The Return, The Trip, The Awesome

Ok, so some promises 5 months ago were made, and I may or may not have welshed on such promises.  Actually there is no doubt through chronological evidence that much welshing has been done.  Just FYI, I haven't read any books this year, and I am no closer to knowing how to juggle.

With that, I must document an amazing adventure from last week.  Sim and I started our fourth annual road trip plans a few months ago.  Spence actually brought it up and within an hour Sim and I had picked a location and booked a hotel.  Last room available.  The first weekend of bird migration in Leamington - it's a hot date for booking.

Fast forward about three months, and the date is fast approaching.  I was having a mad mad mental mad hellish month at work.  I didn't have time to relish the nearing vacation time or do any planning.  Sim found herself in a similar situation, not having a moment of time to do any serious research.  Thursday after work I came home to do some last minute cleaning, and then it was off to the Sim's for a bit of time with the pups and the Girlen before our weekend away.  We were both up at 6am, and after a shower and packing of the car we were off.  We hit up the McDs at Eastern as it was followed by easy access to the QEW.  Less than a click on the road the tail lights up the road and I said to Sim "Quick, QEW or Lakeshore?" She replied "Lakeshore LAKESHORE....the QEW is actually Brown on Google right now, I have only ever seen it be red before O_o.  About half an hour later we passed the accident just after Jameson, and then a further half an hour later we were back on the hwy.  Brutes way to start a trip as we purposefully gave ourselves an early start.  But that of course was not the end of our driving woes.  It was actually some of the craziest road fog I've ever driven in before.  It was so bad, that we actually drove right past the 403 cutoff before Hamilton.  I wasn't really paying attention and we didn't have the sat-nav on.  As we started to see signs for Buffalo I said to Sim "I have to be completely honest, I'm not 100% certain where we are going."  We had to get off the hwy and double back adding another hour on to our trip.  So lets just imagine we left at 8:30 and everything went smashingly well.

We made great time, notwithstanding the previous issues.  The hotel check-in was empty (we were early) so we wandered down to the ferry docks which were directly across the parking lot from us.  The ferries were actually cancelled that day.  Little did we know, there was a horrific wind storm ripping through the GTA.  My coworker actually had a tree on his property fall on one of his cars and had some windows in his house blown out.  We thought it was just a Lake Erie thing.  Not entirely sure what to do we decided to get ourselves over to Point Pelee Park and explore.  We basically just headed down the road and stopped at any points of interest.  The Marsh, the Heritage House, and finally the Visitor Centre with a trolly down to "The Tip".  We actually had to dash into the Centre for a few moments while it poured down, but it quickly let up.  We both got a few things for the girls inside.  Sim got the dang cutest little Warbler for Pips.  I got some faulty fake tattoo geckos.  Intentions were good.  So it cleared up and we made our final descent to the bottom of the park.  We were warned that because of the massive wind the waves were crashing over the breaker and soaking the tram as it passed.  I had a rain jacket on, and an umbrella in my hands pointed at the side with the waves, and then I did what any smart person would do and I started to film with my phone.  The waves crashed and came piling over the breaker, and soaked me from head to toe.  My jacket was open, and the umbrella remained closed.  That sounds about right.

We headed down the path excitedly towards the most Southerly point of land in Canada.  It surprised me to learn we dip as far south as the 42nd Parallel.  On line with Barcelona!  We made our way through some brush and onto the beach, and got as close to the very bottom as we possibly could.  With the massive wind and waves we were a good 50 ft from the very bottom.  We took some great pics.  Came across a tree full of birds, which eventually emptied and slowly refilled.  And then headed back the tram and caught a ride back up to the Centre.  We headed back to the hotel, checked in, and got ready to head out and get some food.

I forgot to mention before heading to the park we stopped at a dollar store for some hair elastics for Sim.  We asked the cashier for a restaurant reco.  She actually gave the same reco we got earlier for a steak house.  We ended up driving past and realizing it wasn't quite what we were looking for.  But as we exited the Dollar Tree a woman came out after us.  She stopped Sim and gave her the low down.  Kingsville, the town just 10 mins down the road, was the place to go.  There is a new Micro Brewery Pub that had just opened called The Grove.  It sounded perfect....it was perfect.  When we got there it was PACKED.  Sim spotted some stools for us to perch on, and soon after she spotted two seats on the upper deck seating area.  She went up to check and waved me on up.  We tried a few of the house brews, and I had the wings and Sim had their burger.  We also started with a pretzel app which was soo, soo, sooooo good.  The pretzels just melted in your mouth.  SO GOOD.  We headed back to the room, had a few beers, played our new tile game "Quirkle" and got to bed.

We let ourselves sleep in to about 8am.  We headed over to a diner across the street and had a super super delicious diner breakfast.  It was really really good.  We both got the Farmer's Breakfast and scarfed it down, knowing the day of physical activity we had ahead.  After about 800 trips back to the room, to the car, back to the room, back to the car, up to the room and to the car again, we were finally ready to catch the ferry to Pelee Island.  We sat inside for most of it and player some Quirkle and Gin.  But caught the last 20 minutes or so upstairs.  As soon as we landed we walked straight to the bike rental and got hooked up with our Townie 7D bikes, equipped with front baskets.  Only about 30 minutes down the road we found a pub and stopped for a beer.  It was seriously one of the best beers ever.  It came served in a frosted glass, and it just hit - the - spot.  Old Vienna!  Back on the road, we followed the waterfront path until we got to the turn off for the Lighthouse.  We came across a fellow traveler who told us to ignore the warnings, and walk the lighthouse route.  It would seem, from some later gained local knowledge, that the lighthouse had undergone some damage from the ice storm.  And there was a fallen tree on the path.  It was just about 10 minutes down the way and we were at the Pelee Island Lighthouse.  Super old, super gorgeous, I loved it.  We headed back down the beach to the path entrance and after much contemplation decided to take a dip in the lake.  Neither of us wanted to get wet and uncomfortable for the upcoming bike ride but it turned out we didn't want to dip any further than knee high so we got the best of both worlds.  And yikiees was that ever cold.  On the trip back to the road we spotted a log full of turtles!!!  Squeee.

The bike ride was so effortless, the time and the KMs just kept passing by.  Sim saw two goose heads sticking up out of a field that I missed.  It was so peaceful and sweet.  I maintained a certain level of paranoia about time, as the last ferry leaves the island at 4pm, and the map had indicated the long route was 4-5 hours.  With maybe 25 minutes to spare I asked Sim to review the map one more time.  We cut off of the final loop and headed inland back towards the ferry dock.  We ditched the bikes back at the shop, stopped for an ice cream, and hoofed it back down the ferry dock and onward to the upper deck.  We finished with 10 minutes to spare.  Though we could have skipped the ice cream, and jogged down the ferry dock, we both feel we made the right choice.  On the ride home we checked the map one more time and learned we had just biked 30km.  And with perfect weather (and awesome company) it was just the absolute perfect day.

90 minutes later, I didn't mention the ferry ride was 90 minutes, we got back to our hotel.  I finally saw the downstairs patio Sim had mentioned the night before, it was cute!  We sat down and waited to see if someone would come.  Someone did pop out to let us know the patio was closed, but she awesomely served us each a pint anyway.  We let her know we were on our way back in just about an hour.  And she also took a reservation for us.  We went upstairs to clean up and then back down.  We both had the French Onion Soup (deliiiicious) and then I got a burger and Sim got the Erie Yellow Perch special.  We both filled up on free bread and soup, and then packed up our dinners to go.  They ended up not making it very far without refrigeration on the way home, but alas.  We also finished the night with a proprietary puff pastry ice cream concoction which was big enough for four people and luckily we were splitting.  Back up in the hotel room we decided to look further into the bird hike in Pelee Park the next morning.  We realized you had to reserve and the 8:30am was full.  We got the last two slots in the 7:30am, and set our alarms for another early rise.

With a quick stop at McDonalds for some coffee and wraps we made our way back to the park.  The tour offered free binocular rentals so we gathered those up from the Visitor Centre and made it back just in time to leave.  There were two ornithologists leading each leading their own pack of people.  The girl on our tour was super cool.  Just about our age maybe younger, took an interest in birds 5-6 years ago and picked everything she knows up from that, and a class at uni.  I had some flubs and missed out on some really cute awesome birds and that put me into a bit of a funk.  But I had a recovery and got a close up look at some really beautiful birds.  I definitely have a new appreciation for birds.  About halfway through the hike we came upon a huge group of people all gathered around one spot.  The elusive Kentucky Warbler had been spotted, and several people had been waiting around a long time to see it.  We lucked out to happen upon it when we did.  I did not get a change to see more than a small black blob bouncing around, but I won't dwell on that.

Two hours later, full of all sorts of new bird knowledge, we headed back to the hotel to check out and then back to the Grove for a super delicious brunch.  I had the Grove Benny and Sim had the Perch Benny and we both indulged in a mimosa.

Back on the road, a pretty standard trip home.  One stop in London for Sim to pick up a Roots shirt, and a failed attempt to stop at a Townie bike distributor.  Though I found one just down the road in Saug that I'll check out soon.

Another super successful All Canadian Road Trip.  We are becoming quite the experts in all things Southern Ontario.

Perhaps I will be back soon for more life updates.....maybe?  Hopefully?  Yes.