May, 2006

Yet another hot and humid day in Hamilton. I woke up late in the afternoon again due to some late night internet surfing. It took me a while to get myself out of bed and started with some errands. Since it was nice and cool in my room but scorching hot outside, I wasn’t in any rush to get started.

I had to get to Canadian Tire today to pick up a battery for the Camry. I really didn’t know what to expect because it’s been a while since I worked on a car. A couple of summers ago, my dad and I did an engine swap on the Civic so swapping a battery should be a piece of cake. Only problem is, I had to go buy a new one. Little did I know that it would cost $100 for a new battery. And the thing weighs a ton!

I walked around Canadian Tire for a couple minutes before I found the battery isle. I checked the computer for the battery that matched the Camry, grabbed it and went to the cashier. While in line, the cashier yelled over to me and told me that I had to go back downstairs to get warranty for it. I thought warranties were purchased at the front cash. So back I go, down to the automotive department. Turns out, I was supposed to bring the battery to the desk, they jot down some stuff on a pamphlet and then they’ll send the battery up to the service department to have it tested. The service department is where I go to pick up and pay for the battery as well.

The battery was the Motomaster 72 which came with a two year free replacement period and a six year total limited warranty. Basically, this means that if one day my car decides not to start because the battery is dead, they will dispatch someone to jump start my car. But I’m only eligible for one boost, after that, I’m on my own. If the battery needs to be replacement, they will do it for free. I’m not sure how many times I get to do that but I’m guessing at least once. All of that cost me $114.99. But I did get $1.30 in Canadian Tire money which is just as good as cash. It’s like, you buy a battery and you get a free bottle of Coke or something.

The next obstacle was to get this heavy ass battery home. There was no way in hell I’m going to walk home carrying this thing. I had to walk to the nearest bus stop which was about a couple blocks away. My hands were already starting to hurt from having carrying the battery for two blocks. I had to alternate hands to ease the load on each hand. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to wait long for the bus otherwise I would have been in more pain.

When I got on the bus, the driver asked if I’m going to watch out for the battery. I’m guessing that from his experience a lot of people goes out and spend $100 on a battery so they can leave it on the bus. If only I could have found those people, then I could have saved myself $100. I assured the bus driver that I will be keeping an eye on my battery because I don’t want to waste $100.

The bus ride didn’t last long but it did help me out a little. I planned on getting off this bus and then transferring to another bus. But the second bus drove off before I could cross the street to catch it. I don’t know why the buses always take off when I get close by. I hated it when that happened to me while I was attending school.

By the time I got home, I could barely move my hands. I had trouble trying to open the door. Who knew a car battery could be this heavy. Next time, I’m going to wait until I get a ride before going out to buy another battery.

This is the car that the battery is going into, a four door ’92 Toyota Camry. I got the new battery installed and cranked it up. It had a bit of trouble starting since it hasn’t been started in months. Everything inside seemed to be working except the air conditioner. I guess I’ll have to drive around with the window down. Before I can start driving it, I have to get a safety done on it. I’m planning on heading down to the shop tomorrow to get it certified. After the safety, it’s going to need a new catalytic converter because the old one is starting to go bad. I don’t know if I can afford to get this car on the road. The cost to get it certified and everything is high enough and then I have to worry about insurance which is going to cost me over $3000 a year. That’s going to be hard to do since I don’t have a job at the moment.

Once again, it was another beautiful day in the fine city of Hamilton, Ontario. Temperature reached as high as 32 degrees Celsius, with a low of 19 and a possibility of thunderstorm during the evening. But since the thunderstorm wasn’t scheduled to arrive until the late night, I took the opportunity to take a visit to Spencer’s Gorge again. Hopefully, I will make it to my destination this time around. I met up with Alvin again and we continued where we left off yesterday.

We initially took the 52 Dundas bus but it was the wrong one. There was another one that went in the opposite direction, so I had to back track to catch that bus. That bus took too long to arrive so we decided to walk. Along the way, we somehow ran into Tan. He practically came out of nowhere. The chances of running into someone we knew in Dundas were pretty slim but it happened. Tan was kind enough to give us a ride to the entrance of Webster’s Fall or at least, to some entrance that appeared to be the entrance of Webster’s Fall. It turned out to be something else which in turn, ended up being the shortcut to Webster’s Fall. But we didn’t know that until the end.

During the hike, we passed the street that we were supposed to walk down, so just to be safe, we walked into a nearby store and asked for directions. I think the cashier knew what I was going to ask before I even opened my mouth because as soon as I went to say something, she started nodding. It was a good thing we asked because we did miss the turn. We thanked the cashier and went our way.

Webster’s Fall is where we want to go. Don’t ask me why I’m pointing to Crooks Hollow. I don’t think I was looking at the sign when I posed.

Somewhere down the road we came across a bunch of girls in a car. As they were driving by, one of the screamed out “Ooooww!” I wanted to shout something back but I doubt they would hear me. Just after that, I ran into a friend that I haven’t seen in a year or so. She had just come back from seeing the fall as well. She recommended that we actually step into the river and stand there but we couldn’t do that because we had shoes on. I think you need sandal to walk in the river. You never know what’s in there.

This is what we were greeted with once we passed the entrance to the park. There was a box by the entrance that said something about a $2 voluntary donation but I didn’t have $2 because I spend it at the store earlier. There were a few other visitors in the park as well, having a picnic, taking a walk and enjoying the view. The river in the picture above leads to Webster’s Fall. I’m not sure exactly how long this river runs for or where it starts but it’s pretty lengthy.

In order to get to the fall, we had to cross this bridge. It’s located just to the left from where I took the first picture. This bridge had the year 1953 carved on its right hand side so I’m assuming that was when it was constructed.

This was taken on top of the bridge that you saw in the first picture. It over looked the fall but you don’t actually get to see it, just the top of the waterfall. The current wasn’t that strong so if you wanted to, you could step into the river and not get swept away. But there’s no guarantee that you’ll gain traction if you slipped.

On our way down to get a better view of the fall, we came across a miniature waterfall. This small waterfall eventually meets up with the river that flows over Webster’s Fall. I didn’t see a name for it anywhere so I’m claiming this waterfall and naming it Little Don’s Fall.

I’m not sure what species of flower this is, I just thought I’d take a picture of it. For some reason, the flash decided to go off when I took this picture. It’s not supposed to go off because it was fairly bright outside. I had the camera set on macro mode so it would take make things within six centimeters appear focused while the background is blurry. Since the flash went off, I didn’t get all the details of the flower but it’s a cool looking effect though. This flower looked something like a Lilacs but I’m not a botanist so don’t quote me on that. It seemed to grow in abundant in this conservation area. Everywhere I went I saw them, even along side the road.

We ended up hiking for a good hour or so but we had to turn back because the mosquitoes were attacking Alvin. For some reason, he was the main target. He had mosquito bites all over him meanwhile, I had none. I don’t think I got a single mosquito bite the whole day. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was wearing dark colours while Alvin wore bright colours.

After finishing up with Webster’s Fall, we gave Tan a call and he picked us up. We went back to his pizza shop, cool down for a bit and then head out to Spencer’s Gorge. Before heading there, we stopped by some outlook point that Tan thought would have a good view. Turns out, it wasn’t that good of a view because the trees were blocking everything. According to Tan, it was a good view because the last time he was there was in the winter… when all the trees were bare with no leaves to block the view. He thought that this location was the highest point but I told him of another. We drove around for a bit until we found Spencer’s Gorge. We almost missed it too. Luckily, I had my eyes open to keep watch, otherwise, we would have drove right passed it.

This is the view from one of the lookout points along the trail. It was a little scary to be stepping out on it because if I slipped, it’s at least a hundred foot drop to the bottom. I made sure to watch my step.

I tried to capture the sunset but I don’t think my camera could handle the brightness of the sun. It caused a bit of a lens flare when I took this picture. But the sunset wasn’t as good as the view of the mountain and the vast number of trees that covered it. The view from up here was spectacular!

Not wanting to miss the chance to take pictures of a great view, I separated from Alvin and Tan and took my own path. Alvin took this shot of me while I was resting. I think I was mesmerized by the sunset. You can see how bad it would be if I lost my footing. In addition to what you see in the picture, there’s at least another hundred foot before it reaches the bottom.

All in all, it was a fairly eventful day. I left my house around 4:00pm but didn’t return until 10:00pm. About five hours was spent walking around and taking pictures. The remaining hour were spent at Tan’s pizza shop. I got to make and bake my own medium pizza with pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper, meatball and extra extra double cheese. I ate half of that and I was stuffed. Then Tan wanted to make us some chicken wings. I asked him to make me two but he made twenty. I ate three and that was it, I couldn’t eat any more. Tan said that during the two or three years that he has been in Dundas, he has never been to Spencer’s Gorge. Tan is a bit of an outdoors kind of guy so he’s interested in this sort of stuff. He tried to take some pictures of the scenery with his dinky little cell phone camera. In the end, he asked us to send him some pictures from our cameras because the picture quality from his cell phone is all that great.