Saturday, July 31, 2010

Strange city sites

Spent the day having odd adventures in St. John. Following an on-line map we found an inner city waterfall and swimming hole. William thought it was the best part of the trip so far. There were other kids swimming and teenagers jumping off the cliff. Driving home we found the second largest brick I've ever seen.

Friday, July 30, 2010

two firsts

We spent hours in the park today going to the "flower pots" which are very cool areas on the coast that have been cut and shaped by the water and tides.
Best coffee in the town of Alma outside of the Fundy park was at the slow but delicious Octopus's Garden but the other must for me was the understaffed restaurant across the street who served deep fried Mars bars. Yum.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

beep beep beep

I forgot to mention that yesterday our slow start to our Fredericton trip was due to the washing of the van's key fob. When it was wet and close to the van it would set off the alarm. I had to wrap it in foil to prevent this. While it has a removable metal key, that key will only open the doors, not start the engine. A call to a repair place confirmed the fob pries open and won't reset if that is done. We dried it out and it worked fine afterward.
Today we took a trip to Fundy Park and stayed in a little cottage. We took long walks and took hundreds of photos. The Butland shop where we bought scallops let us pet their giant lobsters from their tank. We cooked in our cottage using butter, garlic, and wine.

We took a long walk in the park as well where there were lovely streams and waterfalls. June was taking self portraits for her Facebook page.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Fredricton

We took a day trip to Fredericton for the main purpose of visiting the Beaverbrook gallery. It was amazing. Unfortunately only one of the Dali paintings was there, the others are part of a huge surrealism show in Atlanta. We also found a good comic store June suggested and I picked up a small set of Munchkin cards. I've been catching up on Beanworld and William began reading them too.
We finally found The Art House (above, a small gallery) but it was closed. Drove back to St. John where we had supper with June's friends Leslea and Dana.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

sandy revelations

We returned to Misteck beach today. When we arrived, the tide was in so there was only about 15 feet of beach but as you can see below, the tide goes out over the 3 hours we were there to reveal considerably more beach.

Monday, July 26, 2010

thar she blows


We went whale watching to the town of St. Andrews. We booked on with June's favorite boat which she had gone out with every year for about 8 years. We saw lots of porpoises. seals, minke hales and finback whales. On the way back, William got to pet/hold a variety of stuff they have in a tank including starfish (yeah, yeah, they are really supposed to be "sea stars"), sea cucumbers, crabs, and other stuff.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

a big bang, busking animators, rainy-day waterslides, and feeling slugish



There is a busker festival on in St. John. We had a great conversation with award winning animator Rachel Peters who was doing sidewalk illustrations. It was cold but William still wanted to go on the the water slide. We hadn't packed him a swim suit or a change of clothes but he survived. In June's back yard we found a pair of giant slugs, pictured below with William's hand.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

PEI 2


On Eddy's wife's recommendation, we found this church which is a dentist's office in the back and a cafe run by the dentist's wife in the front. They had a jazz concert last night that we were too tired to attend (plus the fact that it was a 45 minute drive from our Bed and Breakfast). We had "Weekend Waffles". I was sold on the fact that they were called "Weekend Waffles" in the menu and I figured out that today was Saturday. Today it was run by the two sons, home for the summer. Their sister, Kate Bevan-Baker, is a singer on tour with a jazz/swing band in China so we bought her two cds to listen to in the van.
There was a road side stand selling PEI potatoes on the honor system. Deposit $3 and take a bag. We went to a red sand beach near the cafe on their instructions, parked and played. There were loads of live crabs and hermit crabs and snails in the water as the tide went out.
We left the beach and discovered that we were on a non-public beach and that there was one a couple minutes away that had change rooms and play structures. We did well where we were. The nearby town of Victoria By The Sea had a B+B, Fringe Festival plays from Montreal, and had just completed a literary festival centered around a very nice book store. They also have a hand made chocolate shop were we coffeed, bought some PEI honey, and recharged for the drive back to St. John. This time Margaret drove the bride. They charge you a toll of $42 to exit PEI, it is free to enter.

Friday, July 23, 2010

PEI 1

We drove over the bridge to Prince Edward Island today. The bridge is cool and not as frightening as some bridges (I get nervous on them sometimes). We visited with Margaret's old family friend Eddy Edmonds who was a colleague of JRR Tolkien before moving to Canada. We had a nice walk around Charlottetown and had a pricey but excellent sea food dinner. William is crazy for it. I found some nice stores, bought three Animorphs books William hadn't read, and a Carcassonne set I'd never seen before even though it was supposed to be six months old.


Thursday, July 22, 2010

raw power

We got a bit lost but eventually found the look out spots for the reversing falls, a spot where the tidal water coming in collides with the river going out to create very interesting whirlpools and water movements. Along our lost path we found the archive where this canon is displayed outside.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

son in the sun



We went to the St. John market this morning and bought groceries and some lobster (William ate most of it, as pictured below) then spent the rest of the day on the beach, just a few minutes outside of town. We were told the water would be cold but it was so shallow and the sun so warm that it was very nice. The sand is great.
We capped off the day with a great bar-be-que at June's friend/colleague Dann's house. It surprising how big St. John is for a small city. It extends into what was once cottage country and that is where Dr. Dann Downes lives, in an upgraded (although still very large) cottage. William played with one of his sons who has loads of old Bionicles including the original Mattuta!!!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

June's new house

Margaret, William and I flew to Moncton, New Brunswick early this morning. We'd booked a rental car with air miles to pick up at the airport. When we arrived they were pleased to tell us that they had no cars so they were bumping us up to a brand new van with only 30 km on it. We argued that we didn't like vans and had no experience driving them. With no other options, we took it. William was the only one excited about it, he considers it a cool ride. We drove to St. John. Here we are in front of June's new house she bought a few weeks ago and just moved into. It's an old house that is completely redone inside, very cool.

Monday, July 19, 2010

bug and hands

This didn't look like much small, but the more I enlarged it and stared at it, the more captivated I got.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Planning

This afternoon William came with me to the Filmpool while I participated in a Board planning session. It was productive. Margaret was busy volunteering with the Secret Garden Tour.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Garden tour

We spent the morning going to gardens as part of the Secret Garden Tour. One of them had sculptures by Vic Chicanski and Joe Fafard in it. All of them had water features this year, the theme they planned. This evening I saw my second cousin Julia who has just moved to Regina and took possession of her house today.

Friday, July 16, 2010

getting ouit much?

I spent much too much time outside in the sun today. Didn't get heat stroke or anything, it's just hard to keep up on my facebook games when I'm picking 8 buckets of Saskatoon berries, running errands around town, and going to the night gardens on the opening day of New Dance Horizons' "Secret Garden Tour". Made some Saskatoon Gelato when I got home and now am hoping to do something useful like veg in front of the tv.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

work comes home

This morning I developed the colour 35mm that Erik and I exposed over the past few weeks; a total of 10 strips of 8 feet each. They turned out extremely well. I kept running into the counters in the dark room, either because I am off kilter today or because there is a new glowing clock there that was installed two feet away from where the old one was. I was short on time and had to bring the film home and dry it in the back yard.This evening Derek Olsen came over for supper. He's been in town all week doing some experiments with HD compression and blue ray discs through the NMSL. His feature is set to rendering last night but will take over 100 hours so it will need to be mailed to him.