Glen Rouge Campground

Lately, it certainly doesn't feel like camping weather, but it's nice to plan ahead sometimes and dream about warmer days even though it seems they'll never come again!

Located at 7540 Kingston Road is Toronto's only campground.  Even in winter, there are tons of trails to hike each with an average of about 1.5-2.5 km taking you through valleys, meadows, orchards, along creeks and streams and vista overlooking the Rouge River.

It was a cool afternoon after a nice lunch, and I was burning up calories to make up for the chocolate ice cream I had for dessert.  A lot of the Rouge Valley is perfect for camping and this place has its fill of customers from May - October.  It's far enough from the city (about a 20 minute drive) to get a look at the stars at night.  I think one of the bonuses of the Glen Rouge Campground is that it's close enough to home (just in case an emergency comes up) and yet it doesn't feel like you're in the city at all when  you are meandering through the forests.  Even in the winter, the trees are alive with birds, most of which never migrate.


I hadn't walked over to the beach area and why would I in January? However in mid-summer, you'll enjoy sandy beaches and if  you have kids, there's a few swings in a small playground for them and plenty of power stations and water at every camp site.


My favorite trees last all year long here, and this is really what I love about this place, the Jack Pines.  It's really a toss up between them and the melancholic willow tree.

 Funny to see a little woodpecker, I think that's what it was.  It was a little blue bird, with a long beak making a rat-a-tat-tat sound against the trees.  If anyone knows what kind of bird it is, feel free to send me a line.


Other activities besides hiking, and swimming at the beach are paddling on the creek, cycling on a few of the trails and for a change a scenic drive though the valley along Reesor Road, Lapps Cider Mill (built in 1872), Glen Eagles Vista, Bailey Bridge (1954) and through Bob Hunter Memorial Park.

So that's about it, it took an hour or so to finish a trail stopping to take the occasional picture.  If you are interested in checking out this campground this year, they take reservations as early as January, so get your name in there soon before it fills up.

Happy Trails!

Samuel Smith Park

I have to admit, I really am NOT a winter person.  I chill to the bone and search for warmth wherever I can find it.  Just yesterday on my way into work, I wrapped myself up for a 5 minute walk going by a downtown construction site where men were out already at such an early hour in the morning.  I felt bad for them because I thought in a few minutes, I'll be warm as apple pie and they may be spending the entire day out here! 

Weekends can be tricky as I find myself having all sorts of ideas and itineraries in the evening while curled up in front of my computer, but by morning I'm still curled up in bed thinking about all kinds of reasons why to go outside at all.

I think it looks better in B & W

A positive experience I wanted to share was Arrowhead Provincial Park, located in Huntsville.  It offers a lot of outdoor activities in winter.  One of which is the over kilometre long skating trail which we did last year and loved!

The only 'con' was that it can get a little crowded which takes away from the 'man against nature' feel, but it's still something to do at least once in a lifetime!

Since I put my camera down for over a year, I never took any pictures of the day except for some on my phone which really aren't any better than anything you'll find if you do a search on Arrowhead ski trail.

Right here in the city, we have our own version of the skating trail, at Colonel Samuel Smith Park - actually several of them including one at the Brickworks so there's no need to travel north if you want to stay close to your warm bed.


Here's the unofficial but well maintained site which I found to be an excellent resource.

http://www.cityrinks.ca/wiki/wiki.php?n=CityRinks.FrontPage

Happy New Year 2017

  Every new year we wish to come up with some way to begin again.  To apologize for  our past, to mend broken hearts, broken dreams, broken promises, but in the end we need to learn from our mistakes.

To be better people, to learn from the pain from loss, the hope for the future and to give more of ourselves than we have done before.  If that means we come up short, so be it.

Nothing is more precious than family and friends, and that means no matter how much money, or job status, or goal mines we discover, our friends and family or really anyone we hold precious and dear in our lives, are worth all their weight in gold.

Let this year, not be a way to begin again or struggle with ourselves to correct what mistakes we think we have but rather to move forward.  To learn from the past and continue walking forward one step at a time.

P A T H - Toronto's Underground

 When the snow piles high and the wind blows cold, you can get yourself around in the underground of Toronto without ever coming up for air.

There's a whole world down here and its called the PATH.

The PATH led me to my first job downtown, my first attendance to a Convention and Trade show and to my first husband, but not necessarily in that order and not all in the same day!



The P A T H starts from Dundas Street from the north at the Eatons Centre (future plans are to continue north to College Street) to Queens Quay in the south (south of the Gardiner Expressway) and from Simcoe Street in the west to Yonge Street in the east.

You can check out any map of Toronto yourself to see that that is a pretty impressive underground trek, don't you think?

In order to follow the P A T H, each color represents a direction (Red-South; Orange-West; Blue-North; Yellow-East).

During the week, this underground world is saturated with hundreds of thousands of people commuting from the local transit systems (TTC) to the GO Stations (Metrolinx) at Union and to the VIA trains or the Toronto Coach Bus Terminal  at Bay Street, which can take them out of the city's core altogether.

Workers, shoppers, and tourists pack the P A T H more so during the week days.  On weekends, you may have a little more elbow room especially if you plan on taking pictures as the Office Towers close down except for the odd bored security person.

The P A T H links to some of the most visited tourist attractions in Toronto, like the Eaton's Centre, which brings in millions of holiday shoppers; Air Canada Centre, Ripley's Aquarium, Skydome (I still refuse to call it the Rogers Centre :) and of course the CN Tower.


Some of the major performing arts centre, like the Four Seasons Centre and Roy Thompson Hall are accessed on the path as well.  Although I do enjoy most movie soundtracks which apparently were inspired by classical composers, I don't enjoy most classical music unfortunately so don't go to Roy Thompson or others like it very much.




When I worked downtown, I loved the convenience of the  
P A T H as it took me to many hotels, some for business, others for pleasure.  I was in the Convention and Trade Show industry that hosted Toronto for international exhibitors.  This was of course before Free Trade, when Trade shows and Conventions were a very busy industry not only for for tourism (still are) but for the Custom House businesses.

Conventions are awesome for local economies obviously because when exhibitors come to your city, they often put money into hotels, spend lots in shops and restaurants and list goes on.



Today, the Metro Convention Centre hosts most of the Conventions in the city and has a hotel built directly beside called the InterContinental Toronto Centre Hotel.   Hotels like the Sheraton or the Royal York or Hilton, which once were the only game in town have lost out to that income on a private corporate level.

Sometimes in bigger shows though, there is always the much needed extra capacity for rooms for which they are necessary.

The bigger shows kept us up sometimes over 24 hours straight working on booth setups, and coordinating with Customs to bring shipments in for the show.  It was great fun.

Back to present day, the holidays dress up the main lobbies of many of these Corporate Towers, like the Royal Bank Plaza, The Toronto-Dominion Centre, First Canadian Place and the beautiful Exchange Tower.  It was a treat looking at them again.

Historical value? I didn't want to research too much on this underground world, but rather give credit to those who have by linking you to this site.

We came here just for fun for me to take pictures and share them as I love to do.  So here are some of what we saw today.