First up, an attraction that's less than a six minute drive from my home, but which I didn't even know existed until a few years ago: The Waterloo Central Railway, which runs from Northfield Station to the St Jacob's Farmer's Market (where we got on) and thence to Elmira.
Sorry, Dad, I know you want a look at the locomotive, and this thing came at us ass-first.
It's old Via stock pushed/pulled by a vintage locomotive, moving at a leisurely pace through mostly farmland for an hour and 45 minutes. At one point, the train came to a sudden stop with a distinctly alarming CLUNK and the lights went out. We were frozen in place for a few minutes, and then resumed our travel. The railway employee told us there had been some sort of generator issue. This exact same thing has happened to me the first and last two times I took Via Rail, come to think of it.
Pictures of and from the train:
Amongst all the local colour narration we learned there was a Mennonite deli in Elmira called .Kitchen Kuttings, and we decided to go there for lunch. Very glad we did. Delectable sandwiches, salads and baked goods, at a more than reasonable price. I got Kathy some of this
...and I have been commanded to buy shares in it.
From there, we meandered over to Elora's Victoria Park, which encompassed Lover's Leap. We've been to the Gorge before, but I had never seen it from this angle:
Then to Fergus, where Kathy pretty much stumbled on Templin Gardens. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves, which was a relief, honestly. That had most emphatically NOT been the case before this moment.
We try, both of us, to keep it slow and unhurried, and to be attentive to beauty wherever it shows up. The more you do this...the more places beauty shows up. (It doesn't hurt to be next to beauty at the time, he said, truthfully):
We took the chance to view the Fergus Cascades:
It really doesn't matter to us what size these things are. We find them almost hypnotic.
Finally, we wandered over to the West Montrose Kissing Bridge, which we've visited several times before. It's fun how we have several places which, by unspoken consent, we seem to gravitate towards: this is one.
They're looking to renovate this next year. It's Ontario's only covered bridge, built in 1880, and it's 198 feet long.
We have a much more ambitious (though considerably trimmed) road TREK coming up in a little more than three weeks. Stay tuned. I'm practically vibrating with excitement already.
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