitting with the strings. The competition involves flying a number of aerobatic maneuvers in an imaginary box. One of the things the pilots are rated on is staying in the box. People are stationed at each corner of the box and strings are put in place to help determine the edge of the box. The fellows then sit and watch the planes and record if a plane leaves the box during the pilots routine.


Ed was fascinated by the Russian built YAK 52. He really liked the logo on the tail.

Quiet day at home. Not sure why he did it but Zaph decided he wanted to sit under the peonies.

The forecast for today is mostly sunny --- not sure why it was raining first thing this morning. After the rain stopped we got ready to drive to Sauble Beach. I call Rob and Ellen at the cottage to let them know we were on our way. Rob said it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining not a cloud in the sky. I looked up and saw a black overcast sky. Hard to believe we're only 68 kilometers apart.

Ed, Rob and I got on our ATV's and went for a ride. Zaph stayed at the cottage with Ellen. The rain on Monday made a wet ride today and as most ATVers will tell you that is a good thing. There's nothing like riding thru a big puddle making an even bigger splash. You know it's been a good ride when you get home and the ATV really needs a bath and so do you.


Along the way we passed a spot where Bobbi Switzer does chainsaw carving (the sign on her truck refers to Bobbi as a Chainsaw Sculptor) and couldn't resist taking a few photographs.


Bobbi really does amazing work. Back at the cottage I couldn't resist the trampoline and Ed could resist taking a picture of my trampoline hair. Note to self, don't lie down on the trampoline, too much static electricity.

Before we left on our camping trip I checked out the "You Gotta Each Here" website and found two restaurants in Cambridge. One is a burger place and the other is a barbecue / smoke house. The plan for today was to have lunch at the smoke house and do a bit of geocaching. We managed to find a couple of caches before the skies opened up and the rain came down. Luckily it was lunch time so we drove to Q Bbq Public House for lunch.


Ed opted for the Brisket Sandwich and I had a Hillbilly Philly which also had brisket. Both were delicious.

Lucky for us the rain stopped for awhile and we were able to do a bit more geocaching. Zaph even found one of the caches.

The old rail line that ran from Hamilton to Brantford, Paris and Cambridge has been converted to a trail for bicycles, walkers and runners. The conservation area where we are camped is only a few minutes drive from the mid-point of the Paris to Cambridge portion of the trail at Glen Morris. We decided to drive over with our bikes so we could do a little geocaching and a little riding. Cambridge (9.3 km from Glen Morris) was our initial destination. Once we made it to Cambridge we decided to ride to the Paris parking lot then back to Glen Morris. By the time we were done we had ridden just over 40km and found 11 geocaches. On the stretch from Glen Morris to Paris we averaged 20 kilometers an hour. Now I have to admit the trail was flat but it did mean that you were pedaling constantly.


A geocache took us to the ruins of an old house.


Ed checking out the Grand River.


Beautiful views along the trail.

The best part of the today was watching everyone pack up to go home knowing we didn`t have to. Our section of the campground was almost deserted by the 12pm check out. The people behind us gave us their left over wood so we enjoyed a lovely evening by the fire.

We started the day with a little geocaching. At one point we ended up in the town of Ayr, which was much larger than I thought. When I talked to my mother on Sunday she reminded me that I had been to Ayr before. Ayr was the starting point of our hot air balloon ride. I'm glad she has a good memory.


We found a gnarlly old tree.


and this entrance way on a path near a farm.


There was a calf statue on each side of the trail.

Late in the afternoon we drove the fifteen minutes to our friends farm which is just outside of Paris (Ontario that is). It's been several years since we've seen Kathleen, Steven and their daughter Jess. They current have six house cats, a bunch of barn cats, 3 mini horses and 3 regular horses. Jess does most of the riding plus she competes in jumping shows and does quite well. We had a great visit catching up.

It's hard to believe but we're actually taking the trailer and going camping. OK, we only drove a 150km but we did go away and we did take the trailer. Can you tell I'm excited?

Many, many, many years ago, Ed and I would go camping for weekends. We'd go and enjoy the park and we're quite use to all of the kids in the campground. Now, we're retired and in the "getting there group" (with there being old). Our camping for the past ten years has mostly been travel camping with the trailer being a glorified hotel room. So it was a bit of a shock to the old system to pull into a crowded campground full of kids --- mostly happy, but some crying but all in all noisy kids. It didn't take long for us to come the the conclusion that the two year olds created the most entertainment. Elliot was across the road from us and his name was being constantly called --- I think his goal for the weekend was to play with the stones in the middle of the road. Then there was the two year who was camped behind us. He found our trailer to be incredibly fascinating. We were inside the trailer and heard a noise in the cargo bay. Ed went outside to investigate. When he looked into the cargo bay he saw a drinking cup then he saw little hands playing with all the wonderful things in the cargo bay. Over the weekend this little guy played on our trailer steps, with our bicycles on the carrier on the back of the trailer, with the barbecue, with the heat outlet, with Zaph --- you get the picture. Each time the little fellow ventured over dad wasn't far behind, but he was a quick little fellow.


Pinehurst Lake Conservation Area. This is a very large park that encompasses a 23 acre lake. There are several natural areas with trails.


The camping dog.

It is bit cool but sunny today, a good day for a drive. Ed and I went off in the Miata to explore some more of the local area. We decided to drive through Teviotdale to see the damage first hand. Two Mennonite families lived in the house that was badly damaged on Sunday. When we drove by we didn't see a damaged house, we saw a house being rebuilt. In the two and half days since the storm, upper floor of the house was demolished leaving the foundation and rebuilding had begun. Gotta love those Mennonites, they don't waste any time.

As with all "explore the countryside drives", we stopped along the way geocaching. Today's geocaching took us to several Ministry of Transport picnic areas that we didn't realize existed along a road that we drive a lot and to the town of Palmerston. The postal code for Palmerston is N0G 2P0 --- or "No one goes to Palmerston Ontario". At least that's one geocacher wrote in the description of the caches he set up in Palmerston. His caches took you to places of historical importance which were explained in the cache descriptions.


"The Pedestrian Bridge is considered Palmerston's most unique and treasured landmark. During the railroad's peak in Palmerston, the Grand Trunk had expanded the number of tracks in its yard to accommodate up to 40 trains a day. It became very tricky to pass over such a large number of tracks without some inherent dangers present. To minimize the danger for pedestrians, the Grand Truck Railway began building the Pedestrian Bridge in 1910 which was finished by 1912. This bridge allowed people to safely cross the train tracks and was often used by children walking to school." borrowed from the Palmerston Railway Heritage Museum website.


View of the old train station from the bridge.


Also borrowed from the museum website: "Palmerston's other treasured landmark is the old steam engine facing Main street. The old steam engine, called "Old 81" by Palmerston residents, is a memorial to the days when "Iron Horses" were stabled within the Town. It now stands on its own piece of track. Old 81 was presented to the Town in 1959, by the Canadian National Railway, as she had become an obsolete coal-burner, in comparison to the CNR's new diesel trains."

It was a good geocaching day as we found 15 caches.


"It's Mine". Zaph and Ed went for a poke around the boulevard and Zaph came home with a trophy he picked up in a pile of leftovers from a garage sale.

The first Monday in August is referred to as Civic Holiday. As I was sitting down to write this entry I wondered what exactly is "Civic Holiday". Once again the Internet comes to the rescue with the following information "Each municipality that opts to declare the holiday can give it a unique name. It's called the "civic" holiday because it's the holiday that cities have authority to declare." In Toronto it is called Simcoe Day. According to the website I found Newfoundland's Civic Holiday is called Regatta Day and is held on the first Wednesday of August depending. If weather is not suitable, and wind conditions are very important, the event is postponed until the next suitable day.

Ed and I invited my mother and brother up for a visit and smoked ribs on Sunday. The forecast was iffy but we hoped for the best and put the ribs on the smoker about 12:30 with a finish time around 5pm. Unfortunately, mother nature had her own ideas and just after 4pm the skies opened and water poured down on us. Plan B went into affect and the ribs were moved into the oven for the last hour of cooking. Turned out Plan B was a good plan as the ribs came out really tender.

The first wave of the storm passed, so my mother and brother headed home and luckily had good weather for the entire drive. Shortly after they left, the second wave of the storm came through bringing a bit of hail with it and a tornado. The tornado touched down in Teviotdale, about 40 minutes into the drive to Burlington. A lot of trees were uprooted, one house had the roof torn off and debris damaged a number of police cruisers two doors down at the OPP station. The building in between didn't appear to have any damage.


I downloaded this photo from the Internet.

I think biking has become our "exercise thing" this summer. We've made a 10 km route around that takes us just over half an hour to ride. I didn't realize how up and down Walkerton was till I started riding the bike. Love the downhills but unfortunately there's always a compensating uphill. Yesterday, we decided to venture a little farther and did a 20km ride. Thinking it was a fairly flat route, I suggested that we ride the rail trail to County Road 5 and ride on it north then turn onto an other road till we hit County Road 3 at Dunkeld. It's been a while since we driven that route but it certainly wasn't flat. Ed recorded a coasting speed of 49 km/hour going down one of the hills. He managed to ride the entire route while I ended up walking up the steepest hill.