Dreaming.In.Reality

I got up around 6am not so bright eyed and bushytailed. Had a shower and got myself ready.. had some coffee, a bit of breakfast.. and was ready to go. Kev dropped me off in the middle of Wellington practically*L* Just infront of the Chateau.. I walked up to Parliament Hill quite briskly to keep warm. The morning was pretty chilly! Crisp and clear though. The sunrise was absolutely beautiful! I checked in, dropped off my offline donation sheet, picked up my run kit. I then went and sat down to dig through it, couldn’t find any pins, so back to the registration booth for those. I finally was able to pin my number on, and my honour bib on the front. I cursed not having 4 pins for each paper, but oh well.. I figured out a way to keep them on without wrinkling and ripping.

I did lots of standing around trying not to become a katsicle, stretching bouncing in placewalking around the Hill. I tried vainly to leech heat from the Eternal Flame-lol- didn’t work so well. I saw our old bank manager at the CIBC tent. I put my mom’s name up on the Wall of Hope.Took some photos, cried some tears. Finally things started to pick up. I was there SO early. I was there at 730, nothing really started till 9am. They had some opening speeches, and statistic readings, and the runners got ready to head out.

The runners left the Hill at 9am to do the run. The 5km walkers left at 930 and the 1km walkers left at 945am. The 5K walkers all milled down to the start line, we did a countdown and off we went. The start line was at Bank and Wellington, it ran across the Confederation Bridge and down through Gatineau past the Museum of Civilization. I took random pictures of walkers, some of the scenery, thought of Mum a lot. Coming back across the Alexandria Bridge, I was feeling sad that the walk was almost done. It seemed so short.

Once crossing the finish line, we were shuffled through a tent set up on Major’s Hill Park. They had bananas, juice, and yogurt for us. Dannon was there doing their lick the lids campain like Yopliat is doing in the States. I didn’t lick the lid, I just put it in the box. We were also given coupons for a free box of cookies. They were seriously some of the best store bought type of cookies I’ve ever had*L* So I wandered around, took more pictures.. waited in line for some fancy socks. Lusted over a purse that the Running Room sells, as well as a few of their cute shirts from their Pink Ribbon line.

Kev came to pick me up further down in the Market. He was such a lovely creature to bring me some lunch. Tasty noodles and veggies in a hot sauce. We headed out back towards our end of town, stopping just to get a drink for me because I was so thirsty. We got on the road to Morrisburg and were at the Campground just around noon. We went and had a look around. Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo was there, as well as a few critters from Life of Riley’s Animal Zoo. Most of the LoR animals were still at the Metcalfe Fair.

We wandered down through the artist’s tent, and looked around. There wasn’t too much there that was WOW amazing, but it was worth the look. We noticed the Birds of Prey show had just started, so we headed on over to get a good spot to watch. I of course took quite a few photos. The birds were so beautiful. It’s not every day you get to be up close with them. They had one hawk fly up in a tree.. when she finally decided to come down to call, she flew RIGHT over my head. So close I could feel the whoosh from her wingtips. I will admit to thinking I needed to go check my shorts*L* Later in the show, their 4 year old Bald Eagle, decided he was going for a good fly.. out on the other side of the Conservatory.. so the show ended and they were off to track him down. We spotted K’s dad and his girlfriend M while watching the bird show, so we walked around with them.. and eventually spotted K’s brother D and his girlfriend R.

We made our way back to the campsite, where we sat around and chatted for a while. We then rounded up the furry crew and took them all back down to the festivities for a walk. It was good for them to experience all the people and noise. Kali was actually minding her manners, and poor Viking.. it was a bit overwhelming at first for him.. but he quickly warmed up to all the love he was getting from the kids.. The Shelties and Charlotte just took it all in stride like yes, you just come over here and pat us. We’re the good dogs*L* On the walk back to the campsite, I ended up carrying Shadow for a ways. He was playing the “i’m an old dog trick” and I am a sucker for his cute little self.

We had supper, and hung out around the campfire.. watched the stars and satellites. The campground was so amazingly quiet.. it’s the end of the season, and everyone’s gone home. There were only 3 campers left on the site including M’s. One tent waaaaaaay back in the corner where we camped in the summer. No sounds but a ship passing through, the geese an d the pops of the fire. It really was a great end to the summer.

We came home, had a bit of a snack. I took a quick hot bath, and went to bed. I was dead tired. I’m still dead tired.. but that’s another entry….