#9 Go to the Royal Botanical Gardens

My friends and I have been making plans to go here for weeks, but our plans kept getting disrupted by crappy weather. Finally on Saturday the weather was good, and I was able to go with my buddies L and T to see the Lilac Festival.

Imagine this in Smell-o-vision! 

Not without overcoming a few obstacles, of course. I had planned on going to an Antique Show at Christie Conservation Area with my parents on Saturday morning. We were leaving the house at 8:30am, so I figured that meeting L and T at 3pm would give us plenty of time to get our antique on. Clearly, I do not know my parents.

We left for the Antique show at 8:30am. After picking up my parents' friends T and M, we arrived at Christie at 9:30am. Approximately SEVEN HOURS LATER, I had to BEG my parents to drop me off at the Botanical Gardens so I could actually keep my date with L and T.

Ok, in their defense Christie's Antique Show is massive. 300+ vendors, they said. But seriously seven hours of antiquing is about 5 hours too much. My parents collect lots of random junk, and so we just had to browse every single booth in search of things like old bug sprayers, peanut butter tins, 'Stubby Pop' and Crystal Beach memorabilia, old Ontario maps, and anything related to Hamilton. That takes time.  

This is an old timey bug sprayer. Or as my Dad says, "my inheritance."

When I finally got to the Gardens, it was really very peaceful and nice. All three of us got in for free (saved $12), and it smelt (smelled? who knows.)  so freaking good. Worth it.