The Lost Realm

Jennifer left August 5th, along with the rest of the Port Perry Angels Junior softball team to compete in the Canadian Softball Nationals in Montreal, Quebec. Having taken the silver medal in the provincials, just behind Pickering who were the defending champions (and the team that Jennifer helped to win the nationals last year), they were seeded as the #1 Ontario team.

I had booked the Thursday and Friday off for that week to head over to Montreal with Jennifer’s parents to watch her play. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the junior Angels were elminated from play on Wednesday, just before we headed over to watch them. We still hoped to see Jennifer play, since the senior Angels team had called her up to play, so we headed out early Thursday morning.

The trip over was fairly uneventful, and we arrived at the park at around 10:45am, just in time to meet Jennifer as she arrived. As it turned out, due to political circumstances involving one of the western teams complaining about the Ontario teams calling up eliminated juniors, we were unable to see Jennifer play (Though we did get to see some good softball, great job girls!)

That all aside, we decided to make the best of it and pay a visit to Old Montreal where we started with a wonderful carriage ride through the antique city. The tour guide on the trip was great, and we learned a good deal of lore about some of these ancient buildings, some of which had been there since the 1600s.

As we rode around, I couldn’t help but think of my ancestors walking the very cobblestones of the streets hundreds of years ago. It was truly an amazing feeling to explore a place like this with the one that I love. A truly wonderful sensation. We finished off our visit to this section of Montreal with a visit to a beautiful manor, that in the past has been occupied by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and Helen Keller, amongst others: And finally a stop for lunch at a deli for an authentic Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich.

Come Saturday, and with the elimination of the Port Perry Senior squad from competition in the Nationals, we were free to begin our trek home to Ontario. Along the way we stopped in the 1000 island region, where Jennifer’s parents kindly treated us to a boat tour of the islands.

It’s an amazing tour, and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting the region, you get to see a number of beautiful houses, as well as two authentic castles perched on the islands, that you can visit providing you bring along your passport.

If you are interested, you can view more pictures from both the Quebec trip as well as the 1000 islands In The Gallery