Geocaching from Cornwall to Kemptville

I mentioned that we went geocaching last weekend, along with visiting some Doors Open sites the Cornwall area. I had hoped to get back to you about all that earlier this week, but I've been a bit under the weather. Hopefully you will forgive me if I post a lot of pictures.

Across from the Cornwall Jail was another Doors Open site at the Cornwall Community Museum.  It had a strange mix of stuff among it's collection.  Some of it was really old, while other things were very familiar to me. For instance, while there was some furniture that was likely from the early 1800's,  the bedroom set was the exact one that my parents had, all the time I was growing up, so it was more like something from the 1940's.  I really could have used the apple peeler that's attached to the front of the table in this picture this past month or so.  My apple tree has had me very busy.

We started our geocaching in the park there, where we found a real assortment of birds gathering by the shore.

Being in a park, they must be pretty used to people, as you could get pretty close.







 They were probably all waiting for someone to throw them some food. 

Up the trail a bit, after we had turned away from the St Lawrence, we discovered a nice clear little stream..

We followed that upstream and found it quickly turned into a series of pretty little waterfalls.

And it wasn't long before we discovered the source of this nice clear water. It was all coming out of a culvert.  I'm not sure how far the water flows underground from here, or where it actually comes from as we couldn't go much further in that direction.

We discovered that there was construction under the Cornwall bridge, and that's where the GPS wanted to take us.  We decided we had found enough treasures at this site anyway, and moved on.




Our next stop on the Doors Open tour was the St Lawrence Power Development Visitor Centre. 
While interesting, it doesn't actually let you anywhere near the big power dam.  So after exploring their displays, and looking at the dam through binoculars, we went downstream just a bit to the site of the old canal....the one that was in use before they flooded the seaway to make the current shipping route.

If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you will see that the old canal gate has long since rotted out.  The water is all at one level through this canal now anyway, since the flooding of the seaway that put villages underwater,  got rid of the rapids in this area.

The old dam at the canal is still there to walk across though.

And the old gears that used to control the water flow are really quiet interesting to view.  There is a series of them, all across the structure.  I love that they have been painted turquoise.




We did locate the cache at this location, by the way, and went upstream a bit from there to look for another one. However there was a fisherman right where we needed to go to hunt that down, so we'll look for it some other time.  I'd happily explore this area further some other nice day that we happen to be in the vicinity.

On the way home we picked up a few more. There was one at a site in Winchester Springs, where there used to be a hotel and spa, because of the healthy natural spring waters.  That's all gone now, which is a bit of a shame, since reportedly Sir John A. MacDonald even gave a speech from the balcony there at one point. The area where the cache is hidden is a bit of a mess, so I don't have a picture for you from there. There is a lovely mural and plaque there though, to fill you in on the history.

We stopped and found another cache  in Winchester, at a hidden graveyard.  My hubby, who works in that town, and actually lived there for several years in his youth, didn't even know this place existed.  The graveyard is tucked into a field behind a local business.  There is no outward signs to tell of it's existence. While some of the stones are standing in the field as one would expect, there is also this row of stones tucked under some woodland growth. They seem too close together and were probably moved there.  One wonders if someone planned to use the field for another purpose, and if the bodies are still where they were originally planted.

We took a back road to Hallville, to avoid the ongoing construction on County Road 43.  We decided we might as well try for the Hallville Hollow one again, though we had no luck last time we went looking for that.  Just about when we were going to give up again, it suddenly made it's presence known.  This cache manages to evade many seekers, but really, it's just where it should be, and it is not even a tricky hide.  I guess it just blends into it's surroundings rather well.  It wasn't me that found it.

Our last cache of the day was a quick little park and grab along the highway on the way home.  That would be a great way to end the day if we had not stopped and looked for one near Walmart.  Basically there were too many people around, and I suspect this one is in some kind of sneaky container.  We'll have to check that out some other time....though I doubt there will ever be a chance when there is nobody around.

Doors Open at Cornwall Jail Produces A Spirit Orb

We took in Doors Open event in Cornwall on Sunday.  We were also prepared to do some geocaching along the way.  That basically means we didn't see as many Open Door sites as we might have otherwise, but we had a really good time and saw a lot of interesting stuff,  most of which I'll tell you about later in the week.

What I really want to tell you about was our first stop at the Cornwall Jail.  That was a bit of an eye opener.  It was in operation until just 2002, which I found rather amazing,  as it's very primitive.  If more jails were like that, perhaps people would try harder to stay out of them.  I'm sure anyone who was in there at the time that it closed felt like they were being sent to a resort when they got transferred to a newer facility.  I'm very sure people in that area didn't noisily break into homes at this time of year with the idea of spending the winter in jail, like they used to around my village before the local minimum security jail was torn down.



Many of the cells in the Cornwall  jail are just wide enough for the bunk....a thin mattress on a wooden platform. There was no space on either side of that, and only enough room to stand between the end of it and the cell bars. 

As horrible as that sounds, I think I might prefer it to the ones meant for two. That had a bunk bed set up, a toilet and a space narrow enough for one person at a time to pace the length of the bed.  What if you got locked in with someone who was likely to torment you, or perhaps someone who was criminally insane? The shortage of jail space in those days meant everyone, even juveniles and women, where thrown in together. 

This jail was built in 1833 and used to be a maximum security facility, but later became a place where the prisoners would spend two years less a day.  I'm sure such an experience straightened out the lives of anyone who survived it. Because of the conditions though, many didn't. Rumours of restless spirits within the walls are plentiful. 

Let me show you around a bit.  This is the main operations room.  The three panels on the right must have let them know where alarms were being set off, back in the days before 911.

The exercise yard isn't very big either. And though the prisoners had access to the open air, they were also still totally walled in and had no place to see the outside world.  I'm pretty sure that courtyard could get pretty hot during the summer, with more heat radiating off those stone walls.

If a prisoner had a visitor, the prisoner was locked in this little cage and used the phone to talk to the person on the other side of the wall.












A paranormal group did some research there, and there are photos posted on the wall of some of the phenomena they spotted.  Orbs seems to be fairly frequent, and when I was looking over some photos I took, there, without doubt was one of those orbs.  I'm fascinated, and will be doing some research on the subject.  Some people say they are caused by reflections off the dust motes in the air.  If that were the case, I'd expect to see them in many more in the pictures I took, rather than just the one.  Others say the appearance of spirit orbs in a photograph may indicate a spiritual being attempting to communicate with the photographer.

The one I captured was near the floor, in a deserted corridor. If you click on the picture you should be able to see a larger version of it, which might help you see what I've circled there.

Let me zoom in on that a bit.

 I'm not sure why I pointed the camera in that direction. Something told me too, and I'm certainly glad I listened.  Maybe something was communicating with me after all.

Wedding Gifts in the Digital Age

Once upon a time, when a couple got married, they were young people just leaving their parent's homes. People showered them with wedding gifts as they had a new household to set up and needed just about everything. Today things are different.  While many people are marrying for the second or third time, even new brides are often in or near their thirties, and have been living in their own homes (with or without their intended husbands) for quite some time.  Their household is already set up, or they are about to combine two. Either way, they don't really need an influx of new stuff, so wedding gifts are much more difficult to buy.  Of course, you can always just write a cheque, but what's the fun in that?  Somehow giving money has always felt so impersonal to me.

Of course, I've heard of gift registries before, but I've never seen any evidence that anyone ever used such a thing until just recently.  The digital age has made wedding planning and gift giving so much easier.

A young friend of ours is about to get married. While we still got the traditional invitation by snail mail, it came with  a card directing us to a website at www.mywedding.com .  There we could see the whole story. We could read about the proposal and see pictures of the engagement. Not only does the site tell you where and when the wedding will be held, there is a list of who will be taking part in the upcoming wedding and a complete schedule for the activities of the day.  I wouldn't be surprised if the actual wedding photos ended up being displayed there also.  In this digital age, you can also RSVP right there, online.

There was also a link to a gift registry that was set up in a way that made it so easy for us to give a gift without ever having to actually go shopping. Couples can simply list the things they need, and you get to choose the item and how much you want to contribute towards it.

This couple is one of those that already have well established homes and didn't need a lot of stuff that would likely just go into storage. They decided that they would like to go on a lovely honeymoon, touring Europe. The registry listed such things as airfare, hotel nights, romantic dinners, a boat ride, a train pass, and even wine and cheese.  The only things for their home that they put on the registry were a new couch and a washing machine.  Dollar amounts ranged for $8 to $75 with a box to choose multiples of these dollar amounts if you wanted. So all you had to do was choose how much to give and what you felt like aiming it towards.  I wondered what would happen if not enough money was directed at the airfare or the hotels.  Would the trip still be on?   As it turned out the money went directly into the bride's Pay Pal account, where it would accumulate, separated from any actual bank account for the time being. This means they can likely spend the money however they choose when the time comes.  We at least had the chance to participate in their dream, and contribute to which ever gift idea appealed to us most.  That was much more fun than just writing a cheque.  I highly recommend this site to all of you who are now planning a wedding and don't need that extra toaster.

Geocaching Helps Us Find Real Treasures

 It's been a strange summer. Normally we do a lot of geocaching, but this year it was either too wet, or the mosquitoes were in attack mode, or the poison parsnip was everywhere we looked and we didn't want to take the chance of brushing up against that. We did get out a couple of times though.

Yesterday we went to visit friends at their cottage, and picked up a few caches on the way back. Nothing special about any of them. Except for one at a totally unkempt graveyard, they were all along the fence line on the road we were traveling. 

But last time we went out, we discovered a few treasures, and I don't mean the ones they hide in the caches. Just outside of Brockville we found a  beautiful garden that's open to the public. They call it the Garden of Hope and Serenity, and if you visit, you will quickly learn why.  This is someplace we have driven right by many times in the past, without knowing it was there. It was well worth the stop, and I'm sure we will return again in the future. 

Closer to Lyn, on the same day, we made another amazing discovery. Tucked back in the bush, out of sight, is a beautiful waterfall that we would never have even guessed existed, if we had not found it on one of our geocaching treasure hunts. We found ourselves at the top of it, but you can be sure we will go back and find a way into the bottom sometime, as I believe there is a cache down there that we didn't get to.

The waterfall and the garden were both wonderful treasures, and one of the main reasons we love to go geocaching. It's not what you find in the cache, it's what you find along the way. 

I'm Ready For a Sticky Situation!

As I told you, I was recently involved in a word of mouth campaign for Lepage Ultra Gel through The Insiders.  Basically, they sent me the product to try, and each time I told any one about it, or got into a discussion about glues and mentioned it, I would then go to their website and report that interaction.

As with a lot of campaigns where people are excited to get started, I suspect this one fizzled out near the end and The Insiders were likely not getting as many reports. They decided to hold a contest to stimulate more activity. The prize was one of three Lepage Toolboxes, full of goodies from the Lepage company.  I managed to win one of these.  It arrived this week.

It's a  nice sturdy plastic toolbox that I will likely use for something other than storing glue.  Inside I found 2 large Pritt Glue Sticks, Premium Quality White Glue, No More Nails all purpose construction adhesive, 100% Adhesive Putty, which fills and seals, Fun -Tak Mounting Putty and 100 % Glue (multi-purpose).

I also still have two unopened bottles of the Ultra Gel, so I'm ready for anything now, that needs to be fixed or stuck together.

Human Vacuum Cleaners

"Did you even taste that?" I heard my daugher-in-law ask my grandson. Then seconds later she asked her husband, my son, the same question.

My apple tree is throwing apples at me so fast lately that sometimes I simply don't have enough room to freeze another pie, so I share it with someone. On this particular night, I had decided to share a pie with my youngest son and his family.  The guys just inhale pie, it seems, as it was gone in an instant.

I know I used to tell my hubby that I didn't want to go out to dinner with him as it would cost too much for the 30 seconds it would take him to clean his plate.  Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little, but he was really good at wolfing things down. I thought, at the time, it was because he came from such a large family that he felt he had to eat his share quickly or one of his siblings would get it.  Now, seeing both our son and grandson make a slice of pie disappear before I've even swallowed the first bite, I wonder if this is an inherited trait, or if all males eat like this.  It's not a learned skill, as I'm sure I had managed to slow my hubby down at the dinner table and don't think his son learned this trick from him.  But then, I could be wrong.

It was nice to see my daughter-in-law react the same way I do when this happens though.  I'm sure she understands something the guys simply don't.  It takes us women a long time to make a pie, or create a perfect meal, and when it disappears within seconds, we wonder it it was really worth all the effort.  Just because the food disappeared doesn't mean we feel appreciated. 

So guys, take note.  We women folk don't take the fact that the food disappeared as quite the compliment you might expect. You may have told us you love what we have set before you, but we can't help but wonder how you even know what it tasted like.  We want to see you enjoy all our hard work.  Take a bite and savour the flavour.  If you like the food you can make the experience last longer if just take a little more time to enjoy it.  And then we will enjoy making those special things for you too.

Excuse me. I see there are more apples here waiting for my attention.

Vacation 2013

I've been on vacation.  The plan was to go east this year.  We thought we might make it to the Maritimes but wanted to take an American route this time.  Normally we drive through Quebec and New Brunswick if we want to go to Nova Scotia.  Last time we did that, we were enjoying ourselves doing what I call The All Saints Tour in New Brunswick (Saint Stephen, Saint Andrews, St George, St John and Saint Martins) and never did get to Nova Scotia. That's how we like to travel though.  Pick a direction and go exploring.  This time we figured that if we even got to explore a bit of the Maine coastline, that would great.  As it is, we didn't get that far.

Rumour has it that it's cheaper to travel south of the boarder.  That rumour comes from Americans trying to get us down there to spend our money.  Don't believe a word of it.  Yes, the gas may be cheaper, and if you are going mainly to shop, you might find some great bargains, but if you are traveling you are not going to find it nearly as convenient or as cheap.

We crossed the boarder from Ontario into New York, but there wasn't much to see until we hit Vermont. That's when we discovered Champlain, at the top end of Lake Champlain. It's a beautiful little spot, with a large marina, and not much else. We

thought we might enjoy exploring the area, so we looked for a place to stay, even though it was early in the day. We found a fair size motel, with a sign that said "No Smoking Rooms" but the windows were so filthy that it would be easy to imagine people had been chain smoking in there for the past ten years without anyone ever cleaning the windows.  We didn't see anywhere else to stay, so we stopped at the town office and inquired.  The answer to the question of if there was a place to stay in town was met with a rather emphatic "No!"  It was suggested we go over the bridge and drive about 50 miles south through the islands. 

Apparently the people of Champlain don't realize they could easily turn their little town into a gold mine if they opened a few shops and created some places to stay and to eat..

The first few places we priced wanted $185 or more for a room. We just want a place to sleep, people!  By the time we got to Burlington and tried a couple more, we discovered that was not only the going rate, but that rooms were filling up fast. We hauled out the CAA card, and managed to knock the rates for the first night down to $165.....plus tax.

Then we went looking for a place to eat.  We had already discovered that many of the restaurants and gas stations south of the boarder were no longer in business. I have been told  that is because of the economy, but if that were so, why were all the hotels asking so much for a one night stay, and why were most of the vehicles parked outside from the various states, and only a

few from Canada?  It was really hard to find a place to eat.  We did notice that there was no shortage of pizza joints still in business though, and in the end we were directed to one that served other things.  So we ended up with fish and chips. The fish appeared to be the frozen packaged kind from a supermarket, but it was priced like it was the catch of the day.
 
Thankfully the hotel provided breakfast, and you can bet we made sure we got well fed before we left there the next morning. I made myself a blueberry waffle and followed that up with eggs and sausage and a yogurt, then washed it all down with tea.

We discovered we could tour the Ben & Jerry's ice cream plant, so we stopped to do that, and were rewarded with a decent sized sample.  We didn't need to look for more food until that evening, when we stopped in St Johnsbury but once again we drove around and around town looking for a restaurant that was still in

business.  The first one we tried was listed in the hotel's booklet as where you could get 15% off if you showed them your room key. Since we found that the CAA card didn't help reduce the room rate as much  as the previous night, and the price was even higher, we thought that  little discount might be useful. It turned out the restaurant was another one that had bit the dust.  We finally stopped a lady walking down the street and asked where we might find some food.  She directed us to a friendly little place where we were finally able to get our first decent meal, but it was no cheaper than it would have been up here.  Actually, I'm sure it was a couple of bucks more per plate.  Mind you, we were starting to discover American restaurants really load up the plates. The servings are huge! 

Once again, we were glad to eat the provided meal at the hotel in the morning.  We stocked ourselves up pretty well, I must admit, since we didn't know if and when we would find someplace else to eat.  We planned to stop and explore The Flume Gorge so we had a pretty good idea of the area we wanted to stay the following night. Mind you, if we had traveled the longer Canadian route, we would already have been in the Maritimes by then, but as it was, we were exploring and had just crossed into New Hampshire.  We decided to try booking ahead, and went looking for places on the computer.  I found a couple of suitable spots but we didn't want to take any chances using a credit card on a strange computer, so we tried phoning the booking number instead.  The person on the other end couldn't seem to find the same hotels as I had, and kept mentioning highways that we couldn't locate on the map.  I think we were both looking in a different state, or something, but apparently this idea wasn't going to work.  I made note of the hotels and the addresses though, so we could look them up when we arrived.

The walk through the Gorge cost us $15 each, but it lasted a couple of hours and I'd recommend it.  Mind you, it was my kind of trail.  I always say you cannot go on vacation with me unless you are willing to climb rocks or a multitude of stairs.  This was definitely that sort of trail. Before we reached it, we also took a nice free walk along another trail to The Basin.

'When we got to Lincoln, where the motels were, we found the first one I had chosen was full, but got a room at the second one. The price was more in line with what we would pay for a big chain hotel on our side of the boarder, but was definitely cheaper than what we paid the previous two nights.  It was also very musty.  It was easier to find a place to eat our dinner this time. The hotel guy named two places, and we set off to find one of them.  Though reports were that the food was good, it was a very strange menu, with very high prices.  We decided to try the other place instead.  So did everyone else in town, from the look of things.  The place was packed, and so were the plates when they arrived.  Though this may have been our cheapest hotel, it was also our most expensive restaurant.  I think I finally learned though, that when an American  menu has a Light section, that doesn't mean Light as in low calories or fat, but rather smaller amounts like we might see in the Senior's or Children's selections.  I'll remember that next time we go. That might not be enough for me up here, but I suspect it would be down there.

The hotel had basically the same breakfast available, but you had to heat it up yourself, in a microwave on the counter, and there were no coffee machines in the rooms. All that apparently costs an extra $75 at a hotel that smells better.

The weather man predicted a major storm in the area for the next day, that would chase us through the mountains if we proceeded east.  He also predicted an even bigger storm that would hit the east coast and cause it to rain most of the week.  I checked the weather back home and decided our best option was to try to get out of the area before the storm hit, and just head for home. It turns out that was a wise decision as the weather at home didn't interfere with anything we decided to do here. Meanwhile a man my hubby spoke to this week reported that he had just come from the east coast where it rained almost all the time he was down there.

 Did you notice me say "next time we go"?  We can basically get back to where we left off in one day, and get to Portland Maine in just another 2 hours, so yes, we will try this again.  We traveled route 2 and saw the scenery, but went home by way of the freeways, which is much faster.  Next time we will go by way of the freeways at least as far as Montpelier.  We'll take a back road through the mountains down to Lincoln and stop to see The Lost River. That will satisfy my rocks and stairs on a holiday requirement.   I have a different hotel all picked out in Lincoln, and can book it from home before we leave.  We'll sleep over and start out fresh for the drive through the mountains to the coast the next day.

I'm already looking forward to it.