Wandering Retirees

Midland, Ontario and then on to Kingston, Ontario 

Yesterday, Sunday, was a down day. We slept and ate and took time for ourselves. We met a group of three couples staying at our little motel in Midland (a great inexpensive place called the Kings Inn). They hailed from around Niagara and Toronto: Bill and Jan, Tony and Trina, and Tom and Penny. All are riders and were on the home leg of a great bike trip through Ontario. Funny, irreverent and kind were they, making room in their circle for these wandering New Jersey folks. Bill, a retired Ontario Provincial Police officer, was particularly funny as cops often seem to be. He was particularly interested in hearing about our Ben, the PA State Trooper, and wanted us to pass along his wish that he be safe in his tough job. We, promised we would add his wishes to our own. We are very proud of Ben. 

Midland, Ontario is a lovely and historic town on the southern shores of Georgian Bay, the northeastern arm of Lake Huron. (take a look on a map; it’s easier than parsing that sentence me thinks.). My Queen and I shocked the local inhabitants by processing the mile from our royal lodgings to the waterfront, stopping to enjoy a FABULOUS Italian meal at a family owned restaurant, Lilly’s. Everything is homemade and sumptuous, and one son is a trained sommelier (really knows his wine). If you’re in town, go there. Seriously. We then staggered our stuffed persons to the piers and had homemade ice cream. Walking back was both slow and necessary. Wonderful!  

While in Midland, we learned there was a solar flare and that it was likely there would be a light show across Canada and into the USA.  We were very excited about the prospect of see the Aurora Borealis (aka Northern Lights).  Alas, we had cloudy skies and contented ourselves with magical skies in our respective fictional books.

We also learned to enjoy coffee from Tim Horton’s, the Canadian Dunkin Donuts. (Been long north of the Border, eh?) Still not up to poutine, though, which comes in multiple varieties, eh? (twice fried potatoes, cheese curds and gravy plus extra toppings – like Vienna sausages, etc., if you like.) There are “chip trucks” at every corner it seems, all who offer this extraordinary culinary assault. Love so much about our visit to Canada, especially the folks we’ve met, but can’t quite reach poutine. 

We are struck how big and beautiful Canada is. It can be cold considering the entire country is north of Buffalo. There is just so much open space and relatively little congestion outside of the major cities. We smiled a Superior Jersey smile when hearing complaints of traffic jams up here. You know, 30 cars backed up at the light downtown. In Delran you can find 30 cars at midnight at Chester Ave. The take away is that the folks we met love their open spaces and don’t take them for granted. Nice. 

Today we headed across the top of Lake Ontario to Kingston, ON, at the east end of the lake near the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is our last night before returning to the States. We covered about 240 miles today through some nice countryside. Nothing spectacular. Just relaxing and pretty. Except the time the navigator and pilot had a misunderstanding. Found ourselves in the lot of an old mill being demolished in a very small town trying to figure out how to get back on track. (Scowls and stomping amused the natives, I’m sure. A cold drink and clarified (simplified?) directions the pilot could understand got us happily back on track without further ado. A near thing that. 

We’re staying at a big fancy Marriott where our bike is something of a novelty. Not much bikerly camaraderie, I’m afraid. (Ooh, how could you ride that thing? So forth.) So sad the lives of the unimaginative. 😀

Connie here:  The photos below are from dinner last night.  The rolling hills and farmlands of southern Ontario are so similar to NJ, NY and PA, we didn’t take photographs.  But the scenery did exaggerate our longing to be home.  And we are tired (we didn’t want to admit that!)  It is time to go home.  We look forward to a couple of days visiting family in Upstate NY and then plan to hurry home to our peeps and our bed.  It’s been a wild and fun ride.  Oh yea:  our ETA home is Saturday!