Author: cpp@alum.mit.edu

Burlington (Aug 15)

We rolled into the RV repair place in Gananoque around 8:30 a.m. and rolled out at 10:30 a.m. with a brand new toilet. These days it is generally cheaper to replace than repair – I presume they send the old one back to the factory for refitting, but who knows? In any case, we have a new toilet and it has a feature we like.

The “black tank” on the RV is essentially a mini-septic tank. As such, whenever we empty the tank, we need to add enzymes to the tank and enough water to make them happy. Our previous tank could be filled either by repeatedly flushing the toilet (which likely contributed to the valve failure) or by using the shower hose (which we figured out several weeks into the trip). The new toilet actually has a “fill” mode, making this task, which we do almost every time we move, much easier.

Usually when we move we hit the road around 11 a.m., so moving out at 10:30 felt very good – especially considering that we had already travelled 1.5 hours. We were in good spirits, especially when we realized that our good friends Don and Mindy were also headed to Burlington. Unfortunately, our schedules did not mesh, because we arrived too late and they left too early. Fortunately, they live in State College and we will see them next time we are home.

The trip was uneventful but long.  We were struck by how aptly Vermont is named.  At this time of year, it is all green, green mountains in every direction.

We pulled in around 4 p.m. and set up in Lone Pines RV Park, close to Lake Champlain. There are a lot of bicycle trails in and around Burlington, including one that is right across the road from the RV park.

After a long drive, Chuck usually spends the next day resting. I did some grocery shopping, and then checked out the bicycle trail, which proved not to be the main trail, but did take me to the lake. My work was beginning to pile up, so I also spent some time on data analysis for an urgent project.

 

 

 

On Thursday we were both ready for a long bicycle ride. The  Island Line Trail starts a few miles from the campground, goes along the  Colchester and Burlington waterfront and then takes the Colchester Causeway 3 miles across Lake Champlain to South Hero on Grand Island, the southernmost of a chain of islands that stretch up the lake to the Alburgh Peninsula. This is a rail trail that goes over huge marble blocks from the quarries in Vermont (discard, I presume).A swing bridge on

the causeway that opened to allow boats through came down in the 1970’s and has been replaced by a bicycle ferry, that takes you across the gap (perhaps 20 feet) for $8 round trip.  (Chuck is standing in the doorway if you can make him out.)

 

Once on South Hero, you can actually do a loop – if you are willing to take the on-road bike path and use the bridge on Hwy 2. We found even the regular roads on the island to be a bit bicycle unfriendly, though, especially as the main bicycle route, which has a wide bike lane, was being repaired. We wended our way through relatively quiet and very hilly side roads to detour around the construction, returning to the main route to get a dish of maple ice cream at a snack bar. (Maple flavored soft-serve ice cream seems to be a Vermont thing.)

We noticed on the bike trail maps that there is a hiking and biking trail through the John Roy Wildlife Management Area – off-road and parallel to the main street –  so we decided to return on it. It turned out to be as rough as the mountain bike trail we followed in Gravenhurst – flat but lots of big roots and also possibly logs that had been put down to keep hikers out of the bog. Lots of mosquitoes, too – we felt that we did our bit for the food chain. However, it was pretty, and when we got back to the road we were past the construction.

Returning on the Causeway, we saw a number of wild minks running across the trail and along the marble blocks.  No photos of the minks as they are too fast and too small – just us viewing them.

 

 

There are lots of bicyclists in Vermont, and no shortage of bicycle parking. Some of the bicycle stands are very imaginative, like this dinosaur stand near a playground on the Island Line Trail.

 

On Friday we decided to go into Burlington to do some sightseeing. A wrong turn took us to a small park on the pretty Winooski River.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When got to the downtown, we found that most of the main shopping area is a very nice pedestrian mall – Ithaca on steroids. It made for very nice walking and window shopping.

Continuing to the waterfront, we learned that there is a dinner cruise on Lake Champlain. Once we boarded, we discovered that we could have signed up just for the cruise, and ordered a good, but lighter dinner from the snack bar.This would also have put us on the upper deck for the cruise. However, we did have a very good dinner buffet on the lower deck, where we stayed warm behind the large windows. The main dish was lobster, which Chuck does not like and I feel so-so about. However, they also had beef, which Chuck ate.  I figured that since I had paid for lobster, and was headed to the east coast where I would feel obliged to eat lobster at least once, I might as well have lobster for dinner. It was nicely cooked, and in the end I had a second helping (i.e. a second lobster).

   Dinner took up only about an hour of the 3 hour cruise, so we had plenty of deck time. All in all it was a lovely evening. The dockside restaurant was rightly lit up making a pretty sight as we docked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being right next to Lake Champlain, we of course needed to get the kayaks out on the lake. Fortunately, the campground was next to Malletts Bay, a large and somewhat protected cove. On Saturday we went for a long paddle and enjoyed the lake.

 

 

Brighton KOA (Aug 11)

We made a last minute decision to head out to the shores of Lake Ontario, where Presqu’ile Park made an attractive destination. Unfortunately, last minute decisions do not work well at popular tourist destinations at the height o the summer.  Due to our late decision, there were no campsites available, and so we decided to stay at the Brighton KOA, where we got the last available campsite.

Our site was a “deluxe” site with a deck, chairs, and a fancy firepit. Some of the amenities can be seen in the very last picture in this posting.  Most important, we were at the top of a hill with a great view to the east.

The campground was really hopping, with zillions of kids and lots of child-friendly facilities, including life-size chess pieces and a “car park” with those miniature plastic cars popular with the pre-school set. It was the total opposite of the campground we had just left in terms of size, setting and activity level.

We headed off to Presqu’ile Park, which is on a peninsula jutting into Lake Ontario. It is full of bicycle trails, so we unloaded our bikes on the main loop and biked out to the lighthouse (and lighthouse museum) as well as the main loop. The lighthouse is pretty tall, and it was a bit tough to get a photo with the entire lighthouse in which Chuck was big enough to see.  Here he is sitting at its base and beside a model of the lighthouse in the museum.  The lighthouse museum is on a spit of land that was apparently known for its warblers – we saw several without much effort, as well as swans and the ubiquitous Canada geese.

The shoreline on that side of the peninsula is made up of flat stones perfect for skipping.

The “Friends of the Presqu’ile Park” sell burgers and hotdogs, the proceeds of which support programs in the park. We ate lunch at their BBQ, and learned that the previous week, with very high winds, the waves on the lake had been up to 7 feet.

On the other side of the peninsula are fine sand beaches which allow swimming and kiteboarding. We went to have a look, and stayed to watch the kiteboarders. The water there is very shallow and surprisingly warm. (Off Toronto Island, where I occasionally swam as a kid, Lake Ontario is icy.) The wind was strong and steady. Up to 30 kiteboarders were in the water, zipping along at great speed. Some of the kiteboards are on hydrofoils – with enough speed, the surfer and board rise about 2 feet above the water surface, with only the hydrofoil in the water. As well, some people were doing jumps, lifting more than 10 feet into the air before descending to the water surface.  It looks like great fun, and quite dangerous. I have no idea how you learn this sport – it seems like it would be a good way to get injured.

When large dark clouds appeared over the lake, we decided to head back to the campsite. It did not actually rain on us, but we had a rainbow and a very nice sunset. With our site on the hill after dark we had a terrific view of several thunderstorms which lit up the night sky behind the clouds.

On Saturday we decided to split our day in 2. In the morning, we went to a conservation area in Brighton for a dog walk. This was pleasant, if a bit buggy, and Rumple enjoyed being out.

In the afternoon, we headed out for the town of Picton, and Sandbanks Provincial Park. The town was a cute touristy town. The park was really hopping. We did not realize that we could go directly to the parking lot and get a sticker there. Instead, we spent almost half an hour in line, before deciding we would rather not pay the day fee (it was close to 4) and would park outside. (That was a mistake – we had to pay anyways, and I would rather have paid the facility we actually used.)

Once parked, we bicycled into the park. It is aptly named, with several very sandy beaches and lots of dunes. We bicycled around and saw most of the beaches. We could see why it is so popular – a great place to bring the kids for swimming and beach activities.

Picton and Sandbanks are in Prince Edward County, a large peninsula the includes the smaller, sharper, Presqu’Isle peninsula.   This area had a lot of shipwrecks and is a popular diving site.

In the evening, I stayed out late to see the Perseids. However, the viewing was not great from the campground – possibly hazy, although I could see a lot of stars.

On Sunday, we decided to launch the kayaks into the bay between Presqu’isle Park and Brighton. This is a marshy area, with a lot of birds, particularly swans, and lots of marsh flowers. We had a nice paddle. Lake Ontario is no longer as high as it was in May, but many cottages still had sandbags protecting their foundations or gardens. (These are the orange bags piled on the rocks.)  I also spent an hour on the bicycle trail that goes along the shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday morning we needed to be in Gananoque (Ga-na-nok-kwa) at 8:30 a.m. for our appointment with RV repairs. We got up very early – our reward was a beautiful sunrise. We packed up and headed out in record time.

 

Silver Pines (Aug 7)

Gravenhurst and Bracebridge are the gateway towns to Ontario’s “near north”, the Haliburton Highlands and Muskoka Lakes region of Ontario. The terrain here is formed by the old mountains of the Canadian Shield (Laurentian Mountains) with thousands of small lakes in the hollows joined by streams that have been blocked by countless beaver dams.These are some of the oldest pre-Cambrian rocks exposed on the earth’s surface; millenia of erosion have worn them down to their granite cores. Any lake that is big enough has islands where mountains used to stand. Any hill that is big enough has a lake.  One of our fellow campers works for a company that quarries and slices the granite for construction and this lovely polished slab outside his camper shows what it can look like when polished and sealed.

We debated whether to camp near the highway (or usual plan) or near a lake. The lake won out. It was a bit nerve-wracking to wend our way along the small roads to get to Silver Pines, but we do have a lovely view over Sparrow Lake. And we went kayaking before supper visiting several islands.Sparrow Lake is bigger than it looks on the map, however,  and there are lots of motor boats.

The campground is a bit different from others we have been at. Its claim to fame is its restaurant, which is sometimes very crowded and seems to be well-known in town. There are only about 40 campsites, and only 4 of these are transient. So the residents know each other quite well. In this situation, people could be either completely indifferent to our presence or very welcoming. In this campground, everyone has been extremely nice, remarking on our bird feeders, suggesting places to go and stopping to chat. One couple, Richard and Nicola from Alliston, have been particularly friendly.

Gravenhurst is on the road to my mother’s cottage, and so we have passed through quite often. As it goes through town, the road goes over a bridge separating two lakes. Our plan for Tuesday was to kayak on these lakes.

We started by having lunch at Tim Hortons, a Canadian donut store chain which is Canada’s answer to Dunkin’ Donuts. The chain was started in 1964 by hockey star Tim Horton, who died before it really became a huge business. Now there seem to be franchises on every corner in every Canadian town and city. The lunch food was very good, and Chuck enjoyed his dessert donut as well.

 

 

We then headed for the Gull Lake Rotary Park in Gravenhurt to launch the kayaks.  The park has a band shell (behind Chuck in the photo) which is actually out in the lake.  Gull Lake, which is the lake to the west of the highway, is very pretty, with many granite islands and rocky shores covered in forests. I was reminded of the camp song “Land of the Silver Birch” whose lyrics include “still lake and rocky shore, I shall return once more”. Although I grew up in Toronto, I spent so many summers on lakes like this that it feels like a home-coming to be here.

Gull Lake is much larger than I realized. After following the shore and paddling around several islands and through several inlets, we began to tire. Since the wind was picking up and blowing against us, we decided to return to the park for a snack.

The extent to which Canada has embraced cultural diversity is amazing. Fusion of local cuisine with the cuisine of many countries can be found everywhere.   Gravenhurst is a small town,  yet the park snack bar food includes (along with the traditional  ice cream, hotdogs and hamburgers)  shawarmas, falafel, samosas and my personal favorite menu item, butter chicken poutine. (i.e. I like the idea, it was too close to lunch to sample the poutine. Poutine is a French Canadian dish built in French fries, and usually includes at minimum, fries, gravy and melted cheese. Butter chicken is that creamy chicken dish served in north Indian restaurants.) We settled for ice cream, though.

On Tuesday, a glance at Wednesday’s weather forecast (bad) made us reconsider our plan to see the town, in favor of enjoying the good weather while mountain biking at Buckwallow Cycling Center. It came highly recommended on TripAdvisor and other searches. The staff member who met us recommended a number of easy trails. These trails may be easy for mountain bikers, but for us, on our touring bikes, they were pretty challenging. Although the routes were almost flat, there were a lot of tight curves, protruding tree roots, and steep (although very short) ups and downs over the rocky outcrops as above. After just over a hour, we were ready to pack it in.  However, when we got back to the car, the attendant who had taken over asked us if we had seen any moose at the bottom of the trail. We decided to go back (using the easiest route) to take a look. Just a few feet from the trail there turned out to be a bog that was perfect moose and bird habitat. Alas, our efforts were rewarded only with a view of the vista and a lot of dragonflies. Still, we were happy that we went back.

After grocery shopping we returned to our campsite to find that the restaurant was packed, with cars parked up and down the street. I abandoned any thought I had of going there for dinner, and pulled together something in our kitchen. While we were sitting outside after dinner, Nicola came by with a huge bag of veggies.  Apparently, most of the residents, including her husband, had gone home, and she had been left with a huge bag of veggies from someone’s garden. She also invited us to sit by her fire, as she was planning to visit another campsite. However, we declined, as it felt a bit like using a new acquaintance’s living room while they were out for the evening.

Gravenhurst is pretty far north, so we were quite surprised when Richard told us that there are a lot of hummingbirds here. However, a neighbor who is not home left a full feeder, and it has a regular hummingbird visitor. We have put up a general feeder, finch feeder and a hummingbird feeder and have  attracted mainly chickadees, sparrows and woodpeckers.

One of the owners came by to meet us and we chatted for over an hour.  They have run the campground for 9 years.  She and her husband built up the reputation of the restaurant.  They love running the campground, but ill health (and the current high value of the business) has made it expedient for them to sell, so they are doing lots of repairs, including the toilets.  As I mentioned, we cannot flush our toilet. It will be repaired in two weeks, but in the interim, we prefer to use the campground facilities. During our visit, there was a single (men’s) stall available for use. With almost everyone gone this was not a big problem, but I did worry about needing to use the bathroom and finding it in use.   There is also a public beach with its own outhouse a few yards down the road in case of emergency.

Rumple is still going for long walks with us, but clearly at his age and with both arthritis and a heart condition, he cannot run beside a bicycle. As well, he really does not like being in the kayak. As a result, we have been leaving him alone in the RV (where the air conditioning can keep him at a comfortable temperature). He will be the only one of us to be happy that the days and particularly evenings are getting cooler.

Wednesday was our 30th wedding anniversary. We can hardly believe it!

The rain started early. Since we both had work to do, this was not necessarily a bad thing. Once the rain stopped we headed to Gravenhurst to see the town. It has a cute main street with lots of restaurants and shops. The farmers’ market is on Wednesdays, so we walked to the wharf where it is held. It is more of a crafts market than a farmers’ market, but we picked up some strawberries and then spent time chatting with the folks manning a book sale for the library.

We had lunch at a fancy restaurant overlooking the wharf area. The wharf is not on Gull Lake where we went kayaking, but rather on the much larger Muskoka Lake. It is a beautiful setting, although some of the scenic aspects are being marred by development.

We then went to Bracebridge, the other gateway town for the region to look around. Bracebridge also has a cute downtown, as well as a waterfall. With all the rain we have had recently, the waterfall was really roaring.

 

To celebrate our anniversary, we went to the Silver Pines Restaurant, for their specialty – fish and chips.  It is deservedly well-known.  Our westward facing window seat gave us a great view of the setting sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our final day in Gravenhurst was mostly a working day.  However, in the late afternoon, we took another paddle.  Richard and Nicola invited us over in the evening, and it was nice to get to know them.  Richard ran a heavy machinery company at one point and now runs and maintains construction equipment.  Nicola had a variety of careers.  Most notably, she worked for Hard Rock Cafe, who she said were a very good employer.  One perq – when they open at a new location, senior staff can apply to go for three weeks to help train the new staff.  She got to travel to a number of interesting places world-wide this way.

Leaving on Friday was a bit tricky, due to the location of the dump station right by the bathroom construction.  With some help from Richard, Chuck maneuvered us into position.

In a last-minute decision, we headed towards Presqu’Isle, on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

Primrose Park (Aug 1)

Orangeville is halfway between Toronto and Owen Sound, and near the resort where Daniel and Caleigh are getting married. Fortunately, we were able to get a campsite over the August long weekend.

Although Orangeville is a familiar name from my childhood, I think it is a place I have driven through, rather than stopped at. In any case, it is centrally located for a number of outdoor attractions, including the Bruce Trail, which is less than a mile away and the Dufferin County CP Rail Trail, a 77 km bicycle trail from Owen Sound to Dalkirk (wherever that is). While the scenery was here 50 years ago, the trails and parks are mostly new (except the Bruce Trail) so perhaps it is not surprising that we never really visited during my childhood.

Once we were set up, we took a walk around the perimeter of the campground, which includes a wooded area. I do not know what they were, but many bee-like bugs were clinging to Rumple when we emerged. It took several minutes to get rid of them. Rumple did not seem to be bothered, but we will be avoiding that area of the campground.

On Thursday, Chuck had a very brief phone meeting for work, after which we headed out to Elora Gorge. The gorge was cut by the Grand River, through a piece of the Niagara Escarpment. We started in the cute town of Fergus, which has built a short but pretty riverwalk along a low piece of the gorge and ended in the town of Elora,which also straddles the river. Both towns were founded by Scotsmen, and Fergus in particular continues to play up the Scots connection, with Tartan on the bridge, a Scottish goods boutique and a chainsaw carving that resembles the Braveheart statue in Sterling.

 

 

 

 

 

We took a nice hike along the rim of the gorge in Elora Gorge Conservation Area. This is not as spectacular as the gorges in Ithaca, but is a very nice walk through a cedar forest. A popular feature is “Hole in the Rock” which is a pathway through a natural hole in the cliff.  The trees have interesting roots that grip the cracks in the rock. You can take an inner tube through the rapids below. We were tempted, but our visit was cut short by an intense, although relatively brief, thunderstorm.  We went into the town of Elora for ice cream instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whether it is the season or the campground, it is very buggy here in the evenings. There are a few mosquitoes, but mostly it is gnats nipping at our ankles. This has impacted our picnic dinners. We are back to eating dinner indoors for the time-being.

 

 

 

One thing that I have noticed both in Toronto and here are many RVs flying the flag of Newfoundland. (I did not recognise it, at first, and thought it might be some type of gang symbol 🙂 ).These folks all have Ontario license plates, so I imagine they were part of the great emigration due to the lack of jobs in Newfoundland. There are also a fair number of Quebec flags and license plates – but then Quebec has a large population. In the photo, the Newfoundland flag is below the small Canadian flag on the right, and the Quebec flag is below the larger Canadian flag on the left. The other flag? Cape Breton Island, which is part of Nova Scotia.

Campgrounds have character. For example, as I mentioned there is a quilting group at Heron Point. At Indian Line, we had the hanging basket folks – most of the seasonal sites have gardens full of flowers. Here we have the garden statuary group!   Garden gnomes appear to be particularly popular.

We took advantage of a rainy Friday to sleep in and get some work done. Rumple got me up so early, that I was able to go back to bed after his walk and get in several hours of sleep. Most of the day was too wet to spend outdoors. In the evening we drove out to the Mono Inn for dinner.

Saturday the campground had a garage sale. We managed to sleep in again, and found things well underway when we awoke. I donated a hand-knit hat and scarf set to their charity table. However, within an hour the rain set in again and the sale had to close down. We did manage to grab a some burgers and sausages off the sale grill and scarf them down before the weather chased us all indoors.

   In the afternoon, it was a bit chilly, but things dried out. We took a walk along the Bruce Trail at Mono Cliffs Provincial Park. This lovely trail goes along the escarpment through old growth cedar forest, old apple orchards, secondary deciduous forest, abandoned fields, etc.The view is not good – too many trees – but there is a large variety of plant life. Mushrooms were plentiful, including this tiny bright red mushroom and this nerf-ball sized coral mushroom.

 

Towards the end of the hike we met a professional drywaller, amateur photographer, and had a nice conversation about what is interesting in the park (just about everything from his perspective, which was refreshing) and the effects of immigration on his profession (lots of low-priced competition).

Just before returning to the parking lot, we came across an amazing sight – a monarch butterfly tree, just like the photos you see o the trees in Mexico where they hang out in the winter. In this photo, the 3 specks are monarch butterflies. The tree branch was covered with dozens of butterflies (but this is impossible to capture on a phone camera). We had seen a lot of butterflies during our walk. But we were not expecting this sight, which is something I have never seen north of southern California.

One thing that was odd was that neither Mono Cliffs nor the campground had many birds. Except for a flock of grackles that landed occasionally, we saw almost no birds at all.

On Sunday the sun came out. We took a short bicycle ride on the CP Rail Trail. This turns out to be primarily an ATV trail and is maintained by the local ATV and snow mobile clubs. The surface was a bit rough for touring bikes, and the straight flat trail is probably too dull for your typical mountain biker. The ride was pleasant enough, through primarily farms and a bit of forest.But if we come back, we will try some of the trails the border one of the little lakes nearby.

 

On Chuck’s right in the photo to the left, is an old-fashioned windmill.  Not long ago, every farm had at least one of these wind-driven water pumps.  The remaining ones are mostly decorative – I guess it is cheaper to use electric pumps now.  Speaking of which, on Chuck’s left are Ontario’s new crop – wind generators.  We saw these everywhere between Orangeville and Owen Sound.

 The wedding was in the evening in the Hockley Resort, which is in lovely Hockley Valley. The escarpment forms a sort of bowl here, so that you are surrounded by the forested hills. With the blue sky and perfect temperatures, it was a perfect setting.

 

Dan, the son of our friends Kathy and Salomon, and Caleigh got married in the garden. The service was beautifully done – a merger of Jewish and Christian, modern and traditional, with a lot of personalization. One element we particularly liked was that the JP had asked each of them to write a short piece about what they loved about their new spouse. This was really beautiful and something I think every married couple should do frequently, in keeping with my philosophy that we should focus on what we are thankful for. (We might even try it.)

Kathy and Salo (the folks on the right in the photo) and I were graduate students in Statistics together at U. of Toronto in 1978 (although I actually became friends with Kathy years earlier when the University of Toronto offered enrichment lectures to high school math students). I got quite a shock at the wedding to be greeted by another classmate, Jose, and his wife Lucia, whom I had not seen since I left the program in 1979. Once Jose graduated, they returned to their native Mexico, where Jose took up a number of important positions. Salo has family in Mexico and so he and Kathy visit there relatively frequently and have kept in touch.

We were seated for dinner at a rather interesting table, which included Jose and Lucia, other Mexican friends whom they knew, a Toronto couple who had gone to Mexico with Kathy and Salo and met Jose and Lucia there and the person who led the service, and his wife, who has been volunteering with Kathy on resettling a Syrian family. It was really an inspired seating from my perspective, and some interesting conversations were held.

It was also nice to see Kathy’s sister Susan, whom I have not seen since about 1979, and have a quick chat with her.

There were many nice touches to the wedding. The chupa (wedding canopy) was a quilt made by a friend, with supports built by Dan and Caleigh from branches cut on her mother’s farm. The “guest book” was a canoe paddle which we all signed. (The bride and groom as big on camping, canoing, fishing, etc). The place-card holders were little pieces of birch branch with a saw-cut to hold the cards. And the party favors were little jars of honey (nicely symbolic of the sweet life ahead) bottled by a friend from her own hives.

And with this happy event, we ended our visit to Orangeville.

Indian Line (July 28), Baltimore (July 29)

After the Bruce Peninsula, we headed to Toronto again, so that I could fly to Baltimore to attend the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM).  Last fall, when we were planning our trip, we had decided to spend July in State College.  Since Baltimore is only a few hours drive away, the logistics of attending the JSM seemed simple.  However, due to finding a renter who wanted to start his lease in July, we decided instead that we would head back to Canada where we will attend a wedding in early August.  It turns out that the most convenient way to get to Baltimore is to fly out of Toronto Airport, which is only 10 minutes from Indian Line Campground, where we have stayed previously on this trip.

In what follows, I am going to drop a lot of names. These are all statistical friends who were at the meetings. Last names will be given when I have several stats friends with the same name. Affiliations are to help me remember for a few people I am just getting to know.

We pulled into Indian Line in the mid-afternoon, giving us plenty of time to meet up with my brother Don and his wife Judy at the Mandarin Restaurant, which has long been a family favorite.

The next morning,  it was no problem for Chuck to drop me off at Toronto Airport.  He tells me that he spent the time until my return reading, playing guitar, watching TV and (of course) walking Rumple.  (Did I mention that Rumple is our personal trainer and is relentless about us getting our exercise?)

As we had been warned that increased security on flights to the US made it wise to arrive up to 3 hours early, I was there at least 2.5 hours before departure time.  It took about 20 minutes to get my boarding pass and go through security and immigration.  (You go through US immigration at the airport before leaving Canada.)  Fortunately, I had plenty of reading material.  Unfortunately, I did not use the time to proof-read my talks.

As I boarded the flight, I ran into Richard Lockhart, who had been visiting Toronto (from Vancouver) and therefore like me was taking a detour to the meetings. It was nice to get a chance to chat, as I have known Richard (although not well) since my sojourn in Vancouver around 1979.

The flight went smoothly. Richard got picked up by a friend, and I headed for the Baltimore Convention Center on the light rail line, which runs directly between the airport and the center. I had a bit of trouble due to a temporary scheduling change which had the train turn around one stop before the center. Had I only turned on Google, I would have realized that I was actually at one end of the center. However, I stayed on the train and went back one stop before disembarking.  After some discussion with another passenger, I decided to walk to my hotel from there – a pleasant enough walk despite the rain.

By 4:00 I was checked into my hotel. With nothing to do until 6 or so, and with the weather clearing, I took a walk around the inner harbor, which is quite nice. There is a ship museum, which allows you to visit several ships, like this submarine, of various eras.  I had planned to visit the Baltimore aquarium, but it was very crowded, with a wait until 6:15 for entry. Instead, I walked along the harbor, toured this historic lighthouse, and walked through the Italian district. I also dropped off a prescription.

At 6:00 I met Li-Xuan, a statistician from Sloan-Kettering, for dinner. We ate in the Italian section. Apparently it was “restaurant week” for which many restaurants had fixed price specials. We both had the same entrees and main courses, but we split 2 different desserts. We came away quite stuffed.

At the hotel, I ran into David Banks. Since I was talking with Jonathan, and David was quite tired from a long drive, we agreed to meet for breakfast.

The following day, I had a nice chat with David, registered for the conference and uploaded my two talks, without proof-reading.   I also managed to forget about my prescription (and managed to leave Baltimore without picking it up!)

Meandering through the conference center, I ran into Jim Ramsay. As always, he was bubbling with new projects and enthusiasm, and polishing off a paper with a young faculty member. The said young woman had just started a new position in Kings College, Dublin, and was delighted to learn that we had loved our trip to Ireland and Irish food.

I ran into Jiayang just before lunch, and she convinced me to come be a docent at the “First Time Attendee” lunch. I did not get much of a meal (mostly crackers) but it was fun chatting with these first timers, who were mostly recent graduates or current graduate students.  On the other hand, did I mention that I did not proof-read my talk?

My talk was in the first session of the meeting. (These meetings are huge and there are usually at least 12 sessions going on simultaneously.) The topic was on p-values and reproducible research, which are hot topics these days. I thought the other two talks, which were about the “replicability”, why it might not be achievable, and some ways to handle the irreproducibility of studies, were quite interesting. I was not so happy with my own talk – not just because of all the typos, but also because the mathematical level was very low. I have been asked several times to give variants of this talk, because there has been a lot of controversy over the use of p-values but I don’t feel like I have that much to say that is interesting. Over all, the session was well-received, and I felt that the discussant, Val Johnson, did a nice job of pulling everything together (and besides, he said nice things about my talk). Several people asked to talk with me later, so I guess at  least some things that I have been thinking about are not entirely obvious.

I did not have much time to chat after the session, however, as I was the discussant for the next session, which was on reproducible research in biology studies. For that, I just needed to put wrap some philosophical comments around the 3 talks presented by others (and organized by Li-Xuan). None of the talks directly addressed reproducibility or replicability, but they had enough variety that it was not difficult to put them into context, and I felt the session went well.

One of the features of the JSM are receptions held by various companies, organizations, subgroups of the statistical associations, etc. These usually have some snacks and are an opportunity to schmooze. Due to my short time at the meetings, I had not planned to go to any of these this year, but I had my arm twisted by the person organizing the reception for Significance Magazine.

Off I went to the Significance reception, which had enough food to hold me over.  I took my student, Frank, with me, which gave him a chance to network, too. Oddly, two of the people we met were PSU graduate students from other departments.  I met enough old friends there, that I stayed a bit longer than I planned. One nice thing was that I ran into Hugh Chipman, whom I had a met a few times previously. He is at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and I will call him for a hike or other social activity when we are there in the fall.

En route to the reception, I ran into Sally Thurston. We agreed to meet up after the reception (me) and dinner (her). We ended up having a nice chat in the balcony garden of the hotel.

In the late evening, there was the opening reception for the meetings. I had planned to meet Christian and we also got a chance to catch up.

I was also supposed to meet up with Kim at the reception, but she was a no-show. Once the staff shooed us out of the hall, I took another turn around the conference area and ran into Sesa. I ended up walking her back to her hotel and we had quite a talk about things going on in the department, as she has taken on a lot of administrative roles. (I might have volunteered to help her out when I get back.  )

Oddly, just as Sesa and I decided to pack it in for the night, I ran into Kim. We ended up talking for several more hours.

I always find it hard to sleep at conferences – even more so when I have had a lot of socializing well into the night. I did not get a lot of sleep. And I had committed to (wo)manning the “Caucus for Women in Statistics” (WCIS) information table for a couple of hours in the morning.

Given that most of what I had eaten the previous day had been crackers, I decided to have the breakfast buffet at the hotel (which was pretty good). When I got to the CWIS table, I discovered a discrepancy between the on-line and local schedule, and decided I could go to a set of talks.

In this era of Trump, I decided to go to a session on “Statistics and Alternative Facts”. The first speaker had been the head statistician for Greece, and is now facing death threats and official legal prosecution, for his role in cleaning up Greece’s official statistics, which had been required for the EU bailout. This talk was followed by the former head of Statistics Canada, explaining some of the fiascos, but also improvements, there. In the end, he resigned due to the government’s insistence on central control of the computing facilities which has caused many problems. The next speaker was an investigative reporter for Reuters, talking about the difficulties of obtaining government statistics at all levels in the US. He did not even talk about the gun statistics (which are withheld by law), but gave several examples of data he was not able to obtain, such as the number of nitrate fertilizer storage facilities in residential neighborhoods (much more than zero) and some of the strategies he employed to get information (e.g. asking for the emails referring to his official requests for data).   The final speaker was the head statistician for the US. I cannot comment whether she was forth-coming, as I needed to return to the CWIS table.

It is always fun to sit at the information tables, as a lot of people come by to chat. I was sitting with a new graduate from demography, and she was quite lively and fun. Most of the people who dropped by were either graduate students wondering if they should join CWIS or senior people trying to find the CWIS lunch or evening reception.

For my second shift, I was joined by two people, Bertrand, who had been at my talk and wanted to talk about statistical inference, and a bioinformatician who was also manning the table. It evolved into a rather weird conversation, because I was trying to explain to Bertrand how various ideas from bioinformatics had made their way into my thinking about assessing statistical significance, while the  bioinformatician was eager to explain to him why so many people are doing bad bioinformatics. I could have enjoyed either conversation, but being between the two was agonizing.

When my shift was over, we all left, and I began to look for lunch. Fortunately I found Snehalata and Asha, who dragged me to Lexington Market. Only about half a mile from the conference center, it is a real market, in a more historic (and less savory) part of town. We (and many other people from the conference) found a seafood restaurant there, which served Maryland specialties – i.e. crab cakes and soft-shell crab. I had my first and last soft-shell crab. To me the shell tasted like cellophane and there was not enough meat in the shell to make it worthwhile. Others consider it a delicacy.

I had just enough time to go to one more session of talks before heading out to the airport. Since I had the LRT figured out, the trip back to the airport went smoothly. The flight was somewhat delayed due to a thunderstorm near Toronto airport, but otherwise the trip was uneventful. I got back to the RV with a slice of pizza for dinner, in time to watch Game of Thrones before heading for bed.

We decided to stay at Indian Line for one more day to deal with practicalities like banking and laundry.  This gave me a chance to go birding there.  A flock of Caspian terns had moved in.  These birds are about the size of sea gulls, but are very striking, with bright white bodies, black caps, and large bright orange beaks.  What makes them fun to watch is that they fish by dive-bombing into the water.

Our next stop is Orangeville, half-way between Toronto and Owen Sound.  We plan to visit some of the beautiful parks in the area and attend a wedding.

 

 

Heron Point (July 23)

Leaving Owen Sound, we headed up the Bruce Peninsula, which separates Lake Huron from Georgian Bay.  The peninsula is an extension of the Niagara Escarpment, which was an old coral reef.  Like other such reefs, it rises in abrupt limestone cliffs (creating Niagara Falls, among other landscape features.)  After its tip at Tobermory, the escarpment continues as a line of islands.

The first thing we learned about it, is that the Bruce Peninsula is now a very popular holiday destination. Reserving well in advance is wise – but of course we had not done that. We gave up on trying to get a campsite in Tobermory and headed to Lions Head instead. Unfortunately, Google maps led us astray – the campground at which we made a reservation was not on the tiny dirt road to which we were taken, and a campground with a similar name is in Wiarton, which is too far south.

We decided to try a campground on Heron Point near Lion’s Head but on  Lake Huron, rather than on Georgian Bay.After winding along

 

 

 

some very small roads, we arrived a a beautiful little bay, full of herons, ospreys, cormorants, gulls, geese and mallards.  (See top of tree – right.)  Fortunately, they had a site available for the night, right on the bay.We had a beautiful view all evening.

We might be camping, but Game of Thrones still reigns in our household! Thanks to Chuck’s foresight in setting up our viewing options, we were able to view episode 2 with the rest of the world while watching the sun set through our RV window.

It was a rainy night and a windy and rainy morning. When I hopped out of the door with the door with the dog, about 50 Canada geese plopped into the water. By the time we returned, they had dispersed to other parts of the bay.

With the bad weather (temperatures in the mid 50’s, wind, rain), I thought there was a chance of a cancellation which would enable us to stay in the campground. But campers are a hardy lot – even the tenters continued to come in.   However, we had some very nice chats with our hosts about the wonderful time we had in their hometown of Owen Sound, and in the end they moved some equipment that was blocking a small but usable campsite, and let us stay there until the end of our visit. To get the great view, we just need to walk a few yards to the picnic pavilion.

We decided to take a trip to Lion’s Head on the other side of the peninsula in the hope of getting away from the wind and the rain. Lion’s Head also lies on a small bay. It was amazing – the winds were much, much stronger.As a result, the waves in the bay were huge. The bay itself is ringed by the high cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment. After watching the waves on hit the breakwater and lighthouse, we took a brief walk on the Bruce Trail to view the lake and cliffs.

 

 

The Bruce Trail (http://brucetrail.org/) is a hiking trail from Tobermory, at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, to Niagara, a distance of some 600 miles. There are also about 300 miles of side-trails, such as the one we took in Owen Sound to reach Inglis Falls. The trail covers both public and private ground – establishing it needed some political goodwill – but the route has been continuous since about 1965. On the Bruce Peninsula, the trail provides some spectacular views. For the particular portion of the trail through Lion’s Head, the best views were on private parts of the trail and I am grateful to the owners who allowed right-of-way.

Unfortunately, Chuck slipped going down some wet steps, and we decided to turn back before the bruising made it painful to walk. We ended up having ice cream and a hot drink at a cafe in town before returning to the campsite.

The campground had no power when we got back – undoubtedly the strong winds on the other side of the peninsula caused problems, because at Heron Point it was chilly but fairly calm. As well, the pumping system for the campsite is run on electricity, and so there was no “city” water. In the RV, we are isolated from many problems because our lights can run off the “house battery” which is charged by our engine along with the engine battery, our appliances can run on propane and we have a pump that can feed water from our tank to our taps.

We had a beautiful sunset over the bay, as the clouds began to break. As darkness fell, electricity was restored and the lights went on in the cabins and RVs. Despite that, the campground is quite dark.

The Bruce Peninsula is a “dark night” site, one of the few places in North America where the night sky is dark enough so that the Milky Way can be seen. It was a perfect night – no clouds and no moon. And I have never seen the Milky Way more clearly. I think I also did not realize how thoroughly the ambient night light erased it from the sky in State College.

The next day was cool but absolutely perfectly clear. It was a working day for both of us. Chuck worked in the RV, but I sat by the bay and worked there. It was mesmerizing – blue sky, zillions of shore birds, the occasional kayaker or rowboat with fisherfolk.

Although I usually prefer to be on the go, the day was so lovely that I suggested we just sit by the bay and read until late afternoon. I took a walk around the end of the bay and just vegged out. When the shadows lengthened we launched the kayaks and spent about 2 hours paddling throughout the bay and the Stokes River.

The day ended with a beautiful sunset.

Unfortunately, I was so mesmerized by the lovely setting, I forgot that I was supposed to Skype with my student. However, since Chuck also needed to get some additional work done the next day, I partially made up for it by calling him and his co-advisor the next morning.

Norma, the owner of Heron Point Campgrounds, is a quilter. One of the features of the campground is the quilting group, which meets in the activities building. The members bring their own sewing machines and materials. Recently Norma has brought someone in to do quilting workshops.

It was a rather rainy day, and undoubtedly this is one of the reasons that I fell asleep after my phone calls and while Chuck was still working. As a result, we got a rather late start on our sightseeing for the day.

We decided to go to Tobermory. It had been raining off and on all morning, but of course when we got to Tobermory the rain began in earnest. We decided to see the town, which is small and very touristy.   It has two small harbors – one which houses the large car ferry which goes to Manitoulin Island and the other which houses all the other boats and which is bordered by tourist shops and restaurants.

 

 

 

When it looked like the rain might let up, I left Chuck in the bookstore and took Rumple to the Bruce Peninsula National Park Office, which is on a branch of the Bruce Trail. When the rain finally slowed, we took a walk on the trail. Since it is crushed gravel it was like walking on a sidewalk and seemed pretty safe despite the rain. A short walk takes you to a look-out over part of Georgian Bay. As well, there is a tall look-out tower. Since the weather forecast was for thunderstorms later in the day, I put Rumple back in the car and went up for a look. You end up high above the trees with a good view over the bay.

The Visitor Center has a very nice museum. I picked up Chuck from town and we went back to the lookout tower and to the museum together.  The museum explains the natural history of the peninsula, as well as the establishment of Fathom Five National Underwater Preserve, which includes 21 (or is it 26?) shipwrecks. Due to the introduction of invasive zebra and quagga mussels, which are efficient filter feeders, there is little plankton in the water and the wrecks can be clearly viewed from glass-bottom boats or scuba diving. Interestingly enough, only 2 sailors died in all these wrecks, but several divers have died exploring the remains. We also climbed back up the tower for a look over the lake.

We decided to eat in town and went to the Tobermory Princess Hotel, which was pleasant, and not as fancy as it looked.

Thursday was another lovely day. We were delighted at the weather, as we wanted to visit Flowerpot Island. This island, which is about 5 miles offshore, has interesting erosion features which resemble giant flowerpots. It is a popular tourist destination. Fortunately, the ferries allow dogs, and so Rumple was able to come with us.

Besides the flowerpots, the main attraction of the island is its beautiful beaches made up of slabs of limestone. We are not really beach people, but I regretted not bringing a bathing suit. We waded a bit in the refreshing water.

 

 

When we returned to Tobermory, we decided to have dinner at the Craigie Restaurant, which has been open since 1932.  We figured that they must do something right!  This is a very modest dockside restaurant with no atmosphere.  We had its signature meal – fried whitefish and fries – which was excellent.  So we felt well-rewarded for our venture.

Our visit to the Bruce Peninsula ended with yet another beautiful sunset over Stokes Bay, with a flock of geese tranquilly paddling by and herons flying through. This picture was NOT photoshopped.

Heron Point is a lovely spot, very accessible from State College and I am sure we will want to come back. (We will have to do a “best of 2017” tour.)

While we were on the Bruce Peninsula, our RV developed a new problems. Now our toilet is not flushing properly. We can live with the problem for a while, but we have had to book yet another service appointment – this time on the Canadian side of the 1000 Islands.

 

 

 

Harrison Park (July 19)

We got off to a very early start, and reached the border by 10 a.m.  (Often we have not even hitched up by then.)  We were greeted by a customs agent with a classic Canadian accent punctuated by an “eh” at the end of every sentence. I felt welcomed home – especially as the entrance interview was primarily the agent expressing enthusiasm at learning we were heading up to Georgian Bay for a vacation.

Since we were making good time, we decided we could make it all the way to Owen Sound, a 5 hour drive from Barcelona.

My mother’s favorite aunt, Aunt Ida, owned a women’s clothing shop in Owen Sound.  Because of this, in my childhood, we went there frequently to visit (and for my mother to shop for clothes).  As well, the route passes through the green belt around Toronto that was the destination of many family and friends picnic,  beach, hiking and tobogganing trips.  As a result, most of the route was a nostalgia trip for me as we passed so many parks and towns whose names I knew well (although after 45 years, I doubt I would recall what these places look like, even without the changes time has brought).

Once we left Hwy 407, most of the trip was on Hwy 10, a very secondary road, which was mostly one lane in each direction.  However, we were always behind vehicles moving more slowly than we would have, which I think eased Chuck’s usual worry that we hold up traffic.  In any case, I won’t say the drive was easy (Chuck was doing the work) but it was not unduly stressful.

In my childhood, we used to make fun of the way that Americans put flags everywhere.  No more.  Perhaps it was due to the 150 year anniversary of Canada, but there were flags everywhere – on fence posts, front doors, pick-up trucks, and most notably, taking the place of the traditional hanging baskets of flowers on the main street lampposts of most of the small towns we passed through.  A single small town yielded more Canadian flags than I used to see in a year – and that includes 1967, Canada’s centennial and the year that the maple leaf flag was adopted.

Most of the route is through farm country – primarily corn and rapeseed (Canola).  The latter looks like (and is related to) wild mustard and is used for cooking oil, animal feed, biofuel, and lubricants.  Another local farm product is power – there are many wind farms just off the highway.

Owen Sound has two attractions for us: My cousin Stephen and his wife Elaine, with whom we are close, still live there.  And it is at the base of the Bruce Peninsula, one of the beautiful hiking and wilderness spots in the Northeast.  N

Owen Sound has a lovely civic park, Harrison Park, that has RV sites.  We pulled in beside the Sydenham River, and near Weaver Creek, both of which flow through the park.  Among its many amenities, the park has a nice restaurant (which we visited for supper), a small bird sanctuary, a historical park celebrating Owen Sound’s historical significance as a final destination on the Underground Railroad, links to the Bruce Trail (which runs 890 km from Tobermory to Niagara Falls along the Niagara Escarpment, with 400 km of side trails) and a swimming pool.

This large duck family was enjoying the bird sanctuary.

We thought it was obvious that we were in a forest and were surprised that certification would be needed to verify the fact.  Actually the certification is for the management program for the forested lands.

 

 

 

 

 

Walter’s Falls, a few yards (or meters) from the park at the top of Weaver Creek.

With our “just on time” scheduling, we were lucky that my cousins were in town and available to visit with us.  After we set up and had dinner, I went with them to a “big band” concert at the Marine Rails Museum, while Chuck relaxed at home.

My childhood visits to Owen Sound were typical family visits.  We spent most of our time at my aunt’s house (still standing, but now at the edge of a strip mall) and store.  We occasionally went to Harrison Park for a walk.  We sometimes went canoeing on the Sauble River, nearby, and we usually visited Inglis Falls, the largest waterfall in the area.  As a result of this rather limited itinerary, I was not aware that Owen Sound is actually on a sound on Georgian Bay, close to many beautiful sand beaches and with great historical significance.  (In fact, the link with the Underground Railroad was a shock to me.)  Owen Sound is not a typical tourist destination, but I think we could happily spend a couple of weeks here without exhausting its tourism possibilities.  This blog entry is rather long, due to the many things we enjoyed during our visit.

On Thursday, after a torrential thunderstorm, we met Stephen in town for coffee and then went back to Harrison Park to hike.  We took a branch path of the Bruce Trail to Inglis Falls, which was spectacular after the rain.  It was a lovely walk through the woods and through Inglis Arboreteum – although a bit buggy in the damp weather.

In the late afternoon, Stephen and Elaine picked us up and took us to the Owen Sound synagogue.  I did not take any pictures, but they have a great website (https://bethezekielcanada.wordpress.com). This is the last small town synagogue in Canada, and has survived a reduction to 20 families at its low point.  It now has 60 families, and appears to be quite vibrant.  (I was aware that there was a small congregation in Owen Sound that met for services led by a member, but I did not know there was an actual synagogue.)  The congregation was established in 1904, and the current building was purchased (from a church) in 1947.  In 2001, a project was started to install stained glass windows celebrating some of the life stories of congregation members – these beautiful windows line the sanctuary and each is labelled with the inspiration for the design. ( These can be seen in here:  https://bethezekielcanada.wordpress.com/artwork/our-windows/)  In 2005, the synagogue courtyard was transformed into the Heritage Garden, a welcoming sitting space.  In 2006, a section of the town cemetery was set aside for the congregation – prior to this, the dead were transported to the same cemetery in Toronto where my parents were buried.  And in 2007, with the establishment of the Grey Roots Museum to document life in Grey County, the synagogue compiled a history of the Jewish community in Owen Sound, including an impressive book, a separate book just about the windows and (of course) a cookbook – all of which were gifted to us by the synagogue treasurer.  This historical document is an impressive piece of work, and makes me think that a similar project for State College Jewish community would be worthwhile.

Following our synagogue tour, my cousins took us Port Elgin for dinner.  This town, with a long beach on Lake Huron, is clearly thriving on tourism.  It has a cute downtown with many restaurants.  There is a town dock (of course) and on this day there was a car “cruise” featuring many old and fancy cars.

After dinner, we continued on to the marina to look at Lake Huron (which is high this year) and the boats.  There is a bicycle and walking path that goes for miles along the lakeshore (and past the mansions there).

In the morning, Stephen showed up by bicycle for a quick visit.  After he left, we considered whether to launch the kayaks.

With our campsite right beside the Sydenham River, it was hard to resist trying out our (fortunately indestructible) kayaks on the small rapids that run the length of the campground. In fact, a lot of kids were going down on inner tubes or inflatable rafts. We both bounced off several boulders, as the water was quite shallow and very fast. However, these kayaks really are indestructible and no harm was down.

At the downstream side of the park, the river opens up and is much calmer, with almost no current. There are a lot of big homes with beautiful gardens. There are also a huge number of Canada Geese and mallard ducks, and a few more interesting birds such as a green heron and many belted kingfishers. We were able to navigate the river down to a dam created for a grist mill, passing under a bridge that is practically downtown, and then return to the park. While it was not too much of a portage back to the campsite, we were lazy and loaded up the kayaks on our car.

We then headed into town to the Tom Thompson art gallery. Tom Thompson is one of my favorite Canadian painters. He spent a lot of time in Algonquin Park and other places where I used to camp.  Most of his major works are in collections in Toronto, including the McMichael, which we visited earlier.  The museum has many of his sketches and small studies, as well as work from local artists. One local work captured my interest because it echoed my experience. It shows a tourist looking at a bleak Algonquin vista and seeing the vibrant colors of a famous Thompson painting. Thompson’s paintings resonate with me partly because I have been there and seen what he saw, and partly because I see more because of his paintings (and the Group of Seven).

Another feature of the gallery is a set of plaques detailing some of the sad history of the First Peoples and their negotiations with the British government.  As we all know, they kept being promised the use of their traditional lands in perpetuity – and then being forced off. Note that in Canada, Native Americans are referred to as First Peoples (since we use “native Canadian” to mean anyone born to Canadian parents).

One installation at the gallery we did not enjoy starts right at the entrance. You are invited to watch a short film about a diary that was discovered documenting Thompson’s friendship with a local man.  It is intriguing because Thompson, an accomplished outdoorsman and canoeist, drowned on a solo trip to Algonquin and this diary seems to offer clues to his death. However, upon exiting the main exhibit, you learn that this diary is a work of fiction, and you are invited to view historical artifacts doctored to fit the fictional character’s life. I can see that this counts as art, but neither Chuck nor I enjoyed the misdirection.

After the art gallery, we walked downtown and conveniently (and accidentally) ran into Stephen. We then picked up Elaine and went out for Chinese food.

In the evening, the park had a First Nations event, featuring a drumming group and a film documentary about the first First Nations’ spelling bee team from Alberta. I cannot imagine the culture shock of the 3 children who won and participated in the national bee in Toronto. One of them made it into the final round – quite an amazing showing.

We decided to stay in Owen Sound for an additional day, but we unfortunately had to change campsites, which always takes a couple of hours. The good thing about it is that we ended up chatting with several of our neighbors. By the time we were set up and talked out, it was mid-afternoon. However, I really wanted to see the local history museum, Grey Roots, so off we went

This is a history museum documenting  primarily post-native settlement in the county, including a “village” made of up reconstructed buildings from the area – a small settler log cabin, a larger log cabin, a 1920’s house, and several other buildings including a barn, sawmill, garage (with old cars and trucks) and blacksmith shop. This iron stove was made in Brantford, the town where I was born.

The most fun part of the village was the garage, due to the docent – a former mechanic somewhat older than us.  He was very knowledgeable about the older vehicles on display, and had worked on some of the newer ones.  Many of the buildings had knowledgeable docents suitably dressed in period clothing, but it was special to learn from someone who had actually experienced at least some of the life he was explaining.

The opening exhibit in the main building was about Owen Sound’s less savory days as Canada’s “Sin City”. One intersection was known as “Damnation Square” for the pubs on each corner, while another was known as “Salvation Square”  for its 4 churches. In 1905 the ” Women’s Christian Temperance Union” successfully lobbied for prohibition in the town. Amazingly, it was passed, and Owen Sound remained dry until 1972. Needless to say, this did nothing for the breweries and restaurants in town, but it did move the drinking to more discreet locations.  (Maybe this is why Owen Sound is not a big tourist destination despite its many attractions.)

Another exhibit in the museum documents Owen Sound’s black community.  Although the first blacks arrived as slaves, they were emancipated by the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.   Meanwhile, back in the US, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 meant that fleeing slaves, and even free blacks, were at risk of being returned to slavery from so-called “free” states in the US.  As a result, the “Underground Railway” extended into Canada, and Owen Sound was a terminus.  Because of this, Owen Sound had a substantial African American population.  This is not to say that there was no discrimination in Owen Sound, but many black citizens did rise to prominence.  There is an annual Emancipation Festival that has been held since 1862 in Harrison Park.

Other exhibits in the museum documented various aspects of European settlement in the area.  Oddly, settlement did not really begin until the 1830s, due to the heavily forested terrain and lack of roads.  However, once a road was put in from Toronto, there were influxes of Irish and Scots, fleeing the potato famine, as well as Germans.  These immigrants farmed as started small industries, such as grist and wood mills, breweries, etc some of which grew into large companies.  However, in the past 20 years, many more companies have closed than have started in the area.

This is a small but very interesting museum.

We had a quiet dinner at Harrison park, eating our left-overs from Port Elgin and resting up before our next travel day.

Our last day in Owen Sound, a red squirrel found our bird feeder.  For some reason, only one bird, a blue jay, visited our feeding during our entire stay.  Normally, having a squirrel raid the feeder would not thrill me.  However, under the circumstances, watching this cute little guy enjoying breakfast at our expense  was a real pleasure.

The last day in any place is our travel day.  Usually on a travel day we do nothing but pack, travel and unpack.  However, with only 1.5 hours to our next destination, we decided we could do a couple of things before we left. After a quick trip to the grocery store, we headed to the Marine Rail Museum.

This little gem is in the old train station on Owen Sound (the bay) across the sound from the big grain elevator. It has a riverwalk with interpretive signs, and a small exhibit space in the station.

Owen Sound was once a major industrial and shipping center.   With abundant water power and wood, the first settlers established grist and lumber mills, breweries, furniture factories and more. With access to the Great Lakes, it was a natural shipping center, particularly once a rail line was built to Toronto. For this reason, the Canadian Pacific Railway built a major grain elevator there, and extended the rail line for shipping grain. The harbor used to be among the busiest on the Great Lakes. (Hence there was plenty of traffic to take advantage of Damnation Square.)  It was also a natural location for ship building. Another major industry was a foundry, which built large pieces of ship hardware, including propellers. With all this lumber at hand, Owen Sound was also home to a large company that made wooden toothpicks, which were exported around the world. (You would think that toothpicks would be a local industry.)

Many of these factories suffered multiple fires, but were rebuilt. Rebuilding after a disaster provides opportunities to modernize – particularly if insurance pays some of the costs. (Interesting factoid: In 2015 I visited one of the few iron factories in Germany that survived WWII. However, it did not survive the post-war recovery. The rebuilt factories were able to install modern manufacturing equipment, and once they were established they could outcompete this huge factory even with the large cost of reconstruction.)

Most of these industries are now defunct.  After a fire at the grain elevators, CPR moved the grain terminus to another city on the lake (although a new elevator was built and dominates the skyline.)

The largest local industry is now health care, although there is Georgian College, which has a well-regarded marine engineering program. Oddly, one of the industries that remains is a printer, which produces, among other items, government forms. I say oddly, because one of the industries that has almost folded due to computing, is printing.

In any case, this little museum was definitely worth the visit.

These days, downtown Owen Sound is definitely suffering, with many closed store fronts.   My aunt owned a ladieswear shop downtown, and even when I was a child she complained about competition from the “big box” stores establishing themselves on the edge of town. Of course, now there are even bigger “big box” stores, and the internet competition.  Add to that the “greying” of the town, due to smaller families and younger people moving away,   Store owners are retiring and not being bought out.  However, as housing in southern Ontario has become ridiculously expensive, not just in Toronto but also in many of the small satellite towns, the town seems to be repopulating with retirees. It certainly has a lot to offer: close to beautiful beaches, many rivers, museums, hiking and proximity to the Bruce Trail. In fact, I would have to say that Owen Sound is a “hidden gem.” Much as I would like to see it stay hidden, it needs more tourist traffic and settlement to revitalize or be lost.

 

 

 

Westfield KOA (July 16)

We took a quick trip back to Barcelona en route from State College to Canada.  Although we stayed two nights, we did not even unhook the car – it was basically just a rest stop as we headed north, as well as a bit of a work day for me.

Not much to report, except that, since this was our third stay I could note the change in the bird population as the summer progressed.  The bald eagle nesting in Ottaway Park is still there, but the Canada geese have raised their families and moved on.

Grange Fairgrounds (July 10)

Monday morning most of the bluegrass folks left, and the fairgrounds were much quieter.  With so few people around, Rumple could have his walks off-leash, which he loved.  The people who work on the grounds all seem to love dogs, and so our occasional encounters with staff were friendly.

On Monday and Tuesday we had quiet days around the fairgrounds and met friends Don (Monday) and Margaret and Bill (Tuesday) for dinner.

Meanwhile, the fairgrounds were being transformed – at least in the horse area near the gate.  Large shelters similar to the shade tents for the Bluegrass Festival were erected and outfitted with lots of plywood.  As the week wore on, it became clear that these were horse stalls.  The Pennsylvania Quarter Horse Association was setting up its show. (A quarter horse is any breed most suited to running 1/4 mile races.)

Towards the end of the week, the horses and their owners began to show up.  This was a totally different crowd from the bluegrass folks — younger, more athletic and I assume wealthier.  Owning a horse costs only a few thousand dollars a year, particularly if you live where you can have your own barn.  However, showing a horse is another matter – there is transportation, trappings (fancy saddles, blankets, reins, etc) show fees, and gear.  Many of the riders, particularly the women, wear very fancy beaded, sequined and bejewelled outfits.  Some of the concessions sell the lady’s jackets – the least expensive one I saw was $1200.

We were  intrigued by the horse trailers and RVs.  I am sure that some participants stayed in hotels.  However, there seemed to be two themes for RVs – large RVs pulling large horse trailers, and even larger RVs that are separated into living quarters for humans and quarters for horses.  Since the horses moved into the horse stalls upon arrival (and I think some of the many dogs moved in with the horses) there was plenty of room for the people.

Most of the action was in a different part of the fairgrounds from our campsite.  Since we were not involved, and did not know whether we needed tickets to watch, we just observed from afar, although I did take a few pictures of people exercising their horses.  Although my own kids took riding lessons one summer, I was still amazed at watching young children work with these large horses.

 

 

 Wednesday was a work day.  I had a student meeting and Chuck went to work with Phil.  As I was finished early, I visited the Children’s Craft Fair, which is always held on the first day of Arts Fest.  I really only did a quick walk-through, however, as I biked off to meet Chuck at the music store.

Yes, Chuck and I decided to ignore our previous failures at learning guitar.  Inspired by the Bluegrass Festival, we both invested in guitars and hope to learn to play – something!  We believe in the 2000 hour rule – you can achieve competence in anything if you put in 2000 hours of learning/practice.  Of course, 2000 hours is 40 hours a week, 50 weeks of the year or 10 hours per week for 4 years.  Don’t sign us up for a concert until 2021 – at the earliest.

For dinner our friends Becki and Gene (both biostatisticians) invited us out to their place, along with Becki’s father, Charles, who is also a statistician.  We had a wonderful dinner and a great time.

Thursday morning was the doctor appointment for which we remained in State College.  It went well.  After the appointment, we went to Boalsburg for the People’s Choice Craft Fair, where we met up with Don and Mindy.  We listened to music, ate festival food, and shopped for a gift for Mindy’s friend.

On Friday morning it was Rumple’s turn for a medical appointment, as he has been panting a lot more than the weather merits.  He had an echocardiogram, which seems like high falluting stuff for a dog.  In the end, he got a prescription for a heart medication to add to his growing cocktail of drugs.

We decided that it was silly to be camped at a horse show without going to see the horses, so we went over to have a look at what was going on at the show rings and barns.  Primarily what we saw were obedience trials for the horses, either on lead or being ridden.  While I am sure that hours of training are involved, these are not too exciting for the audience (at least for people like us) as each competition involves each horse and trainer going through the same routine of trotting, stopping, side-stepping, etc.  At the events we saw, most of the participants were women, although the events seemed to be mixed gender.

After we watched for a couple of hours, we headed off to downtown State College to join our friends Susie and Phil for Arts Fest.  They always stake out a spot near the stage on campus to meet with friends and family.

Chuck dropped me off with our chairs and cooler, and then went off to park.  As always, Susie and Phil had collected a nice group of friends and we gabbed and snacked.  As well, their daughter Maddie and boyfriend Cody were visiting for the weekend.

I meandered off to see the arts and crafts, and grabbed a bag of candied almonds en route.  The arts and crafts were terrific as always.  So were the nuts, except that one of them grabbed a filling which fell out.

The tooth fairy has not been kind to us this year.  Our trip was initially delayed because Chuck needed dental work, and we have had to return to State College 2 more times as follow up.  With jagged edges of tooth cutting into my tongue, it was clear that the tooth fairy was demanding that I visit my dentist before leaving State College, delaying our departure until Monday.

The tooth problem not withstanding, we had a good time at Arts Fest and enjoyed good company, good food and good music.

In principle, we planned to go back to Arts Fest on Saturday and enjoy the crafts and music.  What we actually did was to view a few more horse show events, and then head for Susie and Phil’s place to have dinner and enjoy the ambience.  As is often the case when there is an event in town, they had several guests staying with them and we all enjoyed their hospitality.

On Sunday, the horse show folks began to move out.  We noted that unlike most RV events, this one was dominated by women.  In any RV, you are likely to see a man driving and a woman giving directions (although there are exceptions, of course).  In the horse show crowd, most participants were women, and so were most of the drivers.  I now have the title of my first country and western song: “Big Rig, Horse Toting Mama”.  Unfortunately, after this inspired title, neither tune nor lyrics have come to me.  Stay tuned for a 3 a.m. revelation.

The wonderful April Detar agreed to see me at 7 a.m. on Monday to put in a filling.  In the interim, I learned that the drugstore sells a putty-like substance that can be used to plug the hole, although it required reapplication every few hours. Once the filling was in place we headed out.

Grange Fair (July 5)

5 days of bluegrass music.  Are we big enough fans to do it?

It should not have surprised us (although of course it did) that some people spend their vacations going from bluegrass festival to bluegrass festival.  What did surprise us is just how many options there are for doing this, even if you just confine your travels to Pennsylvania.  However, for our first bluegrass festival, we picked a good one.

Although the Grange Fairgrounds have a bandstand, the festival was set up with a stage on an open area on the grass, with 3 large open “shade” tents and an unshaded area in front of the stage.  Behind the tents is a gentle grassy slope, suitable for chairs or blankets.

When we entered the fairgrounds, we were told to arrive at the tents with lawn chairs at 1:00 to get a spot.  However, on my early morning dogwalk, I discovered that there were signs instructing people to leave their chairs “in line” and return at 1:00 to set up.  Here are our chairs in the line.  Because of this, we got a very good spot in the second row of a tent.  (With rain threatening, the first row did not seem like a great idea!)

Even for RV camping, this seemed to be an older crowd.  I was probably near the median age.  It also seemed like an unhealthy crowd (although this may be age-related).  Many people were using walking aids and/or had obesity problems.

It was also a very friendly and well-behaved crowd.  We had many nice, although brief, conversations with fellow campers, and enjoyed jam sessions throughout the day and evening.  I did not observe any drinking or pot.  People were polite during the concerts and at the concessions.  Lost items were announced between performances and returned to their owners, including wallets and money.

There was also a strong Christian element to the festival.  The organizer and many of the performers mentioned religion quite often, and gospel songs got quite a cheer from the crowd.

I was, however,  shocked by the number of Confederate flags I saw. This was to become a source of major discomfort for me – many RVs (even those with PA license plates) were flying Confederate flags, many in the audience had the flag on clothing or hats, and one of the vendors sold the gear. To me (although not to Chuck) this was somewhat of a moral dilemma. On one hand, we were all there to have fun. On the other hand, I knew that if these were swastikas instead of Confederate flags, I would not be complacent and silent. In the end, I decided that it made more sense to talk to the organizer than to try to confront every individual.

Throughout the festival, Ryan, the organizer, kept stressing “Christian values” and a “family friendly” atmosphere. So I approached him from the viewpoint of the consistency of selling gear with a hate symbol at the festival. I figure if the vendors are no longer selling the stuff, in a few years there will be many fewer flags, hats and “stars and sticks” T-shirts.  Ryan seemed to take the point of view that he could not ask people to not bring these items.  I pointed out that the vendors are as much part of the festival as the music, and that he could control who is selected and what they sell.  I guess I will have to wait until next year to see if my comments have any effect.

As I get older, it becomes easier to understand why good people do nothing in the face of evil.  Who wants to make waves?   Would making a huge fuss and being confrontational actually change anything or just harden the resolve of the flag-wavers?  I don’t have any good idea of the best way to change hearts (as opposed to disrupting the festival).  These thoughts occupied me throughout the festival.  I guess it was a kind of culture shock as I realized I was no longer in my academic bubble in which we (are supposed to) bend over backwards to be inclusive.

The music started at 2:00 with the national anthem … of Canada.  There was in fact, quite a large Canadian contingent (none of whom were flying Confederate flags as far as I saw).  The US anthem was next.

And then the music began!  Most days it went continuously from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.  Ryan kept encouraging people to spend some time jamming or go to workshops, but with continuous bands it was hard to find a break to do something besides listen.

My connection to this music started with French Canadian fiddling, and there was some truly terrific fiddle playing.  A typical band consisted of a fiddle, bass (viol), banjo, guitar and mandolin.  Most groups did a few original numbers, often with vocals, a couple of more traditional or at least well-known numbers, and some gospel.  The songs alternated between vocal and virtuoso instrumentals, the latter done at dizzying speeds.

There were 3 groups we particularly liked.  The “Moron Brothers” are two middle-aged brothers who are part band, part stand-up comedians.  They delivered their jokes with flawless timing in thick country accents that play on being “hicks”.  It was sharp social commentary (although not overtly political) often delivered by a sharp left hook at the end of a rambling story.  They were also very good musicians, but it was the stand-up that brought the audience to our feet.

Rhonda Vincent, billed as the “Queen of Bluegrass” delivered two sets worthy of her title.  Even novices like us could tell that her band was head and shoulders above the very talented folks we heard the rest of the weekend.  During her set, she was approached by a girl of about 10 who asked if it would be OK for her to clog on-stage during one of the songs.  Vincent graciously said yes, and we were treated to a very professional performance by the young lady, as well.

The final group which I really appreciated was a quartet of teenagers who had been invited from N. Carolina.  They did a very creditable performance.  I particularly enjoyed a song called “Rust” by the youngest member (14) who wrote about the struggle to leave a decaying mining town.

Incidentally, many of the bands had a family at the core, and so several bands had at least one teenage member and often someone quite elderly as well.  I was also impressed by a young family who were jamming near our RV.  each kid had a different instrument and I thought they were already professional quality, although the youngest child was only about 8.

We had planned to stay away from festival food – mostly fried – but our splurge on a hot apple dumpling with cinnamon ice cream did us in.  We ended up having several of these.  By the time we were ready to move on to main courses, it was Saturday evening and the vendors were selling out.

Bluegrass fans are a hardy bunch.  We had drizzle, rain and hot sun, but most of the audience turned out – even those sitting on the lawn without a tent.  Towards the end of the festival, Ryan invited those on the lawn to use vacant chairs in the tents, which seemed sensible.  This might not work with a rowdier audience fighting over ownership of the chairs and spots, but as I mentioned, this was a friendly and well-ordered crowd.

Sunday morning they held a church service and then back to the music – although more churchy music on the whole.  The service had 3 parts – a few gospel songs, a wedding and a healing service. Did I mention that several of the musicians, including Ryan, were also pastors?  (If you are not from central PA, this concept may be less clear to you.  It is not uncommon here for people to be ordained but hold non-pastoral jobs.  For example, among my friends are a social worker, handman, math teacher and human rights activist, all of whom are ordained.  Of these, only 2 have ever had an appointment at a church.)

The happy couple had met at a Bluegrass Festival, and were clearly regulars there.  Making ones’ vows at a festival where you have made friends certainly makes more sense then making them while (say) sky-diving.  For those of us who did not know them, it was still a happy end to the festival.

Ryan’s 1 year old daughter has severe health issues (which the doctors told him will “resolve themselves in time”.)  He requested a healing service.  This included testimonials from several people on how they had been healed by Jesus.  The pastor then gave his own testimonial.  Although he had visited a conventional doctor, he seemed to suggest that faith alone is sufficient.  (If you know me, you know what I think about this.)  In any case, the sermon ended with a laying on of hands for Ryan’s daughter, which included many in the audience reaching out with their hands.  Although I suspect that Ryan’s child is too young to get any direct psychological support from this, Ryan and his wife, undoubtedly will benefit.  I wish them the best, and hope that “in time” means soon.

The final concert was by the festival staff.  Who knew that the local folks setting up tents, emptying the trash, etc. were all from local bands?  Most of the audience stayed to enjoy their efforts.

Things ended mid-afternoon and by evening many of the campers had headed out.  Fortunately, Jan and Ed were staying another evening, and so we had time to visit them again.