oh man, what a weekend

i feel like i used my weekend. i got everything out of it that i had hoped. let me sum it up for you - awesome!

friday we went and met with some car guys and then downtown with a bunch of friends.

saturday night i went to see m. we ate cupcakes and talked and talked. it was nice.

sunday i tanned on the beach while j windsurfed. we had people over to watch a movie at night.

monday was a stay-at-home day since all the stores were closed. i did laundry and vacuumed and read. we also finally planted the bushes we bought back in july.

but now, saturday day. saturday was the big day this weekend. we went to the abandoned mine near buckingham, quebec with s&l. it's actually called the wallingford-back mine and was in operation from 1924-1972 mining primarily feldspar and quartz. i found out about it through a group on flickr. once i saw the pictures, i knew i had to go.

we navigated the country roads and only went past the turnoff once. we walked up to the entrance and were a little sad to see that you couldn't just walk in because it was all water:



so we started walking up an atv road in hopes of finding another way in. we did:



you could feel the air temperature drop and you knew there had to be an opening nearby. there was a hole in the chainlink fence that you just walked through. it was cold and dark, but incredible. it wasn't the typical closed-space cave, it was enormous! you could see light coming in from various openings and the water below.



we were able to get right down to the water. it was a little slippy, but definitely doable. we sat for a long time, taking pictures at different angles and exploring the area slowly. here you can see j off to the left after he explored that side of the cave:



it gives you an idea of how big this place really was. after leaving through the entrance we came in, we decided to see if there were other areas around the top. in fact, you could walk all around the huge opening on a bridge-like rock formation:



you can see me and l if you look closely. we made our way along this bridge and back out through another opening in the fence. back at the entrance, we decide to walk into the water to get some pictures from the far side. the water was only up to knee-deep but was FREEZING! i couldn't handle the pain and only made it about 10 feet in. and this is my favourite picture of the day, me and l chilling on the edge of the ice-water:



no day would be complete though without a horatio (from csi miami) shot from j:



the whole set is on my flickr page. we took tons of pictures, but need to really learn how to take shots of dark things when it's bright outside. it was challenging.

and now to find more day-trips good for fun and for taking pictures. i've already read about another mine just outside perth....