Wee-oh Wee-oh Wee-oh
So today marked the beginning of fire safety week in Hamilton, and they kicked off the week with free tours of any fire station in the city. What could be better?

With that in mind, Isaac and I head downtown to Station #1, to see the sights. Well, it turns out that Station 1 is not in the most residential part of town. In fact, it's in a fairly dodgy part of downtown that happens to be a block from both my and Noelle's office. So in short, we had the place to ourselves, and the undivided attention of about 4 firefighters.

Isaac was greeted at the entrance by the VERY enthusiastic Fireman Jay, who proceeded to lift him up into the drivers seat of a ladder truck, show him some of the cool ladders. Show him a hose and a nozzle, and how it worked, and crack wise about how little work the Chief and the Safety officer really did (see how white their helmets are?) the whole time.

He was spectacular, and when I asked his somewhat dumbstruck colleagues, they replied that Jay had two small boys of his own, and he really enjoyed this kind of thing.

Then Jay ran upstairs and slid down the pole while Isaac was waiting, and then took us on a tour of the little one room Firefighter museum there. It was very cool.

Then an ambulance showed up, and Isaac got to help it back into the station (complete with Jay's prompting of the hand signals). Then they gave him a little red Fire Captain's plastic hat, and we got set to go.

And of course at that point Isaac starts charming the socks off the blonde EMT, so she agrees to show us the Ambulance. He gets to see the computer, turn the lights on, and climb in the back, where she promptly hooks an ECG up to him, and does a little printout of his heartrate. It was amazing.

Then a call came in over the radio, and she had to hustle us out of there, and we got to watch while she and her partner took off, with their sirens blaring.

As if that wasn't cool enough, as we were about to go (thinking it couldn't get any better), they then dispatched a Pumper truck to the same accident, and we got to watch that one take off.

With appropriate good byes and thank yous to Jay, we set off for the car. The whole time as we are walking along, Isaac is pretending to talk into an Emergency radio, and making Wee-oh Wee-oh Wee-oh noises (siren noises) the whole way down the street. He is clearly pumped.

Halfway there, I realize that police are redirecting traffic down a side street, and that the accident our new friends have been called to is about another block away. So we go to take a look, and while we are standing there and gawking, one of the firefighters waves and says "Hi Isaac!" Isaac is of course thrilled.

Then we went for slurpees, and then to the park at the bayfront and played on the old tugboat they've pulled up on land and turned into a playground.

All in all, it was a wonderful day.

Special thanks to all the crew at Hamilton's Fire Station #1! You guys rock!