Cicada Song: Don't Mess with Canada. Part Deux.

Here is the second half of our Canadian adventure photos. Of course, our "Don't Mess with Canada" saga will continue with a few more Texas pictures. Maybe tomorrow.

Murray panning for gold at the Timmins Gold Mine tour. Never mind the fact that panning for gold is a Californian thing and wasn't done in Timmins.

A view of Timmins.

The two of us, in the underground mine tour, with a leftover miner.

Heading underground. We actually learned lots of interesting things on our mine tour. Gold mining is what Timmins was founded on, so I made the trip to the gold mine a must for Murray.

This next series of photos demonstrates the bug problem this year. Most Timminsonians we spoke to agreed that this was the worst year for bugs that they'd ever lived through (of course, they haven't all lived through it yet....). The bitter thing about living in Timmins is that you have eight solid months of winter, and when you can finally enjoy some mild weather, the blood sucking insects are out there to enjoy it with you. This series demonstrates the difficulty of taking a picture while being swarmed by mosquitos and black flies. Note the progression:

This is the outhouse at our cottage. We affectionately named the ravine where the outhouse was "Hog's Hollow." We had years of fun at the cottage before we had actual plumbing, so Hog's Hollow was very familiar to each of us. And every night, we'd all take a trip to Hog's Hollow (in the dark) and siblings would hide in the bushes and jump out to scare us. Good times.

Taking a dip in the lake.

On our way back to Toronto, we stopped by again to see Scotty and Myrtle, my great aunt and uncle. They are perhaps the funniest, warmest, most endearing couple on this earth. Scotty still runs his barbershop (you can see a picture of him and grandpa on Murray's blog)

Grandpa and Myrtle just happened to wear the same outfit.

And to give you some idea of what life is like when Scotty and Myrtle team up with Grandpa, here they are with the plumber. Who they joyfully invited into the photo, and who joyfully joined them.

I had to include this one of Scotty because this is the expression on his face about 90 percent of the time. When we first showed up (unannounced) on their doorstep on our way to Timmins, Scotty greeted each of us with this same level of enthusiasm. He is a riot. And of course, everything he says is even funnier because after over sixty years of living in Canada, he still has his thick, thick Scottish brogue.