That of course is a purely rhetorical question; summer is not summer without a pogo. And where does one acquire this deep fried, port filled tube of pure love? Of course, at the Canadian National Exhibition
Collette and I always go to the Ex to watch the Air Show at the end of the month and if we can, we go at least one other day, just to take in everything else that the fair has to offer. The Ex is a vast place, I'm not sure how many square blocks that it covers but this year they came up with a couple of different ways to circumnavigate the fair. Some, more successful than others. The swan boat is kind of cute but since the Ex grounds is all pavement, really they should be made into planters ..
More successful was the new Sky Ride. Once upon time at the Ex you could board these little enclosed gondolas that crawled your way over the fair grounds. That ride, the Alpine something or other, is long gone but this year they returned to that spirit with the Sky Ride
Unlike the old ride, the Skyride is more like a ski lift, where you sit in on a bench with a bar on your lap and your feet dangling in the air. It takes about 20 minutes to go across the Ex with a few stops along the way and as you'll see in the video, you get a nice view of the fair ...
Collette may disagree with that last line. She has a very real fear of height and of course over the years I've dragged up to the top of Mayan ruins in Belize, glaciers in Iceland and the Empire State Building. In the long run, she enjoyed all these experiences. How did she find the Skyride? I'm not sure, she's still not talking about it.
After I pried her off the ride we decided that it was not only time to keep our feet on the ground, but being inside for a bit may be a wise idea. Another great thing about the Ex, lots to see both inside and out. We went to look at an international sand sculpting competition: Sand castles made with plastic buckets, this is not
Another one of our favorite indoor activities at the Ex is the Superdogs dog show. Look, this is about as corny as you can get without being in Kanasa, but dude, it's dogs having fun and playing .... good enough for me. This year a young man came all the way from Brazil along with his border collie. Somehow they were our favorites. It was more, though, than our favorite dog, they did a "dance" routine and they showed a level of cooperation that had the entire audience gasping. This was a true partnership each working perfectly with the other, their eyes locked the entire time, the man using simple hand gestures to put his dog through the paces. This is, in my opinion, the ideal of dog and human interaction
Another show that we wanted to check out was billed as an acrobatic/dance troupe from China. They started off the way one would expect, with some clever balancing
From this point it got a bit .. eclectic. A young woman wearing Dominatrix boots turned a traditional Chinese instrument into a fiddle . . .
... a girl doing creative things with hula hoops ..
... a troupe of girls in traditional outfits that made them appear like real life China dolls . . .
... and two girls performing Romeo and Juliette as a ballet ...
. . . to a final troupe in a variety of costumes that seemed to want to be globally multi ethnic
It wasn't what we had been expecting and it was a bit disjointed but you had to admire the skills of the girls and their enthusiasm and their willingness to please their audience. It was well worth the viewing.
Back out to the midway to try our hand at a couple of games. We like to go shopping on the midway, we find some toy we want and figure out the most efficiant way to getting it. This year we were not shopping for ourselves. We wanted to get a new toy for Miss Terra; so we brought her home a raccoon called (naturally) Rocky.
Her latest victim .. er ... friend
Here's the video
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