Besides the cooler temperatures, I think what Hugo and I miss most are the drives in the country we would take as we drank in the views of rolling hill sides blanketed with farms, usually dairy or beef with a few being sheep farms. And of course in the fall we loved the colours that the countryside presented us with along with the wonderful bounty of apples, apples and more apples.

A scene I was priviledged to view a few times from my living room window when we lived way up north in the province of Quebec in the small mining town of Gagnonville. This town no longer exists as it was plowed back into the ground once the mine had been stripped dry of all its iron ore. At least once, as a school outing, I recall being taken in wagons pulled by skidoos to the outside limits of town where a sledding team was kenneled.

I miss the dry crunch of the snow under my feet and temperatures so cold that somedays a deep intake of breath would glue the insides of your nose together. However, when I find myself pining for these days I try to remember how annoyed we were our last winter in Canada and it snowed on MOTHER'S DAY! When one of our local priests claimed "Mia Culpa, I love snow and have often prayed it would snow on Mother's day" - he shortly therafter found himself transfered to Dallas... Texas. Me thinks the Bishop was not as fond of snow as our priest was.

NB is famous for its covered bridges.

The bath house on Minister's Island.

This is the road that literally warns you to remember that the tides waits for no man. Something a few friends and I would have done well to remember one night while roasting marsh mellows out on the rocks a few miles in the other direction... This road is accesible only at low tide and takes one to Minister Island. When I became a teenager, I was, for two summers, a tourguide on a boat where I rambled on about Minister's Island as well as its famous bathhouse and the fishing weirs that surrounded it. I learned that summer, ladies, that what gives the sparkle to much of our facial make up is the sparkly material found in the scales of fish. Now doesn't that make you feel gorgeous!

This is like the type of beach I was most familiar with as I grew up in and around the Maritimes.

Something I have not yet found internet picures of that we actually have many photos of are our two favourite "pioneer" villages, Kings Landing and Upper Canada Village. Hugo and I visited Kings Landing a number of times, both while we were dating and after we married. I have in one of our photo albums a photograph of he and I posed in front of a large boat at Kings Landing. I was about 6 months pregnant with our first born, Amanda. I have a number of photos of Upper Canada Village as well, but even more of the Pre-Historic World park nearby. And these photos are filled with our four oldest children as they stared at those huge recreations of the monstors of the past.

Well - I hope you have enjoyed my trek through the past and now, if was not so dang hot, I would go make myself a hot chocolate, top it with real whipped cream and dream of tobaggans and snow and wood stoves. Instead, I am going to slip into a pair of clean shorts and cross the road to the store to buy some cold soda for my thirsty and hot brood.

Cheers!