May the 4th be with you, as I was reminded by a Twitter post by the White House which I do not care to describe here. I woke up a little late, but had enough time to take a shower before checkout at 11. I set a reminder last night reminding me about breakfast this morning, since last time a hotel had free breakfast I completely forgot, and didn’t get there in time. This hotel kept breakfast going until 11am, which was really nice since then I don’t have to rush to get there by 9am.
Heeding the wise words of my reminder, I gathered all my things and dropped them at the car. I then walked the 100m to the front office to return my keys, only to experience a similar thing as last night at Popeyes, with the two people in front of me trying to get a receipt for their room and taking forever to do so. I’m not sure how, since getting a receipt seems like a relatively simple thing, but oh well. After about 5 minutes I just put my key card on the desk where they could see it and went to get breakfast.
I had about 15 minutes until they closed breakfast, and I got myself a blueberry muffin, some fruit loops, and two apples (to eat later). It wasn’t anything super fancy, but it’s free and better than nothing. I walked back to the car and sat for a bit planning my next move, unsure if I’d go further north, or stop somewhere first. Conveniently as I was doing this, I received a phone call that I’d been waiting for. It was Marc, a friend of my mother’s from many years ago when they went to university together. I had reached out to him a few days ago but he’d been pretty busy so only now had the chance to get back to me.
We set up a meeting in a few hours in Kitchener, and I got on the road to his house. Traffic on the Queen Elizabeth Way wasn’t as bad as it was on the way to Niagara, but it wasn’t perfect either. I came across a spot of construction where people did the classic North American thing and merged way too early, which just gave me a great way to bypass traffic and merge in at the merge point. Some people see this as rude, but if we all did it, it would help everyone get to their destination faster. Additionally, it was stop and go traffic, so I wasn’t cutting anyone off at speed or anything, but it did save me a good few minutes which is nice.
I arrived at Marc’s house around 1:30, and parked in the driveway. We decided to go out to lunch and take his car, meaning I needed to move mine. So, I backed it out of the driveway and parked on the street, before hopping out and walking to his car. That’s when he let me know I’d actually parked illegally, and the bylaw officer would ticket me for it since I had parked the wrong way on a two way street. I think that’s technically the law at home too, but no one really cares about it so I’ve never thought about it. But in this case, the bylaw officer is pretty active, so Marc suggested I just pull back into the driveway since it was easiest.
We drove about a short while to Elora, a small town of about 3000 people that has been voted the most beautiful town in Ontario. It wasn’t a super nice day, so we didn’t get to see everything in sunny colour, but it was still a very pretty place to be. We walked down the Main Street to a book store where Marc wanted to look for a book, but when we got there, we found a note on the door saying they were closed and would be back in 10 minutes. So, we took a seat on the porch and chatted while we waited for them to return. When they did, we went inside and took a look around. I got myself a French dictionary for when Claire and I go to Quebec next week, along with a fiction novel about someone travelling by foot from Seattle to Chicago which looked sort of interesting.
We kept walking further into town and popped into a cafe where live music was being played. We sat in there for a bit and had a drink, and had a very nice conversation with the owners of the cafe and the musician about my trip, the history of the cafe, and about Vancouver Island. Afterward, we walked a little further to a bridge over the Grand River, and then to a very expensive hotel and spa that is built within the restored Elora Mill building along the river. It’s quite an impressive building, built right into the cliffside on the side of the riverbank, with a good 20-30 meters from the spot we were standing to the river, and overlooking the rapids.
We then walked back up through town to the car and drove a few minutes to the Elora quarry, where many of the older buildings stones are sourced from. It’s since been closed and converted into a park and swimming area (with many warnings about cliff jumping and water quality) with a little beach between the river and quarry. It’s quite an impressive sight, and while technically closed for the season, I can imagine it being a super popular place to be in the summer.
We then headed back towards home, driving through Mennonite country as we did. As it was early evening on a Sunday, many were returning from spending the day at church, and so we frequently had to watch out for horse buggies moving slowly along the side of the road. You want to give them space, like anything on the side of the road, and you don’t want to accelerate near them or make loud noises as to risk spooking the horses.
We drove past the University of Waterloo on the way, where my mum went to school, and Marc pointed out all the different buildings, including where my mum used to live. We got home around 6:30pm where we sat for a bit while I planned my next move. I settled on going up to Manitoulin Island, the world’s largest freshwater island, and home to the Mounted Animal Nature Trail, both facts I learned from the Arrogant Worms band!
Marc gave me a bunch of snacks and drinks before I left, including two full boxes of girl guide cookies, which was very generous of him. He also agreed to let me stay when I’m back in this area in a month, since I need to fly to New York for 4 days and being able to leave my car at his place and get a ride to the Waterloo airport would be extremely useful. We then said our goodbyes and I got on the road north.
I got about 3/4ths of the way to Tobermory, the port where you catch the ferry to Manitoulin Island, before I stopped at a Popeyes (again) and got some dinner. This time it wasn’t as good though, illustrating my earlier point of it being very location dependant. Afterward, I drove another 15 minutes and found a rest area to stay the night at. It wasn’t anything fancy, especially compared to the OnRoute’s I’d been to before, and was really just a dirt pullout with some trash cans and a little meadow area with some trees. Regardless, it would do for a quick overnight, and I got myself settled in.
After getting settled, I suddenly heard a bumping noise against the side of the car, which was pretty spooky. I waited a moment and after two more bumps, it stopped. It didn’t scare me a ton, because it didn’t sound like a human at all, but it was a little unnerving nonetheless. After it stopped, I got up and turned on the headlights, but couldn’t see anything around me. It took me a moment to forget about it, before laying back down and falling asleep.