Day 6 &7 Huntsville to Peterborough to Oshawa

Day 6 on the 2015 Pan-Am games torch relay. Looking out my hotel window at 5:30 a.m. , I am quickly reminded that the relay is close at hand.

Back in beautiful downtown Huntsville for a morning torch bearer meeting at city hall.

This young lady rocked O Canada. The painting out front is a copy of one commissioned for the relay, and is given to all the celebration communities.

Now that is a nice group pic, including the famous painter Tom Thomson, who is from the area. He is said to have been a direct influence on the Canadian artists known as the " group of seven."

I am sure it will take an eternity for him to get a good portrait of myself, unfortunately I could not wait, the relay does not stop until it reaches Toronto on July 10th.

We had to keep moving towards our final stop for the night in Peterborough. I wish I had more time to take more pics of all the beautiful lakes and waterways in the cottage country of Ontario. (this pic is of Gull River in Minden, Ontario)

As we travelled towards Peterborough, the landscape changed to a lot of farmland.

We had one more torch bearer meeting in the town of Omemee, (an Ojibwa word meaning "pigeon")(population less than 1.300)

This once vibrant town seems to have seen better days.

random pond shot in Omemee

The posters were up all over town.

A lot of history, click and zoom in for the story.

When I went into the community hall, I had that deja vu feeling that I had been here before. Then when I saw this display from the 2010 Olympic Torch relay, I knew I had been. Although it was for the 25th anniversary Rick Hansen relay.

The community had a small but enthusiastic group of Pan-Am torch fans.

After that it was off down Highway 17 towards our home away from home for one evening, Peterborough.

They re-named part of George street in Peterborough to Roger Neilson Way, in honor of the late and great hockey coach and mentor. (also started the whole white towel waving in sports, check out this link)

Interesting, the pronunciation may make or break my decision

Little Lake in Peterborough

That ended day 6 in Peterborough. Randomly enough, as I checked into the hotel, I heard some noise and as I looked outside the window, the torch was cruising by.

Day 7, one last look behind our hotel in Peterborough

Downtown Peterborough, heading for..............

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I've done a lot of things on relays, but to start our torchbearer group at the Bowmanville Zoo was quite an experience.

Now this guy was suspicious, apparently he was a candidate to run with the torch. (Actually, one of the primates did hold the torch for a very novel photo op.

Our meeting point was at a high school in Bowmanville, I spied this poster in the auditorium.

A proud moment

Our group started back at the zoo. The volunteers were rounding up some of the animals that would walk (not kidding) with the torch bearer.

ya, a camel was included

I stole a shot of a selfie pic that my partner and torch bearer host Hayley took of the "party bus"!

We had a torch bearer run into the high school, and there was a huge contingent of supporters including this drum band. The school tied it in with a Relay for Life Campaign, in support of cancer research.

Always impressed with the effort some of the supporters put into their signs

Our second group of the day was in Oshawa, population approx. 150,000. Our group included Gino, in the wheelchair, who I actually had in my group on the Rick Hansen.

My home for the next three days is in Ajax, east of Toronto, outside of my window, I can see why people talk about the 401 highway being such a mess, tonight it was eastbound