Saturday, July 10: Celebrating 39th Anniversary - Yet Again on the Water!

Today we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary as hard as that is for me to believe. It's the same as everyone says - where did the years go! As far as I remember, every anniversary except the 1st has been celebrated on the water somewhere but mostly Canada. The first anniversary we spent at the farm: dinner at the old Brown Derby by Mansfield and the dessert of the top of our wedding cake at the farm with Mom and Dad. As I recall it didn't taste very good!

I'm not sure I would recognize the folks in these pictures if I didn't know they were us :-)

It was a great day again though. We started out with a short bike ride to the marina across the bay. Midland is really much nicer than I had remembered as we hadn't been here in probably 5 years or so. Their big thing is the murals around town that depict the history of the region. Seems Champlain made his was to this area of Ontario as well (the monument in Orillia is to him also). The large mural below is on the side of a working grainery. It's unique in that the sides are rounded but the mural itself looks relatively flat. The lake was windy today but beautiful with lots of boats headed out to the Provincial Park we will visit tomorrow.

Another cool thing here is the stainless steel momument to the trumpet swam. There were only 77 pair left in all of Canada in the 1930's but they have made a recovery - thanks to the efforts of some folks around here. They have a 10 foot windspan! I would love to see one in flight.

This is the harbor and downtown. There are lots of people walking the docks and having picnics under the shelters so there is lots of people watching going on. Yesterday's Dream is actually hidden by the large (100') private converted tugboat. The guy has been working on it for 17 years and it's really something! A bit large for my taste though!

Today was not without a couple of small jobs (unplug the air conditioner drain so water isn't being thown up to the ceiling of the cabin) and fixing the bilge pump. Steve made us a great anniversary dinner of prime rib and his sister Julie's sliced cucumber salad (which has become one of our favorite sides).

Tomorrow: a quick visit to West Marine (bike ride away) for a replacement bilge pump and then off to the island for a couple of days. No internet there!