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So after a grueling 1.5 hour drive where I contemplating curling up in a ball and sleeping for a week, I arrived in Meaford to a locked door. No problems as I had forgotten to phone up Danny and Carol to let them know when I was going to arrive. I figured they shouldn’t be too far away. I proceeded to set up a lawn chair and crack a beer and read my user manual of my recording equipment, but then it started to rain so I moved to the car. The car proved to be a worthy oponent to my own bed at home and I quickly fell asleep.

Knock knock went the window as Carol appeared out of nowhere! They had a good laugh that I was snoozing in my car with a beer by my side. After a shower which refueled the Palmer Machine, we hung out for a bit and jammed with Danny on some tunes. He had just bought these rubber guitar picks from a new music store which were…interesting. I don’t know if I would ever switch to them and I’ll see if they are better for picking the strings rather than strumming. I passed a few onto Mike and he said the same thing.

We headed over to the Leaky Canoe for some amazing wings, although I must not be used to the mass quantities of wings anymore (due to the atrocious pricing of them in Ottawa) so I could only eat half of my order whereas Carol managed to scarf down some cheese sticks, Greek salad and her entire plate! I was impressed by her show. The Leaky Canoe proved to be an excellent joint for food and drink, coupled along with the token small town drunk passed out at the bar. Beauty.

We then headed back home to jam a little more, relax and then Moe and Tracy showed up to the homstead. Unfortunately the night caught up with me and dozed off during their stay and was feeling pretty rude.

I must admit that Carol and Danny managed to demonstrate that I am losing my memory. They were talking about a camping trip that themselves and me and our friend Angele took back YEARS ago and I really couldn’t remember it at all. Then they hauled out the pictures and I still couldn’t remember it. This really frustrates me to no end…I had heard that as the years get on, you tend to lose your memory…but I wasn’t thinking I would lose my MEMORIES. Bah.

Waking up around 8 the next morning, I headed out to Ottawa where I witnessed a slew of OPP on the 400 HWY, but rarely saw one on the 401. Stopped into Kingston for some Arby’s since Ottawa does not have one in town. Unfornately the 401 went down to one lane before Kingston so that wasted 30 minutes of my day. Got into town and headed over to Vero’s where I surprised her. Never leave your door unlocked while you’re away Vero! Some crazy guy may be in there surfing the Internet!

All in all, it was a tiring weekend, but that was my own damn fault from partying hard and not sleeping much. But I enjoyed the trek around Ontario and I enjoyed the company along the way. A big thanks to the Pelkys, Troy, Connie, Jay, Heather and Shannon, and Carol and Danny for showing me some good hospitality along my trek. You’re always welcome in Ottawa when you need a place to call home.

2 o’clock in the morning…not a shabby time to go to bed after a wedding.

However, when you have to be on the road to get to a ferry in South Bay on Manitoulin Island and it’s five hours away, it’s not an ideal situation to be in.

I woke up and suprisingly felt good. I packed up quickly and hit the road and then cursed myself for leaving the case of beer I had bought for the cottage trip. Hopefully Holly is reading this and brought it back to Ottawa for me!

About 20 kms outside of town, the thoughts of getting sick crept into my head and I realized that I wasn’t in the best shape after all. After pulling over to the side of the road and doing the unmentionable deed, I continued on the painstaking trip while having dreams of a nice spot to curl up in and die, like the animal that I felt like.

I arrived in South Bay an hour before I anticipated, hence the travel time was only 4 hours. Even though I was disappointed I could have used that extra hour of sleep, I thanked the heavens I was there, got out, kissed the ground and curled up on the side of the road.

After some seagulls started pecking at my neck, I went to the Pierside Restaurant with my book and ordered the fish and chips which hit the spot. I then took a nap in my car and awoke an hour later when the ferry pulled up.

Now, I don’t know how many people have been on a ferry but it is pretty cool. I was wondering how the heck such a small boat takes on so many cars. But they have these ramp systems where they end up stacking cars on top of another (well not literally on top of one another) but it’s like a beehive of cars inside and they aren’t just on one level. AWESOME!
I decided it wasn’t worth it to be on the great waterscape without being outside so I spent the next 1.5 hours outside reading a book or going into the front where the wind took my breath away. I’ve realized that I love the water and the serenity of it all and enjoyed this part of the trip the most.
Arriving in Tobermory was surreal as there were tons of people roaming the town. Turns out that everyone comes to Tobermory for the last hurrah of the summer (which turned out to be lame as it was raining all weekend). I picked up some supplies and headed to the cottage which Troy and Connie rented off of a friend back in London.

Met Shannon, Jay and Heather (who unfortunately had the wrong address and spent 1/5 hours scouring the dirt roads for our cottage. That would suck large!) and had a few beers until eating some supper. The cottage was quite the scenic place inside and it didn’t feel like roughing it at all! I must admit that I don’t know if I would like having a cottage up around the Georgian Bay as it is all rock! That was odd considering all the other cottages I’ve been to have lawns leading up to the water.

Troy and I took the stage and jammed until our fingers bled, along with Jay on some vocal duties who was excellent! All in all, a good jam session with some old tunes that I hadn’t heard. Dr. Hook anyone?

We then played Cranium which was hilarity at its best. Highlights of the game were Troy being the puppeteer and myself thinking he was trying to act out myself eating porridge considering my hands were flopping around like a ragdoll. Also, Troy’s peacock strut was a thing of legend.

Got to bed around 4 o’clock which was killer as I hadn’t had much sleep the night before either. Had some breakfast and then hauled out my recording equipment to show Troy and then realized I never brought any speakers so it was essentially useless. I was not impressed with myself.

The afternoon brought forth two games of urban croquet which is high up there with bocce ball in my books. We had an amazing tour of the woods playing croquet and there were many wars fought on the beach area. One ball actually cracked in half and I don’t think the mallets have much use in them after playing in a rough and tumble area such as the one we laid out. Jay ended up taking two wins. I don’t think these guys have played a game of croquet this wild.

Thanks to Troy and company for the wild times in Tobermory! It was cool hanging out with all of you, as well as Troy considering the only time we’ve ever hung out is at family functions. It’s good to see family outside of family functions! Advice of the Day people.

I headed out around 3 o’clock to hit up Meaford to go see Danny and Carol. I was pretty tired on this trip as well but luckily it was only 2 hours away. The adventure continues once again!

Drove up to Sault Ste Marie on Thursday with Holly leading the pack after we found each other in North Bay. I’ve never drive up HWY 17 past North Bay so it was a nice drive with the water on my sides for awhile. Sunset was hitting as we drove by Sudbury and it was weird to have flashbacks of Sudbury pop into my head – like the giant power lines going into the city, or the smokestack.

Holly asked me if I had noticed the moron swerving and braking all the time outside of Sudbury. Turns out that she passed the guy and him and his girlfriend were having some fun in the car which was preventing him from driving correctly. 😉

We rolled into town around 11 and met Holly’s parents. They are very cool people and it was odd to walk into the house and feel comfortable with the surroundings. Usually if I’m in an unknown environment, I am on the defense – say the right thing, act the right way. Here, I just sat back on the couch and chatted. Holly’s mom actually reminds me of her. They have the same laugh!

The next morning a super breakfast was prepared and Holly’s dad introduced me to the health wonders of garlic. I chomped away on a piece and boy did it hit me hard! I would like to think that I’m chock full of anti-cancer agents that night. Unfortunately for everyone around me, I had eaten a piece of garlic. Holly was not impressed.

We did a quick tour of the Sault which is a pretty cool place. We then got dressed up, went to the church (just in time to zip in front of the bride!) and sat down next to the Masse family. The wedding was nice…Adam and Nichelle’s son Blake was ripping around the church and when the vows were about to start he had tripped and smacked his head so the vows I heard were something like this:

Adam and Nichelle’s lips moving: WAAAAHH!!!! WAAAAAHHHH!!! AUUUGHHHHH!!

So I hope they said something nice during their vows.

Went back to Holly’s place for a beer and I hooked up their surround sound system and DVD player as they had just unpacked it. Headed over to the Watertower Inn where a great meal was had with great company at my table. The wine was flowing pretty nicely into Maureen and my glass that night! She was having a good time for sure.

DJ was decent although he didn’t fulfill either of my requests. Strike one and two boy. All in all, a good time at the wedding and it was nice to see my friends in a different setting.

We ended up rolling into bed around 2 in the morning which was unfortunate as I had to be on the road by 7 to catch a ferry to Tobermory. Onto the next adventure…

• Baby Desgroseilliers actually has a name now and it is Philippe.
• Held my first baby the other day. Pretty cool. It moved around a whole lot.
• Meeting up with Holly ended in disaster. She somehow didn’t hear me say that we’ll meet at the Tim Horton’s in Deep River, but instead, thought I had said “Deep River” and that’s it. Hence, we waited in town for each other for 20 minutes and we were 100 meters apart as she figured she would wait at the Subway. We ended up meeting at the Mr. Gas in North Bay where Holly blew a gasket. 😉

I’m heading to Sault Ste Marie in 10 minutes along with Holly who will be driving her own car. We’re meeting in Deep River at the Tim Horton’s.

Holly: Do you have a cell phone still?
Ryan: No.
Holly: (obviously distressed) Uh…uhh…
Ryan: Holly, no worries. We’ll just travel like cavemen used to and actually arrange a meeting spot ahead of time!
Holly: (laughter ensues)

Here’s to a great trip on the weekend. Take care all.

Not a month has gone by after I started playing around with the Travelr software to tag my photos with a geographic location, that Flickr themselves release basically the same thing.

It looks prety snazzy so far after looking at it for 5 minutes and it’s a heck of a lot easier to tag photos.

I think I’ll wait a few weeks until everything settles down and I see if they provide any cooler features to think about.

I know the ladies reading this want the details up front so here it is:
6 pounds, 11 ounces. A baby boy!

That’s all you need to know anyhow, right?

So, after the wedding was done, we got home and called the hospital once again and it sounded like nothing would happen for awhile so we crashed for the night and headed to the hospital in the morning.

Got there around 10:30 and was able to see Annie for a bit and then I left again to pick up Mike who was at a brunch. Turns out that wherever he was at (perhaps a relative of some sorts) was the same place where Alanis Morissette grew up in Ottawa. Coolness! Coupled with this amazing brunch, I was glad to have dropped by to pick him up. I said goodbye to his family as they headed for Kapuskasing and then Mike and I drove back to the hospital. Luckily the torrential downpour had stopped by this time as it was hell to drive in on the way over. I would also like to take this time to thank the moron who splashed me in a tidal wave of murky water while walking to my car.

When we got back to the hospital around 1:00 we headed for their room but were asked to wait outside. Then we heard someone counting up to 10 and then we realized that the child must be coming around sooner than we thought!

The nurse asked us to wait down the hall in the waiting area which is essentially some chairs near the elevators. Two hours passed and nothing much happened so we were bored stiff. Plus, the elevator had this annoying bell that would ring even if no one came off.

I took a snooze to awake to the most surreal experience of my life. Let’s backtrack for a moment – I don’t care for hospitals. I’ve never really been in them and the closest I’ve been to actual emergencies is when my sister slammed my fingers in a door (OUCH!) and watching ER or Grey’s Anatomy.

So when Mike awoke me and I was kind of in daze, a slew of doctors/nurses whatever and Eric were hightailing Annie to the operating rooms and then they were gone. This threw me for a loop and I thought I may have been still dreaming. But no, it turns out that this was the real deal and it shook me up. Mike and I were bewildered and didn’t know what the heck was going on. This was at 2:30. It felt like this weird dream that I had not awoken from.

10 minutes later we see a group of doctors/nurses/Eric run back across the floor and there’s this little thing with a whole lot of hair being carted back the other way. Eric was a mess so we didn’t know what the heck was going on as we don’t want to interrupt them in doing their job.

I think an hour went by and Mike and I were just wondering what could have happened and hoping that everything was alright.

In the end, everything was alright! Eric came out to tell us that a baby boy had been born and Annie was resting! Life was good, we laughed, I paid Mike the $2 I lost on a bet (I was pretty sure a girl was coming this way!). Vero and Annie’s cousin Simon showed up a couple of hours later and we hung out in the waiting room for awhile until we ended up going to see the new mother and her child. It’s a beautiful son they have and he’s been born to the best parents that ever could be (except for my own).

I’ll give you more updates as they come in, but all I can say now that the miracle of childbirth is pretty crazy. I can only imagine how it was in the actual room. But they all perservered and everyone is doing fine.

Welcome to the world Baby Desgroseilliers.