In the three months since I've written so much has happened which I may never get to writing about, but should at least have a summary.
The trip out west was in March.
In April we did a half flying/half driving trip in the U.S. to see the family. Having missed Christmas together, I think our future looks a lot more like singletons visiting us, or us doing a trip to see them. Assembling everyone together is still the goal, just hard.
We learned after flying out of Pearson that if we can do anything BUT fly out of Pearson our lives would be better. So we flew out of Buffalo. The night before our flight we, of course, had a hockey game we could not miss. Caps played in Toronto against the Maple Leafs. So we drove to Buffalo after the game, stayed overnight, and flew out the next morning to Atlanta via Charlotte. BTW, Charlotte is a really nice airport. We stayed with Becca, Max, and Jonathon for the weekend, then flew to Columbus, OH via Charlotte. Stayed there for a few days, then drove to Carlisle, PA where we met my parents for dinner and collected Tandoori. He couldn't come to Haiti, but he could definitely come to Canada. I still think his cat TV view of squirrels, ducks, and deer out my parents' windows is better than what we have (nothing) 36 stories up though! Kat and Erich met us for breakfast in Carlisle before we drove back to Buffalo to get our car, and then to Toronto.
A few weeks later in May, we flew to DC. Ian gave the alumni speech at Marymount's Social Sciences graduation. We spent the rest of the weekend meeting up with friends.
And the weekend after that we were back in Buffalo meeting up with an old friend, Brian Simmons, and catching up with the entire family. They had all gathered for Young Ian's university graduation, so it was great to spend time with them at the Buffalo Zoo and lunch. It was also our anniversary that day, so we made it a weekend staying at the Falls (Canadian side of course), and doing the "Journey Behind the Falls."
At the end of May, Becca came to stay with us for about 10 days. She seemed to enjoy Toronto, except for the food. She was right though, we tried a few new places and they were just Eh. On the way back from picking her up in Buffalo we stopped at Wayne Gretzky Estates, where 99 has a distillery and vineyard. She and I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario while Ian took her to the Distillery District and St Lawrence market. We visited Kensington Market on a pedestrian Sunday, and of course took a day to see Niagara Falls and rode the Hornblower.
She had flown in through Buffalo so it worked out that when she left (just in time to catch her next flight to Mexico with Max), we were also on our way to Cleveland to watch the Hershey Bears play. While the Bears started the playoff series up 3-0, the Monsters came back to force a game 7 (OT no less), so we got to see the Bears get stomped twice in Cleveland. The better part was that for the first game Nicholas and Taylor came to watch, and for the second game Nicholas came up again and spent a couple nights and hung out with us at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the U.S.S. Cod submarine. Since that submarine visit I've read the Lusitania book, Dead Wake, by Erik Larson and watched an MST3K movie "The Land That Time Forgot."
Oh, in case you're wondering, the Bears won in OT, then proceeded to win the Finals as well against the Coachella Valley Firebirds, and won the Calder Cup for back-to-back years.
Closing out June was the Consulate's 4th of July party at the Hockey Hall of Fame. It's a working event, not meant to be all fun, but how can it not be fun there? We were the first to have the Walter Cup (for the PWHL) on display!
That led right into a week both Ian and I took off for our birthdays. With Canada Day and U.S. Independence Day falling in the same week, as well as his birthday and mine close by, we both took the week off. A while back Ian had asked if I would be interested in seeing puffins and whales for my birthday. YES. So we flew to St. John's, Newfoundland and saw puffins, whales, a famous Stellar's Sea Eagle, wild irises, rocky beaches, lakes upon lakes, and so many harbour towns that deserve to be on postcards. Fog you could cut, sea breezes, and bright sunshine. While we stayed on the eastern side of Newfounland, we drove to Elliston in the north for puffins you could almost touch to St. Vincent Beach in the south for whales just off the shore thanks to a coastal shelf drop. We rode on a boat that was not designed for comfort with birders who were agog at a bird we could barely see. It was a fabulous trip.
Now we're home with no real travel plans for the next few months unless something work related comes up. That's a good thing since the day after my birthday I started feeling off, and the next day I stayed home sick - where the Covid test popped up very positive. So apologies to everyone I sat next to in the prior days. Covid has not gone away, and it's not fun. My inner ear pain was the first clue, and everything else was a copy of when I had Covid almost exactly a year ago.
So take care folks. I'm definitely better than I was two days ago, but there are a couple more days of clearing my lungs and my brain before I'm fully functional again.
No comments:
Post a Comment