Photos from our stay at the Delawana

Just a sampling of some of the pictures I took during our time at the Delawana Inn & Resort at Honey Harbour.

You can see more on the linked Flickr page for each photo.

::B::

The Mystery Family is Home Again!

We got home Friday night, this after spending one final night on the road in Barrie.

After leaving Wasaga Beach late on Thursday, we drove straight on to Barrie, the place I grew up. Two of my sisters currently live in Barrie, and my dad in nearby Cookstown, and we wanted to meet up my family the next day.  The Girl-O especially wanted to meet up with some of her cousins, so we decided to stay one more day on the road.

Barrie, like Wasaga Beach, has had its own tremendous housing boom.  It’s population has also exploded, going from about 30,000 persons when I was in HS 25 years ago, to well over 100K, as it turned into a bedroom community for Toronto (which may change again as the price of communting has also skyrocketed).  After braving Friday night traffic driving through town we found accommodations at the Comfort Inn on Hart Drive. After rustling up some grub (

mrs_dm

arranged for delivery pizza, and I found some take out pulled pork at the annual Rib Fest going on at Memorial Square), Mrs_DM did some phone calling, and after arranging to meet up with my sister Brenda, we all got to bed and turned out the lights.

Sleep was fleeting, alas, as our room wasn’t at all as nice or as spacious as it was the Delawana (it did have free WiFi, however!). We needed a fold away cot for the Girl-O, which meant that I had to keep clambering over the bed to get to the bathroom or the front door. We were all pretty bleary eyed when we got up in the morning again to go packing.

We were up and out a bit too early to meet up with my sister, so we went downtown to do a bit of shopping.  I explored three used bookstores (Older Forester Books, Bell Book and Candle, and Kerry’s Bookstore), and in the latter place

mrs_dm

coincidently bumped into someone she knew from her Toronto Jungian lectures.  We also visited a nice new bookstore downtown, Page & Turners, that had perhaps the nicest customer washroom we have ever seen in a store.  We got some new books for the Girl-O there, and a drink for myself (they sell coffee and soda there too).

We met up with my sister Brenda at her house around 1 pm, and she had some burgers ready for all of us there.  Three of her kids were there (Brodie, Josh and Todd), and while my sister Julie wasn’t there, her daughter Abby was. My dad was also there, and so it was a nice if informal re-union.

The Girl-O, while curiously shy at first, gradually unthawed and had a blast playing around with her cousins.  In our final hour together I taught all the kids how to play Carcassonne (I had bought Josh a copy for Christmas, and he still hadn’t punched the pieces when I found his box on the shelf) and even the Girl-O had fun (and even won!) playing a simplified version of this classic tile-laying and Meeple placing game after I told everyone to ignore the rule about Farmers. We finally left my sister’s place when the game ended ~4 pm to head towards home.

(Well…we didn’t go directly home.  Mrs_DM insisted on a detour at the Cookstown Factory Outlet Mall. The Girl-O and I roamed a very boring mall, had a bite, went on the little rides, etc., for 90+ minutes while

mrs_dm

tried on clothes.  We eventually got out by 6 pm, and home just after 8 pm with all the traffic and such.)

All of us were pretty zonked by the time we got home and unloaded the car.  And we all went to sleep early Friday night in our own beds, grubby and happy.

::B::

Farewell to Delawana: hello Wye Marsh, Elmvale, and Wasaga Beach

We all felt a little sad packing up on Thursday morning.  Our vacation at the Delawana Inn & Resort was finally over.

When asked after breakfast, the Girl-O said she had had a blast over the last few days, and we all agreed we’d be back again one day. The weather was sympathetic to our feelings on leaving, it being cool and a little overcast as we packed up the car with our (slightly grubby) clothes and other belongings.

It was just past 11 when we hit the road, and the sun finally came out, lightening our mood.

mrs_dm was keen on visiting the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre near Midland before going on to Wasaga Beach, so we headed first down the 400, then west along Hwy 12 and were at our destination about half an hour later.

The Wye Marsh, and the nearby Saint-Marie among the Hurons were popular spots for various school trips I had while growing up in Barrie.  Pulling into the parking lot at the Wye Marsh, I realized that not much had changed over the years. It really is a large wetlands marsh, one with an information centre, trails, and a big wooden boardwalk extending into a giant soggy marsh area covered in cat-tails, sumac, an other plants.  It’s the home of hundreds of animal species, and thousands of plants, aquatic, terrestrial, or both. Volunteers and a foundation keep the whole thing running, and it is also the location for a trumpeter swan relocation and breeding center.

We puttered around the trails, used dip-nets on the boardwalk, and ogled at all the frogs, swans, ducks, red-winged blackbirds, whirly-gigs and water-striders, and more wild-life that we saw.  We were lent a narrating device at the info desk where we paid to get in ($10 per adult, and $6 for kids over 3) that when you entered a number on a keypad (say one from a signpost you see), gave a recorded message that matched the number.

The Girl-O was initially terrified of the thousands of dragon-flies that were darting about like so many horizontal darning needles, and was only mollified a little when we insisted that they didn’t bite, but instead ate mosquitoes, flies and other obnoxious bugs. She had fun with the dipping nets, but was disappointed that all we dredged up were snails and bugs. She also became quickly bored during the 1 pm lecture about frogs and toads when she learned she wouldn’t be allowed to hold a frog (oils and sun-screen and other stuff from kids’ hands are toxic to such frail amphibians) so after only a few more minutes to use the washrooms and get a few things from the gift-shop, we hit the road.

mrs_dm was starving by this point, and couldn’t wait until we reached Wasaga Beach.  So we stopped off in the town of Elmvale at a place called Steelers and had a pretty decent lunch.  When traveling from Barrie to Wasaga Beach when younger with my family or when in university, Elmvale was always the half-way point, and I had curiously had never stopped there.  We did this time, and after a surprisingly good meal, we doddered around a used bookstore and a nearby small antique’s mall, before hitting the road by 3 pm to go to The Beach.

That’s how my family used to phrase it when younger, when going to Wasaga Beach back in the 1970s.  Going to The Beach.

For those who don’t know, Wasaga Beach is a resort town on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, about 1.5-2 hours drive north of Toronto.  It has the largest freshwater beach in the world (14 km), has a panoramic view of the nearby Blue Mountains, and has been a popular summer destination for about a hundred years.  The sand is white, and the waters of Georgian Bay quite shallow and warm, and you could go out a hundred yards or more and may only be waist deep (and sometimes only ankle deep) in the water.

When I was quite young, my Grandpa and my Nan (my maternal grandparents) who were living in Oshawa used to own a bunch of small cabins they rented out called the Hollywood Cabins, and each cottage the name of a famous Hollywood movie star.  Some time later they sold the business and earned enough money to purchase a larger cottage on 31st Street very close to the beach there on Georgian Bay.

We would used to visit my Nan and Granpa and the beach many times each summer.  There were three bedrooms in their yellow and brown cottage, and my grandparents would have one bedroom, my parents with the baby or babies the other, and my sister and I the third bedroom in the twin beds.  There was a single bathroom, and then the kitchen (which led out to the side and main door), the main room, the back porch (with the other door we used the most), and that was it.  There were sheds (and even an old outhouse) at the back of the long property.  My grandfather had also converted the garage into a sub-cottage of sorts dubbed “The Honey Hut”, with built in bunk-beds and a small kitchenette for friends to use when they came down for the summer for a week at a time (there was no bathroom for “The Honey Hut”; one would have to come to the main cottage, or use one of those small sheds near the end of the property).

We would do fun stuff during the day like go to the beach, play at the nearby Provincial park, walk along the narrow one lane dirt road to the corner independent grocery store up by Mosley Street with a quarter clutched on one hand, and get candy  (Popeye Cigarettes, Sweet Tarts, Pez, Candy Fangs, Candy Necklaces, etc.) and comic books (usually Archie, Chip ‘n Dale, Scooby Doo, Magnus Robot Fighter, and once a Shazam) to bring back.  We’d also use the swings, play horse-shoes, play tag, whittle driftwood hunks, look at bugs with a magnifying lens, help my Grandpa do some handyman chores, help him light the charcoal BBQ, etc.  If it rained, we stayed indoors and read comic books or Hardy Boy stories, or listened to Johnny Cash on the 8 track tape player (“Ring of Fire” is indelibly scrawled on my brain), or tried to see an image in the snow on the battered B&W TV that only caught the local Barrie CBC station if you were lucky.

In the evenings there would be a big bonfire each and every night at the far end of the property where we would roast marshmallows (and sometimes my grandfather, after a few beers, would make us stay back while he tossed an empty paint-can onto the blaze, which would explode with a tremendous BOOM that would rock all the nearby cottages.  Inside we would make popcorn, and play hand after hand of Euchre before going to bed (where I would read for another hour under the covers with my old black and white plastic flashlight before going to sleep).

In the 1980s my grandparents sold their cottage, and built a large home right on the Nottawasaga River with a dock for their boat and everything.  The place was huge, but it wasn’t quite the same as the old cottage. After my grandfather died and my Nan sold the house and moved back to Oshawa, I really never went back much to Wasaga Beach other once or twice with friends in university to go girl-watching while listening to music and having a few beers. Again, it wasn’t the same.

Driving past the main drag at Wasaga Beach, it still wasn’t the same, it was well nigh unrecognizeable because of 1) a building boom over the last decade as the area has become a year-round tourist destination, and 2) the great Wasaga fire of 2007.

Some time last November 2007, large portions of the historic wooden beach buildings and boardwalk near the main drag of the downtown burned down to the ground.  Many of these were buildings built in the 1930s and 1940s, and had housed beach-front stores, restaurants, pin-ball and other amusement arcades, bumper-cars. No one knows how the fire started (arson is one of the possibilities), but the combination of high winds and snow worked against the efforts of the local volunteer fire department and the entire block burned down. While evidence of the fire itself is gone, the old downtown was badly gutted, and while there are plans to remake it into a more modern pedestrian mall, not much work seems to have been done so far. And while the fire got rid of a great deal tacky and tatty stores (ones that sold cheap T-shirts, hats with rubber dog poop, inflatable dolls, etc), it’ll never be the same.

Driving around, there was also ample evidence of the year-round tourist boom-town that Wasaga has become since I was last here over 15 years ago.  There are many more modernized houses and hotels, there seems to be sewer lines for the first time, and the old independent stores and shops have made way for franchised SuperCentres, Shopper’s Drug Marts, and Tim Hortons (there’s even a year round McDonalds).  Many roads have been upgraded and widened, there is better signage, and the facilities of the Wasaga Provincial Park (divided among several park areas) has been upgraded tremendously.

It all looked so tremendously unfamiliar, even my grandparents old cottage, which had been painted and re-roofed.  The road running past it was now widenened and paved. I had to drive past it several times to barely recognize it from some 20 years ago.  It looked so small…

We spent about an hour at Provincial Beach Area #5.  We paid our $13.50 admission fee (!) to the female park attendant at the kiosk,  parked our car in the tree lined parking lot, and carrying our junk made our way to one of the white painted concrete bathroom/change-room buildings.

We then walked through some pine trees toward some grassy dunes, and past them saw spread out before us, as far as you could see, the wide beach at Wasaga Beach where warm green-brown water rolled in waves towards the white and grey sands.  The sky was brilliantly blue with fluffy clouds, and the edge of the horizon to my left had the low dark blue line marking the Blue Mountains.

It looked just like I remembered it…

Well, almost like I remembered it, except there was much more beach this time! I later found out the water level of Georgian Bay has gone down substantially over the last few years.  There were about a twenty or so persons within 100 yards or so of us, various sun-bathing families with their own beach territorial equipment (umbrellas, chairs, blankets, pails, etc.)  We unfolded our own blanket, weighed the corners down with packs and shoes and such, and went close to the water with the Girl-O.

The water is a little brown near the shore because of green-grey and brown-grey clay that silts up when stirred up by waves running against the shore, but it’s fairly clean, with only some parts having some red-brown algae that can pepper your skin.

mrs_dm wasn’t keen to go into the water, and preferred to read her book (Life of Pi).  The Girl-O and I had fun for a good hour and a bit, however, and while it was a little breezy, it was sunny at this part of the beach and we were determined to have some fun in the water.

We spent time wading into the warm shallow waters, jumping over the waves, wiggling and pretending we were being sucked under by quick sand, running along the flat clean sand, writing our names along the shore with a stray stick, etc. The Girl-O spend some time smearing grey-green clay over her skin on her legs and arms, and giggling as it dried, after which she washed it off and did it again.

Finally tiring of such messy sport she went back with me to join

mrs_dm at the blanket, where we used some driftwood to dig up some moist sand to make a couple of sand castles.  Wiped after a couple of hours at the beach, we brushed off most of the dried sand, shook off our blanket, changed, left Beach Area #5, and we drove off in search of ice-cream back at the main drag of Wasaga Beach.

We parked at a meter, and wandered around what was left of the beach-front mall area.  There were a lot more people on the beach here, mostly teenagers and 20-something girls in skimpy bathing suits. We quickly found a place that sold some ice-cream, (well gelato), and the boy who sold us the ice-cream good-naturedly replaced the Girl-O’s scoop after it immediately fell off her cone and onto the ground outside.

We visited a few other stories selling some kitchy stuff and the Girl-O got a small bag of rounded coloured stones, and I got a few bootleg DVDs from another place. The Girl-O had earlier spotted some amusement rides on a wide paved area behind the remaining beach-front stores, so after one poky walk around the block we relented and paid for some tickets for her to ride the merry-go-round, a train and a roller-coaster.  She had a blast, and it seems that she must have grown since the last time I took her to a motorized fair as she was able to go on the rides by herself.

We moseyd on back to the car (I was carrying the Girl-O by this point) and on our return I  found I had mistakenly put money in the wrong meter and had a nice parking ticket on my car (white sand had obscured the lines). We loaded up and buckled up the Girl-O, got ourselves i the car, and drove off and out of Wasaga Beach.

Next stop, Barrie, to spend our final night away on vacation on the road.

::B::

Juggling, Geo-Caching, Mini-Putt, Babysitting & Sharks

I got up early Wednesday morning at the Delawana Inn and Resort, and was up well before the others for a solo breakfast.  It was a little cooler than the previous day, but very bright and sunny, all signs of a nice final day.

There was a juggling work-shop being put on by the fellow who did last night’s juggling show, Mr. Bob Cates.  I had taught myself to juggle way back in high school when I was 17, but I had long ago forgotten this skill, and I wanted the chance to re-learn it correctly and practice it once again.

For an hour, I was literally sweating trying to juggle balls and learning to use the Chinese Yo Yos he had to demonstrate with. I was hopeless with the latter gyroscopic string toy, but I did manage to keep and catch 3 juggling balls simultaneously in the air for 5 cascades (this while running forward after the balls, which tended to get away from me).  After watching my fumbling efforts, I was advised by Mr. Cates to throw my juggling balls higher in the air than I’m used to, this to allow more time to get my hands in place for the next catch and toss.  I was also told to practice in front of a wall, so I couldn’t run after my juggling balls when they tried to get away from me. To practice (and to pay for my thanks), I bought a set of three juggling balls from him.

I met up with the others on route to the Girl-O’s Caterpillar group, and I went back to my room to change, as my shirt was literally drenching with sweat from the unaccustomed antics. I managed to get down to the Social Kiosk down by the Splash Pad to meet up with Dean, and all the others who had shown up for Geo-Caching with GPS’s.

There were about 5 other adults, some with their kids, there for the introductory course led by a fellow named Dean. Each group or team were handed a GPS device that had no maps on it, just some cryptic buttons (GoTO, Enter, Quit, In, Out, a central circular joystick, etc.), a  large grey and black LCD screen, and a wrist band.  We were also given a pen and a piece of paper with Longitude and Latitude information on it for a number of spots to investigate. Along with some of the adults we learned with some surprise that we were all going over the private island across from the resort, Royal Island, for the course.

Some of the other adults immediately backed out hearing where we were going, but I was wearing long pants, and after borrowing some bug spray, went over to the island on one of the pontoon boats with Dean explaining how the GPS devices worked (the sound of the motor drowning out large portions of his explanation).  On the dock at the other end, a chance discovery of a beaver under the floating dock also stole away some further explanations of the devices, other than learning out to set and follow waypoints with the device, and being shown what poison ivy was and how not to step into it, we were thrown into following the locations specified on our pieces of paper in order to try them out.

For over an hour I was criss-crossing across Royal Island following the cryptic instructions of the Garmin GPS device. The island is a rocky place covered in trees, bushes, the occasional path, and lots of poison ivy. In between swatting mosquitoes and other flying/biting insects I was setting in new waypoints, and paging through various options (compass, maps, menu screens) to figure out my direction and how far I had to go. Without a map, you sometimes have to go out a ways along paths that veer off, trying eventually to circle to get to your inputted waypoint. These were often things like a picnic table, a rocky height, a shoreline cover with home-made inukshuks, etc. You can’t just go straight because a path may be up a rocky cliff, or through a mucky area (it had rained last night), or through a carpet of poison ivy.

I was the last to be taught how to use the finicky device (that kept on wanting to set in way-points for exactly the same position I was in), and I found myself solo for large parts of the next 90 minutes. Still, I successfully made it to all my destinations, and even found the final secret “Royal Cache” (a former refrigerated cellar) before I made my way back to the dock. Dean eventually found me there, and it seems I was the last one off the island. Despite being bone tired, I had a lot of fun, and I’d like to try this out at home, as it combines exercise and technology in one activity.

I was only a few minutes late (traveling via pontoon boat to the Marina Dock, and then walking slowly on aching legs) getting to the Mackinaw for lunch with mrs_dm. I had a Bacardi orange rum cooler that tasted like a melted alcoholic Cream-sicle (mmm) and some calamari rings for lunch. I arranged to meet up with mrs_dm again after her 1-3 pm birding course at the Splash Pad, and to take away the Girl-O who wasn’t interested in the 3 pm pool party (“I hate being splashed, Daddy,” was her whispered explanation for not wanting to be there).
At the appointed time we appeared to scoop up the Girl-O by the pool.  She was happily in the pool, and said she didn’t want to go!  Of course, within 10 minutes she did the usual thing of asking me to bring her to the bathroom to change and let her do her stuff, re-dress her, and bringing her back to the pool. Of course, after bringing her back to the pool again she told us after all that she wanted to get out of the pool ad get changed. I let Mrs_DM change her this time.

We spent some time playing mini-golf, and after a brief detour for ice-cream, went on another 45 minute pontoon excursion, this time with the Girl-O.  Our driver, Amanda, was a chatty person, and narrated quite a few things on our trip together.  We learned that the water level had gone down over a meter over the last few years, meaning many of the dock and cottage facilities had to be changed to adjust to the receding waters.  We also learned where the Group of Seven did some of their famous paintings, visited a private yacht basin where the typical cabin cruiser would cost a person a cool quarter million (and there were dozens of boats floating in the water), learned about how you can qualify to drive a motor boat (a written test and being at least 16), how you can get sailing lessons if we came back next year, and more.  Our trip was a little longer, almost an hour, and by the last 20 minutes the Girl-O was zonked out on the back bench trying to sleep with her head on mrs_dm ’s lap.

After a short rest back in our room where the Girl-O made a miraculous ‘healing surge’ to recover from her previous torpor, we went to the dining room for our final evening meal here at the Delawana Inn.  It was BBQ night, and I had some steak, ribs, corn-on-the-cob and baked potato, washing it all down with a Fuzzy Navel.  The Girl-O was being bored and fussy, and didn’t even want dessert, so her frazzled parents didn’t stay in the dining room with her for very long.

We luckily ran into her arranged baby-sitter, Ann-Marie, one of the staff who was her instructor for her Caterpillar play group. Ann-Marie agreed to start watching the Girl-O early, so we left them together for an early evening “Mystery Mayhem” activity, some kind of hide-and-seek game.  Meanwhile, mrs_dm and I slunk off to get some supplies at the local store, borrowed the movie Jaws, and watched most of this until a nice-sunset and the end of the arranged babysitting time forced us to temporarily halt the movie (just when everybody was on the boat when the shark shows up).

Just this final sleep.  We check out Thursday by 11 am.

::B::

Thunderstorms, Books and Juggling

It was scheduled to rain all Tuesday on our vacation, but luckily the seriousness of the liquid weather forecast was incorrect here at the Delawana.

The first storm of today woke me up at 6 am.  Rain on roof of our unit made one continuous drum-roll whose monotony put me to sleep for another couple of hours.  When I woke up again at 8 am the rain had stopped, the sun was out and everything was glistening and looking and smelling fresh and clean.

We had a late breakfast, and the Girl-O joined her fellow Caterpillar’s just in time for their 10 am session.  They had a big day planned today, one that included an pontoon boat excursion, and a beach party at 3 pm. mrs_dm promised the Girl-O to meet up at 3 pm for the party, and to bring the Girl-O her bathing-suit, life-jacket, and other paraphernalia.

I decided against the 10 am Aqua-Fit that mrs_dm attended, and instead sat outside our room to read my book (#51).  The sky started to darken and cloud over and a long grumble of thunder rolled across the waters.  Mrs_DM came back to the room earlier than expected; everyone was told to exit the swimming pool for safety reasons.  A few minutes later, the entire scenery outside was drowned in rain.

I did have a back-up plan for the two of us, a trek into Midland and Pentanguishene for lunch (and used bookstore hunting).   My plan almost didn’t work as the road conditions with the heavy rains and repeated lightning strikes crookedly lacing the sky were less than ideal.  But we made it into Midland with the storm having stopped and the sun, while not quite out, still quite hazily present.

We stopped off at the local library for directions, a magnificent cathedral to books and free reading that rivaled the nearby church; the fellow at the information desk said that their was a used bookstore further down on King Street, but also recommended the store in Pengatanguishene near the bottom of the hill.  He and my wife got to talking about very large book collections, and hearing my interests,  also recommended me a fantasy he enjoyed, Joe Ambercrombie’s First Law trilogy, with the third book coming out in September.

We did a little shopping in Midland, coming away with a plastic caterpillar and a magic colouring pad for the Girl-O from Minds Alive!, and later on some fresh fruit for ourselves from the very nice Gianetto’s Fruit Market.  The local used & new bookstore, Cottage Books, was simply awful, and I didn’t buy any of its overpriced dreck  (most of which appeared to be books left behind in cottages or on the beach). Lunch was at Scully’s Crab Shack at the Midland Dock, that despite the name didn’t have but a single menu with crabs in it; the food was still okay (smoked salmon for Mrs_DM and a thick roasted turkey sandwich for myself).  For those interested in such things, mrs_dm became rather tipsy on her single glass of white wine.

It was 1:45 now, and running late to keep our date with the Girl-O. Luckily Penatanguishene literally is next door to Midland, just a 10 minute car ride away.  I found my desired used bookstore, Reading Room New and Used Books at 17 Main, and this made up for the previous bum steer.  This is a very large and very well stocked used bookstore (with just a few new books near the front).  Mindful of the time, I spent a scant 15 minutes inside, before new rain and the deadline to meeting the Girl-O had mrs_dm tapping pointedly on her wrist watch. I still came away with a bag full of recycled booky treasures!

Luckily the weather held up, and after a much faster drive back I arrived panting at the North Beach at 3:10 and found that  while the beach party had begun, the Girl-O’s group hadn’t gotten into the water yet because of a scarcity of life jackets.  I got the Girl-O changed into her suit and left her with the hotel staff to play while I got changed myself and found some lounges by the beach.  Checking up on the Girl-O again, I found mrs_dm in her bathing suit seated on one of a pair of much closer and nicer beachside recliners, so I moved all my gear over to sit next to her.

It was a fun outdoor event, and we stayed their until 5:30 or so.  There was Bingo and dance party games and sand-castles and more.  I finished my book whilemrs_dm was out having a long swim towards the end with the Girl-O, and I got dirty with the Girl-O with a little sand-castle excavations that soon became a series of muddy ditches and sodden moats that the Girl-O kept refilling and I kept shoring up.mrs_dm did some of the group dancing, and even swam out briefly to the far floating trampoline to do a little bouncing. Grand beach side fun all around, and we were a tired and happy group stumbling later back to our rooms.

We rested, and then got changed, and then with the Girl-O hugging her new Rocky the Raccoon (which I got her yesterday after the animal outreach show) we got to the dining room for our 6:15 spot. It was only a short wait to get seated and our orders to arrive. My steak was pretty good, ditto mrs_dm‘s chicken.  The Girl-O?  Well, she only nibbled on a few spring-rolls, and wanted nothing from her main course.  But she was still happy with her buttered rolls, having pie for desert and drinking some apple-juice and all her milk.  We had to rush a little through our own desert because of plans to catch the early show with the Girl-O.

The 7 pm early show, ET, unfortunately bored the Girl-O to tears.  It held her attention for 45 minutes at most (to the point where Elliot smuggles him to school to resurrect all the would-be dissection frogs), at which point she whispered over that she wanted to play outside. So she played in the buggy outdoors with us, until the time for the 8:30 evening performance. mrs_dm, wiped from our excursion earlier in the day, bailed out, leaving the Girl-O and I, fortified with apple-juice and popcorn, to watch the show.

The juggling act that ended the day was very good.  Bob Cates is a bald and just-married 37 year old from Kitchener, who has an act called “Comedy in Motion”.  With his wife he puts on a very energetic and entertaining show of juggling balls, rings, cigar boxes, Chinese Yo Yos, and spinning plates.  One impressive bit near the end of the show was by setting up an X-Box with Dance Dance Revolution, and dancing on one of the songs at the hardest settings using BOTH dance pad controllers, this all the while juggling three bowling pins. For those historically interested, the gear used for his final act of spinning his 21 plates simultaneously was the same used by the Toronto fellow who used to appear regularly on the Ed Sullivan Show.

I walked back to our room with the Girl-O after the show ended and watched a few Loony Tunes Dafffy Duck cartoons together with her and mrs_dm before getting the Girl-O in bed with the promise of yet another busy day in the morning.  She finally settled, and I finally wrote this up.

One final word; just as I finish up this entry at 11 pm,mrs_dm just mentioned that my skin looks pretty red from my 2 hours at the beach.   We shall see how I fare dermatologically speaking tonight and tomorrow.

::B::

Summer Animals, Boating, Showers and Magic

It was a little hazy Monday up here on Georgian Bay at the Delawana.  Sleep was elusive the night before, what with the new beds and all, and I remember pulling on the extra blanket on at 4 am.

Still, it was nice enough when we bid farewell to the Girl-O after breakfast, when she joined the rest of the 3-4 year olds in the Caterpillar Day Camp group.  The Girl-O’s face was still a little swollen from her encounter with some form of biting fly, but she was eager and game to have some fun.

I caught up with the Girl-O about an hour later.  There was a wild-life outreach program all the camp kids were invited to, and adults could come as well.  Catching sight of me the Girl-O ran over and sat on my lap for the performance. From out of a van a couple of female wild-life control persons showed everyone some animals they had rescued, and were looking after.

While one young woman was giving the story, the other would be parading a variety of creatures.  These included a raccoon, a rat snake, an opossum, a young wolf cub, and finally a (de-scented) skunk. The kids all got to pet the latter skunk (who has epilepsy, hence the need to be both in captivity and de-scented) and I got a few good pictures.

After bidding farewell to the Girl-O a second time, and finishing my book (#49) I had lunch with

mrs_dm

(who had purchased a fetching new bathing suit while the show was going on) and the two of us later went out for a narrated water cruise in one of the pontoon boats driven by a staff member. We saw quite a few islands and so-called cottages on our 45 minute tour, including one cottage being famous for being used so often in several Bud Light commercials.

After our trip,

mrs_dm

went off for her spa pedicure, and I did some reading (starting book #50).  A sudden summer downpour dampened things considerably for about 20 minutes, but then the sun came out again. I wandered over the to main building of the inn for a can of pop, and then visited the pool where I bumped into the Girl-O about to start her pool party with her friends.  After helping her into her life-jacket (which she uses to swim with) she shooed me away, and I went and did a bit more reading (and finished book #50) until

mrs_dm

came back from her ordeal with a new pedicure and another bathing suit!

While the others were having a bath, I came over to the lobby again to upload some blog posts.  We had dinner together in the big dining room, and waited in line for a clown to make a balloon dragonfly for the Girl-O.

We had a bit of a dilemma after this;

mrs_dm

wanted to attend a water-colour course that started at 8 pm, and the Girl-O wanted to go to the 8:30 pm magic show.  So while

mrs_dm

took off, the Girl-O and I watched the last half of Garfield on a big screen TV in a conference room, this to kill time until the magic show began.

The evening’s entertainment starred a couple whose show is called Evans and Evans. The magician did the typical stage magic’s with acts with invited members of the audience.  There were silks from his hand, flags from a box, and doves and rabbits appearing from seemingly nothing at all. He did a fun routine with Chinese rings, and did some other stuff with a Chinese theme (rice and cups and water). For one little boy he did a routine with silks that appeared and disappeared, and for another little girl he did a routine with an egg that appeared and disappeared from a silk bag, and then turned into a live dove when he cracked it open.

The Girl-O oohed and ahhed with the best of them, but became a little disgruntled during some of the routines when she was passed over for being picked as an audience participant.  So while he did some a great mentalist act and a baffling costumed and masked child switcheroo, she started dancing in the aisles with a few other naughty kids right up next to the stage, despite all my efforts (and his!) to get her back into her seat.  Partly to make up for her goofiness, I thanked the fellow personally after the show and bought a copy of his personalized souvenir magic book.

After the show, the Girl-O and I headed back to our rooms, met

mrs_dm

, admired her artwork, had some night snacks, and then hit the hay.  The Girl-O, running on apple-juice and adrenaline all day, zonked out immediately.

::B::