On Saturday the 26th, we left Ottawa and headed for Huntsville, for a visit with friends. It was a beautiful drive through farm country with fields of golden wheat, fields of young corn stalks, fields where seed cast a golden haze over the tall green shoots of grass, and fields where it had been harvested and large round bales of hay lay drying under the not-so-sunny skies. And fields of neon yellow, where mustard was growing, were almost blinding to the eye. Black and silver silos adorned the white farmhouses and red barns and cows grazed in some of the fields on dairy farms. And where there were no farms, there was dense foliage like that found in New England…pine and spruce and maple in various shades of green broken by spears of white birch trunks, and all of this adorned by a hem of yellow buttercups and goldenrod growing along the roadside.

The road took us through the Algonquin Park, a huge plot of land with lakes and rivers and mountains, where people come to hike and camp and fish. All of this and more is found in the Muskoka Region of Ontario. And I chuckled because my Adirondac chairs are called Muskoka chairs in Ontario, and my Florida Room in Florida is called a Muskoka room in Ontario.

We found our way to Huntsville and a remote "cottage" on a lake where Pat and Robin spend their time when they are not in Florida. This cottage is actually a 5 bedroom palace high on a sandy cliff with a splendid view of the lake. And we met many of their friends that day, because we arrived just before a birthday party. They have wonderful friends and it was a great time.

On Sunday, Robin took us all for a couple of boat rides around the lake on their party boat. Beamer was always first onboard and last off. He found putting around the lake eating snacks, while the adults sipped wine, was a fabulous way to spend an afternoon.

Monday morning we left the cottage and headed south to Toronto and then across the border into Michigan. The border crossing was an hour-long affair, sitting high on the bridge that spans the water connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron. The drive to Detroit was through many small towns and for the most part visually uninteresting. And we landed in Troy around 5 PM in time for happy hour at the Drury Hotel.

Tomorrow, a long drive to Davenport, Iowa.