Going to visit my father

I went to visit my father this past week. Kevin drove me to Perth on his driving route that he does every afternoon during the week and Dad met me there.

It works out well this way as it is about the half way point between Kingston and his place.  I went up on Thrusday and came back today, normally I would go up for two nights, but Kevin had made plans to go out with a friend of his on Saturday night in Ottawa so he would just come to my father's on Sunday and then take me back then.

My dad lives in Galetta which is a very small village close to Arnprior, west of Ottawa.  It is a typical quiet little village in the country, there are maybe 150 or so people living there.  It has a nice little community hall, with a playground and skating rink, there was a trail in the bush behind but it has gotten a little overgrown, although I still go for a walk around there during the summer and fall.  You could even boondock in the parking lot of the community centre and nobody would mind.  Galetta also has its own CN Tower. Well, a nice replicia of it anyhow, and also a small replicia of some of the buildings that use to be in Galetta years and years ago.  The Mississippi River runs thought the village (no, not THE Mississippi River!), in fact my dad's house (the house I pretty much grew up in) is right across the road from the top of the waterfalls and small dam in the village.  When I was young the sound of the waterfalls put me to slept in the summer when my bedroom window was open.

Old train station in Eleanor and Ronnie Wallace's garden, Galetta, Ontario

Replica of the CN Tower in Eleanor and Ronnie Wallace's garden, Galetta, Ontario

Top of waterfalls and dam on the Mississippi River, taken from one of the bedroom windows of my dad's house.  Galetta, Ontario

My dad's house in the summertime.  Galetta, Ontario

When I visit with my dad, I take Whiskey with me, she really loves going there because my dad spoils her along with his own little dog KC, who is about 4 years old.  Whiskey and KC get along together nicely, they are always happy to see each other and then they usually ignore each other, until food comes around and then one is afraid the other is going to get more than themself, just like kids!

KC, Whiskey, and Dad

When I go up I usually do the cooking for supper.  My dad never use to cook, my mom always did the cooking but once she got alzheimer's he had to take over the cooking chores.  He has done really well with it and even enjoys it, but always looks forward to having someone else do the cooking for a change.  I also try do some cleanning in the house to help him out.  Thursday when we arrived at his house, he treated me to supper with his cooking, he made a nice sausage and pasta casserole which was really good.  In the evening, he had a few things to do so I went up on his computer and scanner to scan some of my old photos.  He has a nice Epson scanner so I am slowly working on scanning all our old photos to digital photos, so that we will always have copies of them, in case something ever happens to the originals, also we don't carry around any of our old photos albums, they are stored either at my dad's house or Kevin's sister's place.

Friday we had some running around to do in town, also took the dogs for a walk and in the evening my brother came over for a visit.  He lives right next door to my dad with his wife and son.  I made a fish dinner that my dad likes and also made a nice pot of curry for tomorrow night's dinner.  Curry is best when made the day before and left to sit and soak up the flavours for a day or so.

Saturday, I went to work cleaning.  The stove was on my list this time around.  It is a self cleaning oven, but even that doesn't totally clean it.  So Friday night my dad put it throught the self-cleaning process and then I took over.  It took awhile to do, but now it looks almost new.  Vaccumed around alittle and made him one of  his favourite cakes, a sponge kind of cake with a bit of icing and jam in the middle and icing suger sprinkled on the top.  Kevin's friend cancelled on him so he was coming up after work today and will stay the night and then we will go back together on Sunday.  In the evening, my bother, Colin and nephew, Matthew came over and we had played a game my dad brought back from Florida with him.  I think he called it "Chicken Foot", but I believe it has a number of different names and rules.  You play it with dominos, the hightest domino in the game we played had 15 dots on the domino.  It was quite fun and we played a number of rounds of it before it got late.

Today, Sunday was a pretty quiet day, really didn't do to much.  Today is Kevin's 48th birthday!  We all had a small nap this afternoon, most unusal and by the time we left my dad's it was after 3pm.  We were going to drive back to Kingston and part way along stop to take Whiskey for a walk and then head on to Kingston and phone ahead to the "Wok-In" a Thai restaurant that we really like and order take out to pick up on the way back to the house.  Unfortunately there was no answer so we figured we would just drive by and see if they were open, but it is closed both Sunday and Monday. At least we know what we're having for supper on Tuesday!  Kevin was disappointed, so was I, we were really looking forward to that.  Oh well, we came home and had leftover enchiladas instead, which was still good, just not as good as the take out would have been.

Now we are going to watch a "Prison Break" dvd.