Rain aside, the day turned out great. Cody was dazzling the locals and tourists alike with his illusions and card tricks. He even managed to pull off some levitation! The rain hit around 2:00pm and I asked him if he minded coming back Sunday. Turned out that when Cody got back home he already had a gig booked for that night. A birthday party with 200 guests, so I only worried that I was underpaying him and not that he was loosing out on work. The guy is in demand and he’s only thirteen.

There were some surprise attractions that Saturday afternoon. A local family who we know came up with their kids and their dogs and filled the joint for over an hour. Their dogs stole the show! They are 2 eight month old Goldendoodles. If passerbyers weren’t being tricked by Cody they were falling in love with these dogs. It really was cool.

After the rain I found that most of the busy times were before the concerts that were starting. The sun popped out and so did the people. I snapped a real nice shot of the customer area of The River around 6 o’clock. It’s what the place looks like everyday, but after the rain it just seemed like a cool shot.

Elora really is a wonderful place to experience great art and music while either camping or just day-tripping. The Elora Festival is on all summer and I’m sure there will be lots more exciting days like this past weekend.

Note: Click on any of the images to see the whole album and more notes about each!

Saturday July 14th (this Saturday) is The River’s grand opening!

From about 12:00 pm on till after the dinner hours there will be tons of fun going on. Aside from the usual craziness of the weekend I will have some cool River-colour balloons and cards to had out. There may even be some interesting surprise guests show up and entertain for those mid-afternoon line ups.

But the cool thing is going to be Cody Moynihan. Well, whats really cool is ‘The Magic of Cody Moynihan‘ .

Cody is a young guy from here in Elora and he knows his stuff. Together he and I will break away from the shop and do the whole street magic thing. Kinda the way David Blaine does it! I’ll be handing out coupons and business cards out while Cody will be amazing you with his dazzling card tricks and illustrious illusions.

Find us on the street or at The River between 1:00-4:00 pm Saturday.

Map to The River

For now you’ll have to enjoy one of Cody’s YouTube videos.

But I’ll get over the fear of consumerism someday. As I always do when entering a shopping center I took a peak at the line ups and they weren’t too bad actually. It was around 11:00 am but parking lot was full which made it obvious that the 3 hour Costco customers were nearing the denouement of their shopping experience. I had to move!

Being that I really was going for only cold beverages I knew it could be a swift visit. But the powers would not let that be. First I couldn’t get through the front entrance, (it’s tough to try to slip past a policy like non-transferable memberships when your mother has a different surname) so I purchased a membership for my body. Knowing that selling a couple of cases of bottled water would pay for the year made it easier to dish out the $53.00. Finally I can get through the door and beat the people who are just there for samples and the bakery, right? Wrong!

Of course when you get through the door the greeters insist on filling your hands with coupon books containing “different” and “exciting” sales on each week. Fine, lets see whats on for this week: 7 piece dining set - no. Glucosamin sulfate - no, thanks. Mens shell pants - DAMNIT! I had to cave. There perfect for the colder months and I’m always aware out of season sales. It was a smart buy, I think.

So I finally make it through the electronics aisles (what? It’s right at the entrance) and through to the back where skids of cold drinks are. I scooped up hundreds of bottles of water, many soft drinks, green tea and juices, found my shell pants and got right behind a women who was almost done with her cashier. The final roller coster loop turned out to be alright. One women rang in while another man-handled the bottles of perrier and cans of mango juice to be scanned, so I didn’t have to. For a place that I imagine looks like the inside a GFS building, they actually do make the experience a little not-so bad. The iPod helps too.

So long Costco. See you in a month.