Western Pennsylvania Vacation.....

Day 3.

It was an early start (6:45 am!) for us today as we are on our way to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada for a blip meet. We anticipated the drive to be a minimum of 4.5 to 5 hours but were so surprised when we were able to breeze right over the Peace Bridge that links the USA to Canada.  There were no lines of cars and absolutely no waiting to get over! That said it still took us 5 hours to get to our hotel in Mississauga. 
 
We arrived in Mississauga around 11:45 am and went directly to our hotel. I wasn’t sure if we would be able to check in that early but we were able to.  There was an early check in fee but when I explained that we had driven up from Pennsylvania this morning the clerk waived the fee. Sweet!
 
We were not meeting up with our fellow blippers until 1:30 pm so we had a little time to explore Mississauga a bit. Being in Canada we were not able to use our cell phones as they were in roaming mode and didn’t want to work properly.  That meant relying on good old fashioned maps! Good thing I had picked up a Canada map before leaving home.

From our hotel we drove to Lake Aquitaine Park for a quick scout about.  Lake Aquitaine is where the blip meet would eventually take place and we wanted to check it out first.  One of the first things we saw were several black and grey squirrels. That’s when I knew it was going to be a great day!
 
After spending about 20 minutes at the park we drove to the rendezvous location, which was a Tim Horton’s in Mississauga. As soon as we walked in I spotted our blip meet host, Kevin. Even though we had never met before he was easily recognizable.  Soon all the others started to arrive. Sadly, Subjunctive got stuck in traffic and had to return home without being able to join us. Maybe next time …..
 
In my first extra you will see all the blip meet participants (from left to right): maryla_c, Edward, his wife Linda, Kevin and Laurie. From Tim Horton’s we walked to Lake Aquitaine Park and had such an enjoyable time walking around the lake, talking, feeding the squirrels and bird and taking lots of pictures along the way.  Maryla and Laurie had to leave after a short time due to family obligations but it was so nice to meet them and spend time together.  The rest of us continued walking around the lake until about 4:30ish.  My second extra was taken just before we left the park. It's the first time I have taken a picture of a red-wing black bird. We then parted ways with plans to meet at a local restaurant to continue our blip meet over dinner.  We had a wonderful dinner and then said our goodbyes. 
 
I would just like to say “Thank you” to all that attended this amazing blip meet.  Even though today was their Thanksgiving they all took time out to meet with us.  What a great bunch of people. We have yet to meet a fellow blipper we didn’t like!
 
R and I returned to our hotel and that was that!

Day 3 complete. 
 

Total miles driven today: a whopping 258