"Can I blow up Eric with my fox?"

[lamora]

PICTURES!

My photos are slowly uploading. Picasa's app is being a dick and there are ~190 pics (maybe more) so as you can imagine the web uploader is finding this to be a monumental task. Lately the uploader has been putting things out of order ... if only there was a way to show you my super-organied iPhoto organization.

This past weekend, my mom, my sister, and I decided to drive up to Timmins, ON to visit my brother. Let's be honest here: Timmins's most viable exports are/were gold, base metals, and Shania Twain. It's a mining town, an industrial town, and mostly a shithole. But that doesn't mean you don't find precious flakes of gold amidst all this mud.

Primarily, we made the trip to see my brother. We found the drive up a little long, but the drive back went by much faster. (We also shaved off nearly 2 hours of a 10hr trip thanks to lead feet. ;)


This store was advertised for like 100km so we checked it out. And found this.

Day One: Train starts with me driving up to my parents's town, then we drive to Ottawa to pick up my sister. Then we're off. Once arriving in Timmins, we tour DJ & J's house, play the RPG game my brother developed, go out for dinner, and proceed to get a nice buzz at the bar next to our motel.

When we got to the house, we just stared for a minute. On the inside? It's gorgeous and nicely decorated. On the outside? It's just sad. There is still a lot of work to be done, replacing the siding and whatnot, so it is ... misleading, to say the least. XD

Highlights: The RPG game. We should have had it recorded. It was epic and I'm sorry you missed it. Even Mom played as a Thief. (I was a Ranger, Tracy a black mage, and DJ the tank.) Mom misread God of Evil Elrick's name as "Eric," and this became his name for the remainder of the game.



Day Two: Up fairly early, then off to discover that 3 things we really wanted to see -- Shania Twain Centre, Gold Mine Tour, river tour -- were closed and/or otherwise unavailable. Also, we were forever surrounded by attractive young miners. Lots of contractors book the hotels to the brim and have their workers stay there.

While the mine tour was closed, there was lots of above-ground tour items with information placards. We snuck behind the STC and made our own fun. Besides not being able to go down into the mine itself, it's almost like we had a tour of our own.

Then we went to the Exhibition Center, where we got into a free exhibit of some cool artifacts and paintings. We also learned that Timmins is sister cities with Naoshima, Japan, so there were some Japanese gifts on display, as well.

We walked the Gillies Lake boardwalk, a 2.5km trail around a man-made lake. We saw lots of ducks, lots of dogs, and the cutest puppy to ever grace the earth: Bella the miniature husky/wolf mix. I have videos of ducks and Bella, but they were too large to upload.

Before dinner, we played a game of mini-putt. I haven't played mini-putt since I was a kid, but with the exception of two holes where I wasn't angry enough, I was pretty awesome. XD; Actually, we all were. So it was more fun than we expected it to be. We also laughed until we fell over, particularly at Tracy's antics. If possible, mini-putt was even more epic than the RPG game had been.

Highlights: My brother accidentally stepping on an old floorboard on the little miner's house porch and ... breaking it. "Don't worry," I consoled, "it was only 150 years old." This didn't make him feel better. Also, my sister climbs up into an old truck, finds old paperwork, and proceeds to get shit done.


My brother didn't think this effect was nearly as awesome as I did. What does he know, anyway?

We woke up at 5:30, packed up and headed out. We stopped in North Bay again, to have lunch and see the Dionne house before heading out again. Got stuck in horrendous Ottawa traffic by taking what we assumed would be a quieter path (not knowing there was construction) but eventually made to my parents's house by 6pm. I was home by 7.

It was nice to see DJ, and I found myself interested in highgrading and the history of gold in Timmins and the rest of Northern Ontario, so I ended up buying two books on the subject. Heh.