Ehlana and Ethan:
The news from home included a heat-shortened church service this morning; a Quarry Lake play afternoon to stay cool on one of the hottest days of the summer-so-far; and a buffet dinner at the Inn as a semi wrap-up blast of food fun for the Malloys’ anniversary weekend getaway. Our cousins have helped to keep Valerie and Marcus entertained while we’re away; so they’ve had fun without us.
Our adventures in Thunder Bay were amazing; so we didn’t feel bad about what we missed at home today. The evening sailing tour last night was awesome and unforgettable views of the water and shoreline were spectacular! Great Lakes sailing is nothing like anything we have near home; and the tour company we sailed with has some incredible options from catamarans and sail boats to speed boats, cruisers, and fishing options. We are not advertising for them here in our journals, but for future Magi, if you’re ever in the area; you should definitely include a Superior sailing tour! ;^)
The working dinner last night was good too, but the other sightseeing highlights of our Sunday included the fort visit, the shoreline bike ride, and checking out the Kakabeka Falls that we stopped to see on our way from Thunder Bay as we started the trip-in-progress to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Those falls are referred to as the Niagara Falls of the North, and they are the second-tallest falls in Ontario at over one-hundred and twenty feet, but while they are amazing; we really loved the location that is still mostly-natural without the extreme tourism built up around Niagara Falls. We helped Cassie and Michael with a total of four work meetings today too including a working breakfast and lunch; and that’s pretty much all of the news we have for our own adventures. We’ll be on the road this evening for around eight hours plus any stops for breaks along the way – though we’ll switch time zones too; so that will help a bit with our available sleep time once we’re in Winnipeg.
While we have the time again tonight, Ethan and I do not want to get into a major world news rant – though we could do that every day as our leaders continue the insanity around the world! In the Middle East, war is off today – or on, depending on where you look or who you listen to, but President Trump is apparently flopping again to war-off with Iran despite no changes in diplomacy. Some reports claim that he is stopping the bombing due to missile and bomb stocks being depleted, but we don’t believe that this will be more than another break while plans are assessed and changed again. There is still fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen; Israel continued to commit atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and beyond; and the oil is not flowing in the region at the levels needed to keep the world economy from driving off the cliff ahead of us.
In Ukraine, the bad rolls on; the leaders in the west are still oblivious; and the ‘normal’ people continue to pay the price every day. In addition to the frontlines fighting and bombing across the country, the blockade of Odessa and attacks on any ships attempting to travel there continues; and it won’t take long for that to have a major impact both on Ukraine’s ability to fight and conduct business. Ukraine is still fighting back with their drones – including on civilian ships; so the combination of the attacks from both sides are causing serious problems for the world transportation system.
We haven’t mentioned Europe’s latest sanctions package on Russia, but they are really only shooting their own economy in the head; Russia will ignore these sanctions or work around them; and the European leaders are insane if they believe they have the power to enforce a price cap on Russia petroleum products on the world market. They also continue to talk about blockades for Russian oil tankers, and that’s insane too, but then America started that blockade trend with Venezuela and Cuba; so now it seems as though the rest of the world has decided that high seas piracy is the new norm. We think that all blockades are stupid and basically acts of war along with being bad for everyone; so we think that they should all stop before it is too late and we find ourselves in another world war.
I should likely stop writing that we don’t want to get into any rants when half the time we go on to doing one anyway, but we are going to stop there; I’m going to enjoy some quality co-ed cuddle time with Aiden; and we’ll all enjoy the drive time out of Ontario and into Manitoba. Stay tuned, future reader, since we are going to have a very busy week working and playing in three Provinces with the work covering everything from agriculture to the energy industry.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
