Remembrance Day is typically grey, cold, and wet. The weather today did not disappoint. Its a miserable day outside, better suited for staying home with a good book then for going and standing around in the rain. I'm not much for public displays of any sort, but Remembrance Day is the one exception. Putting up with thirty minutes of crummy weather is the least I could do.

We live a short walk from the monument, so we headed over a bit early to see what was going on. Not surprisingly, the crowd was much, much bigger then anything I've ever seen in Montreal. Not sure why this is. Maybe in Montreal people are disributed over many, smaller ceremonies, while in Ottawa everyone heads to the main ceremony downtown? In any case, there were a lot of people, dignitaries, police and military.

We decided to take a quick stroll around the parliament buildings, and ended up next to the gun emplacement. Rather then forge back through the crowds, we decided to observe the moment from there.

Now there are guns in Montreal, but they are somewhere up on the mountain, nowhere near the ceremony. Still, they sounded pretty loud. Today, standing 40 or so feet away, I can tell you that they are *plenty* loud!

At one point during the 21-gun salute, the clouds of smoke drifted our way. I heard a droning noise in the sky, and, while the guns continued to fire, the shockwaves hitting me in regular succession, looked up through the sulpheric mist to see a WWII fighter plane flyby overhead. It was a moving moment.

(Update: The planes involved in the flyby were a hurricane and a mustang.)