Nearly every year we pile ourselves into the car and take a road trip. The route is usually similar. This year it was to Huntsville, Ontario, then to the Muskoka, Ontario vacation regions. After that we went to Michigan to visit family. It was a good trip and the weather cooperated because we were ahead of Hurricane Irene.
Huntsville, ON. – You may not easily relate to to this location but in the summer of 2010 it was the site of the G8 summit. World leaders, including Obama, gathered there to discuss the global economy. 2010 was a great summer in Huntsville. Surreptitiously, it seems that the Canadian government did a lot of spraying to keep down the black flies. That was a godsend to the local residents. This year we toured some of the areas that were the beneficiary of the G8 money. A local university got an “environmental center” built for them. It’s beautiful but now the local community has to absorb the $40k that it takes to maintain it. An athletic field was leveled and built with a nice running track and soccer fields. That was built for “overflow parking”. The local high school got a nice new double ice rink. That was built as a “media center.” Hey, that’s how the game is played.
Muskoka, ON – This area is a beautiful vacation resort area. Beautiful lakes, gorgeous cottages and hotels. Whatever you could want. The area is populated in the summer by a lot of rich Canadians, foreigners and ex-NHL hockey players. It’s not a bad place to spend your summer. Our son is working at a job teaching water skiing and catering to the rich and their children. It’s a nice summer life.
Off to Michigan: We visited with my family. It was great to see everyone again. When we got there we initially intended to leave on Friday. Then we found out the the first home football game would be played on Friday evening. We decided to stick around and take in the game. It was a fun event. It had been awhile since I had been to a big time college football game. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
The ride back was uneventful except that we took the Blue Water Bridge into Canada. The car traffic was backed up over the entire bridge. At least we could listen to, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR while we crawed towards and through immigration ion.