a chance for redemption

a Mormon stopped me on the street the other day.
"do you believe in God?" he asked.
"i think so." i replied. "but as a different manifestation than you, i'd imagine."
(he was a young chap, and i don't think he was expecting me to actually talk to him, let alone possibly believe in a higher being.)
"do you believe in Jesus as the Messiah?" he wanted to know.
"i'm not sure about that one. i believe Jesus was a great prophet, a wonderful storyteller, but i'm not sure if i even think there needs to be a messiah."
"but don't you want to get into heaven?"
"we may already be in heaven."
"or it may be hell."
"either way, it's what you make it. why bother living for that future of what happens when you die? you can be a good christian and have faith while living today."

truth be told, i absolutely love talking to any religious type folk. my beliefs change on a daily basis. i refuse to be an agnostic or an atheist, because i think it's a bit of a cop out.
some days i believe in a god, other days i don't. i'd say most days i'm just concerned with getting through the day while enjoying it, and i wish i could have that persistent faith that keeps christians going each day. there is a beauty in it, for sure.

just then the streetcar came and my young Mormon friend had to run.
"dang!" he said. (seriously)
"here, please go to the website if you want to be saved."
he handed me a card, with a photo of the massive temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. the original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. a beautiful night time shot. a gorgeous building. a nice place to worship, i'm sure.
i use it as a bookmark.

the ant that bit my poon

in our kayaks at bon echo, we stopped for a swim.
sitting on a rock in the sun to dry off i noticed a big carpenter ant with a red bum in bob's shoe. i said "there's a big ant in your shoe" and shook it out.
next thing i know, i'm standing up and holy crap, ow! i'm getting bitten on the right lip of my heynaninani (as cash money likes to refer to it)...it felt like a horse fly bite, so i went down to shoo it away, all the while yelling "you little bastard, that hurt" and what do i find, but a big ol' ant in my bikini bottom. and apparently an angry one.
i must have pissed him off throwing him out of bob's shandal.
yuck. i think that's worse than a horse fly. i think i thought that right away because i nearly fell off the rock.

hippo kisses

have you ever seen hippos kiss? it is quite bizarre, with those massive mouths.
this photo doesn't really do it justice...to witness this in person is quite something.
i did feel a tad embarrassed to be watching at first, maybe a little weird, but they didn't seem to mind the crowd.

a change in space as we know it: plutons or planemos

this is incredible
so, without wanting to get rid of poor Pluto, who barely fits the definition of a planet, we're just going to let more rocks into the planet club. and now Pluto has a partner, Charon. it's a double planet. a super planet.
they're even letting asteroids in.
the fact that there is even a planet definition committee is just amazing. a committee to decipher the definition of a planet, in order to be selective about what constitutes entry into our solar system.
talk about confusing the minds of our future young scientists. it's like philosophy of the milky way.
"is it a planet or is it not a planet?" "and what makes up a planet?"
although a name like 2003UB313 (aka Xena) is sure to spark the flames of memory during exams, much more than, say, Neptune. i think so, anyways.

Food for thought: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders (speaking of planets, this story about the residents of Inner and Outer Horner is hilarious)
Music to my ears: The Arcade Fire (particularly the song Neighbourhood #2 (Laika) from Funeral)

travel notes: the day we go home

sunday morning on the way to the Chi-Cheemaun

before we got on the ferry this morning, we went to Carol & Earl's for breakfast but the gas station across the way where the ATM was wasn't open yet and they didn't take credit/debit so...heads hung in defeat we walked back to camp, thinking we'd pack up, wait for the ATM to open and hope we'd have enough time before the ferry left to go back for breakfast.
well, a man and his wife saw us and came over to the camp to give us money...we politely declined, stating we had money, just not on us. but he insisted we take $25 anyway and gave us his address to send the money back to him.
sometimes all it takes is one gesture to restore my faith in humanity.
so we got to go and fill our bellies while listening to Earl talk to us about Lennox Lewis and some WWF dude he knows. what a character.

travel notes: day 7

saturday july 8th: the end. we made it.

so it's done. wow. we did it. i did it. unbelievable.
i worked so hard i got to eat all of my favourite foods: pies, fish & chips (local whitefish!), cookies, date squares, pb & bagels, tons of oatmeal and dried fruit...and plenty of red wine.
we earned it...although i don't think i'm going home much lighter.

this morning as we left Providence Bay, i actually left a book for someone. for the girl biking with her dad and brother, who were camping across the way from us.
i left her Strange Heaven (the book by Lynn Coady that i finished a couple of nights ago).
i left it with an inscription about being the girl travelling with two boys and how that can be so fun but sometimes some alone time with a book is a good thing. there was definitely a connection in that aspect. and for some reason, i can always pick out a reader.

went into Mindemoya this morning to find Ted from Gypsy Family Farm at market. talked to him for quite a bit--interesting dude--but he was out of peas and fruit. so we bought some baby rainbow swiss chard for dinner and some peas off of another woman who runs an organic farm in Little Current. her peas weren't as sweet as Ted's though.

i bought a necklace off of some little entrepeneur kids--it's lovely. and we saw the soap lady again. then we had some hawberry ice cream from Farquhar's Dairy. so tasty! wish i could bring some of that home. which reminds me, i should pick up some more hawberry jelly for mum & Sue.

went into another old abandoned house again today (they're everywhere!). got to explore for a while.

also went to Michael's Bay to have lunch and try to find an old lumber mill ghost town. couldn't find it--but we found some people to ask. they pointed us in the right direction, but we found a wonderful waterfall instead. played in the water for a long time--got mini leeches on our feet.


finally started the trek back to South Baymouth. bought an onion, tomato and can of red kidney beans and cooked them up with the swiss chard and peas and some chili powder. mopped it all up with some pumpernickel. awesome camp fare considering we are at ghetto camp tonight, pitching a tent in a picnic area. we each paid an old hag in a trailer 5 bucks to sleep on the grassy area. but we're right across from Carol & Earl's Restaurant (who we hear have the best breakfast) and just down the street from the ferry.

tomorrow we go home. what an adventure.

day 7 stats
28˚ & sunny
total riding time: 4 hrs 19.5 mins
total distance: 64 km (avg: 14.8 km/hr)
max speed: 53 km/hr