Since I had fallen asleep so early I was also up early. Like 4:30am early. Carpe diem, SIEZE THE DAY. So rather than go back to bed for a couple more hours sleep, I got up and started my day. I got up and sat in front of the computer to start my ebay listings. I decided to do this so early while Kelly was in bed so that my ebay time wouldn't interfere with time that Kelly and I could spend with each other. Ebay killed a few hours of my day so hopefully a few of my 400+ items sell.
Kelly's stirring now and it's time to make her a treat. (Yes, I got off the topic of breakfast for a paragraph, but I'm back now). Breakfast time... what can I make??? (Looks in fridge) Bacon... eggs... ugh, eggs are old... What can I serve with this bacon. BAM! Kelly bought fresh raspberries and blueberries at Johnson's Market yesterday. Time for bacon with blueberry pancakes for me, and raspberry pancakes for Kelly. All with my astoundingly tasty homemade maple syrup.
Holy fricken GEEEEEEEEE-SUS. Pancakes are so much better with fresh fruit as opposed to frozen. What a revelation. Mmmmm... Mmmm.. Mmm. Yummmmmy.
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Several months ago Josh had expressed an interested in geology. I suggested that come summer Kelly and I take Josh to Craigleith Provincial Park to look for fossils in the shale. While trying to prepare breakfast and while eating breakfast there were several phone calls and messages with other family members trying to plan the trip to Craigleith, plus some other activities. Too much planning, and too many phone calls, lead to too many delays. A couple hours after I had hoped to leave we were just finishing getting ready. Off to my parents place to pick up Josh and away we went.
After stopping for gas and cold beverages for the ride we decide to take the back roads for our journey. It's more scenic and in my mind a more enjoyable drive. As we head south on Crossland Road, nearing the drive-in, I slow to the recommended speed for the "S" in the road. Taken too fast this can be a dangerous corner. Not so much in the summer, but certainly in the winter. There have been fatal accidents here. Once back on the straight-away we could see a little confusion and a cluster of cars a few hundred yards up ahead. Shortly thereafter a few of the cars cleared our view. Somehow a car had ended up in the ditch. It was quite obvious he hadn't just hit the shoulder and got pulled in. He was almost perfectly perpendicular to the roadway. The car was sitting at about a 45 degree angle facing into the ditch. Time to be a good samaritan and help this bad driver out of a bad situation.
I pulled over, turned on my hazard lights on hopped out. As I was heading over the driver hopped out and had his wife climb in the back the car out as we lifted and pushed. I think he neglected to explain one thing to her though. (We'll get to that) So as I'm walking over, a couple other northbound vehicles stop and come to assist us. I asked the guy "How in the heck did you end up like this". His only excuse was that he misjudged the corner. Misjudged the corner my ass. My guess is that we was doing at leave 40kph over the speed limit because he was quite a piece away from the bend. I'm certain he took the corner way too hot, lost control coming out of it, and the over corrected a few times until totally going out of control and ended up in the ditch. Because of the hot weather the road was way busier than normal and I have no idea how he avoided hitting any other cars. It all must've been perfectly timed.
Back to us getting the car out. Including myself there were 4 guys lift and push. So we lift the car as high as we can and try and push it back onto the road. Now here's the part where the woman's blondeness kicked in and the husband forgot to explain the process to her.
GIVE IT SOME GAS!!!!
Yes darlin' that's right. In order for us to get the car out, you'll have to take your foot OFF THE BRAKE PEDAL, AND GIVE IT SOME GAS. Vrrrrroooom. Thanks darlin' you're a peach. The driver thanked us, I replied with "Drive carefully and enjoy your weekend". I as well thanked the other two gentlemen for stopping and hopped back in the van.
Since nobody was hurt I'm kind of glad this happened. It allowed my to show my nephew Joshua about being a good samaritan. When you have the ability to help out your fellow man (woman), you do. You don't asked for anything in return, you just help however you can, say have a good day and feel good about yourself for helping someone in need.
(Note that a photo of this car in the ditch would have been cool to have in this post, the only thing on my mind was getting this guy safely out of the ditch, and Kelly's camera wasn't ready to shoot before we got the car out).
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Nothing interesting happened between the car in the ditch and Craigleith. I did however find it odd that my nephew, who is 10, was extremely quiet during the car ride. I came to find out later than he was told not too talk too much, which he interpreted as 'do not talk at all'. I would have preferred some feedback from him, I was beginning to think that he wasn't enjoying hanging out with his favourite aunt and uncle.
At the Craigleith Provincial Park and paid the fourteen-ish dollars for parking and proceeded to the parking lot. We unload all our gear from the van and head to the shale beach. I remember about 30 years ago when I was last at the beach as a child, finding all the fossils was pretty damn neat. Although totally unnecessary my father had given Josh a hammer and chisel to break off pieces of the shale (for those that don't know, shale fractures very easily). I show Josh that you could just pick up the pieces laying around or snap off a piece that was already fractured. Picking up pieces that are laying around can get boring pretty fast, so can picking up loose pieces, so out come the tools. Tap tap tap, tap tap tap. The kid was finding fossils faster than I thought he would. At one point he asked me to come help him. So I came out and chiseled off some nice thick big pieces, until I reached to grab a chunk and ended up with a very sharp piece of shale embedded in my finger. OUCH! Out comes the knife to try and pick out pieces. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, but since shale fractures easily it was quite difficult to get a hold of anything to pull out the piece. Each and every time I got a hold of it, SNAP. I came home with pieces still in my finger and even after digging more at night with tweezers and a pin I'm pretty sure that I still have some of mother earth in my finger.
While I was tending to my wound and Kelly was away at the van, a strange woman approached Josh. This caught my attention rather quickly. Even though she had just arrived, it seemed that she was annoyed with Josh's use of the tools. She told him not to use them and that he should just be picking up some of the millions of pieces already laying on the beach to look for fossils. She later told him to sneak some pieces into his backpack, but to make sure that nobody saw him because taking any shale from the park is a crime. Great advice lady. Anyway, Kelly went and got Josh away from this woman while I was still digging pieces out of my finger. Soon after this we packed up and left. Next stop, BLUE MOUNTAIN.
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Oh so I thought. Looking at the map it was very hard to tell if Blue Mountain Road was a right hand turn from the park, or a left hand turn. I hadn't recalled passing a road by that name so I turned right. I had a full tank of gas, it wasn't a problem going exploring. Once we ended up in Thornbury I knew we had gone the wrong way and would need to turn around.
Ten minutes later and were on Blue Mountain Road. Now we just need to find the adventure park. Way easier said than done. Many possible spots where this could be, but no actually signs saying "HEY DUMBASS, THE EXCITING STUFF HAPPENS HERE". We did pass a place with a very large, very full parking lot, but again no signage. Screw it! We're all hungry and Kelly had another surprise in store for Josh.
Rather than tell Josh where we'd be having lunch, I decided to let him decide. Wendy's... McDoodle's... Pizza Hut... and before I could rhyme off any other establishments he cut me off and said "Pizza Hut, yup Pizza Hut". Good to know that my nephew has excellent choice in dining. Unfortunately now that it was approaching 3pm, we had missed the lunch buffet. Life goes on, Pizza Hut is still a treat, buffet or not. Josh ordered Stuffed Pizza Rollers, Kelly had a Veggie Lovers Stuffed Crust, and I had a Super Supreme Stuffed Crust and donated the olives to Kelly's pizza. The restaurant was rather empty due to the time of day, but about 3-4 tables away from us there was a group of young adult males. They were generally well behaved so we had no issue. No issues until one of them decided to get a little excited and start talking loudly. Some how he managed to use the "F" word 4... count 'em FOUR times in one sentence.
HEY!
Young Punk: "Yes"
Me: (Pointing towards Josh) "Would you mind watching your language a little"
YP: "Oh, sorry"
Being that I generally try to see the good in people, I'm sure it was a mistake and he simply got caught up in a story and didn't think about his surroundings, but I still had to interject when I did. They all seemed to respect the presence of a youth once I made his presence known.
The food eventually came, and it was excellent. Josh methodically dissected his Pizza Rollers and ate them in a way only a child could. Kelly enjoyed the fact that there was no dead animal product on her pizza, and I revelled in the fact that there was on my pizza. We ate until full and packed up the remainder to bring home for lunches. We paid and left, heading towards Kelly's big surprise.
Yup - GO KARTS!!! What could make a 10 year old child happier than 'racing' around a track, feeling the breeze in his face? Holy crap. $6 per lap or five laps for $25 !! Wow, Go-Karting ain't cheap. Heck, this is quite literally the first time that Kelly and I have had Josh to ourselves so money is no object. Josh gets his tickets and a helmet and we head for the track. Car #33.
As Josh took off it appeared as if he was a natural. For his first time he was doing darn good. Nearing the end of the track there is a slow down zone so that you can choose a lane according to your needs. Continue driving, or exit the track. Josh knew he had four tickets remaining so he chose the left hand lane. WHAM!!! he runs into a pylon whilst trying to dig another ticket out of his pocket. Nothing was hurt except his pride. Poor guy. At least he had fun. Although Kelly wanted to stay and play some mini-golf, it was just too damn hot. It a good thing we didn't stick around because we got called for dinner as soon as we arrived back in Penetanguishene.
Immediately after walking into the house Josh ran to his mother and excitedly told her that he had gone Go-Carting. Thank god she wasn't upset, Kelly had not informed her that this event was on the agenda.
Dinner was roast beef with potatoes and green beans. Yum yum. Too bad we had only eaten lunch 2 hours prior. We socialised for a while after dinner and then came home because Kelly still had to do her laundry so she would have clean clothes to wear to work.
We both hit the sack early because we were exhausted from spending all day outdoors in the heat.
PS: Yes, I know I that earlier I used " ain't " - it was used for effect. I still remember the old adage - ain't ain't a word because it ain't in the dictionary.
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