The Last Leg of our Whirlwind Ontario Tour

We carried on with the last portion of our Ontario tour. First stop...Port Hope for the 50th wedding anniversary celebration for our friends, Louise and Andy.

The downtown of Port Hope is so cute.

And here we are in Andy and Louise's porch...they have so many antiques and relics scattered around their property and throughout the house.

Happy 50th!

Andy and Louise in June 1966...

And today...Louise was laughing as Andy told the story of how they met and how their wedding almost didn't happen.

Their lovely family...

Grandchildren...

And siblings...Andy's brother told him he couldn't come from BC and then surprised him. His older sister, Norma, couldn't resist the old gag of bunny ears behind Andy's head...in every photo.

Their beautiful garden...

Jim and Andy...friends since the 1940s.

It was a lovely celebration and we were happy to attend!

We went up and down Highway 400 many times during our trip. It always amazes me to see the beautiful farms so close to Toronto.

The endless traffic...we don't miss that part of living in Ontario.

Here we are arriving in Sudbury. Jim's brother, Howie, passed away suddenly six months ago and we were returning to see where the family had spread his ashes.

The Bridge of Nations in Sudbury...pretty cool.

The next morning we headed to the golf course that Howie had built and owned in Chelmsford.

Howie's chair where he always sat in the club house. One of his sweaters is draped over the chair (not that you can see it in this photo).

The golf course is in terrific shape. It was taken over by Howie's daughter, Tracey, and her husband, Will, a few years ago. The empty frame beside the rock is going to hold a sign in remembrance of  Howie.

Tracey brought us to the place where they have spread Howie's ashes.

A cross that belonged to Howie...

Tracey had been to see the medium, Theresa Caputo, and out of 3,000 people attending, she was singled out to receive a message from Howie. She had been telling us this and then Jim remarked on the fact that the cart she was in was #16, Howie's birthdate. Coincidence? Perhaps. I like to think of it as a sign.

And then we laughed because Will was in cart #25, Jim and Howie's father's birthdate.

We took a quick tour of the golf course...

Before heading back to the clubhouse...

Jim with carts #16 and #25...

Howie's obituary...I was trying to get it without glare and instead just ended up with my face in the photo. Howie loved old cars and had amassed quite a collection.

Howie's rules...

With that visit and a feeling of closure, we got back on the road and headed towards our next stop, Kingston. We kept noticing these ponds full of lily pads and finally stopped to take a photo. Canada is a beautiful country!

And back in the traffic...

Past the big apple in Colborne...

And here we are in Kingston at Jim's daughter's place. I can't believe this snake is still alive. Jennifer has had him for 17 years. Holding the snake didn't bother me. Now if it had slithered out from under a bed, that might be a different story.

We went to lunch with Jennifer and our grandson, Nicholas, and his girlfriend, Courtney. So nice to see them and catch up.

After lunch, we drove from Kingston to Drummondville, Quebec, planning to make our drive the following day a lot shorter. The next morning we were up and in the car at 7:30 a.m. for the drive to New Brunswick. And 8 km from the hotel, this is what we ran into.

And we waited and waited...and eventually realized they were detouring everyone off the major highway onto a little country road.

When we started in the morning, the mileage to home was 712 km. Two hours later, we only had 692 km to go! So much for our early start. It was painful.

This looked like something from an outer space movie. We were back in New Brunswick!

Every visit and stop on the trip was great, but we agreed it was a bit much all at once. Home sweet home. I missed the cats, who were well looked after by my sister. You can hardly tell which end of Cleo is up!

Next trip...Africa in August!