Friday, July 22, 2022

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. 






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