Downtown on Saturday, we checked out the busker festival. But you can only watch someone breathe fire for so long before it's time to be on your merry way.


As luck would have it, the wind picked up right in front of the Toronto Stock Exchange, and every inch of my very long skirt lifted right up over my head, flashing dozens if not hundreds of hurried (and shocked) pedestrians.


The hockey hall of fame...somehow we passed this up.


The top of the CN tower was hardly visible with clouds, but luckily it never rained (while we waited to cross the street I thought it was raining lightly, but it turned out only to be window washer about 50 stories up).


Jason doesn't need to refresh himself in the fountain because he got free gum in front of Union Station - a real "splash" according to the poor beleaguered sample lady.


Bay & Wellington


Commerce Court


A good and "economical" outing for poor souls like us - as Jason put it "It only cost $13, and that's including the hot dog!"

The Beach - Lake Ontario
Presqu'ile

The Light House, Brighton, ON

Apparently Ontario's second-oldest operating lighthouse.

A view of the lighthouse from across the bay.

Memories from Presqu'ile

Reading? Jason?

See...I really did go on vacation. I'm just usually stuck behind the camera. Actually, when we were packing up, the neighbour asked Jason why he wasn't bringing his wife. The car was so crowded he couldn't see me already in there!





After a couple of bad fires at Darlington, Jason got the hang of them at Presqu'ile (actually, he got the hang of buying fire starters, but shhh, don't tell).

Port Hope, Ontario

We were looking for a movie theatre because Jason wanted to see the new Will Ferrell movie. What we found was this......we passed.

Jason, enjoying Port Hope. That is, sitting on a bench in/around Port Hope. Port Hope is not actually so exciting that one might enjoy it.

Port Hope claims to have the best-preserved Main Street in Ontario. Well, it certainly has the funniest. In a big lofty building called The Old Granary, there is now housed both a yoga studio and a tattoo parlour. Authentic?

Arriving at Presqu'ile, we are immediately struck by the beauty of the place. It is almost completely surrounded by water, and the gentle sounds of water lapping against the shore is never far away.

Big Apple, Colborne ON

How many times have you passed this moustrous piece of fruit while driving down the 401?

The big apple is not even that big; a mere 4 stories will get you to the top. However, once you've meandered through the sleepy town of Colborne, Ontario, you begin to understand how mountains can be made of molehills.

None of these animals did any actual crossing while we were on the premises.

This is Larry the llama. There was no explanation given as to why 90% of the Big Apple is made up not of apples, but of animals. Larry himself seemed pretty unimpressed.

Ironically, these goats were not eating apples, big or otherwise.

There she is, the big apple of all the big apple talk. We did climb to the talk to have a look over the beautiful scenery (by which I mean the 401)...unfortunately, at the top, there is a plastic sneeze-guard that prevented anyone under 6 feet of height from seeing anything at all.


But we can now officially say we've been to the big apple. Jason even brought home one of the 2 million pies baked there this year.

Darlington Provincial Park

The first part of our camping vacation was spent at Darlington Park, which I successfully navigated us to via some "scenic" unpaved backroads.

Upon arrival, we unpacked the car with astonishing speed (probably because Jason was hungry). We set up our kitchen tent, which is new this year because weather forecasts predicted "extreme weather" and quite frankly, we prefer our cereal to be only slightly soggy.

Also new was our marvelous propane grill, on which Jason is seen here grilling chicken burgers for supper.

Ahh....you're not really camping until you've had potato salad.

Hiking along the Burk Trail, we were teased with the promise of an "authentic pioneer cemetery" but upon reaching the top, we discovered this single headstone. Apparently, these pioneers were space-savers because everyone listed on this grave shares the same plot.


These are panoramic views of Lake Ontario from some of the viewing buffs along the trails.

Jason mistakenly trusts me not to topple him off the side.

Both provincial parks are so well preserved that they attract an awful lot of wildlife. Monarchs pretty much have the run of the place, and they're hams for a camera, too.

The calm and serenity of McLaughlin's Bay leads into the friendly, shallow waters of the beach, which was slightly more crowded.

When the wind picked up, there were incredible waves, the likes of which we were not used to seeing in Ontario.


Unfortunatley, the site we reserved and paid for months ago was apparently flooded during our visit, so we were relegated to this one, which would have been much less private had we not rigged up a contraption using spare tarps.

Robinson Creek



Jason is looking a bit perturbed because according to him, there some sort of "disgusting larva" on the branch right over his head.




Jason is trying to look mightily impressed by Robinson Creek, which was apparently forged by retreating glaciers thousands of years ago, but by the looks of it, it might better be named Robinson Puddle.



Oh sure, it looks pretty now, but if you had heard have the croaks and grunts coming out of that forrest, you'd have run through it screaming too.



Trick photography, I tell you! Despite appearances, Jason head was not actually being crushed by this tree.



Can you believe I got close enough to get a picture of this guy?