and then it was Canada Day!

A gorgeous temperature early in the morning – the promise of a wonderful day!  And so much on the program… Firstly, I had to make sure everything I needed was onboard of our sightseeing van. Maps, brochures, change and cell phone. I had to place our stands at the ferry landing and in the Roosevelt Park. Then I was waiting for my first customers to show up. Vehicles came, they parked but people were walking over to the Roosevelt Cottage. 15 minutes until departure and another car pulls in. A couple starts moving into my direction. They are bound for the sightseeing van. It turns out they are from Quebec. They speak an excellent English. No one else shows up and at 10:30am we are leaving the parking lot. The weather is still gorgeous and I am happy. I have my first customers onboard and I’m running the show. We stop at all the wonderful view points and I notice that my customers are thrilled. They are thrilled about what they see and love to hear about the island. This is exactly how I had imagined the tour to proceed. We will not be able to walk over to the Head Harbour Light Station as we don’t have low tide. In fact the low tide will be outside our tour times all week. But that doesn’t affect the pleasure this Quebec couple has under our tour. The 2 1/2hrs are flying by so fast and before we know it it’s all over. Thank you for coming and they thank me for being their tour guide. While I was busy with the tour, Bea has brought our friends to Sunsweep Point in the Roosevelt Park. The artist David Barr created a sculpture out of black polished granite. This is the easternmost of a total of three sculptures David Barr has built. The westernmost is placed at Point Roberts in Washington State.The third one sits at the Lake of the Woods, MN. What is the meaning of the sculpture? The idea was to symbolize the sweep of the sun, rising in the east, traveling across the continent and finally falling back into the Pacific ocean at point Roberts. Sunsweep Point can only be reached by hiking along a narrow coastal trail. It is one of the most beautiful trails one can walk on Campobello Island. If you’ve never heard about Pt.Roberts let me tell you that this part of the U.S. is in just the opposite situation of what Campobello Island is in. Americans, living on Point Roberts, have to cross through Canada to get back into the U.S. Point Roberts is sort of an appendix extending a bit south of the 49th parallel and by that reason became part of America. Contrary to Campobello Island Point Roberts has no summer ferry to their father land. Now the real busy part of the day will begin. I make a dash home to get some lunch, then I have to bring the “Fat Lady” to the “Show and Shine” at the beach. Bea follows with the van, and we drive over to the gathering field for the parade. yet we haven’t had time to decorate the van. From a neighbour we got small sharks of plastic which we start tying to the doors. Canada flags are fastened to the outside mirrors. And then we get the signal to move. We are right behind the last fire truck. Our ears begin vibrating from the fire sirens. We try to stay a bit apart, but the parade is moving slow. But oh-boy, we are having a lot of fun. We join the fire trucks in blaring our horn. Oh- how I wish I had the air horns from the motor home. It seems there is a competition going on in making most of the noise. Finally, and after an hour, the parade reaches the Herring Cove Prov. Park. This is where the parade is over. The park is filled with campers, adults and kids running all over. We do a little walk-about, talk with people before we are driving back home, where I reward myself with a nice ice cream. At 4pm we receive a phone call from the guys at the car show. We can pick up the “Fat Lady”.  When we get down there we are presented with the second prize award. I’m gonna keep this as this was the very first “annual” show-and-shine on Campobello Island. The last task of the day will be to observe the annual fire works on Deer Island and our neighbours from Connecticut have invited us to their wonderful home right on the water’s edge for that.                                          ***************************************** Over to something else: You might not have noticed it. I didn’t either. But it happened yesterday all over the world. The world received another second!  Ha?  That’s right. The last minute of June 30 had 61 seconds!  One second extra. And I bet you didn’t notice it. The question is what did you do with it? What CAN we do with one extra second? Well I know what I did with it. There might even be a chance that you did the same. I SLEPT it away. Yep, as it was the last second of the last minute of June 30 in 2012 I was in bed and slept. Now, imagine the following scenario: A car barrels down the highway and hits another car. The accident happens on June 30 at 11:59:61pm. Would the accident have happened without that extra second? Would it have happened at July 01 0:00:01?  See where this is going? We are on thin ice here. A second can mean so much. What about the birth of a child? Is its birthday recorded on June 30 or July 01?  Whoa… we’ve gotta stop this. Thanks for stopping by.