nofixedaddress: Transition

Well we have started our transition into retirement with the first adventure to Ontario from October 14-23. What a great feeling - no home, no bills, and no place we had to be for ten days. We are down to a 10 by 10 storage locker, our car and a 45 day rental (to December 5) on an 800 square foot condo downtown.

We spent the first two nights with Keenan in Toronto. We went to a restaurant, owned by Lynn Crawford of Food Network fame, called Ruby Watchco. At one time the building was occupied by the Ruby Watch Company, hence the name Ruby Watchco. It was a wonderful meal with a set menu, created the previous day dependant on what the chef's find fresh in the market place we had pumpkin soup, pork chops, roasted root vegetables, pumpkin cheese cake and a cheese course. Keenan had a filet of halibut.

We then ventured into the wild to catch the last day of Oktoberfest in Kitchener, but due to unscheduled stops at the Farmers Market in St Jacobs (first and largest Farmers Market in Canada) and a three hour horse and wagon tour to an Old Order Mennonite farm and maple sugar plantation, by the time we got back to Kitchener the tickets were sold out for the Oktoberfest festivities. But being resourceful we found a lovely meal of pig’s tail, schnitzel and trout, with sauerkraut and pilsner at the Heidelberg Inn in Heidelberg. By the way, pig’s tail is delicious!

The next morning we started out in Elmira and drove through the fascinating Mennonite and Amish country side. From what we had learned from our tour guide the day before, there are three orders of Mennonites and then the Amish.

Old Order Mennonite will use electricity and motorized equipment to farm, but will only travel by horse and buggy - rubber tired for the farm work but wooden wheels for church and town. The young gentlemen have their courting buggies, open topped and fancy lights on the steps etc. The guide compared the family buggy as the mini-van and the courting buggy as a Mustang. Keenan couldn’t imagine what they did in that open topped buggy while out courting!

Moderate Mennonites will drive a vehicle but it has to be black, so if they buy a red or green auto they take it to the shop and paint it black - even the chrome bumpers are painted.

Progressive Mennonites live like everyone else and worship in the Mennonite church.

Now the Amish thought the Mennonites were getting too modern so they broke away and formed their own church and rules – they live with no electricity, no power equipment - everything still done by horse or by hand.

Loreen and I then were off to eastern Ontario. We spent the first day touring Prince Edward county and Belleville and visited Keenan’s friend, Anya. This is where the Colonel did his nasty deeds and the trial was on while we were there.

We drove the country roads along Lake Ontario rather than the freeway to enjoy the scenery and small towns. Unfortunately, we were a week too late for the fall colors, although from the remnants of leaves on the trees it must be very pretty.

We have a friend Nathanael in Kingston that we visited in the evening and spent the day sightseeing. Kingston is where my great-great grandparents, maternal and paternal, on Dad's side landed as immigrants from Ireland and England during the potato famine of the1850’s. So it was great to wander along the wharves and see the city where they landed. The stone cannon revetments that guarded the St. Lawrence entry into Lake Ontario are still standing. One wonders what the thoughts were when they landed in a new land. I’m glad they came to Canada.

The next day we drove the back roads along the Rideau Canal to Ottawa. We visited the War Memorial, (an amazing piece of sculpture), walked around the Rideau canal locks, the Supreme Court of Canada building and Parliament Hill. The buildings are constructed of stone and the size and architecture is amazing. It was very nice to see the nation’s capital. I was somewhat surprised by the size of the Ottawa River, that separates Ottawa and Hull, Quebec. It is a lot bigger than I anticipated. I found Ottawa to be very windy, mostly around Parliament Hill, well there are a lot of politicians there, but a local assured me the wind was coming off the river not from the House of Commons, hehe. An individual has set up an outdoor cat shelter on parliament hill – the stray cats are neutered and then placed in the shelter where they are provided with food and water. This is all done through donations at the site. When we were there a pair of Raccoons had moved in and were the alpha animals at the food dishes that day.

We were then back to Keenan's where we made a post-Thanksgiving dinner for Keenan and friends. Well I made the roasted red pepper/squash soup. It was a delight, everyone said so!

At the last moment Keenan decided to come with us to the airport and return our rental car. That was lucky as the Gardiner Expressway was closed and I would not have known the alternate route she took to get us to the airport on time. And this is just the beginning of hair-raising trips to airports!

So that is our transition into our big adventure. We have both submitted our letters of resignation and will be officially retired the end of November. We now have just 16 sleeps and we are off to Bali. :o)