April

Mary and I were starting to get a bit stir crazy during the day this week, so we walked up the ski hill this weekend! The hill was closed as of last weekend, and both Pat and Mary said the view was spectacular.

Which it was! We ran into a group of sledders (snowmobilers) drinking at the top.  So we chatted for a bit, and then climbed the old abandoned tower.  Awesome view.

Looking down.  Pretty cool

Later that day we went to listen to Mary play.  She plays with The Timmins Symphony Orchestra, who had their concert saturday night. (did I say this already?) Anyway!  It was pretty good! It was great to hear the songs altogether and hear how Mary's double Bass parts played in. There was fun festivities at the Boston Pizza afterwards too.  

Sorry this is a lazy post. Onward!

Visitor

Woke up with this little fellow Flying around my head.  He scared the crap out of me, but he was so cute!  Took a while for me to catch him. I don't know what he was doing awake at this time of year, but it was warm out so I let him outside.

He was mad at me, didn't want to be touched. So I put him in an ice-cream pail.

March 10th-15thish?

Snowshoeing!  Turns out it's tones of fun.  I've been going out almost every day.  The first couple times I was using Mary's pair. They were really old though, and my boots are a lot smaller than Mary's. But the end of the second hike I had torn a hole right through the right shoe….

Shit!

They were a wonderful pair though…I felt pretty bad ruining them.  Pat and I went out to Snowshoe Sales and Repair in Timmins to get a new pair. Lynne, the woman who ran the little business told us she thought the shoes were 60-80 years old, probably made by natives out of deer hide. 

New Pair!  Lynn strings them herself out of heavy duty nylon line. Bought a pair of insulated rubber boots too. They are a little bit bigger than my other ones, plus they will be handy when everything starts to melt and it gets mucky.  They work great and are super light. Pat has a similar pair, going on 9 years with them now so they should last!

A well-worn part of the trail.  Some areas you cant really see at all, but you can tell when you go off the track because you sink a couple feet. 

Marion's Rock, named after Mary's mom.  Mary's dad Archie was a geologist who did a lot of work on the Big Rock outside of Okotoks, and they often referred to it as Archie's rock. (small world!)  Mary  thought Marion should have a rock too!

My favourite part of snowshoeing is the big hill you have to slide down right before you get back to the house.  Fell on my butt a couple times, but I haven't face-planted yet!

Snowfleas! Very interesting. No really, I thought they were. 

March 8th

Canadian War Museum

Ok, I’m gonna cram the rest of my Ottawa trip into this post or I will never get it done. The rest of my time in Ottawa was pretty good.  Pat and Mary came with me to the Canada war museum, the architecture of the building is really interesting both on the outside and inside.  Everything sort of slopes like a war ship.  It kinda screws with your mind in the inside, but its cool.  Huge tank collection, and the exhibits were displayed well.  It wasn't a particularity pleasant experience (it's a war museum after all), but it was really good. I wish I had a bit more time there actually.  We also drove out to see the old hose Grandma gre up in on Fentiman ave.  All the old houses there were quite beautiful, and the huge heaps of snow really added to the character.  

Nan Nan's house on Fantiman Ave. 

Love these old houses :)

The Lexington.  Just a couple blocks from Nan Nan's house, this is where she move to in later years. Wonderful old 60's building.

Some pictures of the Gang all staying at Archie’s Place. As you can see there is a LOT to sort through!  From the top, it’s Paul, Mary, and Dave.  

Margaret (she is very photogenic) 

and Pat and Mary.  Jane was there also, but I didn’t get a picture of her.  :(

Margaret, Jane, Dave and Mary (Mary sitting next to Pat) are all siblings, just to be clear. Mary (on the couch with Dave) and Dave came up from the US, and Margaret and Paul flew in from Japan to help with the sorting.  Paul actually headed back to Tokyo one day before the earthquake struck Japan, but luckily he was at home when it happened and didn't get stranded downtown.

On the Last day Margaret, Paul, Mary, Pat and Myself all headed to the Canada Science and Technology Museum.  Turns ouf the old Steam engines are HUGE. Ok, I knew trains are big but the wheels were taller than me. Pretty neat.

C P Rail!

…This little gem was in the Kids section of the museum, it was one of the panels talking about different personality types.  Mary and I agreed it had an uncanny resemblance to Pat...

Ok! Well that was Ottawa in a nutshell. I did skip over some interesting encounters and a few other tidbits, but oh well.  I do better making small posts than big ones.  Time to talk about Timmins and Snowshoeing!

Doodle post - March 14th

I'm not that skinny, nor does it really look like me but shh. Maybe the cartoon will get better with practice?

This comic really isn’t very interesting, but I like making comics of day to day events. Expect more. Chickadee’s aren’t anything new to me, but I’m really taking a liking to birdwatching and I was surprised how unafraid of people they are here in Timmins.

…I’m pretty sure all the chirping was telling me to hurry my ass up because we handn’t filled the feeder in over a week while in Ottawa. It was picked clean.

March 14th

Opps, I'm skipping some posts to show you a new little painting study I'm working on.  First paining of the trip!

Ice fishing huts on Lake Timiskaming
8x10
Acrylic

March 4th-5th

downtown Ottawa around the market.  All the buildings in this area have such character :)

National Art Gallery of Canada! First museum of my 5 day stint.  I thought the vapo trail with the archictection looked really cool.  I overdosed on museums while I was in ottawa.  the National Art Gallery alone too me two and a half days. (I’m slow, and need to read everything) Haha as Pat would say I’d reach maximum information retention. Then off to a coffee shop I’d go.

The giant spider. :)

Pat and Mary came with me to the gallery the first day. :) we started with lunch in the cafe on the second floor. It had a fabulous view of the parliment buildings and the Ottawa river.  they had scrumptous Crème brûlée too.

An icicle on the other side of the glass, deciding that growing downwards with gravity was unimportant.  It broke off right after I took this.

The gallery itself was wonderful. I’ll make another post about the gallery, because this post will be gigantic otherwise.

As you can imagine, se stayed in the Gallery for a long time, so it was dark on the way home. Stopped on the bridge to watch some skaters on the canal.  So sorry its a bad pic! it’s hard taking good photos at night.  No, I didn’t go skating myself.  I don’t like skating. (and I’ve actually put a serious effort into liking it. So I’m allowed to say I don’t like it.)

The next day was adventure time by myself.  I walked everywhere. From Lyons street (the west side of parliament) to the museum of Civilization and back. with museums in between. 

Standing where Grandma, Kp and myself sat on Canada day so many years ago!

the bridge across the Ottawa river to the MOC. I was actually going to go to the IMAX for 7pm, and go the the museum the next day.  But I got there, there were no signs for the imax and so i asked the lady at the museums admissions. She wasn’t particularly friendly or helpful though.  And I guess Harper was talking there that night (I didn’t know till the next day haha) but it turns out everyone gets pretty snotty when Harpers around because no one was particularly helpful or friendly while I was there. I never did figure out if it was the marine life or the french documentary that was playing at 7, so I left. Whatever I have no time for crabby people!

But I did get a pretty pic of parliament on the bridge on my walk back. :) 

March 3rd

Driving from Timmins to Ottawa. The drive is about 8 hours. Ice fishing huts everywhere!

We stopped for lunch about 4 hours in. Towering stack of onion rings! (made possible by plastic straw) classy.

Passing through the little town of Mattawa to look at all the wooden sculptures

...This is the only one I took a picture of. we didn't stop the car ok? taking pictures of sculptures in a car is tricky business!

And here we are! Parliament. I only took a couple pictures of the buildings. because really, you can find a better pic of it on a postcard. nothing new. moving on!

We arrived at Archie’s place around...9pm? We were staying at Mary’s fathers’ house for the week. Archie Passed away in the Winter last year and all the siblings were getting together to sort through his things and for the internment in friday.  There was stuff everywhere, So I just tried my best to stay out of the way.

...Lots of stuff. Everyone had their work cut out for them! Mary and Pat. (napping is not uncommon)

My room. Cute, and loud curtains/bedspread.  

Just a small pic post. Because the next one is all museums and whatnot.

March 1st(?)

Hi! ok, so I'm a little behind on my posts. But I have some time to sort through pics, so I'll try to make a few posts today.

The train trip from Winnipeg was really good; I met a neat couple who had just married a couple weeks prior and were taking a week off on the train to wind down. (and escape family)  I ended up cornering them on the dining car and talking art and politics though...I think thats the chatty Pope gene kicking in - it also doesn’t help that I didn’t say much for the past 5 days in winnipeg either. haha. But I did let them speak a little bit., they had lots to say about politics in Toronto, and told me a bit about their work, both being engineers in toronto.

The train was an hour late getting into folyette. And man, talk about whistle stop! little Folyette, there isn;t much there, just a small two room building on the side of the train tracks. the first thing I noticed was the stars though.  There’s no big cities anywhere near there, so the sky was gorgeous.  

Front of a freight train we passed by.  

The line was peppered with abandoned buildings. It was kind of sad to see so many train stations fall into disrepair. 

Pat and Mary’s house! I'll be staying here for a little but, getting some painting done and visiting. :) But we are heading to Ottawa on the 2nd. Their house is pretty neat - it’s a different design, and wide open.  I’ll tell you more about the house in another post, because I dont have any pics right now and my battery is charging. until then have a pic of milk in a bag! 

haha I was very amused by this. 

Uncle Pat, just coming back from taking me snowshoing.  Loads of fun! Mary lent me her pair to use because she couldn’t come out with us - She’s been working like a bee to get reports done before we head off to Ottawa. Been working till 2, 3am every night this week! sheesh! 

Mary’s snowshoes.  Awesome oldschool shoes! They work great too.  Only my shoes are a little small, I’m going to have to buy a pair.

The view of the backyard, and beyond. a neighbor 15min away on one side, and not a soul for miles and miles on the other. Excellent.  The trees around the house are riddled with snowshoe tracks thanks to Pat and Mary...I think Im just going to stick to what they have walked, otherwise I’m sure I’ll get lost.

Next stop, Ottawa!