Touring Windsor with my parents

This portrait of me says something about Canadians, always curious about our noisy neighbours. Here is the only vantage point in thousands of miles of shared border from which we can watch their underside—from the south, that is. Dad took this photo in Dieppe Gardens, the waterfront of Windsor, Ontario, looking north at the Detroit skyline.

I'm just back from a brief and pleasant visit with my parents to pick up their second car, a gold Sunfire, which I'll be using while my daughters are on their summer vacation.

The train yesterday shuddered through heavy rain. I had taken the wrong book of the trilogy, His Dark Materials,— book three instead of two—so I had nothing to read, but needing to catch up on sleep after several busy days, I dozed most of the way. Mom and Dad picked me up at Windsor station and we went for a lunch of steak and shrimp.

By the time we got out of the restaurant, the sun had come out. It was a typical summer day in Windsor: insufferably humid. Fortunately it was not especially hot, still we could hardly bear to stay in the open. Content to ride around in the air conditionned car, we took a slight tour of the city. It was entirely unlike my parents to drive around aimlessly, and I enjoyed it. I took many photos, more of which I'll post tomorrow.

Mom recalled some memories of her father. That part I'll post, too. Some of it I had never heard before. It's nothing exceptional, but illuminates a different era. I want to record as many of these stories as I can. My tape recorder will come in handy. I plan to take it to the cottage to use with conversations on the dock this summer. Neither of my parents show any sign of losing their acuteness, but now would be the best time to start.

Back home on the north shore of Lake Erie, the air was predictably even more humid but a degree or two cooler. We sat and read under the flickering dappled shade of silver poplars, sipping iced tea and enjoying an onshore breeze as long as we could while distant thunder drew nearer. Nowhere else in Canada is so prone to thunderstorms. The lake lies beyond the background trees.