Splash pads replacing wading pools

Splash pads are the watery wave of the future in London, Ontario. They are slowly replacing wading pools right across the city. The pools demand no chlorine addition nor chlorine monitoring. Life-guards are not necessary. Despite what appears to be a very generous use of water, splash pads are reportedly less expensive to operate than the old shallow, wading pools.

London, Ontario bigger by one

The population of London, Ontario took a very small pop yesterday. At dinner time Saturday the population of this Southwestern Ontario city grew by a little one, and the little one is my beautiful, new granddaughter Eloise.

Mother and daughter are doing well.

Cheers world!

Thames Turtle

A park walker noticed that I was shooting pictures and alerted me to the turtle sitting on a rock on the other side of the Thames River. "Do you have a long lens?" I answered yes and headed off.

My little Fuji HS10 found itself challenged. The turtle was quite some distance away. I tried to steady the camera against the trunk of a small tree. I shot a number of pictures and hoped for the best.

I've seem better shots of turtles in the London, Ontario river. Today, this one will have to do.

Cheers!

Simple rides, simple pleasures

London's Springbank train is simple but it provides a lot of simple pleasure.

The problem with the little train in London's Springbank Park, if there is a problem, is that it is just a ride and not transportation in any sense. It would be really cool if the little train actually went somewhere in the park; If it provided a unique form of in-park transportation.  "All aboard for the wading pool and playground!"

Our London train already has a station thanks to the Sifton family. The local London family, famous for such developments as Westmount and RiverBend, built the beautiful Springbank Express train station to celebrate 75 years in the construction business.

As a small boy I have very fond memories of the miniature train at the Detroit Zoo, officially known as the Tauber Family Railroad. That little railroad it still running today with two complete trains of six coaches. There is one standby locomotive. All three locomotives were donated by the Chrysler Corp. in the 1950s and Chrysler is still involved today.

Even a young child can see these trains are special.

What makes the Detroit set-up so neat, is that it serves a purpose other than giving kids with a simple ride; It actually fills a transportation need.

The railway still operates today as it did when I was boy, a family can board the train near the park entrance, ride to the back of the park and then stroll back through the zoo to finish at the front gate. Or a family can walk through the zoo, view all the exhibits and then board the train for a ride back to the zoo entrance. We never bought a round trip ticket. The little train was our transportation within the park.

If you'd like to know more, watch the little video.




And folk at The London Free Press please note the involvement of The Detroit News in Detroit's little railroad. Maybe instead of just asking what can be done to improve London, the paper should do what was done in the past and donate time and money to the city in which it operates and which has given the paper such a long and successful life.

Add some track, maybe some new and improved trains and let's go!

In researching this post I discovered that when the new station was built, new track was installed and the loop was moved to a spot closer to Storybook Gardens. See the Closed Canadian Parks Internet page; Scroll almost to the bottom. You will see a picture of an older Springbank locomotive and some interesting background information.

"It was reported that in 1999, plans were being made to connect the old and new track layouts so that people could use the (Springbank) train for transportation to the wading pool at the old location."

From the looks of things, the above didn't all happen. Too bad. The loop should be kept for the youngest of little riders who just want a short, simple ride.

The Port: London's Lake Erie resort

Port Stanley habour is used by commercial fishers and recreational boaters.

Port Stanley is a fine, little harbour south of London on Lake Erie. At one time, The Port was a major shipping harbour but today it is mainly a commercial fishing and recreational port. I bought my second sailboat from a fellow who docked his boat in Kettle Creek just above where the large creek empties into the harbour.

Today being the Sunday before the August 1st holiday, the Port and adjacent beach were busier than usual. Last year I got caught in heavy traffic heading for the beach.

This year I parked some distance away and walked until I found a spot to shoot some quick stuff from some distance. My old car doesn't do well in stop 'n go traffic on a hot summer day.

At one time London had a direct railway connection to The Port but the London and Port Stanley Railway was allowed to fold some decades ago. Today some remnants of the tracks are used by a local group of railroad keeners who run Port Stanley Terminal Rail from The Port to the southern edge of St. Thomas, the town midway between London and Lake Erie.

Today one must drive to get to Port Stanley. The road is direct and it only takes about half an hour by car. It can be done by bike if you've got the time and the energy. At my age, I have neither.

Colourful beetle and spider

"Get your camera!" My wife saw the neatest, little beetle crawling on a piece of stainless steel in our backyard and she wanted a picture; Even more, she wanted to know what this colourful, metallic little beetle was.

According to the Internet, the beetle pictured above is a chrysochus auratus or dogbane beetle. It is beautiful in its iridescent shell and common right across the United States and southern Canada. I read that it prefers milk weed and dogbane for dinner. This makes sense as we have a field with lots of milkweed and dogbane right across the court from where I live in London, Ontario.

While shooting the little beetle, another little fellow showed up eager to pose for a picture. This was a spider with the green abdomen and striped yellow/brown legs.

A search of the Internet failed to turn-up a likely candidate for naming this beautiful little critter.

My guess, and it is just that, is that this is a hunting spider out on the prowl. I don't imagine it ever spins a proper web.

If anyone has a suggestion as to this little spider's correct name, I'd be interested in hearing form you.

English Morgans in Canada's London

An umbrella serves as a quick, temporary tonneau cover.

Back in the '50s and '60s Morgan roadsters were sold in two places in Canada: Windsor, Ontario and Burnaby, British Columbia. Today they are not sold at all, at least not in Canada, at least not new. A dispute between the Canadian government and Morgan Motors has kept the unique, little roadsters from being imported into the country for decades.

My Morgan is well down towards the end of the line.

After more than a century the Morgan automobile company is still building cars in Malvern Link, England. There is still a Morgan dealer in Canada — located a little north of Toronto in Bolton, Ontario. CMC Enterprises, run by Martin and Steve Beer, may not sell new cars but they do a damn fine job of keeping old ones, decades old, reliably on the road.

My British racing green Morgan Plus 4 is one of about half a dozen Morgans in London, Ontario. Because of their past availability, Morgans seems to be concentrated even today in Canada in Southwestern Ontario and southern British Columbia.

Sunday my wife and I took our Morgan north to Durham, Ontario where we linked up with about a half dozen other Morgan owners to tour a llama ranch and later tour a small, craft brewery in Neustadt.

There are quite a number of llama ranches in Ontario and from the spiel given by the owners of the ranch visited Sunday raising llamas is good business.

The owners have three farms devoted to llamas. Mostly they sell the wool sheared from the South American beasts but sometimes they sell the odd one to another farmer to use as a guard animal.

Llamas will protect a herd of sheep from coyote predation, for instance. The docile looking animals can be quite fiesty when pushed and they don't take any pushing from coyotes.