Day 11 August 19th
Memories:
Grace: The stars made from the flowers, Canadian Survival food: Cheezies as fire starters, the nearest working bathroom being in another county.
Danny: Everybody playing Go Fish with the “Don’t Die Out There” cards, the candy bars - part of Canadian survival food. (Aero Bars)
Therese: Edible Garden, being in both countries, endless and futile search for propane.
The International Peace Garden was indeed peaceful. We slept in and didn’t get around to breakfast until after 10:00. (This does not bode well for the start of school.)
We had blueberry pancakes, apple cinnamon compote and sausages (one day past their expiry date - a bit risky in the cooler but I cooked them well.) With about four pancakes left, my propane sputtered out. We figured it would be an easy 15 minute drive into town for a new canister of propane.
Our first order of business was to tour the gardens at the Peace Garden.
Everything was very beautiful and lush. The sunken garden which ran up the middle of the park. One side was Canada and the other was the US. We had our picture taken with one foot in each country.
The woman who took our picture is from the area and she gave us a long history about the park. She also mentioned that there is a week long music camp in the park every summer. The camp ends in a concert with the conductor standing with a foot in each county. There is also a sports camp happening at the same time. The kids seemed interested. I am interested in the peace part of a week at the park.
We also toured the solarium which had a very impressive cactus garden. We took a quick break before heading to town to grab a snack which included poutine just to get in some more Canadian food. The food was pretty much average but it filled us up and the kids were happy because I caved in and allowed them to get a bottle of soda each.
Then we hit the road to cross back into Canada and Boisavain, a small town just 15 minutes away. The town of about 3,000 people has produced an extensive booklet of all they have to offer which includes many murals painted on the buildings as well as a lovely community garden which arose from a deserted parking lot. They also have a huge sculpture of a turtle (Tommy Turtle) a remnant of a time the town held turtle races. The practice has since died out, but the sculpture remains.
It was a very cute town, but the cuteness was slightly diminished in that everywhere we went was either closed (Sunday) or didn’t have propane. Helpful people sent us to a number of locations, none of which got us what we needed. We made an ice cream stop at the Busy Bee which was quite tasty. I called around to local campsites to no avail. Oh well. We returned to the grocery store where we started and threw together some supplies to cook over a campfire. We ended up with Hot Dogs, PIllsbury Flaky Rolls and broccoli.
When we got back to the campsite we took a quick tour around the other half of the park. We passed the 9/11 Memorial which included some of the broken and twisted metal I-Beams from the World Trade Center as well as a tribute to the fallen firefighters who lost their lives that day. It was a very moving sight. A number of young people were biking in the area and zipped by. It reminded me that many of the visitors were too young to remember or hadn’t been born yet. For those of us who will never forget that day, it was an incredibly sacred and moving place.
Back to the campsite, but first we passed a prize winning edible garden. I was very taken with the “Midnight Snack” tomatoes which started out black and turned a very deep red when ripe.
Just near the garden were two sets of bathrooms. The bathrooms on the US side were out of order. Grace commented that it was quite something when the nearest working bathroom was in another country.
After much smoke inhalation and positioning the broccoli and leftover taco meat on the fire and attempting to make an oven out of a foil roasting pan for the rolls, we settled down to eat. Not bad if I do say so myself.
I should add that Grace built up her stamina at this campsite trusting the 1,000 step round trip to the second bathroom. The bathroom 10 feed away from our campsite was older and evidently had too many bugs to be a viable option.
A better bathroom and the option of not having the only streetlight in the campground directly over our tent led us to offer to the kids to move the tent on the second day. But they vetoed it so we stayed put.
Our not-serial-killer neighbor had left sometime during the day so we were alone. with just the street light to keep us company.
The kids played in the impulse-purchase from last year: the inflatable boat thingies while I made dinner. Usually I would ask them to help because it’s no fun working while everyone else is relaxing. But they were having so much fun that I let them enjoy the afternoon out in the field which was kind of like a sea of grass.
Dinner, S’mores, game in the tent. Our last night of camping came to an end.
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