It is Sunday… Guess what Thunder Bay has that most other cities in North America do not?
Yes! A Christian Reformed Church!
Lynda and I were raised in the Christian Reformed Church. We went to a CRC High School and we were married in a CRC church, and our children were baptized in a CRC church. (There is no CRC church in Irvine, so we are now Presbyterians…)
So it was fun to attend a CRC church while on our trip. This church is tiny. Maybe 35 people in attendance. They did have a good piano player, but the power-point operator could not find the file for today’s service, which, of course, contained the words to all the songs we were to sing. So we had a good old-fashioned “hymn-sing”. We pulled out the gray 1987 Psalter Hymnal (which we all hated when it replaced the “old” blue Psalter Hymnal, which we all hated when it replaced the old red Psalter Hymnal…) and people called out the number of their favorite hymn. Some of these songs we haven’t sung in years, and most churches we have attended over the past 25 years have not used the Hymnals, projecting the lyrics onto a screen instead…
Also, this church has no pastor. So the sermon was a video pre-recorded, maybe by the pastor from the other CRC here in Thunder Bay…
Anyway, it was a good service. We had coffee in the fellowship hall after and met a few locals. Then it was time to go.
We took the advice of the staff at Bistro One and drove over to the marina. Thunder Bay is remaking their formerly industrial waterfront into a very pleasant people-friendly place. There is a pedestrian bridge spanning the railroad tracks, connecting the waterfront to the historic downtown; there are two new apartment/condo towers, a hotel and retail center is under construction, a new restaurant is open, the marina is bustling, and there is a very large park with walking trails along the water. We had a pleasant walk, enjoying the clear skies and sunny weather.
We had lunch at Bight, a very nice contemporary restaurant, again, recommended by the staff at Bistro One. Steak Tatare! Need I say more?
We also had another view of the Sleeping Giant:
We returned to the Villa and had a quiet afternoon. The weather was nice. We walked around the dealership, but after 1 1/2 laps it started to sprinkle and the wind started to blow; we made it back to the Villa just as the thunderstorm hit, dumping huge amounts of rain amid much thunder and lightning. It lasted about 45 minutes…
The weather was nice. We walked around the dealership, but after 1 1/2 laps it started to sprinkle and the wind started to blow; we made it back to the Villa just as the thunderstorm hit, dumping huge amounts of rain amid much thunder and lightning. It lasted about 45 minutes…
No, I didn’t type this paragraph twice by mistake – it really did happen twice, just like this… They didn’t name this place Thunder Bay by accident.
Happy Hours ensued. Just because we are stranded doesn’t mean we don’t need happy hours…
A not-too-awful time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 