September 2009
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After much planning, our first significant trip of the year got underway September 11th. Ahead of us lay six weeks or more of discovery encompassing all five of the Great Lakes --- or, so we reckoned.
Our first day of driving brought us the short distance to Corning NY, where we spent the afternoon at the Corning Glass Museum:
It was time well spent as the museum is both educational and entertaining with many beautiful displays.
In the evening, we experienced what a country dance is like in Addison NY, about 20 minutes from Corning. While not exactly what we expected, the down-home atmosphere made for a fun evening.
The following day, shunning the Interstates, we reached Lake Ontario at Oswego NY. Blue skies over the lake were a welcome change. They were responsible for our spending several enjoyable hours in the town --- near the waterfront, as you might guess:
Crossing into Canada, we looked forward to a Sunday afternoon theater performance in Gananoque at the Springer Theater. As it turned out, the play was indeed delightful! In the photo below, we’re parked at the theater to pick up our tickets for the performance of “Old Love”. There were lots of laughs in this play about older folks and romance. Incredibly, there was just one actor and one actress, each playing several roles with minimal costume changes. They were both excellent. Moreover, the actor, Norm Foster, also wrote the script! We can well believe the claim that he is Canada’s preeminent comic playwright.
After the performance, with most theater-goers gone, we lingered on the theater deck, our faces still reflecting the glow of a good-time-had-by-all:
Finally, we wandered off to explore the town and watch boats coming and going on the river:
The next day, after first touring Kingston by car, we got the bikes out and rode them to the ferry. Twenty minutes on the water, with no charge for bikers or pedestrians, took us to Wolfe Island, a mostly quiet, rural island. Some drivers do enter Canada from the U.S. by way of Wolfe Island but that requires two ferry rides. We avoided the busier route such drivers use (Hwy 95) and headed out of Marysville in a westerly direction, fortified by a delicious sandwich made fresh in a little one-person business.
I liked the proportions and setting of this small church on the way out of town and couldn’t resist taking its photo:
A little further along, this was the scene across a grassy inlet:
A few miles out of Marysville, we had close encounters with some of the giants of Wolfe Island. There are presently 86 wind turbines on the island --- doing their utmost to help power nearby cities:
Returning to the mainland, we biked all along the Kingston waterfront until we ran out of city. That route took us immediately past the Town Hall:
Another pretty scene greeted us near the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes:
And this is about as far as we rode before turning back toward our car:
That’s Wolfe Island across the water; a few of the wind turbines can be detected by a sharp eye.
And that is also about as far as this vacation went because of our cycling mishap on the return. It is amazing how quickly things can change. Oh, well, we’ll just have to save the rest of the plans for another time!