October 8, 2012

 Ruthven Park  - Historic house to tour for me, cars for Paul

Cool but pleasant day for  wandering rows of cars in a park setting.  Decent hot dogs and grilled sausages for lunch.  No coffee to be had though.  I should consider taking a thermos.  I like my noon time coffee!

Back addition to the original house.  I took a good look around when I got bored with the cars.

We took the house tour and P. managed this shot from the top of the spiral staircase.   We found out after that he wasn't suppose to be up there.  Luckily we had the head curator giving our tour and benefited from her knowledge of the house. They are preserving not restoring so it is quite different from the standard historic house tours. Turquoise kitchen no less.

 Family cemetery.  

Always something to catch your eye when walking the paths.

Path to the Grand River

River path along the Grand.

I think this will be my last car show for the year.  The next two that Paul has noted are swap meets and are being held in dull no-appeal- to -Elizabeth spots.     Wonder what next year will bring?  Perhaps a few new venues of interest.

OCT 10:   Our 42nd anniversary.    We went to an afternoon book reading and meet the author at one of our library branches.  Finally something decent at a location NOT downtown.  If you haven't read any of books by Peter James and enjoy mysteries I can recommend the Roy Grace series.  They should be read in order because of continuing character story lines. 

Out for dinner  to give Thai food a try at Siam Dish.  It is a small place and the food was excellent.  We had been holding onto a coupon since last year's Locke St. street fair when they were just starting to convert an older house into the restaurant.

Oct 7 - Oct 10

Perfect almost summer-like temperatures and clear skies for Thanksgiving and our anniversary weekend.  On Friday we headed out to Ball's Falls Conservation area for the annual craft show.  We went for the historic buildings and scenery as well as the chance to see what might be tempting to buy. Good quality crafts and interesting food samples but we didn't buy anything other than lunch.  

Out building and one of the many harvest displays.

Automatic washing machine .. driven by a small  engine.

1911 Military Band Organ

the works

Side of the mill, the front is currently under renovation.

They still mill flour and it is for sale $3.00 a bag

The falls.  At the base we could see salmon spawning in the shallow rocky stream.

me

The Ball family home is open to tour.  I liked these birds ( pheasants? ) staring down at the dining room table and the muted wall paper.

Interesting linoleum pattern in the kitchen and pantry.

After getting lost but happily stumbling on a winery where I purchased Cranberry fruit wine, we finally found Jordon and had coffee on the patio and then dinner inside at  Inn OnTthe Twenty.  

Photo doesn't do justice to my dessert.  Lemon tart with blackberries and blackberry sorbet.

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Saturday Paul cut the grass, I did some laundry and hung it outside to dry and made a quick grocery visit for brussel sprouts (I never serve turkey without them) and whipped cream.

Sunday was turkey dinner at our place with my sister Barbara, Stephen and Chawana.

Monday our actual anniversary and we have been doing small chores around the-.   Paul is currently outside watering the grass seed he put down on the front lawn and as soon as I post this I'm going to join him outside to enjoy this weather.    Sunny  28C. 

Nature walking - Oct 10

Thanksgiving long week and perfect weather for a walk. No more than 15 minutes from our house there is a conservation area walk into Tiffany Falls that has been on our should visit list and today we finally made it.

Oct 10 1970 - Oct 10 2010.
After 40 years together we are still smiling.

From the entrance right beside the highway (small packed parking lot) you follow the meandering stream

on a well constructed path

and arrive at the base of the falls.

Along the way I took pictures: fungus on a tree

leaves in the water

We knew there was a set of falls upstream and thanks to Paul's great sense of direction we found an entrance to the wooded area from a nearby residential street.
The streams gently heads down over the escarpment rock

and becomes Washboard Falls

The water then continues downstream to Tiffany Falls.


We finished the day with a superb meal at Quatrefoil

Hamilton Waterfalls

Our 38th Anniversary - October 10

and I ate cake. Paul had a piece of apple caramel pie.
We did have a lovely first course before indulging.

We left home just before noon and stopped for lunch at the Cafe Troy. It is along a secondary country road and is owned and operated by a potter. All the tableware is a product of his shop and it's a place that I have had on my "let's go" list for some time. The cafe
The pottery and shop
The farm just across the road
We continued driving the less travelled routes and ended up in Galt, a town along the Grand River. Being a perfect autumn day we parked the car and walked the waterfront park where we watched this heron patiently waiting for small fish at the entrance of a creek, and yes he did finally catch one.
It's an old town by Ontario standards with many 1800's local stone buildings and churches so we wandered keeping our eyes open for a restaurant for dinner. We read menus at several, but still full from lunch, decided to head toward home before eating again.

We stopped at a pub Paul had been wanting to try. The food was OK but not worth a revisit although Paul did like the good selection of beer on tap.

Our 37th ... October 10 1970

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With a forecast of cool, cloudy and chance of rain we headed out warmly dressed with umbrellas handy. We had been planning a day drive along the Niagara Parkway and decided the possibility of bad weather wouldn't keep us home. It's a lovely area with many wineries, lots of historic towns, old forts, and lovely autumn foliage views.

The picture below is the Niagara River which runs from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. Left side is Canada, right side, USA. Lake Ontario is at the horizon.

There were battles all along the river during the War of 1812 and at Queenston Heights, General Brock (British) was killed, below is his monument. Currently closed for repairs I remember climbing to the top on a middle school end of the year trip. The park and garden along with the views of the river are wonderful. info

The Queenston Heights Restaurant, our dinner destination, is right in the park. After a walk around we continued back along the parkway.
We stopped at the Butterfly Conservatory, but it was near closing time so a quick trip into the gift shop had to do, but we did take time to wander some of the large surrounding botanical gardens.
info

The next photo shows a portion of the Sir Adam Beck generating station and the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge that crosses into the USA, one of several bridge crossings in the area. We Canadians like heading over to shop especially now our dollar is worth more than theirs.
hydro info
bridge info

part 2

We decided to drive right into Niagara Falls. It's been 20 years since our last trip. The tacky tourist street I remember is still there, cleaned up and brighter and the skyline is totally different thanks to the new hotels and casinos. The Falls remain the same.

American Falls
info

Canadian Falls
info

Here we are, looking a little older but still smiling. That little boat in the river behind us is the Maid of The Mist and one day I will work up the nerve and take a ride. info
We drove back to the restaurant and watched the sunset while eating a fabulous meal enjoyed with a glass of local wine.

Now this is a worthy dessert: Ice wine sherbet, fruit tart, cream in chocolate cup sitting on Dragon fruit. We each had our own! Yummy and it was on the house because it was our anniversary.