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Madalene and I just returned from an amusing little journey. Over Memorial Day weekend two good friends of ours (who are also our neighbors) were getting married. But instead of choosing the church down the street, they decided to get married in Windsor, Ontario. Why would they do something like that? Well you see, it isn’t legal for them to get married in the US, because they are two women. However, in civilized countries its OK, so Canada was chosen as a destination.

Friday afternoon Madalene and I jumped into the bio-wagon and headed north. My allergies had flared up, so I was a drippy mess, but the drive was pleasant, and the weather was nice. About 8 hours later, we were in Lansing, MI, staying with our friend Sima, who kindly allowed us to pull into her place at about 2:00am.

The next day we headed into Detroit, which was about another hour and a half away. Detroit is an interesting city, in that, like St. Louis, it experienced an industrial boom around 50 years ago, which shortly thereafter, completely evaporated. What remains is a hulking shell of a city, each block containing as many abandoned buildings as it does inhabited ones, and every other window lies boarded up, or broken out. The difference is that St. Louis has made great strides in the last 10 years to revitalize its neighborhoods, and while there is still a lot of work to be done, the difference in progress between Detroit and St. Louis is very noticable.

While in Detroit I purchased a pair of nice black jeans, since they were on sale at a place we stopped to browse.

Then we headed into Canada. The interesting thing about Windsor is that it is right on the other side of the river that connects Lake Erie with Lake St. Clair, and that because of how the river flows, Windsor is actually south of Detroit. Don’t believe me? Check out the map!

You can take either a bridge or a tunnel into Windsor, and we opted for the tunnel, since it would spit us out incredibly close to our hotel. On our way in the customs agent asked us what our country of origin was, whether we had anything to declare, what our purpose was in Canada, etc. Then, seeing the biodiesel sticker on my car, we chatted for a minute about biodiesel. He never even asked for an ID or passport. Then we headed through the short tunnel into Canada.

The first thing that struck me was just how peaceful the streets looked. Since the country allows for lesbian and gay weddings, I had assumed that the moral fiber of the country would have been ripped in twain, and that visible evidence of the decay of civilization would be evident. However, we were unable to find any evidence of such decay. I’ll have to ask some of my socially conservative aquaintences about that.

It was also apparent just how different Windsor and Detroit are. Just a few hundred feet away, and the entire feeling of the city had changed. Instead of scary looking folks eyeing you from the street corner, we saw many people riding bicycles, street vendors selling falafel and all sorts of other middle eastern goodies, and calm traffic. Very different indeed.

We got to our hotel without difficulty, and got ourselves ready for the wedding, which was located several blocks away. Since there was an open bar at the wedding we planned to walk to the wedding location, to eliminate the complication of driving later on.

The wedding itself was located at the Willistead Manor, which is an idealic old manor, with nice dinner rooms, a library, and a wonderful garden in the courtyard, which is where the actual ceremony was held.

The ceremony was very nice, and the officiant, a nice Canadian woman, was excellent. There were a few short readings by friends, an adorable flower girl, and the exchange of rings. The weather report had continued to call for rain, but for the ceremony the clouds retreated, and the sun came out.

Dinner was nice, and we got to meet family and friends who we hadn’t met before. One of the bride’s family came out in force, and dominated the family aspect of the wedding. The other bride, unfortunately, was not well supported by her family. Most of them did not believe in gay marriage (despite the fact that many of them were divorced themselves, showing just how much they understood the sanctity of marriage), and would not come. Fortunately her mother came, and her enthusiasm helping set up the wedding, and her support of the couple made up for the rest of the family’s lack. If there was a prize to be given to the “Best Wedding Guest”, she would have received it.

After the wedding came much dancing and cavorting about, finally resolving to most of us hanging around in the brides’ suite drinking before wandering back to our hotel rooms to sleep.

The next day we all ate breakfast together at what must have been the largest single table I’d ever eaten at, and people began their various trips home. We wandered about Windsor for a while, and picked up a few trinkets and whatnot that aren’t easily available in the US, and then headed back. The border guard entering the US was much more thorough than the one leaving the US, but was still friendly, and didn’t search our vehicle or anything.

We stopped in Lansing again to spend another night with Sima, and then made the rest of the drive the next day. Memorial Day traffic was bad in areas, but we had planned ahead with an alternate route, and were able to largely avoid congestion.

On the way back I had two pleasant surprises. We found B20 (20% biodiesel/80% petroleum diesel) being pumped in Charlotte, MI, and were able to fill up with biodiesel, instead of the petroleum diesel our fuel supplies were forcing us to use. We also found, quite by accident, the Michigan Brewing Company, which is a small craft brewery with an eclectic selection. I picked up a growler of their Grand Cru, and happily stowed it in the car along with all the duty-free alcohol we had picked up as we left Canada.

All in all, the trip was great, and I plan to go back to Canada later. It was a nice place, everyone we met was very pleasant, and there seems to be a lot to see and do.

My friend Erica has sent me the most delightful link. It is a webcam, like many others. It refreshes every minute or so, and displays an image. Of course, instead of an image of some office, or a fat guy on his computer, or some sort of pre-recorded softcore pornography, it shows something you actually want to see.

Snow monkeys!

Yes, those delightful little apes that live in the mountains of Japan, enduring long winters by swimming about in the natural hot springs. They are very clever little beasts, even going so far as to bring tubers into the hottest parts of the pools to cook them. After a few hours, they retrieve the tubers, and enjoy their boiled potatoes in the same way we would, except without silverware or napkins or anything.

The image is also very high quality, with a true SVGA size, and a good crisp camera, this is no Logitech crapola.

The monkeys aren’t always visible, but at night (which is daytime in Japan) you can often see monkeys sitting around lounging in the hot spring, with excited tourists peering at them from the bank. Earlier today the camera was off kilter for a few frames before being righted, which leads me to believe that a monkey threw a tuber at it.

Enjoy the Snow Monkey Webcam!