Day 8, Oshawa to Ajax, Ontario

Day 8 of the 2015 Pan-Am games found my host Hayley and myself at the Ajax community center. Our torch bearer meeting was interrupted by the rest of relay team, who came in and lined up for their lunch. Try concentrating on briefing the torch bearers when you are staring at and smelling all that free food!

It was such a beautiful day, we decided to finish the briefing outside, which was great, gave a chance for friends and family to hang with us

This was a multi facility building including gym, rock climbing wall, 4 ice sheets, meeting rooms, pool,  etc, etc.

Ajax is hosting some of the sporting events for the Pan-Am games, including baseball and softball. Hard to believe within a week we have travelled over 1,400 KM from Thunder Bay to Ajax, and we are now back within one hour of Toronto

We've done our job getting them ready, now time for them to do theirs.

I see in my side mirror the police have arrived, time for me to high-tail it out of here.(there quite a few police escorts and security on the relay)

Some of the local cadets formed an honour guard for the torch bearer.

This guy spent a lot of time on a sign in support of his friend who was running with the torch (unfortunately he covered it up as I drove by. (Once again hard to get a good shot while your driving, just saying.)

As I drop off the final torch bearer in our group I can see the convoy is not far behind.

The Ajax (population about 110,00) city hall had quite a celebration planned for the flame, too bad we had to keep going.



Later that day I had to take some of my relay mates to the Billy Bishop airport. (Until today, I did not even know there was a Billy Bishop airport). It is on the Toronto Islands close to downtown. The next shot is not my pic, I'm tall, but I can't reach that high.

 

Porter airlines is a sponsor of the 2015 Pan-Am games and the Pan-Am torch relay.  

I dropped the gang off. They were waiting for a flight to the relay day 9 community, Halifax, N.S. (The relay branches out to 5 national cities, Halifax, Richmond, B.C., Winnipeg, Calgary, and Montreal)

The water outside the airport. (We actually had to take a ferry over, which took a whole 4 minutes)

Impressive view of the downtown core from the airport.

I was asked by my son to find a map of the route the torch is taking. All I can find so far is the map on the relay site. (click here) This pic also lists the communities and dates, but unless your can enlarge it, I'm sorry, I'm not much help.