Burleigh Falls

I finally have a moment to sit down and think about writing about last week's adventures, so here goes.
Last Monday I went up to Burleigh Falls, about a half hour north of Peterborough, to join another crew finish up Stage 3* assessment on an Iroquoian site on Chemong Lake. The couple of archaeologists that hosted myself and another staff member in their home were extremely nice and definitely showed us a good time. The highlight of the week was probably the fact that a movie crew for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 had taken up residence in town and all the locals were extremely excited. On Tuesday after work, Kris took us down to an island that was directly opposite one of the movie sets and we were able to watch some of the filming for a while. We sat on someone's dock with some binoculars and another girl (Jen) and I decided that we were going to jump in the lake because it was a brutally hot day. It was the first day this year that I had to break down and unzip my pants into shorts.
On Wednesday after dinner, Kris had his daughter Jenna drive us into town so we could play pool and drink at the Burleigh Falls lodge where some of the crew were staying. A lot of the trailers were set up across the road and since Burleigh Falls is so small, there is really nowhere else to socialize unless you want to hit a bigger town. Anyways, the Lodge is beautiful and after a while Bonnie Hunt, Tom Welling, and some of the other kids from the movie came in to eat dinner. Tom Welling and some of his buddies ended up drinking and playing pool at the table next to us all night, and let me tell you, he is quite attractive in person! I still marvel that I lived in Vancouver for two years and saw the Smallville sets around town a lot, but it took a random 4 day assignment in a small town in Ontario for me to actually see him. The most amusing part of the evening was probably watching the three local women (definitely cougars) who had tarted themselves up and kept following them all around the bar and even back and forth onto the patio as the guys were going out for cigarette breaks. It was all kind of sad and pathetic, but at the same time I guess it's not like we weren't kind of starstruck. However, I flat out refused to approach them, even though he and his buddies were blatantly watching our table all night and they even followed us out of the bar at the end of the evening. We basically shut the place down, so I guess there wasn't much else for them to do but see where the hell we were going, which unfortunately for them, was away to our beds for that early morning wake up call. I can tell you that I was definitely hurting the next morning -- very hungover and I had only a few hours of sleep. To top Thursday off, when our boss came to pick us up and take us back to TO in the afternoon, he rolled his ankle when his foot went through a plough furrow. There was much administering of ice, and talk of me perhaps having to drive the car back because I was the only one who could drive a standard, but in the end he was too stubborn to admit that he needed to let anyone do that for him and he drove us back himself. There was a lot of reassuring us that driving was the one thing that didn't hurt his foot and that he would never endanger us or himself. And I have to give him credit, he did drive in the slower lanes of the 401 and I never once felt unsafe; I just felt that it was foolish to even try and operate the gas and brake pedals with a fucked up foot. But whatever... today I am back with HC1 and we were sent out to Milton for the most useless surface collection ever. The field was hardly ploughed so there was like 10% visibility. Let's just say we got it done pretty quickly and then ate a leisurely lunch in an Irish pub where we were able to watch July 4th hot dog eating contests from the USA. It was pretty hardcore -- the world champion is this little Japanese guy who managed to pack away 49 hot dogs & buns in 10 minutes. Second place went to a young woman, who was also pretty small, and she ate 36 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Craziness, I tell you. I have no idea where these eating contests got their start, but there were some downright disgusting moments. On the other hand, I was enjoying my Irish curry while watching the contest.
Anyways, I guess my last piece of news that came out of last week was that I got some good news from Newcastle about the program I applied for, but now it is a matter of when I can afford to go and if I can persuade them to let me defer. We shall see what happens. I am scared that it's a one time deal, but you never know. I am just excited that the one school I actually wanted to go to has accepted me.





*Stage 3 consists of digging 1m test units