Brunch with Alan's Family and Dinner in Toledo


Saturday April 13th. Erie, Michigan.
The sunset was bright red below a pastel blue sky as we came out of the Beirut Restaurant in Toledo. A lucky omen for our last night in the United States on this trip at the end of our 40th day here. I believe this is the longest I’ve been away from home since I was 17 and the longest I’ve been in the good ol’ U.S. of A;  It’s been a lot of fun.
The red sky at night is supposed to also be an omen of good weather the following day — the Weather Channel disagrees as there are warnings for Sunday all the way up to Round Lake Centre and the crap will begin overnight. Between here and Innerkip, where we are headed tomorrow to see most of Lorraine’s family the weather is only cold and rainy. But Round Lake is getting more snow and has warnings that suggest it could be a lot more than the actual official forecast — they are hedging their bets up to 25cm.
If it is any comfort to those of you in Ontario — especially way up the Ottawa Valley — Spring did arrive here in the Toledo area today.  Buds are bursting and spring blooms should pop with the next warm day. So, the other side of Lake Erie can only be a day or two behind and the GTA less than a week — as long as it stops snowing.
We had a lovely quiet Saturday here in Toledo; Cliff and Sandy’s son Alan and his family came over for brunch — Cliff and I cooked bacon, Alan made eggs and a lovely fruit salad with Blueberries and Strawberries and cooked up some sausage and Sandy made toast, and there was lots of coffee; a real team effort. Alan has two lovely young daughters, Thea and Charlotte — just a little younger than our grandkids. I had a lovely chat with Sandy’s mom Gerry who turns 90 later this year. Lorraine chatted a lot with Irene about life in Michigan and Toddlers.

After breakfast Alan and Thea and I played fetch with our three dogs in the backyard; Or at least Swiffer plays fetch, Kitty plays keep away and Baby just runs around trying to get the ball and wondering what the point of the game is beyond biting whomever has the ball — as Alan found out a couple of times  the hard way. Thea mostly wanted to stay out of the way of all the running;  once the dogs tired she did come up and hug and kiss Swiffer several times.


Alan and Cliff then cut the bottom off an old oil-drum to burn up around the top of a stump in the side yard — The grinder on the empty drum was possibly the loudest noise I’ve ever heard despite my remaining more than 20 feet away.  When drum was cut they placed t on the old stump and set the fire and built it up – pushing a huge cloud of smoke over the trailer. 

About mid-afternoon the kids all went home, Lorraine escaped for a nap. I watched a little of the very excellent Masters golf Tournament while Cliff tended to his fire in a can and Sandy worked on crocheting a blanket.  Things already seem to be getting back to normal even though we’re more than 800km away from home the normal schedule beckons. Two days of driving ahead of us and a family reunion at the Kipfer’s are all that remains of our journey.
Staying an extra day here in Toledo made it possible for us to spend the time with Alan and Irene and their kids and then for us to actually go to the Beirut for Dinner. The Beirut is another restaurant where Sandy worked in the 70’s when it was a Greek place.  Just after that in the early 80’s, after Sandy left, it changed hands and became one of the best Lebanese restaurants I’ve found in the eastern United States. Classic Lebanese home cooking well executed with good service. The place is always jammed and buzzing with a lot of high energy. The decor doesn’t actually seem to have changed since it was a Greek Restaurant in the 70’s and has that homey and kitschy vibe you’d expect. We had to wait a few minutes and grabbed a quick drink at the very busy bar; They move fast and a seat came up before we’d hardly started our drinks. We just had appetizers, many of them, mezes I think they would be called in the region — Hummus, Fresh Baked Pita, Laban, Olives, Feta, Lavash Salad, a veggie plate, fried kibbe, and stuffed grape leaves.  All good, all authentic. Everyone was stuffed in minutes of the food hitting the table but we all ate well beyond that point. Even then, there were lots of leftovers for Cliff and Sandy to have on Sunday.

Cliff and Ken

Rrainy and Sandy
The sun had the western sky ablaze as we drove back to Erie.  But by the time Cliff came out with Lorraine and I to help hook up the truck so we can make a quick get away in the morning it was quite dark — the sky was hazing over slightly in anticipation of the rain that will start soon.  The trailer hooked up easily and we’d be set to head out as early as the weather would allow; In the morning we’ll be back in Canada.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

John Carter's Diary, Summer of 1965 -- the first three days.

Image
About a month ago, on one of those -32c mornings that are exhilarating to those who love The Valley and perhaps too effing cold for those who don’t, I asked my 6 year old grandson Max if he thought that Spring would ever arrive.   His response was terribly cogent in today’s crisis and uttered in a sweetly derisive tone of voice that small children reserve for their obviously daft grandparents. “Of course, Spring always comes after Winter.”   The words “you idiot” were clearly implied but left unspoken. And, of course, as Max predicted Spring is following winter and has arrived. The snow in The Valley is running away surely. The 10 feet piles of snow along the roadsides have melted away and the flocks of redwing blackbirds and grackles have returned to Dead Horse Pond across the street. The ice-huts have been pulled in off the lake – more than a week early. Spring is springing – although we’re a long way from seeing any tulips at least the snow is off my two newly planted...
Read more

Some more American Cousins.

Image
The start of our second week on the road! Morning in Statesboro was lovely after a brief rain near dawn.  Another day off my quota of really nice days, I guess. We’re now well enough stocked to have breakfast in the trailer. We won’t even try to get the fridge working until we get to Naples. Just too much to do to wait again for repairmen who don’t phone and we’ve both done enough camping with coolers and ice that it won’t be a giant deal. I’ve long used the example of my Ogilvy ancestors as a glib way to turn any bad judgement on my part into a joke about DNA...  My ancestors were kicked out of Scotland by the English and then came to Georgia only to be kicked out by the Americans for siding with the English.  I’ve always wondered why?  My Dad and his wife Susan have worked very hard to establish his family tree;   more than half of mine as a result as they’ve been kind enough to do research on my Mom’s line a little as well. They find out quite a few int...
Read more

Briggs Boardwalk and the Southwest Florida Conservancy

Image
On Wednesday we started out early with the best of intentions of trying to hit either Koreshan or to head to the Naples Nature Conservancy. But the fridge guy called just as we were finishing breakfast and debating the relative merits of the two and trying to figure out the timing of each.  Our desperation at getting the fridge fixed before we left Naples, of course, over rode all educational and entertainment concerns. Fridge Guy ( we’ll call him Scott because that’s his name ) was going to arrive between 1pm and 3pm and he had the part that we needed.  This limited our choices pretty heavily and so we shifted towards something we could do quickly without a long drive. The Briggs Boardwalk is part of the Southwest Nature Conservancy. The conservancy is focused on the protection of the ecological systems related to the sheets of water that flow west out of the everglades.  The Briggs Boardwalk is only about a mile as the wood stork flies across the estuary and only a ...
Read more
Image
We're just a little over half way through the physical diary at this point. I believe based on the note that precedes the entry for July 13th that he was mailing the diary home in sections.  So when he picked up letters in Madrid on that day he would have mailed what I'm guessing is the 2nd installment of the diary to Aity.  The storm today is pushing lots of mist and fog off the lake despite the frequent wind gusts. I'm guessing this might be the last day for ice or maybe tomorrow it seems to be at the breaking point.   Another dull day in isolation -- one of our days off from grandparenting -- makes a great opportunity to provide more of JC's diary. -------------- (insert after page 71) Tuesday, July 13/65   Today we left for Madrid. Rod isn't feeling well and has some stomach trouble. Got to Madrid and went to the Cdn. Embassy where I got four letters. I'm so happy that Lillian and Tom now have a boy and that everything is fine.    We found ...
Read more

Gloom, Despair and Agony on me...

Image
Biloxi, Mississippi, Sunday the 31st. What a crappy day.  High of 8C and rainy with a stiff breeze making it feel much colder.  A month ago I’d have been happy in shorts and a t-shirt — or at least able to pretend to be comfortable.  Today, I had to dig my leather jacket and my wool hat out of the closet.  This is our 28th day on the road and we’re probably a little homesick and without much to distract us from that given the weather.  At home, Alex and Sarah and the boys faced up to 25cm of new snow and the road in to the camp was closed by fallen trees and more than 30cm — and the old snow is still deep on the ground; that would almost be better at least for our mood. Clearly, we’ve been spoiled by nearly 3 weeks of perfect, really perfect, weather;  It’s been 70s, sunny, low humidity for 24 of our 28 days on the road; it’s like we’ve been travelling back and forth between LA and San Diego... Lacking energy and enthusiasm, we drove out to an anti...
Read more