Author: bbpeck

We had a relatively quiet day with just a matinee show of “Mamma Mia” and then an early dinner at a local restaurant.

We saw the show at West Herr Performing Arts Center, just a few blocks from our hotel.

The theater building was built for $2.225 million in 1928 as the Masonic Temple of Rochester. The building originally included a large auditorium along with offices and meeting rooms. The building was sold to a private entity in 1989 and was renamed Auditorium Center. The portion of the building containing the auditorium was bought by the Rochester Broadway Theater League (RBTL) in 2004 and became a top entertainment destination for the area. In 2023, RBTL purchased the entire building and partnered with West Herr Automotive Group to rename the complex. A renovation and restoration of the building is planned by 2030.

We’ll definitely be doing more walking around tomorrow, We were planning to anyway but have learned that the cleaning of the carpets in the guest rooms is planned for tomorrow starting at 10ish. With all of our traveling, that is a first.

Last night and this morning we had a great reunion with our homeowners after their return from Spain and Portugal. It was sad to leave Jack behind this morning, but so glad that we have had the opportunity again to spend time with two incredible people, care for a sweet dog, and get to explore more of a lovely area of the world. All three have a special place in our hearts. My biggest regret today is that we didn’t get a photo of all of us before we left.

Our travel plans have us visiting Rochester, New York, and then Worcester, Massachusetts, before heading to our next housesit on Thanksgiving day. The drive to Rochester from St. Catharines was about 2.5 hours. We crossed the border at Fort Erie, having been directed there by Google Maps as the quickest route. The electronic highway signs were all showing 45 minute delays at all three crossings we could have used. Bob and I were guessing that some of the traffic could have been from Taylor Swift fans crossing back into the US after seeing her show in Toronto last night (number 5 of the 6 that she’ll do there before ending her Eras Tour in Vancouver).

After our early check-in (a little after 1:00 pm) and at the Downtown Marriott Courtyard (if you want to make Bob happy, ask him about his Marriott Titanium status), we headed out to explore a bit of Rochester. In particular, we wanted to check out a park with a waterfall and then find the theater where we’ll be seeing “Mama Mia” tomorrow. As an added bonus we saw some cool old buildings, some fun public art, including some big heads (another thing that makes Bob happy), and a connection to St. Catharines.

We did see the theater where we’ll be tomorrow, but I’ll include that in tomorrow’s blog. Our fun find after seeing the theater was the nearby University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery (in particular their outside sculptures).

Actually, it was a visit to Queenston Heights Park, but before we get into the park visit, I need to show you how the day started.

When a day starts like that, you know it’s gonna be good.

While I was doing a bit of online work this morning, Bob planned us an excursion to Queenston Heights Park, right near a cross border entry point into Canada, between Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. It has 56 kilometers of preserved parkland and serves as the southern terminus for the same Bruce Trail, which we’ve been hiking bits and pieces of during our stay. It’s a large, beautiful park, with beautiful monuments, and facilities for events, along with the trail.

It was a great outing. The region continues to impress us, and we are wanting to research more about hiking the Bruce Trail as a possible activity for us in the next couple of years.

After a few cooler gray days, it is a beautiful 56 F day here. We had to get out. We had not yet visited Niagara-on-the-Lake this visit, so we headed there today. We discovered a new, though perhaps not perfected waterfront path along the lake, walked the very cute downtown, and visited a winery.

We were at the winery a little after noon, so we weren’t ready to taste or drink, but we did buy a bottle of their Sauvignon Blanc to have tonight with dinner.

Bob and I took Jack back to Grimsby today to walk a bit of the Bruce Trail there that is accessed on a path that runs along a home at the end of a street. We parked in Coronation Park, the same park we had visited on our first trip to Grimsby, a week or so ago.

After we came back off our short hike on the Bruce Trail, we continued on the street to the Gibson Street Bridge shown below. The sign beside the bridge provides a great history of the overall area as well as the bridge. This site was the location for the original upper bridge (built in the late 1800s), which served as a link between the base of the escarpment over 40 Mile Creek and the mills that once were established along the creek. The latest version of the bridge was built in 2022.

Since Bob and I were wanting to visit a local market, Bob found us a couple of parks/trails to explore with Jack that were in the same direction. We started at Millennium Forest Park in the nearby community of Lincoln, which has a loop walking path through the park as well as 135 different commemorative trees that were planted as part of a Millennium celebration project. The park also had some winged visitors that were pointed out to us by a couple of other walkers when we first arrived.

We stayed parked at the park and just walked up the street to head to a section of the Waterfront Trail that goes through the neighborhood to (wait for it) the waterfront of Lake Ontario.

Finally, we visited the Grand Oak Market. It’s a cute market that sells local goods, gifts, as well as their owned baked goods, and you can eat lunch there as well.

We didn’t shop today but may head back for lunch sometime.

Bob and I took Jack to a new (to us) park for another local walk about in St Catharines. It was a 10 minute drive to what is now Richard Pierpoint Park. It was originally called Centennial Gardens and was unveiled in 1976 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Canada.

In 2021, the park was renamed after Richard Pierpoint, one of Canada’s most famous Black loyalists, and who lived on land that is now part of the park. The park contains a lovely trail (apparently a portion of the Merritt Trail (though we can’t make it link up with the other sections we’ve been on) and a disc golf course. There was supposedly a totem pole given for the Centennial celebration, but is not currently there or is very short, as we didn’t see it.

That’s not illegal right?

Happy belated Veterans Day or Remembrance Day. Yesterday, Bob and I took Jack for a short neighborhood walk on the Terry Fox Trail. Terry Fox, as I imagine all Canadians and many runners everywhere know, was a young Canadian stricken with cancer who raised funds for cancer through his attempt (after having one leg amputated) to run across Canada.

This trail wasn’t nearly so ambitious, but it made for a nice outing in a new area of St Catharines before we headed over to a local mall to buy some new running shoes for Beth and check out a new (to us) grocery store, Zehrs, to pick up some provisions for dinner.

Today, we tried a trail that we had noticed the last time we were here but didn’t try. It’s the 12 Mile Creek Trail, which is also part of the Merritt Trail, which in parts runs concurrently with the Bruce Trail. It’s all very confusing, but the takeaway for us is that this area is crazy with trails, which is okay with us.

On Friday, we returned to the Merritt Trail to walk the other direction from Glendale Avenue. We passed some historical markers, walked through a pretty park along the old locks, and along a road near a nice neighborhood.

Yesterday, we got out for a second walk with Jack in the late morning ahead of the predicted rain. We just took him to a trail around a school and into a neighborhood fairly close to the house. I didn’t bring my camera, as I didn’t think it would be much, and the trail was fine but not special. But on the way to the start, we saw a young couple pushing a stroller and walking their cat on a leash. Missed pic opportunity.

Yesterday afternoon we decided to get out to visit one of the wineries we had visited last time, Megalomaniac. We were planning to go anyway, but Bob saw on their website that during November, you could get a free tasting at the bar if you said you were a Megalomaniac fan. Not to be cheap (well why not?), but that sounded good to us. We each got supposedly 2oz (but think it was more) of 3 of their wines. We each tried different ones, so we could try more of them. We had a chat with the nice pourer, enjoyed the wines, and perused the fun wine-themed merchandise. My favorites were a magnet that said, “What wine goes with laundry?” And a tote bag that read, “Corks are for quitters.” It was a (they have great names for their wines) lovely outing, all for the cost of a lovely bottle of Pompous red wine.

A quick note for history, there was an election in the US Tuesday, November 5th. I fear the results will make it one of the few dates that Bob and I will always remember exactly where we were at and what we were doing when they (the results) were announced. We did little yesterday except try to process.

Today, we needed to get out for a walk to try to regain a sense of normalcy. We walked a short portion of the Merritt Trail with Jack. The full trail is 10.1k and is a combination of paved and off-road trails, with some connector portions on neighborhood sidewalks. It runs partly along an older version of the current Welland Canal system.