So my wife’s family had a reunion this past weekend. It was held down in Minto (about 45 minutes south), and the parts we got to featured lots of food, a bonfire, and fireworks.
(This is going to get a little image-heavy, so I’ll put the rest of the photos in the full post.)
Kathleen at fireside
A fun time was had by all and sundry.
Also, both of Kathleen’s sisters and their families stayed with us on Sunday night.
When there are two children under two in your house, everything’s a toy.
After the Edmonton clan moved on, hoping to make some good miles on Monday, we took the Winnipeg clan up the road to the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum. In World War II, a great many pilots of the Commonwealth (British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand…ish?) got their air training in Canada. Quite a few small cities owe their local airports to the Training Plan. The Museum is dedicated to this period of history, and its volunteers do restoration work on aircraft and other items pertinent to the Plan–guns, for instance, and fuel trucks, crash wagons, jeeps, and the like. There was even a snowblower truck, its prow a nasty-looking maw of whirling blades.
In the memorial book, I found a relative: Thomas Patrick Quinn, who is my namesake.
They have one plane set up so that you actually clamber up on the wing and into the cockpit. The controls are hooked up, too; my 19-month-old nephew pulled back on the wheel, and the elevators in the tail moved.
A shot of the hangar, showing some of the planes that have been restored.
A truck of some description–perhaps a fuel truck–from Dauphin, which is half an hour from where I grew up. Dauphin’s airport is one of many that was constructed and used by the Training Plan.
All in all, it was a fun weekend. We had great weather, too. But now it’s time for work. And there’s thundershowers in the forecast…
Interested in prints of my photos? Let me know, and we can work something out.