great lake extravaganza

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hello friends, i am sitting at a comupter station inside Shawn's parents house in a city called Thornhill in Markham outside Toronto. Nice drive but long. We drove it in two days. a little tired. we stayed in Sault Ste. Marie last night at the Algonquin Hotel. Two bands were playing at the bars that night. i enjoyed the music from the room until late in the night! but i did manage to get some sleep. the next morning i woke before sunrise to watch the sun come out over the horizon, the water all aglimmer. there was a large barge coming up the river tooting its low deep horn. near the shore were ducks that i could observe frolicking in the water and getting their morning meal. some ice flows near the shore were interstingly shaped in triangles and such, melting away as the spring comes. the sun came up and what a sight! islands out across the water and across the river were intersting building's. i strolled on back to the hotel, past the Bushplane museum and a historic sight that held a frontier-like building that looks like a log cabin resting on a tall stone platform where the cabin overhangs around the edges, like a cantaliever.

i strode into the hotel just as Shawn was ready to go and off we went. the previous day we rode around Lake Superior, which was quite gorgeous and we didn't get stuck in Wawa; apparently almost everyone has a story about getting stuck in Wawa. i did have a nice meal (fush burger with poutin, which is fries with gravy and cheese curds and enjoyed the waitresses company who is on her 47th year in Wawa. On the way out of the hotel we met a fellow that i saw the previous night who had just finished a 14 year work Retreat at a Trapist Monastery. He said he was a lay person who worked his tail off. I found out that a Trapist is Roman Catholic who observes the rules of St. Benedict which are stability, fidelity to the monastery and obediance. They also are quiet and only talk when needed, avoiding any idle talk. He seemed glad to have met us, us having just finished a retreat ourselves.

Sault (pronounced Sue) ste. Marie seemed nice. It is a town of about 75,000 people, and right between the lakes. The city straddles the border so that there is a Sault Ste. Marie Michigan as well as a Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. The St. Mary's river seperates the two.

We wrote poetry to pass the time, each going back and forth writing a line, listened to music (though Shawn did not like this idea, still wanting to sustain his meditation, i however needed to stay awake to drive and took no notice, for the most part.) we stopped and ate good ole Subway and continued on our way. Wawa is actually a really beautiful place. there a lots of lakes and rivers. plus there are many parks that open in the summer time. Sudbury is another town that we drove by but did not stop. so here we are. Shawn's parents seem nice. They are Jewish and are observing passover. so no bread but motza is ok.

the drive was about 16 hours or 1400 kms. or 850 miles or so. up and over Lake Sup and then Lake Huron on down to Toronto. Tomorrow I will head to my Aunt Nancy's house and observe Easter and spen time with family. Dad and Betty, my step mom, will be there and who knows else. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday as I am having. Maybe I will slide right on into the U.S. arriving in Williamsville just in time for dinner!

as for now, we must make dinner. i know you are dying to hear the poetry so more on that later.

thanks for listening. namaste, all is ok.

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