At least I would be if there were any fjords to be fjound in Ontario.
Nearly two weeks back from vacation and I miss the time off horribly. Vacation is such a wonderful thing. Though truthfully, I'd rather be here in the overcast and rain than in southern Ontario where it's been pushing 40 Celcius with the humidex. (Yikes!)
The holiday at the tail end of May was way more fun than two weeks surrounded by extended family sounds like it ought to be on the surface. I hadn't seen most of those folks in five years or more, and my wife last saw most of her family under the cloud of her grandmother's funeral a few years back. The latter two weeks of May was a great time.
We spent the first five days in Kitchener-Waterloo, showing off our son to everybody remotely related to me and were graciously hosted by my uncle's family, where they kicked themselves out of their own master bedroom for us.
Since my mum, stepdad and brother were also out east at the same time, it was like a big ol' family reunion of sorts, having my grandmother's 80th birthday as its centre-piece.
Being raised my whole life (since I was 4) away from my eastern relations, and now having a son of my own to further inculcate the feeling of 'ties that bind', most of my entire vacation was spent awash in a feeling of familial bliss, reveling in the attention being lavished on my son and catching the dregs that he cast off. It birthed in me a growing desire to be closer to the people that I have been raised away from for the past 27 years. In more ways than one.
Then heading up to Smiths Falls was a similar adventure with Amy's family. The drive itself was quite interesting. Living as I do in central Alberta, when I drive from one city to another I am accustomed to leaving a city, driving through distinctly non-city and then entering another metropolis of some size or other. Not the case with southern Ontario. Almost the entire region can be considered one massive metropolitan area. It wasn't until we got well north and east of Toronto that things started to spread out a little. Very different from what I'm used to.
Smiths Falls is a beautiful little town that is home to most of my wife's extended family. Her aunt and uncle made us feel very welcome for the time that we were there, her aunt even taking a week off work to take full advantage of quality time.
This little town also touts itself as the 'Chocolate Capital of Ontario', sporting as it does a Hershey factory, the single biggest employer in all of Smiths Falls. I'm proud to say that after our tour of the facility, I left only having spent $15. I was eyeing the 5 pound solid milk chocolate Hershey bar for thirty bucks, and would have made the purchase had it been dark chocolate, but exercised restraint. Yay me...
Over the trip, our son was a relative dream to travel with. At just over a year, he cried not a whit on either plane ride (children's Gravol helps with that) and spent over 1,500 km in the car seat in a very agreeable state.
Between my camera, my mother's, and the amateur guy hired for the 80th birthday thingy, I collected over 300 pictures to bring home with me. They have been distilled and presented in a photo album here on the site.
The link is over on the left titled: Ontario Trip.
Or you can just click HERE.
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