One of the many incredible scenes on the drive home

I left work early Friday so we could get a head start on the traffic headed North. Work was having our final BBQ of the year so I grabbed a burger to go. Yum. As usual we took a long time to drive up. Bdot’s back was nagging her so we stopped in Bancroft at the Shoppers which was thankfully open. We arrived late in Killaloe and stayed at bdot’s parents.

Saturday we spent most of the day with bdot’s family and various local friends. In the early afternoon we picked up Bonnie. We then drove into Wilno to pick up two paintings we bought before from Joyce Burkholder. They are amazing paintings…soon to be viewable in our home gallery. The hills in the area were ablaze with colour we wanted to get some photos. Bonnie knew an old back road to park on a lake. We stopped there for awhile and took some photos. The weather the entire weekend was ridiculous for October. It often felt like July… very hot. After will filled our photographic needs we stopped at another park and grabbed a few more. I don’t know where any of these parks are or their names – I was just along for the ride. I quite liked the second park, it had a nice stream and some hiking trails. There wasn’t much time to investigate the park… enough to grab more photos. We dropped Bonnie off at home and were heading to Round Lake for dinner… when we saw a little white dog walking down the road right at the car. If bdot didn’t stop we would have ran the dog over. I don’t know what the dog was thinking but it was the dog’s lucky day in spades. Bdot is a big animal lover and we drove up and down the road trying to locate the dog’s owner. Eventually someone suggested going to the Centre – the local store… so we did. The staff there suggested a house just down the road of a woman that loves animals and would likely help find the dog’s owner. (It turns out a neighbour of hers had friends over… it was their dog. Nicely dog irresponsible dog owners, your dog was very nearly killed) Insert rant here about it being sad that anyone can own a pet.

Anyway… after this run around we were later than we wanted to be to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner. One of bdot’s Aunt’s cooked up a feast for twelve of us. Before dinner there was a lot of drinking – included some select individuals taking -pulls- of Grey Goose Whiskey,some bocce and a lot of mingling. It was chaotic outside. There were three dogs on long lines constantly getting tangled and barking and fighting. It was a bit much for princess Tanga so we cabined her for the evening. One of dog’s was Ali’s new dog shamrock, Tanga didn’t mind her, but they left before they could play the next day. After dinner the Men watched the Leafs edge by the Sens. The Sabres were one of the teams sent abroad to Germany and Finland to start their seasons. The Sabres won both their games in Europe and should be heading back home soon. After the game there was further revelry at the neighbour’s. They wanted a fire so I built one. People were sitting around the firepit waiting for someone to make a fire… *shrug* The night wore on and eventually we called it a night. I’d certainly had enough to drink for one night.

The cruel morning came… bright and loud. I was in a haze most of the day. We debated about heading home but, neither of us were in any shape to drive. Bdot’s cousins had bailed by the time we returned to the cottage. So we chilled on her aunt’s deck most of the afternoon. I had a glorious nap with the dog and plenty of restorative Round Lake air. Sunday was pretty chillax. We eventually headed back to bdot’s parent’s and crashed for the night. Not before some delicious chocolate truffle cake which her mother forced upon us. *cough*

We left early Monday morning. (Well early for us, before 8:30…) It was a long seven hour drive home. We made numerous stops to take photos or grab food. We got home just before 3 and worked on the yard with the remaining light. Now I’m pretty tired. Zzzz…