Rideau Retreat

 

As we left Prescott, Don messaged to say we should watch out for a garden tour along the road to Brockville.  It was definitely worth the stop.  The entire large front yard was filled with day lilies and other perennials that were in full bloom.  In the back yard, overlooking the St. Lawrence River, were huge beds of hostas under the shade of massive trees. My pictures don’t capture the beauty of their garden. If this is their therapy, they must need an awful lot of therapy!

We went on to Brockville to find the farmer’s market.  First of all, markets are usually in the downtown or touristic part of a town.  Secondly, that may involve street closures.  Thirdly, we’re pulling a 33 ft. fifth-wheel trailer. Where to park?  Thankfully, google maps are pretty good at visualizing where one might be able to take up three or four parking stalls:  Along a residential street – hopefully not too far away.

Turns out it wasn’t just a farmer’s market, but also sidewalk sale day so there were even more street closures.  Again, it was still piping hot so we opted for the shady side of the street.  We wandered around a bit, bought some fresh vegetables and local brews and then found 1000 Island Brewing Company restaurant for a lunch stop. 

Brockville has some beautiful historic buildings and churches in the downtown.  It’d be worth exploring further but we’re on to other adventures.

We drove up to Smith Falls and then found our way to the Rideau Retreat Boondocker’s site.  It was down a beautiful wooded roadway in the middle of nowhere. With a name like that, we thought it would be a perfect retreat to sit down for a couple of days to rest, relax, fish and do nothing.  It’s on a driveway, so not that exciting, but it’s a level site, the host is very friendly and loves to visit.  The first night was stinkin’ hot and without A/C and a loud party down the road, we had a restless sleep.  The second night began with a scary thunderstorm, complete with tornado warnings!  Our host offer us shelter if needed.  (A tornado did touch down about 100 km away).  The last night was so much cooler, we were looking for the extra blanket.  That’s weather in Ontario!

                                         

This place it’s half-way between Perth and Smith Falls.  And only a few kilometers from an excellent place to fish on Rideau Lake at Rideau Ferry.  As Dave always says, "A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work."

Sunday we attended church at the Presbyterian church in Smith Falls. It was a small older congregation led by an enthusiastic young pastor.  It also had the most beautiful stain glass windows to enjoy while listening to the message. 

The Rideau River system is a series of locks connecting Ottawa to Kingston.  It was built back in the early 1800s as a military defense of Canada, but it never saw any military action.  Instead it became a useful commercial route allowing for supplies to move from Montreal to Toronto.

Now it’s a system of locks that are used for pleasure boats.  We watched the Parks Canada personnel work the hand-turned locks as some boats made their way through.  That would be an interesting trip – take a boat from Ottawa to Kingston.

We spent exploring downtown Perth.  It is the quintessential tourist town with many shops and restaurants, historic buildings and beautiful shady trees in the parks.  We poked into the high-end stores (and then scored a few deals at the thrift shop on the other side of the tracks).  It was a perfect day to wander around and relax and enjoy a coffee and gelato.   

Grenville Park and Prescott

 

We left Niagara region and battled our way around Toronto on the infamous 401.  It took forever --  Or so it seemed. I don’t think I could get used to this kind of traffic.  So many trucks, even when the highway wasn’t the 8 lane freeway. We like the country roads, although with a trailer although pulling a trailer you feel every bump and pothole. 

It took us all day to get to the campground.  We arrived just before the campground’s office was about to close (at 5 p.m.).  They were already checking to see if we’d get there.  “Yes, yes – 15 km to go!”

Grenville Park in Johnstown is an absolutely beautiful place right along the St Lawrence River, alongside a bridge to the U.S.  What a lovely spot to camp and fish.  Dave had his fishing line in the river as soon as he could.   Other campers had boats pulled right up to their campsites.  Perfect.

Our reason for coming to this area was to spend a few days with some friends from Leduc who’d moved to Prescott to be closer to their family.  It was great to see them again and renew our friendship; and they were so happy to get visitors from Alberta.

We had a wonderful time, despite the weather being too hot to spend much time walking around outdoors.  In fact, they invited us to join them at a neighbour’s pool.  Picture the four of us, strolling down the street in swim gear.  Then, picture us again, a few hours later, hurrying home, still in swim gear, during a downpour!  We got showered after the swim.  Definitely refreshing!

We took a drive along the St. Lawrence River all the way down to Cornwall.  It was nice to go for a drive with someone else as driver and navigator.  Just outside of Cornwall is the Moses-Saunders Power Dam straddling the border between Canada and the US.  By creating this dam, rapids were flooded over which made the river more navigable for larger ships as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  To be able to generate power, a head lake, Lake St. Lawrence, was created by the dams.  This had a great impact had on the geography of the waterway.  By raising the water level, islands were buried and heights of land now became other islands.  Six communities of about 6,500 people were displaced.  Some of their houses were moved to higher land and new communities were built, but it wasn’t the same.  The people were relocated, but the history of their communities has been buried under water forever. 

Don and Mary were wonderful hosts.  We were treated to delicious meals and every night, cake and ice cream on the deck in the evening shade.  What a wonderful short visit together.

 

Niagara

 

One thing that keeps coming back to me on this journey is to take time.  Sometimes one gets caught up with the planning, the agenda and the goals and one doesn’t take the time to be in the moment and enjoy life as it happens. One is always looking ahead to the next event, figuring out the next stop.  

Yes, we have a plan.  In fact, I have a Binder and it’s quite detailed.  It’s a bit more detailed than I thought it would be, but on the other hand, that helps us take time.    

So here we are, at the 50 Point Conservation Area campground in Stoney Creek in the Niagara region.  We are taking time.  Dave is fishing at the campground and I am playing with the art supplies I brought along to enjoy.  Together, we go for a bike ride around the campground, in the drizzle.

Someone texted to see if we were going to Niagara Falls.  I said, “Would you be sad if I said no?” 

She said, “A little”. 

We did not go see the Falls.  Instead, we took time for coffee with friends, old and new. 

We visited with Kelly & Melisa Petkau who work with Gospel For Asia and we’d known them from when we lived in Devon.  It was good to catch up on their growing family. 

We had a visit with David Boyd who works with Partners Worldwide and Dave’s been meeting with him and others in video calls.  It was good to meet in person over a coffee in downtown Welland. 

From there we went to watch a ship make its way through one of the locks on the Welland Canal.  What a feat of engineering to be able to link Lake Erie with Lake Ontario across the Niagara Escarpment in an effort to get around Niagara Falls. The first canal was hand-dug, with only the assistance of horse-drawn carts and had 39 locks made of hand-hewn timbers, built between 1825-1829.  What we saw today was one lock of eight, built in the 1930s.    

All Dave remembers about coming to the Niagara region as a youngster is the endless visiting. As a child it can become tedious if there aren’t other cousins your age to play with.  Now, as an adult, the visiting is definitely more enjoyable, but again, it could become endless, unless it becomes a mini family reunion.  That was exactly what happened as about 20 cousins gathered together for a ‘picnic’.  I use quotations because the picnic took place in A/C comfort in Jake and Dora’s house.  It was great to see everyone at once; some people we hadn’t seen since the last Willms reunions either 20 or 30 years ago.  That’s a lot of catching up. 

It was late afternoon and we drove towards Niagara-on-the-Lake, thinking maybe we could stop for a wine tasting at one of the many wineries we passed along the way.  We drove up to a very impressive one and pulled in.  By now we were also thinking about having dinner. This one also had a restaurant.  Unfortunately, it was fully booked.  Or maybe, thankfully, as the menu was a bit out of price range. 

We continued on and found another place in Virgil: Pilletteri Estates Winery.  What a beautiful spot.  We had the most delicious wood-fired pizza served outdoors under the fruit trees next to the winery with a young musician serenading us with familiar tunes.  All of a sudden, a drippy cloud passed over, but we stayed mostly dry under the umbrella and trees.  From there we continued on to Niagara-on-the-Lake in time to get last minute tickets to the Shaw Festival.  The play was “The Importance of being Ernest” by Oscar Wilde.  It’s a hilarious farce about Victorian times.  What a memorable evening and perfect end to our few days in the Niagara region. 

Michigan

 

We crossed into the US without any problem, other than that the border guard was very interested in our plans:

“Why Cadillac? You said you were going through to Sarnia and that’s not on the way there!  How did you learn about Van Buren State Park? It’s in the opposite direction of going to Ontario and New Brunswick?!”

After crossing the International Bridge between Sault Ste Marie, Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, it's the big Mackinac Bridge between the Upper Peninsula and the rest of Michigan.

We're going to Cadillac because we had arranged for a boondocker’s driveway for the night.  US miles are longer than kilometers so we got there quite a bit later than we’d anticipated.  Plus, we had to stop to get groceries first because, as mentioned in the previous post, the cupboards were quite bare. 

The driveway was a bit narrow and sloped but we managed to level somewhat, enjoy our supper outside with the setting sun. 

 

During the night it began to rain and in the morning we woke to a steady drizzle.  When there was a break in the weather, we quickly packed up and left.

We were off to Van Buren State Park. The reason we chose this park was because it was within reach of potentially meeting up with Dave’s colleague from SIL.  Also, by the pictures on the internet, it looked like it would be beautiful.

On our way we stopped for lunch in Saugatuck. I asked our young server what there was to do in that town and she had a long list of options.  Hmm, maybe we should have stayed there.  But we carried on about another half hour down the road.

Fresh Lake Perch.  Delicious

We got set up, and took our bikes down to the beach.  Wow.  It almost looks like an ocean!  You can’t see across the lake!  And pure sand.  Lots of sand.  And sand dunes.  All along Lake Michigan’s eastern shore are sand dunes.  It really doesn’t matter which park you’d pick.  So much sand.

There was a dune face that looked accessible so we tried to climb it!  What a workout.  There were some young fellas doing the same.  I called out telling them they’d be in shape for football season if they’d do that every day!

Campgrounds are for getting off your devices and communing with nature and have no internet or it's notoriously slow.  That being said, we still wanted to be able to access the outside world, especially as we didn’t have cell phone coverage. We headed into the nearest town, South Haven.  We were told we could bike there.  “It’s only 5 miles on a paved path”.  But then, it would be five miles back too, not five kilometers, so not being in the best shape, we opted to drive.  We drove into South Haven and found it to be a beautiful tourist town.

The 'wifi bench'.  We could sit here and check e-mails and so on.  

South Haven is famous for it's lighthouse as well.  The first evening was quite stormy as we walked out to it.  We definitely didn't stay dry!

The next day we spent the afternoon at the beach.  It was such a beautiful day to be outside, enjoying the sand, the sun and relaxing. 

In the evening we found a jazz concert in the park along the river in South Haven.  It was an evening of contentment: listening to a Louis Armstrong’s double growling, singing and trumpeting familiar tunes while watching the sail boats motor up the river coming in for the night.  Then, we walked down towards the lighthouse while the sun was setting behind the houses.  What a beautiful end to our time at Van Buren/South Haven.

We left Van Buren State Park, paused to pick up some blueberries, jam and syrup at a large blueberry farm, and stopped for lunch in hopes of meeting up with Dave’s colleague, but that didn’t work out. 

So on we went, to our next stop:  East Lansing.

It’s our 40^th wedding anniversary and here we are, still in touch with one of our groomsmen from that day so long ago.  We've been to visit once before when all our children were little.  Now it's back to us as two couples.  Last time we were together was about ten years ago.  As you can imagine, there was lots of catching up and not much touring happening. They live on a beautiful acreage so we had plenty of room to park our trailer.   

I saw a quote that describes our relationship beautifully:

Friends are like stars.  You don’t always see them, but you know they’re there.