Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Day of Recovery
After the hard partying of the last few days, John and Faye ended up hanging around the house for the day, much in need of time to recover. After two days of pretty much solid writing for the book, I felt I deserved a break too. So we all ended up watching lots of movies.

I had taped the premier showing of Austin Powers 2 the previous night when it was showing on TSN, as I knew it would go down well with them both. It was funnier and better than I remembered. Other films included Buckaroo Bonzai (I'm not sure they "got it") and in the evening, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells", a DVD the had borrowed from Jay and Sherri.

Erika and the kids arrived after 6pm. I had expected them much earlier, but Erika wanted to spend as much time in Deloro as possible, especially as she had been shanghaied into driving her Step-Grandmother Barb all the way from Belleville to Oshawa and back for a family reunion of sorts, where Erika was largely ignored. Taxi service anyone?

It was good to see Vanessa and Annie again, and I got lots of hugs from the former and big toothy grins from the latter. I ended up putting both of them to bed that evening, which was lots of fun.

This was also the day that John realized just how far away Saskatoon and Calgary are from Toronto. He had vague ideas about taking a bus there until I told him that it would probably take a couple of days just to get out of this province, never mind getting to Saskatoon. I pulled out an old high-school era atlas I have and showed him where everything was, and he was floored by the distances involved. Direct flights there via Air Canada were prohibitive, and return trips by bus or train (with the train being only slightly more expensive) somewhere in the $400 range for students. Erika mentioned a new budget airline called JetGo or something like that which might offer something competitive. I told them that the best thing they could do is to see a local travel agent and see what they can set John and Faye up with.

I think he's tempted to stay here, especially since it would be cheaper and wouldn't be anywhere near as much hassle. It would also open the possibility of him seeing Montreal or Ottawa as well, which wouldn't cost anywhere near as much o get to as places West.