Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
Wordless Wednesday
This rose is called Compte de Chambord. It has a long history and I believe it was one of the rose species that was commonly used to make rose perfume due to it’s lovely rose scent.
I like the effect I managed to get in this shot. There are two roses in the photo, but because they were just moving slightly due to a light breeze it almost looks like a mirror effect – doesn’t it?
When I was a kid my parents would always take two or more weeks off in the summer and we’d go on road trip vacations. I got to see a lot of Canada and much of the Us in this manner. Of course as a kid I didn’t really like being stuck in the car as we traveled from one destination to another, but the memories of all the places I’ve been and the sights I’ve seen are still fresh in my mind and I’m thankful that my parents chose to vacation in that manner.
We rarely stayed in hotels or motels when we took our road trip vacations. My parents would plan our trips ahead of time and we’d stay in cabins or vacations homes that they’d rented from the owners.
Now that I think about it I don’t know how they were able to plan our vacations and where’d we’d stay so efficiently. It must have been a lot harder than it is to now that we have the internet.
These days you can just get on the computer and go to sites like VacationHomeRentals.com and look for vacation rentals pretty much anywhere in the world.
In fact I was thinking of looking for vacation rentals by owner for Chris’ vacation time. We haven’t been on a real vacation in ages! I’d thought of renting a vacation home or cabin in cottage country for a week or so, but when our dog went into heat and a few other things happened we just decided to stay home for his holiday time.
There’s a blogging convention in Florida next weekend and while I’m not going this time, if I were I think I would have looked at some Florida rentals rather than staying in a hotel if I’d been going. I mean, since these vacation rentals are usually homes or cottages you have access to a full kitchen, a laundry room and all the amenities of home. Plus, if you are short on cash you can always share your rental with another couple. We might have done that had we been going to the blogging convention – shared a space I mean.
VacationHomeRentals.com is an easy site to use. Just type your destination area in the search bar or click on the map of the US or Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, Hawaii or the world and start narrowing down your search by clicking on city or area links. Just as an example, if I were going to Orlando next weekend for the convention there are plenty of beautiful vacation rentals in the area. I found a few for as low as $70 a night – beautiful condos and homes. That’s cheaper than most decent hotels and motels! If I go to the blogging convention next year I’ll be looking onto vacation home rentals. That’s for sure!
Have you staying in vacation rentals when you’ve been on holiday? How was your experience?
My dog has some funny quirks. It seems that she gets more and more of them each week!
Her latest thing is that she doesn’t like her crate door closed … this is when she’s not in it. We’ll let her out in the morning and she’ll do things with us or play with her toys, chew her bone and so on, but when she notices that we’ve closed her crate door (because it’s easier for us to get by if it’s closed) she’ll walk up and nose it open, wide open. If I close it the next time I walk by she’ll get up and open it again.
The other night I sat beside her near her crate and while the door was open I pulled it towards me by a few inches as if I was closing it and she’d shove her nose between the crate door and my hand and nose it further open. She did this several times until I started laughing at her.
She also loves to blow bubbles in her water with her nose. She’s done this from day one in our home.
Plus when we give her a real beef bone, you know one of those huge ones that you can get in the pet store, she gnaws off one end so that it’s hollow and then she loves sticking her nose in the bone for several minutes at a time. She’ll just sit there with her nose in the bone, then she’ll take her nose out and snuffle against the bone and repeat the steps.
I caught her in the act on Saturday evening when we were enjoying some time in the backyard:
As you can see she’s got three or four inches of her nose firmly stuck into the hollow end of the bone. She sat like that for at least two minutes before taking her nose out.
Weird I tell ‘ya.
What strange things do your pets do?
Doesn’t Labour Day weekend being over make you feel as if summer has ended? After visiting several blogs earlier today I get the feeling that a lot of people seem to begin to think of autumn and winter once the last long weekend of summer is over.
I’d like to say that we had a busy weekend, but we really didn’t. It was Chris’ last weekend of his two week holiday and now he’s returned to work. So we did some of the things that he wanted to do, like going to this really divvy bar called “The Wally” that he’s always wanted to go to ever since we moved into the area. We’ve been in this neighborhood for 7 years now so I guess it was about time that we went to the Wally.
We went to the bar yesterday afternoon and sat on the patio. It has an enclosed patio that you can only access by walking through the dark and dingy bar so we couldn’t bring our dog Midnight. Chris is dying to find bars and restaurants with patios that are dog friendly- of course Midnight needs to settle down a bit more if she wants to come out with us regularly. We each had a beer (ok Chris had two) and ordered French Fries and Onion Rings. The servings were huge! If we’d known how big our little snack was going to be we’d only have ordered one or the other.
The Wally has lots of good reviews for it’s food and atmosphere and I must admit the prices were very good and the snacks tasty. Our total bill for three beer and two very large snacks came to just over $16. Not bad at all.
If you’re dieting or taking Fentraphen it’s probably not the place to go as I doubt that they have any low calorie food items, but it was a nice thing to do on a beautiful summer afternoon.
We didn’t do much on Sunday, but on Saturday we took Midnight to a place called “Sunnybrook Farm” which is really part of a huge interconnecting park network here in Toronto. Chris wanted to see how Midnight would react when she saw the horses that they keep at the stables there seeing as her first few months of life she lived in a pen in a large barn where horse were kept.
There were a lot of flies bothering the horses, this one was rolling in the sand to try to get rid of the flies.
I think she liked seeing the horses. At first she tried to get under the fence, but when we wouldn’t let her she just sat and watched as they milled around their coral. After that we went for a long hike on some trails and through the forest. Chris took Midnight into a little creek twice on our journey so both he and the dog got to cool off a bit while I stayed on the creek bank taking photos.
After our outdoor adventure Chris had wanted to go for a beer on a patio with the dog, but we couldn’t find any dog friendly patios to visit so when we got home we all went outside into the backyard and Midnight played in the yard while Chris and I had a drink at the patio table.
At one point Chris picked up Midnight (not an easy feat as she probably weighs about 70lb now) and put her on one of our Patio chairs:
She has that “Help me, I don’t really like being up so high” kind of look on her face, doesn’t she?
If you lie in Canada or the US you had a long Labor day weekend too – what did you do?
All of the asters that I planted in my garden beds in June are blooming their little heads off now. I believe the Asters are pom pom asters … whether they are or not, they sure do look like Pom poms don’t they?
These bright and cheery flowers should bloom in my garden until late September or even well into October if the weather holds out.
Do you grow Asters in your garden?
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!