June 20

June 20, 2004

DAY 3

 

 

Woke up this morning feeling 1000 % better than yesterday, rested and refreshed. Last night was a bit cool, so before going to sleep, I closed all the windows and ceiling vents, and turned the furnace on low. Slept great, and woke up to a toasty warm bedroom. I guess I sleep better in a warm bedroom than a cool one.

Today was a warm, sunny day. Started the day out slow and leisurely. Went into Kingston late in the morning to do a bit of grocery shopping. While having lunch back at the trailer, Don Mitchell and Linda Hayes arrived at the group camping area we're all alone in. Don and Linda are the only other members of the Escapees RV Club who reside in Ottawa. They are the "hosts" of this Escapees Ontario Chapter Spring Rally which starts tomorrow, so they have arrived a day early. When we joined the Escapees RV Club a year ago, Escapees notified Don and Linda that another resident of Ottawa had joined the club, so Don and Linda invited us over to their house to welcome us to the Escapees "family". They showed us their large motor home, and discussed with us the pros and cons of motor homes versus fifth wheels, as we had not yet purchased our rig.

Mid-afternoon, we drove back into Kingston to visit my old friend and faithful downhill ski buddy, Sep Liang and his wife Susanna. Sep and I have skied together all over the world. He married for the first time 2 years ago, rather late in life, in his early fifties. Susanna is about a dozen years younger than Sep, and was a young widow. They moved from Ottawa to Kingston a year ago, when Sep started a new job as a Professor / Research Scientist at Royal Military College. Dr. Septimus Liang is a world leader in the field of chemical warfare defence research. We had a wonderful barbecued steak dinner with them, and Susanna's elderly parents, who speak only Cantonese and Mandarin. Dinner was preceded, and followed, by superb Cuban cigars for me and Sep, who is quite the cigar aficionado. Everything I know about selecting, storing, and smoking really fine cigars, I learned from Sep. He's the only guy I know who has six humidors ! Today's choice was Romeo Y Julieta no.1's, each packaged in its own little aluminum tube, stored ever so correctly, and aged, in one of his precise temperature and humidity controlled humidors. He has promised me one of his very exclusive Monte Cristo no. 1 Torpedoes if we come back tovisit them in September, when we travel to Toronto for the PIJAC National Pet Industry Trade Show.

Over dinner preparations, Sep and Joanne hatched an excellent plan for Sep and Susanna to join us in Texas between Christmas and New Year. We spent the evening on their back yard deck, and then back at our trailer, which they came to see, formulating a plan for them drive to Windsor to spend Christmas with Sep's parents in Windsor, then immediately after Christmas they will cross the river over to Detroit and catch a flight from Detroit to Houston. We will pick them up in Houston, then go for a beach vacation on the Gulf Of Mexico coast an hour south of Houston, maybe around Galveston. As I type this late at night, Joanne is lounging on the sofa, perusing our Texas travel guides, which we picked up at the Spring RV Show in Ottawa a few months ago.

What an exciting plan ! Not only will we spend Christmas in Texas, but we'll have good friends join us. BRAINSTORM ; Sep and I can welcome in the New Year puffing on some really fine Habanas, wearing suits, our lovely wives in evening wear, all of us wading barefoot in the Gulf Of Mexico. AND ... we can smirk in the faces of the envious Americans, who are not allowed cigars from Cuba. HA ! What a great idea ! ! !

DSK