Ahhhh… home again after a two day road trip to Ottawa with Gabe’s 6th grade class. It was a blast.. Everything was so clean and neat.. everyone was so cheerful and polite..   Just so .. I don’t know.. just so Canadian ! 

As I said last night, there were (oddly) no internet connections available from the U of Ottawa dorms we slept in last night.. so i wasn’t able to upload my way-too-many pictures of the trip.. So tonight.. I’m going to do a slew of pictures  with minimal commentary.. More than anything I want to get the pictures up as documentation of this uber fun trip.

So.. where to start… OK.. first stop yesterday was the Museum of Nature.. a beautiful old Victorian stone building undergoing a huge renovation .. 3/4 of it were closed to the public.. so we spent several hours climbing around the quarter that was open.

The museum was packed to the rafters with stuffed dead things.. Not my favorite, I have to confess.. but these were tasteful as they go..

The boy s(Gabe. Jack. Will and Austin) found the taxidermy taxing as well and found other ways to amuse themselves.

As did I.. I found that you could type anything you wanted on some of the displays.. here’s the least scatological thing I could think to write.  

They did have a very cool thermal imaging exhibit.. here  am smiling (I think)

Here’s Victor looking cool

The place had the requisite plastic dinosaurs.. as well as a very impressive set of real fossils..

The highpoint of the visit … ask anyone.. was the 20 minute movie on ‘Dung Beetles’… Really.. you have to trust me on this.. it was done as a James Bond spoof.. with music, risque love scenes..  special effects. it was brilliant. I’ll never look at dung the same again.

From there we went downstairs…   the boys were clearly enjoying the relative freedom of the trip

Next stop was an hour and a half river cruise on the Ottawa river.. with our friendly and informative guide.

We got a good tour of the architecture of the city.. lots of facts.. few that I remember.. I do know that this was the museum of Civilization

… and this is the Scott’s paper mill that makes the tolet paper for all McDonald’s in Canada.

And this is Parliament Hill.

 

And a stature of Samuel du Champlain.. holding an upside down Astrolabe

We took off and landed at the locks that lead (eventually) to lake Ontario.

The boat pulled right up to … and in to ‘Curtain Falls’

We all got pretty soaked.. it was cool being that close to the falls.

After the cruise we all walked up to Parliament hill

For some reason.. the Parliament Building security system had an issue with me.. I got the royal screening.. they basically took out and stared at everything in my bag. in the end they temporarily confiscated a number of things including a screw driver, my laser pointer, my lock picks and my light up headband.. all things I regularly have in my backpack..   Security was tight !

The whole time we were in the Parliament.. all I could think about was the George Clinton Parliament / Funkadelics song.. ‘One Nation Under a Groove’..   I actually got Jean B/ to sing it with me in the building

We toured the Parliament building and the library.. which is the only part that didn’t burn in the 1916 fire.
We also went up to the 9 story Peace tower.. the tallest building in downtown Ottawa.. by law !..  Beautiful views from up there.

Gabe and I put a SamStone up there.. because it belonged there.

We could see the eternal flame of Canada down below.

We also took a few minutes to visit the house of commons which was in session.. !2 people total in the room. ! MP talking about nuclear power.. and the other 11 talking to each other or doing email . It was very much like watching CSPAN.   Another cool thing was that my bag check number was ’42’ the answer to everything according to Douglas Adams.

It was time to leave..   We walked next door to view the ‘Cat House’ a small mansion built to huse stray cats.. tres bizzarre ..

Fro there we walked down Sparks street.. I got some Lebanese food to munch on as we admired the architecture..

Gabe found his namesake pizza.

The immediate goal of our walk was ‘Sugar Mountain’.. as in the Neal Yong song..   It was the ultimate candy store.

The boys were like kids in a candy store.. I got Diane some good n’ plenty’s and some matching good n’ plenty lip gloss.

The place did have some fun attitude.

As did the boys..

From there we walked down to byward market.. full of fun shops and restaurants..  I saw this shirt in a shop window..

We picked an Italian place to eat..  not that great.. with slow service.. but sitting outside was nice !

Gabe offered to take pictures of some ladies who were also eating there.. we had lots of time to goof around.. our dinner took 40 minutes to come.

I bought a samosa from an Indian restaurant on the walk back to clear my pallet.. I was stuffed. We met up with the other folks from the trip at the war memorial.

Gabe felt very close to this one war type dude.

The war memorial had a good quote from Virgil’s Aeneid  ‘Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo”
“No day will ever erase you from the memory of time”  .. made me think so much of Sam..

Here are my tired co-chaperone’s.. David, Victor an Jean.. ready for sleep .

We all walked back to the U of Ottawa dorms. got our keys and went up to our rooms.

The boys had a bout 45 minutes to hang out in the lounge.

They all had private rooms.. it was really luxurious !

I went back to my room and tried to blog.. but didn’t have enough bandwidth.. shance the short post last night.

I slept well  and woke early.. I decided to take a quick run.. I continued down the street the unviversity was on until I hit  a beutifull park by a river.. There were folks doing Tai Chi there.

I got back in time for breakfast at ..7.. no one was looking too wide awake..

We loaded up and drove to the museum of Civilization in the Hull part of Ottawa.. which is actually in the Provence of Quebec .

I had to check my bag.. this time I got my ‘lucky’ number ‘911’.. It’s been appearing in my life since I was very young.. It’s certainly taken on a different meaning for me since 2001. but that’s a story for another blog..

I walked around the corner.. and guess who I ran into ?! My buddy Ron !!! Her was here on a school trip with his youngest Caroline !!! Iyt was so cool seeing them

We then spent several hours looking around the museum.. t had a great collection.. Lots of native artifacts..

Some beautiful painted architecture

The kids had some homework sheets to work on while they were in the museum.. Not all fun and games

They had a small exhibit on curling.. made me think of all my friends at work who have caught this strange Canadian disease.  

My favorite exhibit was from a guy who made a living ‘shooting’ oil wells. He dropped home made bombs made of nitroglycerin down the bore holes to fracture rocks in order to increase oil flow…

I loved the design of these bombs. The guy had a sense of humor to be sure !

We grabbed a quick snack before the IMAX movie.. we added these Ketchup flavored chips to our collection of ‘weird flavored chips we have eaten’. These were weird.. but not as weird as the ‘mint madness’ ones we ate in India.

And wouldn’t you know our snack cost ‘$9.11’  . another coincidence.

From there we walked across the bride.. determined to get the kids to visit the National Gallery with us..

We got the kids into the square of the museum.. across from this church..

…we even got them into the sculpture garden..

But when we go them into the museum.. it was clear that they weren’t happy..We relented.. and took the to lunch instead.. after all, this was their trip !

We walked back over to Byward.. lots of cool restaurants there.. I liked this sign we walked past.

We ended up eating at a fun diner called Zak’s.. lots of good comfort food. The guys made theirs a little uncomfortable by pouring hot sauce into each other’s milkshakes.. Yuck..

We surprised Jean with a birthday fired Mars bar (no kidding) in honor of here birthday today.. She liked that  (I hope) !

At that point it was time to walk back to the buses.. On the walk back I picked up my phone to return a call.. It was from my friend Joanne Martin.. We spoke for a few moments… Just as I hung up I passed this sign. … What a funny day..

It was also a Lonnng day.. I need to go to sleep now.. Sorry for the large number of pictures..   It’s nso nice to be home, Sam.. Gnite
-me

Today is… would have been ?… is… Sam’s 16th birthday. We spent the day thinking about Sam, sending him love and missing him beyond the power of words to explain.. It was a beautiful and fun and incredibly emotional day…. lots of laughs some tears.. overall it felt very good to me. I was at peace, though I missed Sam’s physical presence so much that it heart my heart and body all day…

I woke this morning and looked around the room.. and saw Sam everywhere in our room .. as I do every morning..

After I got Gabe off to school. Diane and I went up to Jen’s to paint SamStones. It was a perfect way to be with Sam.: gently stenciling his name on these stones, again and again.

Eventually, that became to much sitting for me.. I needed to be outside.. so I went for abotu a 6 mile run from Jen’s .. It was a prefect day for it..

I ran by Gillette pond

And stopped in at ‘dead beaver island’ (not really and island at all) where Sam, Gabe and I sometimes camped..

It was prefect day to sight see and just run.. Running is one of my best ways to commune with Sam..

Around 11:0 we went and picked Gabe up from school early and all went to lunch at bridge street. It was a good and important time to all be together.

We then went home and picked up the dogs and drove up to Bolton to hike the fire tower.. The place feels very connected to Sam.. so it felt so right to be there.

Gabe showed us some o f the stumps and trees in the woods that he jumps off of on his board.. eeeek.. I’m glad that I’m seeing them this way for the first time.

We made the top pretty quickly.. I had to make a snow angel !

Our main mission was to visit the fire tower.. that’s where we firstshot Sam’s ashes up in fireworks a few week after his passing.

I had drilled a hole in a SamStone and used that to mount a SamStone on the tower.

We came down and Diane planted some Forget Me Nots around the lifts..

Max and Gabe and I did another sort of forget me not..but lighting a big firework for Sam with a magnifying glass..

You got that right !

Then it was all downhill…

On the way down we saw a small memorial site for ‘Tommy’ costello

We came back home from Bolton and Diane put out Sam’s cake.. it was homemade carrot cake.. his favorite.. It was the hardest moment of the day.. We all held hands.. lit the Sam Candle and the cake, sang happy birthday. and cried.. and laughed. It’s just so weird to not have Sam here.. it was a perfect Sam day.. but no Sam.. it breaks my heart..
It shouldn’t be this way…

Around 6:30 we all headed into Williston to get dinner at Sakuras and a movie.. We ran into Hannah and Barry at Sakura’s doing exactly the same thing.> We sat there talking to them until it was time for them to leave for the movie.. (same one.. Indiana Jones).. but our food still hadn’t come.. We had to run too.. the nice folks at the restaurant offered to refund our money.. but Max had the bright idea to take us over to the movie.. then come back and pick up the food as take out..

The Indiana Jones movie was fun.. bizarre plot.. but good mindless entertainment after an intensely mindful day. Max found a crystal heart on the sidewalk as we came out of the theater. It was a nice sign.

We got home to find two nice notes.. one from Erik.. who got his drivers license today.. he’d chosen to take the test on Sam’s birthday..

And anothe rvery betiful ‘mytery note’ from who knows whom ?

It was 10:30 at night and we still hadn’t eaten.. so we dug into our now take out sushi.. yum !. Then Gabe and I went upstairs to pack for the Ottowa trip. We leave at 5:30 AM tomorrow ! (and it’s 1 now !)

OK.. That’s all for now.. Thanks everyone for taking such good care of us today..we’ve had calls. cards and emails from many friends and relatives.. It”s good that you’re thinking of us today. It really does help.

Well my son.. Happy 16th birthday.. you’ll always be part of us.. We love you so much
-dad

I was working in the shop this morning when the pone rang.. Diane answered it.. it was Deb at Richmond Elementary calling to say that she’d found my rocket ! She came in to work this morning and found the thing standing upright(!) about 10 feet in front of the school with it’s parachute out andthe embedded beeper squawking away. That makes it just under a mile flight..

I swung by there on my way to work and picked it up. They’d clipped the wire on the beeper to make the sound stop. I don’t blame them.. it was loud and scary !

It was right in front of this window.. just feet from the front door.

It was very cool getting this thing back.

One sort of funny addendum to the story came a few hours later when my fiend Kevin sent me the following link. The story begins:

Continental jet has near miss with ‘rocket’

12:39 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 27, 2008

By Jeremy Desel / 11 News

HOUSTON — Jet pilots aren’t used to sharing their airspace, so you can bet a rocket will get some attention.

Continental Flight 1544 was flying at 5,000 feet about 11 miles east ofBush Intercontinental Airport after takeoff Monday morning when thepilot called the tower to report an object headed toward the plane. Thepilot described seeing a fast moving object with a thick smoke trailnearing his airspace.

The FAA now says it thinks thatobject was some kind of model rocket. Both the FAA and the Houston AreaJoint Terrorism Task Force continue to investigate the incident thatKHOU.com first reported early this afternoon.

Neithersaid conclusively what the pilot saw was indeed a model rocket, but anFAA spokesperson told 11 News that it was likely a high-powered modelrocket. It is a federal crime to launch a rocket of any sort withoutnotifying the FAA.

The plane was at about 5,000 feet at the time of the sighting and the flight continued on to Cleveland.

That rocket must have been about the same class as this one.. maybe a bit more powerful. Maybe I should have called this one in…

Anyway.. the rest of the day was busy and preoductive.. I had a good work/lunch with friend Mark..

Then heard a great talk by my friend Ann.. Friends kerry was playing host.. It’s nice to see when friends become friends of other friends..

Around 7:30 I went by MMU and picked Gabe up from Lacrosse practice. It was the most beautiful late afternoon

Now I’m going to go off to sleep. Tomorrow is Sam’s birthday. He would have been… or is… 16 tomorrow. My mind and heart are too full of things to think of them today.. I’ll spend tomorrow doing that. The four of us and Emma are going to hike up Bolton in Sam’s honor. Oh man.. I remember just what I was doing 16 years ago at this time.. This is just so unreal….
Let tomorrow come.. I’m trying not to have any expectations. I’m thing of you Sam.. my beautiful son..
-dad