Meech, Elkas, Buskers & Shrek

I decided to skip work on Thursday, making good on a promise to myself that I would get a day off while people at work were on some sort of mass holiday. B & Jeff had made plans to go swimming at Meech lake, and not to be one to turn down an invite to Gatineau park, I tagged along. After swimming (briefly), I decided to go for a bit of a walk, which due to my infamously horrible sense of direction turned into a spontaneous 10k hike.

Really, there are a whole lot worse places to get lost in. It was actually a really good walk. It was a few degrees cooler there than in Ottawa, so it was only mildly unbearably hot. The trail I was following (by mistake) was the "Discovery Trail", which is part of the Trans-Canada, marked with little white maple leaf signs. Anyway, I was pretty sure I was going the wrong way after a while, so I decided to get to the next point of interest before turning back, which ended up being this signpost. O'Brien is where the car was parked, 6km away.

I love solo hiking. I didn't see anybody on the trail at all, and I was gone for probably 2 hours or so. I think B and Jeff were starting to wonder if I'd been accosted. But no, I was basking in views like this one here of O'Brien lake.


Friday night was supposed to be uneventful. I decided to get out of the heat in my apartment and take a walk, running into a friend while I was out who works at Zaphod's. When I got there, Peter Elkas was playing, so I stuck around to watch the show, which was really cool. I was digging their keyboard player quite a bit, who had a Rhodes and some sort of awesome sounding Korg. Anyway, it's on my list of music to pick up in the near future.

Saturday morning, we changed the flat tire on B's bike and biked downtown for the Buskers' festival. We caught the very end of the Flying Dutchmen, who ended their show with torch juggling on a 15-foot unicycle. Pretty awesome, and then we headed a block over to catch the finale of local favorites Junkyard Symphony, who have put a whole lot more into their show since I last saw them years ago, including this water-balloon basketball on stilts ending. We caught a bit of Arizona Jones, who was juggling torches and machetes on top of a pole held up by audience volunteers, and Spring Action trampoline, which got off to a bit of a slow start but was pretty entertaining by the end.

We also caught The Fast Horses, a Native American family who travel around doing a show with music, dancing, native teaching, etc. I thought their kid was particularily cute. He was doing the same dances his dad was doing (with slightly less finesse, which was adorable) and was even trying to play along with his dad on the flute. How cute is this photo?


Pretty darn cute, I say. Afterwards, B and I headed over to Centretown movies later on to watch Shrek in the park. Believe it or not, I had never seen Shrek, so now I won't hear that gasp from people when I tell them that.


Next weekend, I'm going for Casablanca, another movie I should have already seen but haven't. Should be good times.

So, there's my weekend. I knew there was more excitement just around the corner. Stay tuned!