hi Arlo, it’s your Grandad, how are you feeling.? Have you gotten over your trip to Ontario? It sure was a lot of travelling in a short time wasn’t it? You did really well. Having to sit in that car seat all day is tough for a guy and I understand. I’m sure that the great road trip of ‘07 will be something you will only know by pictures but you left lots of memories for other folks.
Your Great-grandmothers were both so happy to meet you. As your Great Grandmother Simpson said, she will probably not get to see you grow up and the same holds true for your GG Brown but they both know what you look like, they have memories of how you sounded and how much you weighed and how incredibly soft your skin is. All important memories to have.
All your great aunts and uncles and cousins of all sorts were thrilled too. You allowed them to coo and admire you and just love you. In time I hope that you will get to know lots of members of your family and come to realize how important family is. You really do have a lot of very loving family – The Simpsons, the Browns and the Burritts so far. Maybe some day you will get to meet the Cristofaros and find out where your papanon came from.
I got to know you too! At first you weren’t too sure but by the end of the trip you’d smile when you saw me and hold out your hands when I went to take you. Boy that felt so good. I got to take you for a few walks and those are special memories that I will cherish. When you get a little older we will do different things but for now taking you for a walk while you have a long nap is a great thing for a Grandad. It also gave me some time to talk to your Dad, something I don’t get to do very often because we live so far apart.
I’m sure that it felt as good for you as it did for your Mom and Dad to get back to your own house with everything that is so familiar – your favourite toys and your own bed and the routine that is so important.
We love you very much and we miss being able to see you a lot more frequently but we will be out to visit you soon enough. In the meantime you just go on growing and learning and being a beautiful boy!
Love Grandad.
We have been traveling around southern Ontario for the pst 10 days with about another week to go. #1 son,his wife and 10 month old son are here from the far west on a show the new baby tour of assorted relatives including 2 great grandmothers who are both elderly and ill, 4 great-aunts, 1 great-uncle and a bunch of cousins who are all anxious to meet the new family member. He, for his part, has taken to the adulation and attention like a rock star. He has been held, dandled, cooed over, kissed, amused, fed and generally adored by everyone who has encountered him. He has also throughout been very well behaved and come through a long flight from Vancouver to Ottawa followed a few days later by a full day of traveling from Ottawa to London. His parents have likewise been patient and attentive to one and all. It has been a real treat in amongst all the family events to have some good talk time. A chance to talk about work and plans and babies and all the other things that it is difficult to have telephone chats about when the chatters are three time zones apart and the daily minutiae is not easily put aside at the ring of a telephone. It has also been a chance to for me to ask about a lot of computer things in which he is an expert. There has also been time enough to talk about books and movies and cooking and beer and a myriad of other things.
For all the traveling and attendant stress that come with unfamiliar beds and other peoples habits and schedules and routines it has been a great trip so far. The two sisters and their spouses who have opened their homes to this traveling road show and both hosted major family gatherings are wonderful and generous and loving and hard to say enough about. Saturday three generations of mothers sat down to dinner together and all but 1 offspring were there with them. A rare event anymore.
Tomorrow we get back on the road and in the back of my mind is the realization that this wonderful time will be ending in another few days when they all have to head back to their life in BC, but thats for another chapter. For now we have another week to enjoy them all.
One day last week I happened to sit down with Val for a few minutes while Oprah was on. I am not a big fan of hers but they were talking about environmental things and of course her solution is to show everyone lots of new things to buy. Even being green is about shopping! Anyway I promised myself that I would not get into that rant. All of a sudden the person that was showing Oprah all the “cool new things” that will make you green said two words that got my attention – Sigg Bottle (http://www.mysigg.com/?gclid=CNXJxPPS74sCFRlmWAodIidkVg! Wow. Those words instantly brought back a flood of memories and made me realize that I was cool and environmentally friendly over 30 years ago.
A Sigg Bottle is made of Aluminum and is totally inert and more importantly to me is unbreakable. They were originally designed to act as a few fuel cell for Sigg 1 burner camp stoves. It seems the enviro-cool crowd has discovered them as the most enviro-friendly water bottle in the world, even better than the ubiquitous Nalgene bottle that you see hanging off packsacks everywhere. The LSTTO was telling her that not only are disposable plastic water bottles bad but even the ones that are meant to be reused can leach some nasty chemicals into the water that you drink. So the solution is simple buy a Sigg bottle.
Here is my Sigg Bottle and as you can see it is neither new nor particularly shiny. What is is well used and much loved.
Heres the story. In the mid seventies I was posted in a small remote town at the bottom of James Bay and my work, being a Conservation Officer, took me along the entire coastline of James and Hudson Bay from Quebec to Manitoba. If you look at a map of this part of Ontario you will quickly note that outside of a few small villages there are no roads in this huge area. Travel was then and still is almost exclusively by aircraft, or snowmobile in the winter. And my job required me to travel a lot. I was much younger than and used to enjoy a drink or two in the evening even when not at home. Carrying your own booze was the only option but a bottle was not the best carrier for two reasons. My luggage consisted of a packsack and a sleeping bag normally. This meant that bottles were subject to breakage and you did not want have that happen. The second reason was the we frequently overnighted in one of the native communities along the coast and all of them were located on dry reserves (for very good reasons) and you did not want to get caught on the reserve with a bottle either by a thirsty local or by the local cops. Enter the Sigg Bottle. I’m not sure who told me about them but as soon as I saw it I remember thinking that this was the answer to my prayers. I ordered one from some catalogue it has served me faithfully ever since. For several years it went everywhere with me, to meetings, on patrol, to training courses and along the way it picked up a few scars. It doesn’t travel as much as it used to but it still goes moose hunting with me every fall. As you can see from the photo it has a few war wounds but is still perfectly serviceable. In fact when I got it down to take the picture above I discovered that is half full of scotch and I have no idea how long it has been in there but it is still good! It has also carried rye and rum and occasionally gin but the fixin’s for a good drink of gin were not always handy along the coast.
So that is my story of the Sigg bottle. When I get around to emptying it I may start to use it as a water bottle. We’ll have to see.
About 10 days ago I rec’d a text msg. from Colin that he had a load to Ontario and would be passing our door. After a few phone calls we confirmed that he would be here on Monday night. Since his job is driving a tractor trailer unit I needed to find someplace for him to park. That was quickly arranged and on the appointed day and at the appointed time this great big truck arrived on the island. Val climbed up into the cab and we headed for the parking place.
Then it was off home for a visit and a good meal. We had not seen him since last October and it was the first time in about 3 years that he got home so it was a real treat. Tuesday morning he left for southern Ontario to make his deliveries not knowing what was next on the agenda. It was a pleasant surprise to get a call on Wednesday saying that he would be arriving Friday for supper on his way back west with 43,000 lb. of steel headed for Regina. On Thursday I was talking to my friend Charlie who lives about 3 hours north and west of us along the TCH. he suggested I jump in with Colin Saturday morning and ride up as far as his place as he was coming right past the island Sunday morning and could bring me back. A quick call and Colin said sure he would love the company. Fantastic. Riding in a tractor trailer unit has been on my “got to do it someday” list for a while. Friday right on time he arrived and it was another evening of visiting and stories. He told us that since last October he has driven 100,000 km. He has carried stainless steel pig feeders to Wisconsin, Manitoba hay to a feedlot in Texas, rolled oats to Kentucky, insulation to a condo development in Oregon and potato starch to Chicago. We heard about his first solo trip down the Kicking Horse Pass with several cm of fresh wet snow coating the road. It was a harrowing descent.
Saturday morning we lingered over coffee and more conversation and finally it was time to go. We got to the parking place and Colin did his daily inspection and showed me around the cab.
Then off we headed. I now have a lot more respect for transport drivers and the skill it takes to handle those big rigs especially on two lane highways! We had a great ride. I was a good dad and did not touch any of the buttons 
. It was a bright sunny morning and the views along the Superior shoreline were just that much better from high in the cab of the truck. It was a whole new experience to look into the cab of a truck you pass rather than just have a wall of tires and door to look at. The ride is noisy, at least in Colin’s truck and if I was going to be in there for more than a few hours I would definitely want earplugs. All the way through lake Superior Park and we did not see a moose. 24 hours later on the way south Charlie and I saw 6 moose and 4 timber wolves along the same piece of highway. At just about the time that his GPS said we would arrive at Wawa we arrived at Wawa. Funny how that works. He took me into town and we found a place to turn his truck around. I climbed retrieved my pack sack and climbed down for the walk to Charlie’s. I watched as he drove off. My son is a professional driver and he demonstrated that professionalism on Saturday. I had a great time and can now cross one more thing off my list. As I wrote this he called from North Dakota where he has to make 4 deliveries today before heading into Minnesota to drop the last of his load and then get a load for the trip back north.
Travel safely son.