biking to west montrose covered bridge

A few weeks ago we decided to test out our biking legs after a summer of practice and a few trips in the city. We'd heard from Kate and Craig that a nice flat trail exists from Guelph to Millbank called the Kissing Bridge Trailway. It also has Ontario's longest and oldest covered bridge in West Montrose.

We knew that it would be too long for Henry, so we decided to start is Ariss and see how far we could go, knowing the trail was flat and a nice hard packed gravel. The trail takes you through some beautiful Mennonite country, the fields and smells were incredible. We even saw a few horse and buggy with families and children.

Just as we stopped for lunch we came across the bike lift and stairs to take us up to the road that connects to West Montrose. We had to push our bikes up a small bike ramp 7 stories high, but at least that was the only real hill (little did I know the hard part would be coming back down...)

As you can see from the pictures, the sun went behind a few clouds just as we were getting ready to leave and it started to lightly rain. Well it rained almost the entire 10km back - we only stopped once for a trail mix break. A total of 22km round trip, little Henry's legs were tired, but we were so proud to have made it, our first long ride together. 

Stew and Henry cross the finish line together!

visiting st.jacobs village

(This is the broom store in town, they sell wands here!...sold out of Nimbus 2000 though)

To start off, this post is dedicated to my Uncle Steve and Aunt Heather...you guys would have just loved this trip. The St. Jacobs Aberfoyle Model Railway is an impressive site - they have designed it as an 'O' scale representing Southern Ontario in the 1950's. They have sites from Dundas, Guelph, Hamilton and Toronto all included in the exhibit.

(these guys are moving grandfather clocks!)

Everything is built from scratch, with the exception of these corn fields. All the trees are dried ends of sedum and marigold sprigs all painted green.

 This model railway was designed originally by six partners in the 1970's, and up until 2013 it was in Aberfoyle. However they needed more space and eventually it was cut into 45 sections and moved to St. Jacobs - they have a boat load of volunteers, and each of them are on site to chat with you (you can seem them when you look up through the windows)

They are lots of terminals yards, the passenger cars light up, you can see inside and people are dining in the dining cars, there's a lake, some camping areas, farms and ferry boat.

Henry is watching the train here on the round about...it ended up getting stuck and one of the volunteers had to come down and help move it...he thought that was the coolest.

After about 25 minutes the sun sets and the display goes into a night scene. This is amazing as you hear long trail whistles, the cars light up, and there's a wedding on one of the upper floors of the hotels downtown. The kids were thrilled with the night scene, so we stayed for three days...literally, minds were blown, and we are still talking about it.

camping at valens

First off, Aunt Katie has arrived! We are so excited to have her here visiting us this summer, and soaking up some Ontario weather and all the fun adventures we planned. First on our list was to take her camping at Valens Lake. This is a site just 30 minutes south of Guelph, it was flooded in the 60's and created a small lake with camping sites and has a great beach and biking trails. We visited Valens last fall and knew it would be a great spot for us. To help get us prepped for camping Katie made each of us a bug bracelet. It was soaked in some oils to help keep some of the bugs at bay - we had a few scents, and the kids loved personalizing them.

We also prepped for making bannock on this trip. Katie had tested a recipe in her Kindergarten class earlier in the year when she did her native people's unit - the kids listened while they mixed.

The benefit of me working again...we bought our long awaited 5 person bike rack for the van! We were pleased to get all camping gear, plus 6 people and our bikes on this trip.

It was cozy!

We stayed at the Pine Ridge group site this year and it was a wonderful spot - Craig did his research and found a site with lots of shade, a small barn with electricity (which was great for the first night as it sprinkled rain) and we were about 100 metres from this look out tower. The site was away from the roads and in the trees which made it great for seeing lots of red squirrels (they even tried to eat into some coolers!)

We usually hit the beach every afternoon and the sand castle making was epic - lots of great creating

Group shot! We went with Kate and Craig, along with their neighbours Ruth and Derek, the kids are almost all the same age, and Katie was instrumental in all of us having a good time ;)

We rented kayaks and canoes one day, it was fantastic, Anna loved kayaking with Stew and Katie. Sam and Henry also got the hang of it pretty quick.

Lunch crew, it was a nice long table for 15!

Walking the boardwalk trail

Sarah (and her parents) did a great job...here she is having her bath.

Making baked apples on the fire.

Sam is looking cozy and ready for bed - the kids crashed so hard every night.

Our frog friend

Kate giving us some cicada talks

 The sun setting on a great 5 nights and 6 days away. We really loved our time here, and the people we went with - it was a special trip we will always remember.