Fish Lake Revisited

More pictures from my grandma's home.... click the thumbnails for larger beautiful pics. It's worth it!

My grandma's home

the view from grandma's home

one of many hummingbirds that frequent my grandma's garden

Pictures from the garden....

I was lucky enough to catch a bug checking out this flower..

.... and on this one a bee!

Fish Lake - home to Grandma

I can't get enough of the lake that my grandma lives on.... such a beautiful sanctuary away from the craziness of the city and my job. And of course, the love of a good grandma always helps. I took these pictures last week when I was working up north and staying with my grandma. Springtime up north!

Quebec City

Another week, another road trip for work. My new job has had me all over Canada and the US for the last 2 months with the most recent stop being old Quebec City, a place steeped in history as it is the birthplace of Canada. Enjoy the pics!

The Château Frontenac.

There were a couple of buildings that had giant murals painted on them.... it was really quite beautiful.

I loved all the little shops that lined the old city streets...

The Loews Hotel.

Texas

Ah yes, Texas. If you want to take the American extreme opposite to Canada, than this is the state. Where we Canadians believe in tight gun control, this state believes that everyone has the right to bear arms and has the death penalty still well in swing.

This set the stage for an interesting trip to Texas for me this week when I went down to San Antonio for a national sales meeting. I actually ended up having a pretty good time and thoroughly enjoyed San Antonio's famous River Walk. Here are a few pics from my trip (as always, click the thumnail for a larger view)....

This is me on the roof of the hotel our company was staying in, The St Anthony Wyndham Hotel.

View from the rooftop.

I loved the Mexican style artwork that could be found all over San Antonio.

This is the San Antonio River where you can find the famous RiverWalk.

I simply LOVED the River Walk with it's double layer of shops and restaurants along the river.

The view as I walked along the river was simply breathtaking...

... and as you can see I was a good little tourist and took lots of pictures. :-)

How can ya NOT love all the restaurants lining the river??

With any good river you also have bridges. There were several along the River Walk to allow you to cross over at any time to check out a cute little shop or delicious smelling restaurant on the other side.

The bridges also double as nice spots to cool off in the shade.

Here is where a co-worker and I decided to sit and enjoy the view a little, sipping drinks and people watching for an hour or so.

And don't I look happy to be there! haha..

This was taken the last night I was in San Antonio. My company held their own version of Olympic games and I won in the... er...tricycle event. A mini tricycle. (don't ask)

And I just had to take a picture of the breakfast I ate in the airport before boarding my plane to go home. Only in Texas will you get nachos and cheese for breakfast! hahahahaha..

Florida

I was sent to Florida on business last week.. here are a few of the pics I snapped between work and sleep....

Here's the plane I took from Tampa to Philadelphia. This was the GOOD flight, unlike the connecting flight which was BAD. Very very bad.
And there's my luggage heading into the plane (on the left). It was funny watching the baggage handler toss my bag around... I became strangely protective as if I was watching over a child of mine. "Be careful with that! CAREFUL!!!" Thankfully he couldn't hear me through the glass.

cereal

If you know me through my blog at all you know that I love cereal. A LOT.
On a recent business trip to the Buffalo/Rochester area of New York I made a point of heading to the grocery store to pick up some goodies I can't get in Canada. I returned home with 6 boxes of cereal and a t-shirt purchased for me by my co-workers that said "Cereal Killer". Ah, it took only a week with them for them to learn the way to my heart. I think this new job is gonna work out just fine. :-D

Some of these cereals you can get in Canada, some you can't...

I have definitely not seen either of these ones in my town.

The regular Cap'n Crunch and maybe the Peanut Butter one are in Canada... but not the rest!
I think we're only missing the Yogurt ones back home, but I'm sure they'll in Canada soon enough...Ok, now, these two I bought. We have regular Lucky Charms, we do NOT have these two. I was stunned to see them. After trying them both now I can say I wasn't terribly impressed with either one. Go for FrankenBerry and Count Chocula instead.

Toronto Gay Pride Parade 2005

Pride in Toronto celebrated it's 25th year this year, and what a party it was! Toronto boasts one of the biggest Pride events in the world (the second largest?) with an estimated 1 MILLION out-of-town visitors coming to the city to join in the celebration. Details and footage can be found here. This also marks one year since I started this photoblog....my first post was about the Pride Parade last year!

I can't get enough of the rainbow of colours you see everywhere at these events.. it's so uplifting. So happy. :-)

And what would a Pride celebration be without a few queens?

This is my favourite Pride picture ever. Talk about a dicotomy... a tough leather wearing bearded biker... handing out balloons to children. Also, note the pic of him in the poster in the background, and the offer of not only free sunscreen but of the application of it for you! A-prrow!

Balloons, balloons, everywhere!

This handsome lad was done up in sparkling gold.

I love love LOVE the decorations for the Pride celebrations.

I'm not sure which I love more... his mohawk or his undies.

Mohawks seemed to be the haircut of choice among those who attended the parade. Here's the female counterpart to the last gentleman.

This is Alexander Wood who was, among other things, a "gay pioneer" (so it's no surprise his statue is in the gay district of Toronto). I loved the ribbon that someone tied around the scroll in his hands.

All along the parade and party route there are people armed with waterguns, often from rooftops, squirting unsuspecting people passing by. It's all in good fun, and given the heat it was nice to be cooled off with a little dousing.

Every year this guy is at the parade, spending hours doing a chalk drawing. It's different every year, though he always does it on the same spot on the road.

click on the pic for the larger version to see what message he wrote this year..

Hard at work in the blistering sun

Unfortunately I couldn't get a decent shot of his work... this is the best I could do.

I don't know why but I just love street festivals of all kinds, and this is no exception. I love walking down streets that have been closed to traffic.. roles are reversed and the roads are for people instead of cars.

My favourite part of the Pride gathering is all the vendors who set up booths and tables to sell their wares. Everything from flags to jewelry to candy.

Check out the huge crowd in the beer garden area. People line up for hours to get into the drinking areas. One more reason to be happy that I don't drink!

More heavy beer sponsorship, this one by Labatt Blue. I passed by the water sprinkler there in order to cool off a little.

Here's everyone lining up along the parade route

Here's the crowd waiting for the start of the parade.. (I know, where are the pictures of the floats, right? Well, I am short and as you can see.. I couldn't really see much. And if I can't see I can't take a picture. sorry)

Fishing Season 2005

Every year for 15-20 years I have taken the last weekend in June and set it aside to spend with my grandma. It is the opening of fishing (bass) season and it is her favourite time of year. We get up at the crack of dawn and match wits with the fishies. Here you see a shot of the river that feeds into the lake on which she lives..

The plants, trees, rocks and waves.... my private hideaway from the world.

This is one of my very favourite sights in the world... I love to see my grandma fishing. She loves it so much that it brings me joy just to watch her. 85 and going strong... she waits all winter for this moment.

Just look at this and tell me I wasn't in paradise... this was taken around 7:30am while out in the boat.

I can't believe how lush and green it is here in Canada, and I've lived here all my life! This is a view just down the shore from my grandma's place, showing her dock.

Sadly this picture isn't as impressive as I would have liked... but here is a small snapshot of the swarm of dragonflies that were circling over my head at dusk as I fished, snatching up mosquitos, blackflies and deeflies for me. No bug spray required! I love dragonflies, and that's just one more reason why.

You know what they say about moths to a flame.... but check out this crazy swarm of bugs that went mental when the light came on! The spiders who have been clever enough to set up their webs there were overwhelmed by the number of catches they were making.

Anyway... back to the story at hand. Fishing.

That's the captain of the boat... she's always been charge of the motor, not me. I'm merely the co-pilot in charge of the anchor and rowing. Gotta love those giant sunglasses (that go over here regular glasses). Space Age Grandma!

This is my beloved tackle box. Every year, the night before opening of bss season, I sit down and get it all cleaned up and organized for the next day (and season). I am a virgo, afterall, so I like to keep things organized.

And here are the fruits of our labour... two smallmouth bass. This is also where my grandma and I disagree the most... I like to let them go, she likes to eat them. So into the frying pan they go! (but she has to clean them! the day I have to is the day they go back in the lake)

Weather

After days of *extreme* heat and humidity the skies finally opened up and dumped the motherload of water it had been storing. As I was leaving work I wondered... why did I park my car on the other side of the parking lot instead of right in front of the building? It was raining SO hard it was actually raining sideways (thanks Hurricane Arlene!).

What you can't see in that first picture is the mini river running between me and my car. See it? That slightly darker area in the parkling lot? Funny, I didn't see it either until I ran through it and soaked my pants.

I saw this cloud and sunset when I was leaving my driveway a few weeks ago and just HAD to drive until I found a suitable spot to take the picture. It was the biggest pink cloud I had ever seen...

An upclose shot of this amazing cloud....