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water falls of Grey County

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Collingwood, 2011.05.22

Today we all packed into our rented Civic and toured the sights of the Collingwood area.

First all of us save for Renate went to the "Village" at Blue Mountain. It sometimes seems to me that I wind up at these ski resorts more frequently in the off season than I do in the skiing season, but this time there was at least some point in being there. They seem to be making an effort to make the place worthwhile in the warmer months, and we toyed with the idea of taking Kenny on the ride they have there: it drags you up a kind of rail-car for two like a bobsled but on rails. You can control the speed but if you take it flat out it hits 30kph. We decided that it could wait a couple of more years, and bought the kid a toy that wouldn't leave him scared witless: a toy "Mater" truck from the movie "Cars".

We headed back to the resort for lunch, and then set off on a tour of waterfalls in neighbouring Grey County. One of the these was set way hell and gone away from the places settled by the "Europeans" (by now at least in their third generation in the new (stolen) continent) and therefor un(re)discovered until 1850. Both waterfalls were worth a visit: one had been heavily modified during the industrial era and had interesting brick and stone bits in the mix; the out-of-the-way falls was a plunging affair that disappeared into a deep gorge.

It was a fine time to be zipping about in the countryside: stormy skies and field after field of brilliant yellow (I had no idea that dandelions could grow so thick!) and wintered grey hay bales and crumbling barns. Woohoo!

We topped it off with a stop at a surprisingly good Thai place (see early note about the Mustang II being a car of note in this area!) and then a fierce lightning storm. Quite a day, all in.

Three good things that happened today:

1. took some interesting photos (god I love film)

2. found an appropriately sized ice cream cone for Kenny, for once

3. talked Kenny down from a fear of lightning that oddly enough involved dinosaurs!

rand()m quote

Marriage is like a game of chess, except the board is flowing water, the pieces are made of smoke and no move you make will have any effect on the outcome.

—Jerry Seinfeld