Nanaimo

As Jim mentioned we overnighted in Nanaimo so he could eat Nanaimo bars to his hearts content. He doesn't eat many desserts and I eat almost all of them but our tastes diverge on Nanaimo bars, they contain coconut (Yuck).
Nanaimo was a good surprise. We had been once before for a few hours and spent those on Newcastle Island Provincial Park. This time we stayed overnight at the Bucanneer Inn, very clean. At the receptionist's suggestion we walked to the downtown along the waterfront, about a 1/2 hour walk, to find a restaurant for dinner. The car rental guy had suggested the Modern Cafe which we located pretty easily on Commercuial St. Dinner and the wine were terrific.
This morning we drive back downtown to find some breakfast and were delighted to find the Petite Choux, an excellent breakfast. After that we walked to the Old Cith Centre to find the yarn shop. Another short stroll located both Jim's namaimo bars and an out of print cookbook I was searching for. A good day in a fine little city.

A Nanaimo Night Out

We've just returned from a memorable night. We're staying at the Buccaneer Inn, a ship shape little hotel thats about a 30 minute walk from the Nanaimo city centre. Not just any walk but a harbor walk with boats and islands and birds and people to look at as you stroll. Nanaimo has a very european feel to the city core. We picked the Modern Cafe for dinner and are glad we did. A great mac & cheese for Melodee, souvalki for me and both of enjoyed a 1/2 liter of a wonderful BC savignoun blanc.
When we were getting seat assignments on the short hop from Peoria to ORD the gate agent made a point of seating us together. Melodee said no big deal as we were in for lots of 24-7 time together. That's true, but a night out like tonight is a big reason I love to travel with Melodee. She's makes life truly enjoyable.

We Went West

Way west. To the western coast of Vancouver Island. Its a long flight to Vancouver, the city, then a quick bus ride to Horseshoe Bay, an hour and 40 minute ferry boat ride (I love ferrys) to Nanaimo, home of the Nanaimo bar, & finally a 3 hour drive ouver the mountains to one of the farthest west points on the North American continent -- Tofino BC, the surfing capital of Canada. It really is. Its also really windy and a great place to watch storms roll in. We're staying at the Pacific Sands Resort on Cox Bay. Our view is to the pounding surf. Its a great place to simply curl up with a good book and relax.

I Need a Holiday

The end of tax season has arrived & we're off on our annual "after tax season" trip. Since we're going to Canada, it's a holiday.
The 9:40ish direct flight to Vancoiuver on Sunday (4/18) looked better than than crack of dawn routing thru Denver, thankfully after a late nite Saturday at a Richard Thompson concert. Even better than the later departure was settling into seats 1C and 1D. Thanks again, Patrick.
We were pleased to find a SkyTrain now connected YVR to the downtown. By 2:30 we were checked into the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay and back out into the sunshine of a beautiful Vancouver Sunday afternoon.

Warren Dunes State Park

Our original intent was to spend our last 2 nites at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, but after looking at the map we decided to stop a bit short and instead stay at Warren Dunes State Park just short of Benton Harbor. We spent a little time in Goderich and the border crossing took almost an hour so we didn't get to the park until dinner time.

Our last full vacation day was another great beach day - crystal clear skies, not too hot, a good breeze and and uncrowded beach. We went down to the beach for breakfast and didn't head back to camp until 5PM. We had plenty of time for reading, swimming, walking the beach and playing with the dogs. A really nice way to end up a great vacation.

Goderich, our future home

We found our retirement home city - Goderich Ontario, population 8,000 but with more vitality than Iowa City. Goderich bills itself as Canada's prettiest town and we wouldn't argue. It has a town square that's an octagon, a bustling business district, live music several times a week, a gorgeous lake front, plenty of bike paths, easy access to Stratford, London and Toronto, in short it looks great to us.

Don't worry we won't be moving anytime soon; we are nothing if not deliberate. What we are saying is that once both of us are no longer working, we likely will have a home base other than Burlington and more than likely it will be in Canada. For several years, we've thought our likely retirement home would be Vancouver, but Goderich looks much better and it would surely be quite a bit less costly.

We arrived in Goderich just before our 6PM dinner reservation at Bailey's. Bear in mind that this is a town of 8,000 and Bailey's is just one of several excellent restaurants. It was reasonably busy and all but us were locals. We liked that there was a mixture of ages. Our meals were great and the Jackson Triggs Gerwertztraminer was a real treat. We talked for a few minutes with a couple who welcomed us to the town and told us not to miss the lakefront. We had tickets for "Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad" in Blyth so we had to hustle to make it on time. Blyth is a town of 950; it boasts a professional theatre, a number of downtown businesses and a community campgound with 800 serviced campsites - Blyth hosts an annual thresher's festival. The play was fun and we decided to stay in the nearby campground; we were the only ones there so we had the pick of 800 sites!

Our practice is to have everything packed away each nite so we can easily move to a breakfast camp. We woke early Sunday and headed back to the Goderich lakefront. We were blown away. Goderich is the only deep water port on Ontario's west coast. There was an ocean going ship in port and another arrived shortly after we parked. The recreation portion of the lake front is about a mile long. A beautiful beach with a boardwalk and several shelter houses. We parked on the section where pets were allowed and let the guys out to play while cooked breakfast - blueberry pancakes. Melodee has been using the fresh blueberries we've been buying at the fruit stands and boy are they ever good.

We had picked up a hiking guide to Huron county. There are easily a week's worth of good hikes; we picked the Tiger Dunlop - Menestung trail and were not disappointed. The trail crosses the Maitland river on an old railroad bridge. Gorgeous lake and river views.

There is a another lakefront park on the top of the bluff overlooking the beach park. We made a lunch camp here and took in the lake view. We then had to decide what to do - take another hike or try out one of the bike trails. We had come to this are because my guide to camping in Ontario said that Falls Reserve park had the finest natural water park to be found anywhere so it made sense to at least see the Maitland River, besides we had a campground reservation there. The Maitland river runs over solid rock here that must have had some softer rock embedded in the harder rocks that remains. The result is that there are little rivulets of deeper fast running water. Lena had a few problems getting used to the fact that one step would put her into this fast moving water and she just wasn't sure what to do. We spent some time watching the young people play in the rapids then headed back to the Goderich lakefront to make dinner and watch the sunset.

We had a real treat. Shortly after we got to the lakefront, 2 square riggers appeared on the horizon. We think they were the boats modeled after Columbus' ships. Made for some very good pictures, but if they could have just waited about 45 minutes they would have been silhouetted against a pretty good sunset. As is we had to settle for the best sunset of the trip.

There is a great coffee shop on the square that is open until 11:30 on Sunday. We got there about 9PM and expected to find it empty. Once again we found a vibrant group of locals enjoying the best coffee shop we saw on the trip. We used the wifi to update the blog and headed back to Falls Reserve after a very full day.

The next morning we headed back to the lake shore for breakfast and then went to the visitor information center. Goderich is truly a town built for living.

And the Winner Is ...

While traveling today we thought back over our trip and came up with our favorites in several categories. Numbers in parenthesis indicate the number of entries.

State or province (2) - Ontario. While the UP was beautiful, Ontario from stem to stern was spectacular

Campground (17) - Bay Furnace, Munising MI. Killer view and close to all attractions.

Best camping not in a campground (2) - Niagara-on-the-Lake. Camping right on a city street but backed up to a lovely city park. Clean restrooms, easy walks to great restaurants and theatre.

Best Theatre festival (2) - Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Best Music Festival (1) - Summerfolk, Ownen Sound. Really would have liked to spend more time here, but even if you're gone for a long time, you still have to make choices.

Best music in a campground (1) - Neil Lafaive, Awenda PP. Not very often you get professional music at a campground program.

Best Day use area (many) - Killbear PP. A grassy area right by our camper, killer view, good swimming and really comfortable for the dogs.

Best Hike (about 10) - Chapel loop, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Wow, super trail surface, great lake views, rock formations and a great lunch spot on a Lake Superior beach.

Best Boat Ride (3) - Parry Sound, 30,000 Islands cruise. Great tours of homes and cottages.

Best Beach (many) - Awenda PP. Georgian Bay beach with 3 lagoon areas, great views and plenty of shade.

Best Great Lake (4) - Lake Huron. Warm water, beautiful bays.

Best Hiking for dogs (several) - Killbear PP day use area. It was here Sol came into his own again. He jumped out and took the lead on this hike to the lighthouse. Boy he was happy.

Hike with the most people - Bruce Peninsula NP trail to the grotto. Lotsof people, but uber cool. We had to descend thru a hole in the rocks to get into a cave that had an underwater opening to daylight on the other side..

Best meal out (4) - Charles Inn, Niagara-on-the-Lake

Best lunch (10) - We called this a tie. We stopped at 2 roadside cafes each about 70 km from the Soo, one NW and the other SE. At each we had poutine, but the real feature was the local color. Also warranting an honorable mention was the Mermaid's Secret in Tobermory. Jim had a really tasty whitefish on pita with a honey/raspberry glaze; fun server and good conversation with locals and internet access.

Best food item - Poutine, but the perogies at the roadside cafe NW of the Soo rates an honorable mention. All comfort food.

Best Wine (way too many) - Inniskillen Cabernet Franc Ice Wine (MW) Jackson Triggs Gewurztraminer (JW)

Best Small Town (several) - Goderich Ont