This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hiltons of Branson. All opinions are 100% mine.

I now live in Illinois which borders Missouri but when I was a teenager I drove in my VW camper van cross country.  I was moving actually to southern California but as is my attitude  still, if you are going to be in proximity of somewhere special try to go there too. Also because of Route 66 mid-20th Century vibe, I opted, when mapping my route pre-journey to make sure I drove some long strips of Route 66 as I drove west. I had 10 days to take in as much as I could of the country. My first-time trip through Missouri was cool in that we were following the rich-in-history-old Ozark Trail Systems that are somewhat in line with Rte. 66 and of course, the sad monument to long-ago practices, the Cherokee Trail of Tears. We made a stop at the well-known Meramec Caverns as well, as they are not far from the Stanton area of Route 66. I remember Missouri very well. There is just such a varied number of activities –so I’ve been back since– a number of times. I’d love to go to Branson–especially this time of year–I just need to have a distant relative leave me an inheritance as I would fully take advantage of the the fun Branson has to offer. I define fun many ways so I’ll mention just a few to be had in Branson.

Branson is an Ozark resort town which focuses on its wholesome country, pop music and family entertainment roots. Branson is a Midwest gem,  the entertainment capital.

Two outstanding establishments for the non-entertainment hours depending on your  needs and wants are the

Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing and the Hilton Branson Convention Center. They are situated right in the heart of the “entertainment capital of the Midwest,” so they are able to offer much more than just a place to stay. Consider if you would, these ideas!

Here are some specifics pertaining to activities for Spring 2010 in Branson:

Branson also has ongoing events like the 14th annual Branson Tri-Lakes Building and Home Show, NAIA Division II Men’s Basketball Tournament, Branson’s Best Boat and Recreation Show, Silver Dollar City’s Family Spring Break Day and the memorable Young Christian’s Weekend; not to mention a series of amazing concerts on the Branson Landing including shows from 65 South, Colgate Country Showdown with KHOZ 102.9, EXILE, The Nashvegas All Stars, and David Letterman Stupid Human & Pet Trick Auditions!

Both Hilton hotels are within easy driving distance of  Branson’s championship golf courses, lakes, museums, theme parks and 49 live entertainment theaters.

For me spa treatment with the one I love would be just the ticket.

I’d book the Romance Package at the Hilton Branson Convention Center which promises  to wash my worries away with a relaxing spa treatment. Perhaps I’ll take two.

This relax and recharge package includes deluxe, overnight accommodations at the hotel, a full breakfast for two and the complete awesomeness of a spa treatment for two.

Mmm. Doesn’t that sound really nice?

In addition to what you can enjoy in the proximity of the Hiltons there is much more to enjoy and it is a short drive to do so.

Packages for the Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing and the Hilton Branson Convention Center Hotel come for every taste and include Hilton’s Bed & Breakfast Package, Romance Package, and Hilton Requests Upon Arrival™ to name but a few.

Be sure to click one of the above links to see and read more about all the great things waiting for you in Branson.

Sidney Crosby wins gold for Canada. (Photo credit: Doug Mills/New York Times)

The depth and breadth of hockey’s place in Canadian culture can be hard to fathom beyond the borders. But it now might be heard, echoing from the north, thanks to a 3-2 overtime victory over the United States in the final event of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

To hear Canadians tell it, the hockey gold medal has come home, where it belongs.

Canada did not win as many medals as it had hoped at these Olympics, which closed on Sunday night, but it won more golds (14) than any country in history. The last, an emphatic exclamation point on the 2010 Vancouver Games, will be collectively cherished more than any other.

This, after all, is a country whose $5 bill has a scene of children playing hockey on a pond, with a quotation from the short story “The Hockey Sweater,” by Roch Carrier:

“The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places — the school, the church and the skating rink — but our real life was on the skating rink.”

Hockey, the Canadian poet Richard Harrison once said, “is the national id.”

Continue reading this article at the The New York Times.

Roberto Luongo w/ victory flag (Photo credit :NYTimes/Stalknecht)

Team Canada Olympic hockey team wins gold/ Photo credit: Doug Mills, NY Times

It is really hard not to gloat.

The men I live with were rather smug about Canada’s loss to the U.S. earlier in the competition. They felt quite sure that the US had a lock on the gold.

There was never a doubt in my mind that Canada would take home the hockey gold. The world’s record 14 gold medals  for Canada is the fudgey chocolate icing on my Nanaimo bar.

(WSJ Illustration)

Very of-the-times/ same as it ever was article from the Wall Street Journal (below is a snippet) about the ongoing US-Canada trade feud. When I listened to Obama essentially not listen to Harper’s worries at the 3-way meet-up (U.S. Mexico, Canada) this past summer, I knew that the U.S.’s $787 billion economic-stimulus package was going to be yet another boil growing everyone’s backside. It must suck sometimes to be Canada when attempting to deal with the Americans, especially when you are trying to converse about trade between the two countries. The truth is all you are to them is sort of a really big state. They don’t confer “country” status on you. I’d advise Canada to be as radical as you can afford to be. “Buy Canadian” at least sounds like you are rather annoyed with your friends to the South.

WASHINGTON — On paper, Tom Pokorsky would seem to be a clear beneficiary of the government’s $787 billion economic-stimulus package.

Mr. Pokorsky runs Aquarius Technologies Inc., a company in Port Washington, Wis., that makes equipment to treat sewage. The stimulus plan earmarks some $6 billion for municipal wastewater projects that are right in his company’s sweet spot.

Reuters

Don Skidmore shows his ‘Buy American Buy Union’ tattoo in Michigan in June.

“If that sticks, well, there goes 25% of my business,” said Mr. Pokorsky. “To me, Ontario may as well be Indiana.”

But the bill’s Buy American provisions — meant to give U.S. companies a leg up on foreign competition — are causing Aquarius and other U.S. companies a lot of grief with both suppliers and clients in Canada.

Now that grief has boiled over into a major diplomatic row with the largest U.S. trading partner. Canadian communities angered by perceived American chauvinism have started a Buy Canadian campaign to exclude U.S. bidders from municipal contracts.

Buy American rules are gumming up the plans of Frederick County, Md., to get $6 million of stimulus money for a $100 million wastewater-treatment plant. Long after the project bids and contracts had been signed, the county found itself on the wrong side of the Buy American provisions because their system uses certain membranes made by a GE subsidiary in Canada.

Kevin Demosky, a county utility official, is applying to the EPA for a waiver to use the GE parts. “The [Buy American] rules affect a small part of the project but are like a virus infecting the whole thing,” he said. “It’s like they want us to go back in time.”

(I chose this as an example of how this affects someone I know personally–my folks. This is their county.)

The Buy American rules sounded good in theory but  did anyone look into just how closely Canada and the U.S. are intertwined? If Congress had anything to do with it I’m reasonably sure the answer is either “no” or “just barely.”

(I have such a strong sense of deja vu here of how this mirrors a personal situation but alas I cannot speak of  anything that is not sunshine and puppy dogs in re: my own relationship with “Canada.”)

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It finally turned warm for the first full weekend this summer. It turned really warm. And humid.

In the early evening, prior to sunset I thought I’d go and snap a few photographs–which I did– but as soon as I got in the  vicinity of  the back field I started getting eaten alive–and I had bug spray on!

Big storms came in tonight. They came up so quickly that the screen blew in at the front of the cottage and quite a bit of water came in too through the upper window which I have to go outside to close. I was too late though. The winds were so strong I could barely open the  front door, never mind play around with a 12 foot window closing stick (I usually love using it–so simple yet effective–a wonderful example of something made by my grandfather, who with my dad, built these cottages that we all enjoy).  Anyway I got some plastic sheeting and *lightbulb,* a large umbrella and after the worst of the first storm passed I went out and closed up.

Right now, I’m alone here as we are driving back to the States in shifts.

Despite the rotten weather the first two weeks here were OK and then I really wanted to be done with it.

Cabin fever, I suppose.

Also, things are so different here now. It’s like party central every weekend. The guy across the way shoots off fireworks well into the late evening (meaning near midnight) every. single. weekend and that crew is incredibly raucous until 2, 3, 4 in the morning.

I work at night as you can see from the posting time and me and a bunch of party animals just don’t mesh well.

You were here and so was I and it’s the same as it ever was, isn’t it?

Cheers,

Cyn

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We are  now here on Maple Lake. Arrived early today after a 12-hour drive which was uneventful save for heavy thunderstorms after we turned north on Hwy. 400 on the second-to-last leg of the journey. We lost an hour (I know. Usually people say “gained” but in my mind an hour goes *poof* driving in the U.S. from west to east,–so it is lost)  so after leaving the Chicago area at 3 p.m. Sunday we arrived here about 4 a.m -4:30 a.m. I would have been OK driving more but maneuvering the thunderstorms combined with the under-construction roads in various places made me thrashed so I instead clung for dear life as spouse navigated the last leg of our journey–the most “twisty and turniest”–on Hwy. 118 to Carnarvon. The roads were slick and though I’m well aware that we have a sports car (hence the two trips) Mustang GT’s are not known for their performance on slick, curving roads.

After a few hours spouse got up (he says by mistaking the time for 11:30 instead of 9 a.m. He was looking at an un-programmed clock. He had a nap later) and out but I tried to sleep. The day as predicted, was cool and rainy. By early evening though, the lake calmed down and it looked like we could’ve had a beautiful day (only it wasn’t). Tomorrow sounds like a repeat of today only in inverse with the a.m. nice and showers and thunderstorms throughout the afternoon and evening. Spouse must retrieve both our son and our dog and then we’ll all be together for the  better part of 3 weeks. It’ll be the split trip going home again with me staying behind  to go on the second trip back, so I’ll probably end up with  close to four weeks here. I’m not complaining. Here are photos of our Maple Lake View from this evening. Trying settings on new camera. Pretty sure they are not “right” yet. It’s a 12X tele wide angle many pixeled model, priced more than my last point and shoot but less than my now-antique SLR. It’s all lens and screen–very small housing–which I like. Hope to get to know it well in the next month (and beyond).

One last thing: There are bats as in “bats” in a closed-off stove pipe (they passed an anti-fire law and we had to remove an antique wood burning stove) that is open-ended outside. and begins in the very centre of the cooking area in the kitchen. They are really loud and not-pleasant-sounding. Probably feel the same about me. Ha!

Above: Maple Lake – July 2008

Since I run through the weekly weather cast for cottage country, specifically the Maple Lake area/Haliburton Highlands, I’ve been acutely aware of the cooler and wetter-than-normal summer that the area has been experiencing.

It’s been my experience that if you get a cooler than normal summer without a lot of rain, it’s fairly easy to adjust to by wearing a bit more clothing. There’s still enough sunny days and people find a way to enjoy themselves. Conversely, if you have a summer with normal temperatures but more rain than usual you can adapt to that as well. Going out in warm summer rain is wholly different than a chilly rainy summer day. And that’s what’s been far too often the case for the Maple Lake area/Haliburton Highlands thus far for the summer of 2009.

Now comes the Weather Channel with their best guess about what is to come for the remainder of the summer:

From the Weather Channel’s Chris St. Clair.

A few facts: Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg have been 2 to 4 degrees below average almost day in, day out since the season began. Halifax nearly doubled its average June rainfall. Days with more cloud cover than sun were common nearly all across Canada….

The rest of the summer, August at least, will be very close to average for nearly all of the country. The temperature should be where it ought to be but it is likely that cloudier and rainier days might prevail in the east…
… the weather pattern over North America and the weather we’ve had during the first part of our summer has a lot to do with something called the North Atlantic Oscillation, a pattern uncovered in the 1920’s by Sir Gilbert Walker.

The North Atlantic Oscillation is a variance in the location of a large area of strong and stable high pressure. For the past many weeks it has developed over Greenland and the Labrador Sea.
The emergence of the North Atlantic Oscillation has lead to a block in the usual, steady west to east migration of unsettled low pressure across our continent.

Simply, the cool rainy weather is stopped once it gets to the Great Lakes Basin because it cannot get past the big, stable high pressure over the western Atlantic. Not until the high pressure, that has manifested itself further east, relaxes will there be a change in the pattern.

While science continues to study the underlying reasons for the temperament and frequency of the oscillation, we can report that it is easing and more typical summer weather is returning to eastern Canada.

So, the upshot is that it may warm up some but in the eastern Canada, which is where Maple Lake, Ontario is, there will still be above-average rainfall.

This truly sounds like a repeat from the summer of 2008. I know my relatives were very unhappy about it. They have a somewhat different relationship with “going to the Lake” than I do (and I would gladly swap places with them). They are weekenders as well as vactioners as they are easy driving distance to the Lake from their permanent residences.

For me and my little family Maple Lake is a 700 mile drive so with the exception of Labour Day weekend, once we get to the Lake we stay as long as we can. I suppose in some ways, that makes us lucky though as we get a bigger picture-view of being at the Lake. The weekend for example may in a word “suck” weather-wise but come Monday or Tuesday it may be lovely for a few days and then as the next weekend rolls around it make get sucky yet again. Since we are there for the mid-week clearing up and temperature rise we still see good weather and as it worked for me last year a few days of good weather each week turned into a total of about a week of really good weather and while not overjoyed with how that worked out I was still awfully happy to be at the Lake. That is how I’ve benefited from not having the Lake at my disposal for most of my life. It means more to me because it is such a big deal to get there. It takes great planning and time off of work, neither of which is neccesary for someone who lives within a couple hours of the Lake. I’m not saying weekenders do not appreciate Valhalla while they are there but that I may appreciate it just a bit more than they.

Source: New York Times online

UNTIL 1982, Canada Day was known as Dominion Day. I always thought that had more of a ring to it. Beyond the zippy alliteration, it reminded us citizens that our domain of orderly domesticity was graced by the dominant power of our “Dominus.”

And the rights granted therein to us by the glorious English crown through her colonial appointee, the right honourable governor general.

There was another problem with Dominion Day. Dominion was the name of a national grocery store chain. It would be like calling the Fourth of July D’Agostino’s Day.

Independence (now there’s a great name for a day!) came slowly to our country. In 1965, we dumped the old, staid British ensign for our own new flag. in lIt’s the one with the big red maple leaf in the middle. A simple, sweet leaf! We also have moose and beavers on our coins. And we call our dollars loonies because the coin has an image of a loon. Another old bird, the Queen of England, is on the other side of the coin.

I remember singing “God Save the Queen” every morning in school. “Long live our noble Queen!” we belted, thousands of us tubby little obedient Canadians. I guess it worked. She’s still alive. Now they sing “O Canada” in schools and at most sporting events; usually in French and English. Around the time we were changing anthems, dumping ensigns and renaming holidays, the official use of both languages became mandatory, except in Quebec where the required use of English is a bit fuzzy.

Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn’t bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn’t big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.

Canadians defer. We save our loonies and don’t jaywalk. It’s illegal, eh. We stand on guard at red lights, even when there is no traffic. We wait for clear, green governing lights to signal our turn and lead us on. Then we tuck our heads down, under wooly toques and worn-out scarves, one eye barely open, squinting headlong into the harsh prairie wind, cautiously, quietly, demurely Canadian.

— RICK MORANIS, a writer and actor

Back home, hockey highlights lead off SportsCenter. That is the height of civilization.

— SEAN CULLEN, a comedian

The gourmets say there isn’t a native Canadian food worth remembering after you’ve left the country. The gourmets have never bitten into a Coffee Crisp.

A Coffee Crisp tastes like Canada to anybody who grew up gnawing on that confection, a memorably crisp blend of coffee cream, cookie wafers and milk chocolate as wholesome and satisfying as the Canadian national anthem. It was a square-edged rectangle, like a brick, wrapped in a yellow-going-to-gold paper that seemed to elevate its value above all rival confections. It was unlike other chocolate bars.

I say “was” because no sooner had I left Canada than its originator, Rowntree’s, was absorbed into the giant international food conglomerate Nestlé. Soon enough, factors beyond the ken of the layman led its new owners to “improve on” the faultless original. Coffee Crisps were reshaped to be longer and slimmer and, as the infallible taste buds quickly revealed, reformulated to be less crisp and less coffee-flavored. Nestlé next undertook to expand the brand: Coffee Crisp Orange, Coffee Crisp Raspberry, Coffee Crisp Café Caramel, even Coffee Crisp White and, God save us, Coffee Crisp Yogurt.

But even in its diminished form, the classic Coffee Crisp still ranked superior to all the sticky-sweet American “candy bar” alternatives. I’d snaffle up half a dozen on a Canadian visit and wolf down a couple right away, just to make sure it wasn’t all just nostalgie du chocolat. It wasn’t. Taste memory never fades.

The demands of homesick Canadian expatriates were finally answered, circa 2006, when Coffee Crisp made its debut south of the border. But Nestlé’s efforts at carving a niche in the United States, alas, seemed half-hearted. I never saw an ad, and found only one seedy neighborhood hole-in-the-wall that even sold Coffee Crisps; the single box was all but hidden down on the bottom row of the candy display rack near the dust kittens and lottery-ticket stubs.

A month later the box was still there, its contents by now grayish and moldy and stale with age when the wrapper was torn away. In another month the box was gone. Coffee Crisps slunk back out of the American market in 2008, as quietly as they’d entered.

I suppose the Coffee Crisp debacle proves yet again that Canadian products — with the notable exceptions of Bombardier jets and half the comedians in Hollywood — just can’t compete in the American big time. But all visiting Canadian relatives and friends arrive at my door with pockets mysteriously bulging, or they won’t be let in.

— BRUCE McCALL, a writer and illustrator

In history class, in seventh grade (or as we like to say in Canada, grade seven) we learned the story of the American Revolution — from the British perspective. Turns out you were all a bunch of ungrateful tax cheats. And you weren’t very nice to the Loyalists. What I miss most about Canada is getting the truth about the United States.

— MALCOLM GLADWELL, a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author, most recently, of “Outliers: The Story of Success”

I miss the “u” in color. — LISA NAFTOLIN, a creative director

On our recent trip to Disneyland, despite it being early spring and the Pacific Ocean waters too cold to swim in we booked one night in a room on Laguna Beach. We like to snorkel but since there really wasn’t time, not to mention fundage, I plotted out where the best tide pools might be. Laguna Beach has plenty of them, especially in the vicinity of Fisherman’s Cove. Lowest tides occur very early in the day so we set out in the morning with the payoff shown in the photos. We were exhausted from 4 days and nights at Disneyland, time crunched with having to check out of the hotel, and we had catch a plane home so I would definitively stay in Laguna Beach again later in the season so I could take full advantage of all it has to offer.
The people of Laguna Beach are quite protective of their environs but the result appears to be a wealth of natural wonders that I’d not ever seen in the Orange County area.

1 Canadian dollar = 0.813008 U.S. dollars

Ontario will rack up a record $14.1-billion deficit in 2009

Ontario will rack up a record $14.1-billion deficit in 2009 as it commits billions to infrastructure projects and job retraining aimed at pulling the province out of a recession, provincial Finance Minister Dwight Duncan revealed on Thursday in the tabling of his $108.9-billion budget.

The fiscal plan also proposes corporate tax cuts to ease costs for struggling businesses and stimulate investment in Ontario’s sagging economy, which has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in recent years.

The budget forecasts a deficit of $3.9 billion in the 2008-2009 fiscal year, followed by a deficit of $14.1 billion in 2009-2010. It anticipates Ontario will run deficits for the next seven years, with a proposed return to balanced books no later than the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

The province and the federal government have also agreed to harmonize the provincial sales tax and GST into a single 13 per cent sales tax by July 1, 2010, which Duncan called the “next essential step” in growing the province’s economy and improving competitiveness.

It also allocates a $3.4-billion contingency fund, from which an unspecified amount can be directed toward a bailout package for the province’s beleaguered auto industry once negotiations with automakers are completed.

You know what alarms me about Ontario’s fiscal situation? Just last summer the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American. For the first time ever we spent more to vacation in Ontario at the cottage that in my entire life! And I was completely happy to do so. Happy for Canada, happy for Ontario. But in less than nine months time the Canadian dollar has plummeted to be worth roughly 80 cents on the American buck! Call me fiscally naive but that seems really out of whack. What the heck happened?! And so quickly.

Here in the States we are up a creek with no paddle but this has been building for many years. I have to think that the Canadian economy was in a fix 9 months ago but something was over-inflated and it appeared you all were fine. Best of luck. We’ve got a long slog too so at least you are not alone. Hate to consider this but I’ve been told that as the US goes so goes Canada about 6 months later and darned if  it’s not happening.

Second point. What is with the word “harmonize” when describing the fusing of  the provincial sales tax and GST into a single 13 per cent sales tax? Harmonize? Really? The politicians really know how to spin.

And 13%? Oi! Even with socialized medicine as a benefit and that silly baby supplement that families get– a 13% tax? We have the highest sales tax in the United States and it’s 10.25%. Honestly, when I really start comparing the two countries I have to believe that Canada is not better off than the States. What’s next? Your infant mortality rates going up and life expectancy going down? Do you really want to follow the muddy path that the States has followed– or is it too late? I hope not. On both counts.

In some ways right now–past the mid-point in March is the hardest time of year here in the Midwest in regard to the weather. We hope that the worst of winter is over with yet still we’ll be unsurprised if we get hit again with winter weather and the plows and the salting commence. On the flip side, there’s no snow left on the ground, the grass is showing hints of green, the birds are chirping like crazy, bunnies are hopping about–you get the idea. It feels like spring is almost here yet it remains elusive–quite far away still. Our seasons are very odd in that the transition time is short. It’s not months–it’s only weeks that we experience both a traditional spring or fall. The rest of the time it’s either summer or winter. For now, no matter what the calendar says–it’s winter.

Navy Pier, Chicago, Lake Michigan, IL, USA -March 22, 2009

Lake Muscoka, Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada - March 22, 2009