We slept in and then H & I went for a leisurely breakfast at the Stage Coach Restaurant (the other two slept in). It is one of those typical diners you see on TV series where the waitress slams the plates down and comes around with a pot of coffee and constantly fills up your mug. Felt a little like we were in one of those movies actually! We both had French Toast with maple syrup (when in Canada you must at least once have a maple syrup breakfast) except I had mine with a side of bacon.
We headed out the Outlet Collection at Niagara to do some shopping. We haven’t actually bought much on the trip and so we thought this would be a good opportunity. The mall was somewhat disappointing as it wasn’t really just an outlet mall. The first store we entered was Polo and the shirts ranged from $125-$175 – I don’t consider that outlet prices! Fortunately my favorite store/brand is Banana Republic and they did have reasonable prices and on top of the marked price you could take 40% off. I managed to find quite a lot of things and H also managed to find something. H bought one other thing from another store and that was all we managed to find. S & K also didn’t really find much.
We had lunch in the food court and after lunch S & K got themselves another Beaver Tail which H & I also tried. They had the standard one with cinnamon and sugar and let H & I have a taste. S described it as tasting like a Woolworths Cinnamon doughnut which was pretty accurate. We stopped in at Walmart on the way back to our hotel. Not sure if it was just this Walmart or Walmart in general but we were sorely disappointed. The shelves were pretty empty, the store was in a mess, the range was very limited. All-in-all not worth stopping for that Walmart.
Spent the afternoon at the hotel watching some US Open golf, sleeping and then watching the finish of the US Open. We went to dinner at Oliv which is situated on the Strewn Winery. S & K had graciously offered to pay for both Father’s Day and also to say thanks for the trip. It was a tapas style restaurant. Really nice meal shared with a bottle of Strewn Riesling.
We had a boat trip booked into the Falls at 9:30am so we left our hotel at 8:15am. It was about a 30 minute drive to the falls. Waze directed us to the nearest parking and we were amazed how easy it was and how close it was. Then I got out of the car to pay for the parking and found out that it required the selling of one child to be able to park there for the morning. Back into the car to find a parking area that didn’t require the re-mortgaging of my house. We found one but it was a 15-20 minute walk back to the boat departure point.
We figured booking an early boat trip was the thing to do to ensure we missed the worst of the crowds given it was a Saturday. Good call because we only had a very minor wait before boarding the boat. You get a poncho to ensure you stay reasonably dry (it’s impossible not to get wet even with the poncho). My sister had kindly told us that the best place on the boat was lower deck front right because the boat makes a turn as it exits the falls and you get to see the whole horseshoe for the longest. Everyone else was rushing to the top deck and so we basically had the bottom right front to ourselves.
The boat pushes right into the horseshoe as fall as they can safely go so you really do get drenched from the spray of the falls. It is definitely a worthwhile thing to do. I have been at the falls twice before and never done the boat trip so I was really pleased we did it. I would highly recommend you do it if you ever visit the falls. The view and the noise of the falls is almost overwhelming to the senses.
We also had tickets to the Journey Behind the Falls which is a series of two tunnels behind the falls themselves and a viewing deck that is just to the right of the last of the horseshoe falls. The noise in the tunnels is incredible – it is a constant thundering. The sheer volume of water coming down is amazing to see. H was somewhat overwhelmed by the noise and confined space and had to get out of there quickly. Fortunately the viewing platform was her escape. You really are as close to the edge of the falls that you can get. I have seen the Falls from both the USA side and the Canadian side and I definitely think the view is better from the Canadian side. You get a much better of the whole falls.
The Niagara Falls is neither the largest or the highest falls in the world. Angel Falls in Venezuela is the tallest falls and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe is both the widest falls (more than 500m wider than Niagara Falls) and has the most falling water per second in the world. But Niagara Falls is still impressive and definitely worth seeing. You can’t get as close to Victoria Falls as you can to Niagara Falls. Some (at least to me) interesting facts about the Niagara Falls are:
An estimated 60 tonnes of dissolved minerals are swept over the falls every minute (that is why the water appears green – it is the high mineral content)
The flow is regulated by a treaty between the US and Canada. The diverted water is used mainly for power generation. If they didn’t divert any water, the river would rise 5m immediately
Over last 500 years, the recession (from erosion) has averaged 1 to 1.5meters per year. At the moment the recession is 1 ft per year
The water that flows over in one second, is the equivalent to what 2 people would use at home for 6 months (this one thanks to S)
It was after midday when we headed back to Niagara-on-the-lake and to our hotel. I wasn’t feeling great and so a napped in the afternoon while the rest of them wandered around the village. Incredibly they bumped into someone from our Church back in Cape Town. We knew she was in Canada and coming to Niagara Falls but we didn’t expect to bump into her at Niagara-on-the-lake.
We had dinner at Corks Wine Bar & Eatery. After dinner, I headed back to the hotel but the rest of them walked down to the lake and managed to see a family of raccoon’s in the trees. They look cute but are apparently considered a pest for most people in N.America.
You might be wondering why I am now appearing last on the blog. My smart aleck son, whose IT skills surpass mine, has written a script that takes my initial and moves it to the end every time I sign off and send out the blog. So you’ll just have to ignore that and assume the last shall be first and first shall be last!
Yes I know I didn’t post yesterday. The problem was simply I didn’t have any time to do a post. On Thursday the family went off to Yorkdale Mall which is north of the city but still on the subway line (about 30 minutes from our apartment). H has been googling to find the best carry-on luggage and she wanted to get an Away suitcase and they had a store in the mall. The mall had 280 stores and they spent the whole morning and early afternoon at the mall.
I had some earlier morning online meetings which I did from the apartment and then headed into the office late morning for some meetings with my staff. We had another dinner with clients but this time it was out of the city and in Mississauga (prize for anyone that can pronounce that without help!). As we left at 5pm we caught got in the rush hour traffic so it took us an hour to get to the restaurant but only 30 minutes for us to get back. S & K had wanted Dominos pizza and so they had that for dinner that evening. It was incredibly a fire alarm free day.
View from Toronto Office
I had to get to the office early on Friday as I had a 8:30am meeting and then a full day of meetings in the office with the full Canadian team (some of them don’t live in Toronto so they came in for the day). It was my first time meeting 3 of the team face-to-face as they have joined us since I was last in Toronto (which was last year Sept/Oct).
H, S & K checked out of the apartment at 11am and then brought their luggage to office. They then headed off to the Distillery District for lunch and then they did some shopping on the way back. They got back to the office just after 3pm and we had just wrapped up our meetings – perfect timing. We took an Uber to the car rental and then headed out to Niagara-on-the-lake which is where we are staying for next 3 nights.
Prince of Wales Hotel
The drive down was well over 2 hours in the end because of traffic and one major accident on the main highway that you take. We arrived eventually just after 7pm and once we had checked in we headed out to find a place for dinner. Really pretty town and very glad we elected to stay here for the next three nights. We are staying at the Prince of Wales Hotel – really nice rooms and great location.
I definitely spoke (or typed) too quickly yesterday about no fire alarms. As soon as I pressed send the fire alarm went off again. This time in the parking garage and again no doubt someone smoking. The fire department arrived and again declared it a false alarm. That is now 3 times in 4 days. There is no doubt that if a genuine fire alarm went off in this building people would die as they wouldn’t believe it. It is totally ridiculous that they haven’t done anything about it. You would think the Fire Department would insist on them doing something as they too must be sick of coming out to check the fire alarms.
St Lawrence Market
I had a quieter morning work-wise so I joined the family in going to the St Lawrence Market. The market is comprised of two floors and housed in an historical building which has been there since early 1900s. The selection of fresh produce was quite amazing and definitely the best I have seen together in one place in all my travels around the world. Incredible selection of cheeses, fruit & vegetables and meat. They also have lots of imported products from all over the world. If you live in Toronto but originally come from another country then my guess is whatever you want to find you could find at the market. We saw ostrich steak, biltong and rooibos tea (as examples for South Africans).
We had brunch at the market after finding a store selling crepes. The selection of fillings was vast – from sweet to savory. H and I had a ‘Montreal’ which was egg, ham & cheese while K had nutella & strawberry and S had chicken and hoisin sauce. They didn’t skimp on the fillings and so you felt that you were getting reasonable value for what you paid. H & I also managed to find a decent coffee provider – they are few and far between in Canada. After brunch my sister-in-law wanted to buy some sliders (basically mini-hamburgers) as a starter for dinner. They had a wide range of strange sliders including emu, buffalo, crocodile, kangeroo, etc.
I worked the balance of the morning at the flat and then headed into the office early afternoon as I had a meeting with head of our Canadian business and then dinner again with a client. S & K went out to do some shopping and H basically got herself a coffee and spent the afternoon in the apartment just relaxing. I got back to the apartment just after 8pm and the whole family (including my sister and family) had finished having dinner together and again it was nice to just sit and enjoy the conversation with them. They are heading off to Quebec City this morning so it was our last opportunity to see them during this trip.
We had a prediction of severe thunderstorms yesterday but they fortunately never materialized. They are predicting thunderstorms for today as well. It is a pretty hazy morning at the moment so it might rain later but so far at least it isn’t. Even though it is a public holiday in SA today, I do have to work (unfortunately).
Until tomorrow ….
H, S, K (purposefully demoted for some cheekiness last night doubting my ability to close the window in the apartment when others had failed) & P
We are all somewhat stiff from the 46 flights of stairs down from Sunday still – walking down stairs requires the use of a handrail – and it isn’t just me that feels that way – even the 20somethings have the problem. The good news is that the fire alarm never went off yesterday (or if it did it wasn’t while any of us were here).
I had a client breakfast meeting so was out early and then after that I was playing golf with clients. Unfortunately the course (Deer Ridge Golf Course) is in Waterloo (no not the station in London) which is about 1.5 hour drive from Toronto so I had to rent a car and drive down there.
The rest of them went on a harbour boat tour around the Toronto islands and then back to Amsterdam Brewery for lunch. It is apparently named that because the city of Amsterdam donated the bridge that is nearby. S & H wanted to figure out how the PATH works. The PATH is a (mostly) underground network of walkways that covers more than 30 kms. It is particularly well used during bad weather and allows you to stay dry in rainy or snowy periods. There is a map of the PATH but they had all managed to end up walking around in circles so they wanted to figure out why they did that and how to avoid doing it again.
Toronto Skyline
After all the activity they apparently had a mid-afternoon nap. All this while I was playing a round of golf in beautiful weather. It was 25 degrees C with a light breeze (my playing partners kept on calling it a wind but by Cape Town standards it was a breeze). Despite using rented clubs and never having played the course before I was pretty happy with my round. We had dinner afterwards and then I headed back into Toronto and dropped the car off before heading back to the apartment.
Deer Ridge Golf Club
I got back just before H who had been out at a baseball game – Toronto Blue Jays playing the Baltimore Orioles at the Rodgers Stadium right near us. S & K had decided not to go but H decided to go with my brother-in-law, niece and nephew. If you’re surprised about H attending, so was I! She came back saying she thoroughly enjoyed it. She thought lots of action … some people consider baseball actionless so that was even more surprising. It was her first time to a ballgame though so I guess there was lots to look at and enjoy. Americans (yes I know we are in Canada) do know how to make sport entertaining though.
S & K went out last night for BeaverTails. They are fried dough pastries, individually hand stretched to resemble beaver’s tails, topped with either sweet or savoury ingredients. Not unusual to have nutella on top with or without bananas. It is a Canadian specialty and so worth trying. I failed to mention the other day that we had another Canadian food called poutine. That is a dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy. We have managed at least of the local specialties so far.
Until tomorrow …
P, H (for braving a baseball game and experiencing new things), K & S
It was Monday and so unfortunately that meant back to work for me while the rest of them continued to enjoy their holiday. The good news is that the weather really looked perfect yesterday – around 22 degrees C, no wind and the view was so clear that you could theoretically see across Lake Ontario to the US. For me it still looks like the horizon haze but people from Toronto say that is in fact land that you’re seeing (I’ll take their word for it!).
I had some online meetings until just before midday so worked from the apartment. S, K & H headed out before 10am and took the subway up to where they were taking a hop-on-hop-off bus trip around Toronto. The tour takes 2 hours on the bus and then there is included a 45-minute boat trip (which they plan to do today). They said the tour guide was excellent and H said it was probably the best one of these bus trips she has done (and we have done a few of them in numerous cities around the world). It is a great way to get a feel for a city.
Meanwhile I had both lunch and dinner with clients and worked the afternoon in the Toronto office (where there were only 3 of the total staff from Toronto actually in the office yesterday – apparently they generally don’t come to the office on Mondays at all).
I got back to the apartment just after 8pm and all the family (including my sister and her family) were winding up dinner in our apartment. Nice to be able to join in the conversation. Then (believe it or not) the fire alarm went off again! This is becoming seriously irritating now. We had the window open and we could smell people smoking on their balconies (including cannabis smoke – it amazes me how often we have smelt that over the last few days of being here). It seems some idiot though (on 27th floor again, same as Sunday) has decided that smoking in the stairwell is a good idea and sets off the fire alarm. We could see five fire trucks from our balcony. This time we waited for the announcements and didn’t head downstairs and again it was determined to be a false alarm. Someone needs to figure out who the idiot is and lock him/her up or do something. From the tour today, H said that one fire station they passed gets 5000 call-outs per year – that is just over 13 per day!
On another note, the stadium roof was opened yesterday as the Toronto Blue Jays were playing baseball there yesterday evening. You could hear the occasional roar of the crowd. The roof takes 20 minutes to open and close. They closed it again around 10:30pm obviously after the game was finished. I didn’t get to see it open (the others did) but it was nice to see it closing. Strange how small things like this can bring you pleasure!
We packed up and headed to the airport first thing in the morning as we had to be there at 8:30am for our flight at 10:25am. Halifax airport was about 30 minutes from where we were staying. We had to fill up the car – fuel is basically the same price as in South Africa it seems so you pretty much have to mortgage your house to pay for a tank of fuel for a Buick SUV!
Check in was painless and while there was a small wait at security it also went relatively easily. We were able to get into the Air Canada lounge (theoretically we were one person short of access rights but the lady at reception didn’t seem to care). The flight to Toronto was absolutely full. H actually remarked at one point (when people just kept coming onto the plane) that she wondered if they weren’t exiting out the back again! Unfortunately S & K had middle seats as by the time they checked in there were no aisle or window seats available. They seemed to have survived the flight though.
We landed 30 minutes early in Toronto. The plan was to try find somewhere for lunch at the airport but basically there were no decent options at all so we took a taxi and headed into the city. We couldn’t check in to our AirBnB apartment until 4pm so we had 3 hours to kill. We found a Subway store and ate a sandwich lunch. S managed to message the AirBnB host and he said he could let us leave our luggage in the apartment while they were cleaning. That was quite helpful and then we headed out for a walk along the shore of Lake Ontario. Ice creams, some birding, people watching and some grocery shopping managed to ensure we killed enough time to get into the apartment. They were just finishing off cleaning when we got in but within 5 minutes they were gone.
We are staying in an apartment on the 56th. The views are incredible. Hopefully some of the pictures will do the views justice! At about 4:30pm the fire alarm went off. No, I’m not kidding. After waiting a bit to see if it was faulty we went out and both K and I could smell smoke! So we grabbed our backpacks/passports etc and started down the 56 flights of stairs. One guy ahead of us but no one else at all descending. The alarm rang on. At the 22nd floor we met a guy coming up who is a resident in the block and he said it happens all the time but they usually do an announcement to tell you to remain in your apartment. No announcement this time. He continued up. We headed down. The AirBnB host said we could use the lifts. Tried them but they were shut off. Annoucements started shortly afterwards saying the alarm was triggered on 27th floor and the fire department were on route and then as we got to the 10th floor they announced it was a false alarm. At that point we took the elevators down to ground (because the lower levels are not connected to the upper levels) and then we took them back up again to our apartment. Change of shirt and showers needed!
My sister and brother-in-law and their family (1 nephew & 2 nieces) have joined us in Toronto. Crazily enough they are booked into the same apartments as us (done totally independently except for me suggesting the general area). Even more crazy is that they are staying on 57th floor in the apartment directly above us! We met up for dinner at one of the restaurants on the shore – Pie Bar Pizzeria. Nice to see and catch up with family.
Lots of walking again (and step descending) and so we were all ready for bed relatively early.
P, K (only one not criticizing the blog yesterday), S & H
It was again reasonably nice weather most of yesterday. The day started off clear but it became a little overcast later and then cleared up but the wind picked up in the afternoon/evening. As we had all woken up relatively early, we headed out before the original plan (which was to leave at 10am). Halifax has a waterfront area. There is a boardwalk that covers 2.6km of harbour area.
It was about a 15-20 walk down to the area and we started at the Farmers Market which is only open on the weekend. It was nice but didn’t really compare to Oranjezicht City Farm Market in Cape Town which is held on a Saturday. After the market we walked around the entire boardwalk. It is really nicely done with a few restaurants, lots of chairs to just sit and look out to sea, some hammocks (people were in them reading) etc. There are also boutique stores, play parks, dog parks etc all in different sections of the waterfront area.
We then headed up into town and then up more to the Halifax Citadel. At the top you have a view right over the city and some history of Halifax. What we had never heard of is that in WWI, two ships collided in the harbour – one of was a relief ship and the other a French armaments ship. The French ship caught on fire and within a few minutes the fire spread to the hold and the ship’s ordinance it was carrying exploded and flattened 2 square kilometers of Halifax. More people were killed that day than all the Canadians lost on the front lines of WWI.
View from Citadel
We then walked back to our apartment and stopped in at the supermarket across the road to buy some lunch. No shortage of walking yesterday – I did 13.1km in total yesterday. We had an early lunch with the intention of having an early dinner and then we basically just relaxed the balance of the afternoon in the flat (my feet were very sore!).
We wanted to have dinner at one of the restaurants in the waterfront area. We got down there before 6pm and there were already queues at the restaurants. We enquired at one restaurant and they said the wait was over 2 hours for a table. We decided to head back up into city area rather as S had seen some restaurants in that area marked on Google maps. We found a place called Two Doors Down. The food was very good. We had BBQ pork chop, Korean chicken (x2) and Scallops Spaghettini. Short walk back to the apartment via the grocery store again (to buy ice cream).
We all slept well but are all up relatively early as we need to head to the airport shortly as we are flying to Toronto today.
The weather had improved dramatically yesterday. The interesting thing is that the town didn’t look so run down in the clear skies. The bright colours of the buildings came through more brightly and some of the faults of the town seemed to fade away in the light. Amazing the difference sunlight makes!
We had another walk around the town before heading out. Halifax is only about an hour away from Lunenberg and so the plan was to take a slow drive along the coast and through some of the other recommended towns on the way back to Halifax. The first place was Mahone Bay. We did the extensive walk through the town and into a few of the stores in the town as well. Again a very prett town with lovely views over the bay but we all concurred that Lunenberg was a better place for us to have stayed.
Mahone Bay
We then headed on to Peggy’s Cove where the plan was to have lunch before finally heading into Halifax. Peggy’s Cove has 35 residents in the summer which drops to 30 residents in the winter. However it gets 700 000 visitors a year. That has to be the epitome of tourist town! It is known for it’s lighthouse and its treacherous seas. What I didn’t know was that it is the nearest place to where Swissair Flight 111 crashed in 1998. The flight was traveling from NYC to Geneva and a fire started in the cockpit which eventually consumed all the electrics on the plane and caused the crash. There are two memorials in the area to the 229 people who died in the crash.
Peggy’s Cove lighthouse
We had lunch (Grilled Haddock x 2, Lobster Mac & Cheese & Halibut tacos) at the restaurant which really was well positioned with almost 360 degree views of the Peggy’s Cove and out to sea. You did definitely get the feeling of ruggedness of the ocean in this area and you can see the necessity to have a lighthouse. There are also warning signs all over to be careful of the waves which can suddenly increase and break dangerously near you. every year numerous people are washed off the rocks and drown – the last person that drowned was in April this year. There was also a man playing an Alphorn on the rocks. Not sure if that is in commemoration of the Swissair flight or what but it did add to the atmosphere of the place!
After lunch we headed into Halifax but as check in time at our AirBnB was only 4pm we had to kill a little time which we did at the local mall. A quick grocery shop for dinner & breakfast and then off to do the check in to our apartment for the next 2 nights. We are staying in a 2-bedroom apartment in Halifax which is situated on the 25th floor with extensive views. The decor in the apartment is somewhat strange though. It is filled (and yes I mean filled) with old electronics. As I type this now I am looking at 10 old TVs (think really old), old game consoles, old radio/tape deck combos. They have a working Super Nintendo which was made in 1991 before S & K were even born. I remember playing tennis (which is what S&K played) on it when I was at varsity!
It was nice making our own dinner and not having to eat at a restaurant again (as nice as eating out is). S cooked for us – we had pork chops and salad. The pork chops were really juicy, tender & tasty. N.Americans seem to know how to do pork – I have always found the pork to be really good here. We all headed to bed at a reasonable time – it seems we are over any form of jetlag.
Until tomorrow (or later today depending how I feel) …
Unfortunately the weather never improved the whole day and in fact got worse later in the day. We didn’t let that deter us and decided to go for a drive in the surrounding area. We decided to go south and west from Lunenberg and followed the coastline for a about 10-15kms. It is very pretty along the coast even though it doesn’t feel like you’re driving next to the ocean as there are no waves at all – feels more like a lake than an ocean. As we exited Lunenberg we drove straight past the farmers market (actually while we were doing a U-turn) so we figured lets go in and take a look around. Very minimalist, some similarities to markets back home, some differences. We head out then for our drive and after driving for about an hour or so we realised that it was going to much of the same and not a lot to explore.
After a stop in Bridgeport at the supermarket – some snacks acquired and general wandering around admiring the range and differences – we headed north. We had read that Wolfville and Grand Pre were nice places to see and they were about an hour and 20 minute drive north from where we were. The first hour of drive was similar to what we had seen before – forested areas with the occasional lake to break the monotony. Just before reaching Grand Pre we encountered farm lands and fruit trees. There wasn’t much at Grand-Pre (or so we thought) so we headed into Wolfville aiming to get some lunch.
First place we saw as we entered was the Church Brewing Co (https://churchbrewing.ca/). It was a brewery that had taken over a Church. The beer choices are on the hymn boards. It is very obvious you’re in a Church from the design of the building, to the hymn boards, to the placement of the toilets, to the stage and the balcony. All that was missing was an organ. The beers were nice and the food was good too (H & I had seafood chowder). After lunch we explored the main road and spent most of the time in the drugstore – again marveling at the range and quantities of things you can buy. What amazes me is that in the US & Canada you can buy a bottle of paracetamol that contains 500 tablets. In the UK, you can’t buy more than 16 at a time and it requires an ID check! Seems very incongruous.
We had managed to google a little more about Grand-Pre and realised we hadn’t actually seen anything of what we should be seeing. It is a Unesco World Heritage site because the original settlers (French Huguenots called Acadians) used their dyke building skills to drain the salt marshes and reclaim very fertile plains. The tidal coefficient is very significant in this part of the world and so it is necessary to control the flooding by salt water every time the tides rise. The tide was out when we were at the coast. You will see how muddy it is (in panoramic picture below) and that it reached quite far out. It is also an IBA (Important Bird Area) in Canada as numerous Sandpipers are found here between July-October (we were just too early).
From the view point over Grand-Pre you can see the fertile soil and the farm lands. The picture really doesn’t capture the view that well but hopefully you will get a sense of it. We did manage to spot a Ring-Necked Pheasant in the fields as we started to head back to Lunenberg – it is uncommon in the area but it is definitely what we saw. Reminded me again that you can bird anywhere in the world and that I should have brought my binoculars with me! Another bird added to my world bird life list (which is dominated still to be Southern Africa but starting to expand a bit now).
The drive back to Lunenberg was quite difficult as it started to rain heavily. The roads have poor drainage so lots of water on the road and lots of aquaplaning. Not easy to drive but we made it back safely. S volunteered to go to the restaurant at around 6:30pm and secure a table for us. It was deluging at the time and the short run there and back left him drenched. We decided to drive to the restaurant – Salt Shaker Deli (https://www.saltshakerdeli.com/). Downside of that was that we couldn’t find parking so while 3 people got in safely and not wet, the driver (after three times round the block) had to park the car up the road and run to the restaurant. Fortunately wasn’t raining that hard at that point so only got slightly wet.
Diverse choices again for dinner by all of us. Seafood stew, salmon risotto, prawn tacos & hamburger and wedges were what we ate. H & S has Dark & Stormy cocktails (it is a rum making area as you can tell from the name of our Inn) and I had my first Nova Scotia wine – Pinot Grigio. When we were finished eating it was like a monsoon outside. And guess who had to go fetch the car from up the road! By the time I got to the car I was soaked. Even the other 3 just running from the entrance into the car got them seriously wet. Fortunately there was a parking spot right outside the Inn front door so getting back into our room wasn’t too difficult.
The weather this AM is much better than the last two days. The sun is out and shining and hopefully will stay this way for the next few days (or so says the weather forecast).
Until tomorrow …
P, S (for his running in the rain to get a table for us), H and K (she couldn’t go lower so I had to use spaces to differentiate us … she was making suggestions on the re-ordering of names for sign-off … highly inappropriate, she should know better)
