The summer that was.

My good intentions of updating this blog more frequently seem to have come to naught! It's like a diet. You are gung ho for a while and then the resolve weakens, oh well. However, I do promise to update more frequently as we leave for our trip across the US.
It's not as if I am so busy every day, but we are now starting to think about what we will be taking with us to California.
We are now in fall. my favourite season. The weather at the moment is just like Durban in the winter. Cool nights and sunny days. We are seeing some of the leaves starting to change colour and I am always reminded of the Keats poem, Ode to Autumn:


Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Casa Seneca

From the other side

 The summer was really fantastic. We based ourselves at Cedar Beach Resort in Stouffville. We found this resort last year when our friends, Tom and Sunita, very generously allowed us to use their seasonal site. It is fantastic as it is only a 45 minute drive to see our kids in downtown Toronto and also a 30 minute drive to our doctors and dentists in Pickering. We have 2 swimming pools, a hot tub, a splash pad, tennis, volleyball and acres of lovely parkland. So we were back here in the Spring, having reserved a seasonal site for ourselves for 2011. The site we ended up with is in the Adult Only area up in a section called Hilltop. It is a small site, facing directly onto another site which is very noisy. We are squeezed onto the site and have our gazebo half under the awning, which does not really work, so at the end of this season we are moving to a bigger site on the same loop, which has come open. We are very happy about that. We have so many great new friends here, that I am happy we are staying on the same road.
I have enjoyed pottering around in our "garden" and even grew some tomatoes and peppers. Michael has a tiny patch of grass to cut too. 

My first crop of tomatoes

The visits with our children and grandchildren, of course, were the highlight of the season. 

Noah watering the herbs

Owen loves anything with wheels.

We did a few trips away, dry camping at Valens in the Spring, Lake Huron Resort and Galvin Bay Resort. Lake Huron and Galvin Bay are Coast to Coast resorts and as we are members of the organization, those stays only cost us $10 a night. We have already covered the cost of the membership in 3 weeks of camping.

The beach at Lake Huron resort

Our first campsite at Lake Huron

Bear carving at Galvin Bay

Entrance to Galvin Bay

We stopped over at Nith River on the way to Lake Huron, thereby missing the tornado that hit Goderich on this day

Sunset over Lake Huron

Lake Huron

Our second site at Lake Huron

Beach at Kincardine

Point Farms Provincial Park beach

Now we are planning our trip across to California, We are going via my sister's house in Keedysville, Maryland. Then we will probably take the I 81 to the I 40 and go straight across, dipping down at Phoenix. We hope to stop at free and low cost places on the way. We recently joined Harvest Hosts. This is an organization where we can stop at wineries, orchards and farms overnight, parking in their parking lots. Beats Walmart! Take a look at the web site and if you decide to join, please put our names (Michael and Daryl White) onto the form and we will get a month added to our annual membership.  We are looking forward to the trip across and I promise to blog as we go, depending on the availability of internet access.