Month: October 2024

After a rainy Tuesday, today was warm and windy, with a high of 72 F. Lovely day for exploring. We headed out to the Decew House Heritage Park to walk a section of the renowned Bruce Trail. The full Bruce Trail is over 550 miles long, and there are another 250 miles of associated side trails. It runs through Southern Ontario from the Niagara River to the tip of Tobermory, Ontario.

We followed the well-signed trail that ran along Lake Moodie. While we didn’t photo them, this portion of the trail was being used by a fair number of others while we were there.

On the walk back to the park, we noticed this, the importance of which was explained later.

As mentioned earlier, the park is named the DeCew House Heritage Park. This structure below is the source for the name and sits at the park entrance. It is the remains of the home of Captain John DeCou (later DeCew). The home served as the headquarters of the British outpost during the War of 1812. The troops were alerted in June 1815 to the American advance by Laura Secord (see above). So, a little history with our walk today.

After our stop at the DeCew Park, we continued down DeCew Road for a short stop at the Mel Swart Lake Gibson Conservation Park. This is a cute little park, with a short circular walking trail as well as a boardwalk that juts out into Lake Gibson. Mel Swart raised his family in Thorold, the community where the park is located, was a nature lover, and served 21 years in municipal politics.

We went back to the 13th Street Winery today for a closer look at the outdoor art. There is also an indoor gallery on the grounds. Here’s the pics.

In our continuing quest to see various parts of the impressive 25 mile Welland Canal Trail, Bob, Jack, and I ventured to the town of Welland today for another lovely walkabout. The temps have cooled considerably. It was a brisk 38 degrees F this morning when we got up, so the walk both looked and felt like fall.

The canal seems to split and then come together in a number of areas. We walked on a section of the trail on Merritt Island in Welland, with the canal on both sides. The city of Welland has a population of about 55,000.

While we were in Welland, we decided to check out another local park, Chippawa Park. It is at the end of a lovely residential street. It was a great park with gardens, memorials, and a pretty pond.

Another lovely excursion, and Jack’s nose appreciated the abundant scents.

To say that we have landed in a wine region would be quite an understatement. Our Wine Country Ontario brochure states that “Located between 41 and 44 degrees North, Ontario is situated in the heart of the world’s finest wine zone.” That same brochure then goes on to list the 150 wineries in the 4 appellations in Ontario. Just in the Niagara Escarpment Area that includes St. Catharines, there are 56 wineries, and there’s another 37 in the Niagara-on-the-Lake Area, which is just down the road from here. Crazy!

So today, we thought we’d spend a couple of hours this afternoon just checking out a few of the wineries near us, ending with having a glass at one of them. We met some nice people along the way and got some great photos. Jack went along for the ride and had some short walkabouts.

Our first stop was the very close 13th Street Winery, which also has a bakery/gift shop and art gallery as well as outdoor sculptures. We remembered the shop from last time, so had to check that out again to find a little locally made gift for our next homeowner.

The next winery was Flat Rock Cellars. This winery opened in 2005 and has a great view of the surrounding area.

After our photo visit to Flat Rock, we headed to Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery, located on a 200-year old estate that previously had just supplied their grapes to other wineries.

We stopped at one more winery as a research/photo project. That was Calamus Estate Winery. They were hosting a wedding in their barn, but their tasting room was open, so we scoped out the wines to be sold and chatted with the nice host. The winery overlooks the Ball’s Falls Conservation Area, so a couple of their wines have the name Ball’s Falls.

Finally, we decided that we’d have a glass of wine at our last stop, which was Domaine Queylus. This winery focuses on a select number of grapes — mostly Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet franc, and merlot. We tried a glass of the Cabernet franc and cab franc blend with merlot. The host was very nice and gave us a number of recommendations for other wineries and restaurants to try.

Yesterday, our outing with Jack was basically a review for us of some of the local smaller groceries in the area. Jack just rode along and got his usual neighborhood walk on our return.

Our first stop was Antipastos, an amazing small specialty shop selling mostly Italian pastas, ingredients, desserts, and ready meals. They also have a deli for pizza slices, salads, and sandwiches. It’s a great place for a perusal and some treat items. We picked up anchovy stuffed olives (a favorite of ours from our visits to Spain), pizza dough (for Bob to concoct a homemade pizza), a pizza slice for Bob for lunch, and some lemon tarts.

Then, we were off to Farm Boy (always reminds Bob of his bro-in-law who was literally a farm boy), a grocery store that we like for their ready made salads, fresh salad bar, and bread/bakery items. We picked up a couple of salad bowls for dinner.

Finally, we stopped at Harvest Barn, a large farm-stand-appearing, market. They also have a small salad bar area and some bakery items, and I think we had purchased some produce there on our last visit. We didn’t get anything on this trip except a small case of the giggles when we saw this item.

Today, we attempted an outing to the Riverbrink Art Museum, which is located in the former country home of Samuel E. weir, a lawyer. While their winter hours are posted as Wednesday through Saturday from 10 to 5, they were closed today in preparation for an event. Some nice woman working in the garden told us, as this wasn’t noted out front or on their website.

However, we did get a walk in with Jack along part of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail that runs through the lovely Queenston neighborhood and along the Niagara River Parkway.

A bit cooler temps today, perhaps fall weather has arrived.

In looking at the tourist info and maps that our homeowners have as well as other info that we have picked up, we realized that we hadn’t yet visited Port Colborne, a small city of about 20,000 at the southern end of the Welland Canal. We decided to check out a park and trail along the canal as well as a beach in Port Colborne today.

This was a longer outing, about a 30 minute drive from the house to the Lock 8 Gateway Park in Port Colborne. The trail, at least the part we walked, wasn’t that long but it did have some points of interest.

After we finished at the park, we decided to drive a few blocks south to visit one of the many beaches along Lake Erie. Nickel Beach was the closest, and lies along Gravelly Bay.

As you can see, another beautiful day here. We have been spoiled, but cooler weather is coming.

73 degree Fahrenheit day near the end of October? Yes please, and I’ll gladly take more, although I fear it’s probably not the best thing for the planet. Bob and I took Jack the dog for a morning outing to keep him from feeling the hottest temps of the day. We took a short stroll around Port Dalhousie, which is east of us but before Niagara on the lake. It lies along the coast. We have visited before, but never at this time of year. Lovely to see the Lakeside Park area with its fall colors on.

On the way back to the house, we stopped at a small community park along the Green Ribbon Trail. We had enjoyed this park last year without Jack, so forgot that the bridge in the park is not really dog friendly, so our trip today was brief but colorful.

We have had a leisurely but productive couple of days re-bonding with the charming Jack as well as getting caught up on laundry, making some future travel plans, picking up a few staples, and just enjoying our lovely borrowed home and the community.

First, Jack.

Jack is a very good boy, who does like his food (don’t we all) but also enjoys his walks, and can cajole you (with a paw tap or several) into as long a petting session with him as you’re up for. It is hard to resist.

After some long days on the road, it was great to have some relaxed time with the homeowners before they left for some fun in Portugal and Spain, and we’ve been mostly in/out side the house yesterday and today except for some errands.

Today though, we also went to the St Catharines Museum and tourist center to scope out any additional travel info that might be of use for our visit and walk a bit of the Welland Canal Path that we remembered from our last visit. We lucked out and arrived as a long barge was going through the lock.

I just looked up ball hockey on the web, and it says that it’s patterned after ice hockey, but no skates, no ice, and a ball is used instead of a puck. But otherwise, very related. . .

This has definitely been the best fall for us in a long time in terms of seeing the trees change color.

More blogs logging more active days ahead.

After a couple of days visit with my mom, Bob and I headed back into Canada, but with a stop in East Lansing, Michigan on the way. We had a bit of a tense drive around Chicago in heavy traffic and lots of rain, but clear skies in Michigan.

We spent the night at a Marriott Hotel but walked a couple of blocks to see the Graduate Hotel, a brand of hotel that we like to frequent or visit whenever we have a chance. There are 28 of these hotels worldwide (basically USA and UK) that are located in university cities and are themed correspondingly. East Lansing is home to Michigan State University. We have stayed at or visited six other Graduate Hotels, in Iowa City, Columbia, SC, Cambridge, UK, Nashville, TN, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis.

The East Lansing hotel did not disappoint. We especially liked the entrance and the views from the 10th floor bar.

We spent Tuesday night in East Lansing and drove into Canada on Wednesday. We didn’t have any problems at the border crossing in Port Huron, MI, so Canada is stuck with us for the next five weeks.

After crossing, we drove just a couple hours into London, Ontario, for the night. We had a room upgrade to use with our Marriott membership, so we used it at the Delta Hotel in London, and were given a suite that I would have been happy to move into. The hotel is also located in the old armory (armoury) building, so we enjoyed exploring the building before going to a Manager’s reception and then the free lounge offerings for Marriott members. Aren’t we just all that!

We are currently at our next housesit having a lovely get together with homeowners/friends and their dear dog, Jack. We sat for them in the spring of 2022.

We’re back. . .on the blog and in the USA. We left Chemainus, British Columbia, on Tuesday and have driven approximately 1,900 miles over the past 4 days (not counting Tuesday as we didn’t do much driving) to arrive in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin (commonly referred to as The Dells).

We have spent much of our drive on I-94 across the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota before reaching Wisconsin. If you have to drive a great distance across the north US, we highly recommend this section of I-94 for its beautiful scenery and relatively low traffic. We have seen the beautiful green forests of Washington and Idaho, the different mountain ranges across Washington, Idaho, and Montana, the buttes and mesas of Montana and North Dakota, and then the prairies, rolling hills, and farmlands of North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and lots of trees with their fall coats on.

In addition to admiring the scenery, there have been plenty of billboards and road signs to read, and we also have taken the opportunity to learn or re-educate ourselves on various matters through Googling the answers to various questions that arise, usually based on our surroundings. For example, I found myself wondering about whether I should be describing the changing scenery as changes in geological or geographical features. I initially resolved this by just saying topographical, but finally looked up the definitions of geology and geography to realize that usually I am referring to geographical changes.

We also learned, much to our surprise, that the US has more than one continental divide. Bob and I had both been taught (or at least both remembered) that The Continental Divide in the US was in the Rocky Mountains, and we had crossed it both by bike on our cross country ride as well as by car in prior travels. So we were very surprised to see a road sign in North Dakota that said “Continental Divide, elevation 1,452.” Say what? That immediately spurred a Google search to see if the normally staid North Dakotans were having some fun with the tourists. No indeedy, and we learned just how much we didn’t know about continental divides through an article at http://www.dmr.nd.gov, North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources.

We also had a couple of “cultural” memories on the road. Driving past a sign for Three Forks, Montana, reminded us of a Two Ronnie’s Four Candles skit that we have seen in the UK, and that we find highly amusing. Also, at the end of one long drive, Bob began reciting something about two dead boys getting up to fight. Turns out, it was a poem he learned as a kid, and after having read it, it seems like the one poem that he would remember. You’ll need to Google it, it’s “Two Dead Boys,” by Tyler Rager.

And that is a lot of nothing, but shows you the stat of our minds after this many days on the road. Tomorrow, we head to Janesville for a couple of days with my mom.