Being A Tourist In Our Own Area

 This morning when I was reading Elaine's blog (crazyquilteronabike.blogspot.com), something she said resonated with me. There's a bit of front end information that's needed to understand the meaning of her suggestion.

On the weekend, she had volunteered for the Toronto Marathon, driving and dropping off necessary equipment, and then picking it back up once the marathoners had passed. She guesstimated where on the route she would be by noon, and left her car there. When she finished her time volunteering, her car was still 3 blocks away, so she had a bit of walking to do. On her walking route, she discovered an area literally filled with amazing graffiti artwork. Her suggestion....we should all be tourists in our own hometown. I love it!!!

She's not wrong when she says that we all too often look to "tourist" somewhere away from home...rarely taking the time to enjoy what our own hometowns have to offer. I know that when I lived in Guelph, in all of the 32 years that I lived there, I never once went to the Hillside Festival, nor did I travel to Fergus (15 minutes away) for the Highland Games....both things which I would have loved to have done.

Keeping the idea in mind of becoming more of a tourist in our own area (we don't live in a highly populated area so I'm including the nearest towns to us in this endeavour), I convinced my other half to come on a brief touristy adventure with me. We headed to Burk's Falls so that I could take some pictures of the falls. At this site, a hydro generation station was built in 1923. Watching the water rushing by today, it's not hard to see why they built one there.

There's a small building near the falls that has served many purposes over the course of time. It was and information booth, and has been a coffee/bake shop owned by various people. It has one of the "screaming heads" art installations outside of it. Around the backside, alongside the river, there's a covered patio/deck area.

The building hasn't been open for a while now, but it looks like something might be happening again...someone is doing some renovating work inside. I sure hope it becomes a coffee/bake shop again. When the weather's nice (unlike today), it's really nice to grab a coffee and a treat, and sit next to the river. Today, however, the weather was drizzly/rainy, and the river was very noisy!!!

Sometime soon, on a nice day, I would like for us to go back and take advantage of walking some trails that start AT the building/falls. We've not walked these trails yet.

When we got home, Steve puttered doing a bit of this and a bit of that....and cleaning the new car...., while I got busy sewing. I managed to finish the Barn Trail block I was behind on....

...and even got my homework done for May's class :)

And Her Ladyship???? She was VERY happy that Mister started the wood stove today :D

I was very glad to have the warmth, too!

And on that note, I wish you all a very good night!

TTFN