Doors Open 2018 - Billy Bishop Airport & Fort York

 As some of you know from reading my posts Neal and I enjoy Doors Open each year.  We try to pick places to see that are relatively close together and interesting.  This year is no exception.

The first place that we visited was the Billy Bishop Island Airport.  We've seen it for years across the lake but have never flown out of this airport.  When we got the chance to visit we were excited.

 First a little history about who Billy Bishop was.  William Avery Bishop, VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED was a Canadian flying ace of the First World War, Victoria Cross recipient, and Air Marshal. He was officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace of the war.  And they honoured him by naming this airport after him.

 There are two ways to get to the airport.  The first is this tunnel that takes you under Lake Ontario.  It's a long walk but they do have people movers if walking isn't your thing.  Or you can take the world's shortest ferry ride.  It's only 90 seconds from start to finish.  We did both just because we could and we're geeks that way.

 During the walk around the airport we got to meet a lot of interesting people who work there.  The two main airlines that operate out of the airport are Porter Airlines and Air Canada.  There are also some private companies and helicopters as well.  We met the CBSA (Canadian Boarder Services) inspectors and their detector dog, we met customs folks, police, fire and rescue and the grounds folks.  We even met one gentleman who's job it is to protect the planes from bird strikes.  He has a hawk that will chase away seagulls and pidgins and other various birds so that they don't get sucked into the jet engines.  I would say that he's got a major responsibility at the airport.  We also saw one of the fire boats that can come by a spray down an airplane if it was on fire.

 Above I finally got to at least stand on a Segway.  It's on my bucket list to actually ride one.  Neal got to try out a rescue boat.  I also got to put on a firefighter's turnout coat.  You wouldn't believe just how heavy just the coat is.

 Here is the mascot Billy The Flying Fox.  Neal's always making friends wherever he goes.

 Then we crossed the street, took a step back in history and visited site #2 Fort York.  If you are interested and would like to read about this history of the fort, here is the site:  https://www.fortyork.ca/history-of-fort-york.html

 Neal and I were guarding the entrance to the fort.  No not really.

 As we arrived we were treated to a historical re-enactment.  They marched the soldiers in their heavy wool outfits in the 90 degree heat and did some marching and lit off a cannon.  It was really loud.

We went into some of the various building (kitchen, barracks, doctor's house (except that the fire alarm was going off as we got there) and of course, one shouldn't forget the gift shop. 

If you have little kids, this is a great place to take them to run around and use up some energy. 

I know the last picture doesn't exactly look like it belongs at Fort York, but at the visitor's centre they had this Lego exhibit.  I'm not exactly sure why it was there though.  It was way too crowded so I didn't get to see much.

This last picture is The Bentway.  In the winter time there is a skating trail along the white concrete path.  So far we've not had a chance to try it out yet but when we do I will post all about it.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about this year's Doors Open.  Join us again next year when we explore more of Toronto's various buildings.

Anniversary #11

This year there are no photos from the anniversary but I will tell you what went on.  Neal had to work all of the long weekend which really was terrible.  We did manage to go to the garden store to buy my vegetable plants for the garden.  I planted the garden the next day while he was sleeping and then we went to the Mandarin for dinner.  The Mandarin is our yearly tradition.  In the afternoon we took a walk through Unionville.  It was a beautiful day with a lot of people walking around.  And that was all she wrote about that anniversary.

When Horrible Things Happen Way Too Close To Home

Usually I post photos of our lives and things that we eat and do.  Sometimes I post about our travels.  Recently something happened that was horrible and way too close to home.  On Monday, April 23rd a mentally challenged individual drove a rented van along the sidewalk on Yonge Street.  For those of you who don't live in Toronto, Yonge Street is the longest street and at Yonge from Finch to Sheppard there are many office buildings and a public square (Mel Lastman Square named after our former Mayor) and central library.  As you can well imagine, at lunch time, the sidewalk was really busy with people out for a walk, buying lunch and just enjoying the nice weather.  But that day would turn out to be anything but enjoyable because a crazy man decided that he was going to drive his rented van along the sidewalk and mow people down.  He killed 10 people and injured 16 more.  Was it a terrorist act, was it an act against women as some are saying?  I'm not sure we'll ever really know.  Does it even matter in the long run?  It won't bring the people back who were killed.  My Mom was shopping at the pharmacy in the area and had no idea what had happened until she got home.  The last thing I heard when I called home at lunch was my Dad saying goodby to her as she left to run errands just up the street from where it happened.  Thankfully I would hear that she was fine and didn't know what was going on or how close she was until later when watching the news.  My aunt's neighbour was one of the 10 people killed.  Auntie Lily was on the news talking about her neighbour.  Auntie Lilly's daughter who lives one street over was safe as well.  My neighbour who works in one of the office towers in the area was out walking over her lunch hour with her co-worker.  The only reason she's alive today is because she forgot her sun glasses in the car and went to get them. 

I'm having a hard time processing this.  The news media keeps talking about it.  Keeps speculating about what might have been the motive.  I just wish that they would stop.  The story has been told now, the evil criminal has been caught and put in jail.  We as a city, as people, need time to heal from this and every time the news brings it up, it's like opening up a wound.  It's really difficult to process the evil in our world.  How could someone be filled with so much hate and rage as to go and drive over people?  How could someone show such disregard for human life as to do this?  How can the law and our police and government protect us?  The sad answer is, they can't.  If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time something bad can happen.  It makes you want to gather those you love and want them to be close, to hold her tight, to keep them safe. 

We went to the vigil at Mel Lastman Square over the weekend because I thought that would help us start to heal.  Millions of people came out to pay their respects and tried to heal.  During the whole time that Neal, my cousin and I were in the crowed I felt scared and anxious.  I was on high alert even though we found a spot where the crowd wasn't so close, where the police and paramedics were on standby just in case directly behind us.  Native drummers started off the memorial with loud drumming.  I heard that loud noise and I jumped.  I felt panic, even after learning that it was only the sound of a drum.  You hear about bad things happening in the news every day, but those bad things usually happen in another city to people we don't know and we move on with our lives.  This happened in our city, to people we know in an areas that we've been to millions of times in our lifetime and it's like we've lost something.  How do we begin to process this and move on?  How do we not jump at every loud noise?  How do we not fear interactions with strangers we are going to meet?  How do we not fear?