The Bruce & Brandy Show: Limestone City & Beyond Pt. 2

Our first order of business after our boat trip was heading into Kingston, the Limestone City! In addition to having lots of family in Kingston, I have a few friends who live in Kingston as well. My friend Justin and I started at Trent in the same year and our paths crossed often while at Trent. We were athletic reps for our colleges the same year and in our last year we both took a wonderful course on bioregionalism. Justin currently works at Queen's University as an International Student Advisor in the International Centre and he was able to join us for a lunch/coffee/tea break at the Sleepless Goat. It was wonderful to reconnect with Justin and so great to chat with him about his recent travels to the Kingdom of Buhtan - you can see some of Justin's wonderful photos of his trip (& more) here. After our beverages and snacks Justin kindly invited us to join him on his walk back to his office. He took us down Wellington Street to see some of the nice old buildings along the street and gave us a wonderful commentary on some of Kingston's history and current development issues. We walked as far as City Park, said our goodbye's and headed back towards the Sleepless Goat to meet my cousin Nicole for lunch.

The lovely photo Bruce took of Justin & I after Justin manually adjusted my camera for the low light setting in the shade at mid-day. This trip really made me realize just how much I would like to take a photography course PT (post-thesis).

Kingston's 19th century limestone architecture.

We had arranged to meet Nicole at the Sleepless Goat for lunch. When I spent a month living in Kingston way back when, I had a few friends who worked at The Goat and I had fond memories of the Brie Radical sandwich (yummy, thinly sliced, grainy bread, a layer of pesto, then creamy brie, all topped with fresh sprouts). Sadly, when we first arrived at The Goat to meet Justin and checked out the menu the Brie Radical was no longer there so I figured we would just plan to head to Woodenheads instead. After a bit of confusion and a reminder that we may in fact want to enter the 21st century sometime soon and get ourselves a cell phone, we contacted Nicole and met at Woodenheads.

Being that my mom and her five siblings grew up around Kingston and now, all but two of them, live in the area most of the time I have spent in Kingston has been in the townships and suburbs outside of downtown. When I lived in Kingston as a nanny to Nicole, Jacob and Alyssa for two summers, one after Grade Nine and the other after 1st year university, I got to know a few of Aunt Holly and Uncle George's favourite spots around the city. I remember delicious ham and swiss sandwiches at Keith's Deli, White Knight's ice cream from White Mountain Ice Cream, and more grown-up endeavours such as a night out with Uncle George to see the Down Child Blues Band and delicious meals at the Grizzly Grill and Woodenheads. Spending a day in downtown Kingston introducing Bruce to some of these favourites was high on my list of things to do while we were in town. So, when lunch at The Goat was off the list, Woodenheads was an easy choice since it features wood fired pizzas.

We three sat on the patio and Bruce and I ordered some beer. Throughout our trip I realized just how lucky we are here in the Pacific Northwest to be surrounded by so many small breweries. When we asked for a local beer at Woodenheads, there were no Eastern Ontario beers to choose from on their menu and so we ordered the lager from Creemore Springs Brewery which is not so far form Bruce County actually - a provincial beer but not a regional one sadly. It was tasty just the same though. We then ordered our food and Bruce and Nicole ordered the day's special pizza - something yummy with a tomato base and prosciutto. In the interest of apple related research, I ordered the Nonna Mela which had an apple butter base topped with roast garlic, cheddar, sweet onions and blackened chicken. It was delicious and the flavours were both complex and balanced enough to make it just perfect. I'll be trying to make this at home soon!

Meet Nonna Mela

Nicole & I on the Woodenheads patio

After a quick goodbye to Nicole (we would see her again later in the evening at our big family get-together) Bruce and I made our way to the waterfront. I was pretty full from our lunch but Bruce was keen on stopping for ice cream and I didn't protest since I was stinkin' hot wearing long jeans on one of the warmest summer days of our trip. We stopped in at the aforementioned White Mountain Ice Cream and stood in a promising line-up for what looked like yummy ice cream. Well we couldn't actually see the ice cream, it wasn't on display which I thought was weird - for me seeing my ice cream, especially with flavour names like Fool's Gold & Chocolate Rainforest, is essential to help me choose. Anyway the cones that were being handed over to the people in front of us looked yummy enough and there were some waffle cone irons on the counter so it all looked promising. Sadly we were disappointed with the ice cream (little ice bits in it?) and the waffle cones (not that sweet nor that fresh) and realize that we have been incredibly spoiled with amazing handmade ice cream and waffle cones here at Sweet Memories in Victoria. It was a nice way too cool off on a hot day though as we walked the waterfront and saw some sights before we headed out to Uncle Jim & Aunt Cindy's for a big family dinner.

Old Navy Dude posing with naval artifact - Royal Military College (left) and CFB Kingston (centre) in background (Click photo for larger view).

Looking south from the Kingston waterfront to the wind turbines on Wolfe Island. They ring out as a theme on our trip - blessing or blemish? Stay tuned for more. That night at dinner Bruce found out Ontario Power is paying $0.80 / kw to individuals who generate green power. He nearly ___'d his pants. BC Hydro pays about $0.06 / kw.

Boat launch on the Kingston Waterfront Trail - we saw this swimming snake and a pack of ducks. Bruce wished he had had some crumbs to use to trick the ducks into eating the snake to see if a battle would ensue.

Bruce with historic Molson Breweries marker. I for one am grateful to Mr. Molson, not for the particular products that now bare his name but for the resulting legacy of small Canadian breweries.

Murney Tower - Fond memories of the summer Beth worked here! Wish we had time to actually take in the museum and many others in Kingston - next time!

Kingston City Hall on our way to the LCBO to purchase some Prince Edward County wine for dinner.

We met our ride (Aunt Holly & Uncle George were kind to transport us) out to Odessa and Aunt Cindy & Uncle Jim's place for a family pot-luck BBQ affair. The afternoon was lovely and warm and we got to see a good number of aunts, uncles and cousins. The clan is pretty sporty so there is usually a ball of some sort to throw around. It didn't take long for pre-dinner football and volleyball games to start up; the post-dinner game of choice was ping pong. We also ooo'ed and ahhh'ed over Aunt Cindy's gardening and Uncle Jim's landscaping. This photo of the falls and pond do not do this garden feature justice - beautiful, huge limestones right from their property.

Volleyball & Football on the generous lawn

The Spectators (l-r: Nicole, Nana, Holly, Carol, Papa, Tim, Jim, Cindy)
Piling wood must be in the genes?

Beautiful waterfall garden.

One of many lovely lilies.

After some fun we sat down to a lovelyBBQ'd pork tenderloin dinner with a potluck plethora of salads and sides - as always, the food was great and the company was even better! We celebrated Alyssa's 17th birthday with a surprise cake and enjoyed as many of Aunt Carol's 40 delicious chocoalte & vanilla cupcakes as we could. We enjoyed catching up with everyone and later in the evening my brother Brandon arrived from Barrie just in time to 'clean-up' the leftovers (his words). (Brandon was kind enough to drive from Barrie to Kingston to drive us up to Bruce County for our next leg in our eastern adventure.) After a short detour into Ganaoque (the 401 looks so different at night) we made it back to Holly & George's and settled in for a goodnight's sleep before the next day's big drive to Lake Huron.