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Here
is a picture of the wide St. Clair River Ship Channel from the
little park between Sarnia and Mooretown I took on the way into
the Sarnia show one morning. There were also small private
sailboats on the lovely blue water sharing it with the huge
freighters. It was a lovely pastoral morning and peaceful
location where I would have happily dwelt all day if I had not
had to make a showtime at the nearby all breed show later that
morning. The Canada I drove through every day of my
vacation was indeed a breathtakingly beautiful country.
And a very charming one. I passed the Public Library in
the city of Sarnia enroute to my hotel from the showsite and
used its computers to e-mail friends back home one afternoon.
The library personnel could not have been more kind and helpful.
I shopped in a Sarnia Zayre (I think the spelling is close to
accurate) Grocery Store for the hot dogs I used as bait for Bill
Gates and Zazz and fresh orange juice, milk and yogurt to take
back to the refrigerator in my hotel room for me. On my
last day in Sarnia, I filled up my gas tank with however many
liters it took at the corner mini-mart. By that time, I had
figured out the not difficult at all Canadian money increments.
All the coins had the queens head on them. They use a
penny, nickel, dime and quarter all about the same size as our
U.S. denominations. The one dollar coin
surprised me, but it was circular with 10 flat sides around
the perimeter, so it was easy to get used to. What we
don't have any more in the states is the two dollar coin, about
the size of a US half dollar coin. I took up all Canadian $20
bills, and just handed over that large increment and let the
Canadians make the change until I got the hang of what coins
represented what. Then it was fun to count out correct
change for the patiently waiting Canadians.
Another totally unexpected and absolutely wonderful cultural
experience I had in Sarnia happened on July the 3rd which was
Canada Day! Happily, that day at the dogshow, Bill Gates
had again gone best of breed, but this time not only over the
class competition, but over a quality special! So I felt
like I had something to celebrate on Canada Day too! But
the real celebration came that night. It seemed that I
never got back to my hotel until late, and this evening after I
had walked the dogs and got settled back in my room, wondering
which dog I was going to wash that night, about 9:30 or 10 p.m.
I heard a muffled boom. I thought that the long promised
thunderstorm had probably finally arrived as shortly after I
heard another distinct loud boom. After sustained multiple
erratic booms which didn't sound like thunder now, I followed my
ears around to the front of the hotel. To my utter
amazement, there were people in lawn chairs sitting in front of
the hotel looking across
the street. Lots of people. Families with babies and
children of all ages; people with housepet dogs on leashes;
young people sitting on parked motorcycles; people leaning on
the hoods of their parked cars along the main street and up and
down sidestreets. Where had they come from and what
was happening? Then, the sky over the ship channel beyond
the McDonald's across the street lit up with a stellar display
of colorful fireworks! The mystery booms were found out--Sarnia
was celebrating Canada Day and obviously many of its townspeople
had come down to Christina Street which ran along the river to
get a front row view of the ariel display of lights high above
the water. Now I was sorry I had taken so long to investigate.
I watched the rest of a breathtaking display in the night sky,
standing there in the drive of the Super 8 Motel. And I
was indeed very sorry to see the fireworks end. That was
my last night in Sarnia, and I will always remember that it
ended with a "big bang!" I was very happy to be
in Canada on Canada Day.
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