Kingston And Two Straight Losses

Kingston is a pretty nice town. It's old and has some nice shops and patios. We went to a place on Sunday that brewed their own beer, I don't really ask for much more than a micro brew and a patio, maybe some water to look out at once in a while. Kingston has all of that. Surprisingly I had never been there before, Ottawa is next for cites I've never been to. Kingston has some pretty interesting history too including some of a drunk Sir John A MacDonald, although the trolley tour was closed for some reason, lazy I guess.

Our friends Scott and Betty have a place near Kingston, a big nice log cabin. Of course these days a cabin is a house but the walls are log. I was interested in the insulation of the place and Scott said it was good. They have a few more tricks for that than they did a couple hundred years ago I guess. In Nelson we ate dinner in a restaurant that was a log cabin but the insulation there wasn't very good at all. I'm pleased to hear that you can actually live in one and not freeze over the winter. Scott and Betty's place is quite awesome, huge and with beautiful wood everywhere. They have a huge lot too. Not a bad place to settle down, Kingston has government jobs, French schools, land that's not 30 stories high and over priced.

Our friends Kim and Steve who were ironically on their way to Montreal (is it really ironic or just a coincidence, probably the latter). They stopped in for the afternoon, both married couples have children. One is two and one is a couple months shy of two. Both were great kids, well behaved, fun to be around. Of course I get to sleep all night every night so that's easy for me to say. I missed it but it seems the kids in their innocence decided to give each other a big hug. The kids being kids and slightly awkward physically, tripped and crashed into a train set. They were ok, even their pride I'm sure was fully intact, so we can laugh about it. If they do anything kids really can make you laugh, odd comments, physical comedy, fun stuff.

We did not get to build the green house because they are looking to put geothermal heating in and may need to rip up much of the yard to do it. Hopefully they won't have to but either way we're hoping to make a return trip to raise the green house and the car rental for the weekend was only 125 total including gas so there's no problem getting out there.

We lost our second straight game in some pretty sloppy conditions last night. The field was full of pools and half the team didn't have cleats so it was a soggy affair. The other team was able to drop some balls in between the infield and outfield. Imagine when you were a kid tossing a ball directly into a puddle in front of your friend, sometimes it was an accident but often you did it to drench them in puddle water. That was last night for us, plus a few wipe outs.

We biked to the game since it didn't start till 9:30. We rode along a waterfront path which was pretty nice, a bit confusing sometimes, multiple paths no indication where to go. Kate knew the way though so it wasn't difficult. The way back was a little tougher. The game ended around 11 and we had about an hour bike ride home, in the dark. Our first mistake was not following the same path we came to the park on. Also we were not in a very good mood. We had just lost handily, we were wet from the field and it had just begun to rain again. Plus I had a particularly bad last inning and Kate had some pretty hard hits sent to her through out the game.

So we ride out and find a path, one we assumed was the same path we took in. Unfortunately we found ourselves heading further away from the city, to the south specifically. We were actually in the midst of the Five Roses factory and the ship yard beside it. Why is there a bike path there at all is my question. I want to take a leisurely bike ride through a bunch of factories, sure I do. There were lights but the solitude and the time made me worried so we turned around and back tracked to another path that seemed to lead us in the right direction. Our mood improved somewhat when we saw the first signs of life again, life that didn't have a spray paint can in one hand.

All in all it was a good bike workout yesterday, for me anyway, for Kate it may have been a bit more of an average workout.

So an eventful few days although that seems to be the status quo out here in Quebec. There's always something going on. Tomorrow is Canada Day and this weekend we have a visitor, as we did last Sunday for one night. Then it's a softball tourney next weekend and then we're off to Perth the weekend after. I'm not complaining!