Griesbach and Halloween

Mike and Aimee have been wanting to live in Griesbach for the last few years and had bought me here to walk around the last time I was here. They moved here about a year ago, just before Christmas and are loving it.

Got to love a developer that paints the doors in different bright colours

 From the Village of Griesbach website:  “new urbanism” to include a socially integrated, self sustaining neighbourhood plan enhanced by a focus on “classic architecture” that improved streetscape appeal and made communities more walkable.

It's not unusual to see this sort of stuff on a developers website but this place actually "walks the talk". Griesbach was an armed forces base. The developer specializes in buying up government property and has numerous awards for the communities  created.

Maya taking me on a tour. Their house has a garage on the alley behind and this has been a safe place to bike and for Avery to learn to ride a two wheeler.

 

All the original trees are saved, fenced while construction is going on around them. It makes some of the community feel far older than it is.

 

Here there is the only hill I have seen in this otherwise flat landscape. It is manmade and you can see downtown from the top. Stairs up, paths down, benches to sit on, a community garden on one side and the kids toboggan on it in the winter.

 

There are 3 ponds, frozen now, with walking paths around and linking them. One more pond is in the works.

Information boards

  

and plaques commemorate military history and many of the street names also have a military basis.

There are about 5 developers building houses in the community and they are given scattered plots to build on so a street has a variety of housing styles.

There is also a mix of housing density; condos, apartments, duplexes, row houses, single family dwellings and some of those have apartments over their laneway garages.

There are also parks, schools and around the outside restaurants and retail.

This magpie fluttered from tree to tree beside us chattering away angrily at Iggy.

Ready for the Halloween Party at Daycare.

One week in on Maya's rug.

One day in on Avery's dragon. It's looking a bit dog like at this point, hopefully the flames coming out of his mouth will make the difference.

Flight to Edmonton, Maya and Avery

Pearson was not the usual mass of teeming humanity. There was one flight going out from the same area as mine, about an hour before.

 Covid changes - Park and Fly was almost empty, the shuttles were not running regularly but on demand, masks worn everywhere (of course), covid questions were asked at the check in terminals, most restaurants and retail spaces in the terminal were closed (including Starbucks which is usually my airport treat), every other seat was blocked off in the waiting areas. People still lined up to get on the plane but not quite as crushed together as usual. Passengers were let on more gradually.

Much the same - security, bar next to the gate was open (so I had a glass of wine as I was there quite early), nearly full plane but I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me. Crowding around the luggage carousel.

Very few flights on the board. Most were domestic except for Amsterdam  and Heathrow

 Aimee and the kids picked me up and everyone was up too late.

Suchi for supper

Maya dressed up in her construction outfit.

Serious about Alphagetti for lunch.

I bought rug hooking stuff with me so I could make a rug for Maya (Avery already has one). Maya is also known as Maya-bird so the rug had to have birds. Maya and I worked on the design.

Maya then picked out colours for each element. This was after the first day.

Maya also has other uses for the pieces of wool.

Lunch with a side of ipads.

Followed by chocolate, banana, peanut butter, chocolate chip muffins.

I don't see as much of Avery as he is at school on weekdays. He is addicted to playing Minecraft and assumes the strangest positions when in that world.

Bruce Trail - Winona Conservation to Millen Rd, Map 6, 9.2km to 16.9km.

 After the usual fabulous Serenity Ranch breakfast Nic and I dropped a car at the Millen Rd access trail and drove to Winona Conservation to start the hike. No bicyclists there today.

Still a bit slick on the trail. Grey and humid so not as many other hikers.

It's fungi season again

This one looked like a Flemenco dancers dress.

These were the colour of dark chocolate.

Tips of the ferns starting to change colour.

Beautiful trees

and hips.

Two days of finding our footing on rough and slippery terrain had taken its toll and we were both quite tired and very happy to see our exit point.

In total we hiked about 18km in the 2 days. Lots of up and down. Pleased with completing a couple of maps.

Bruce Trail - Grimsby to Winona Conservation, Map 5, 0 to 9.2

 Nic and I were back on the Bruce Trail this past weekend. We had a bit of a bumpy start.

We met at the Winona Conservation Area but it and the road to it were closed for an event. We turned around and left one car back up the road.

We parked the other car in Grimsby and hiked up this steep, slippery slope before we realized we were going in the wrong direction and had done this part before. Doubled back, walked along the road to bypass a closed pedestrian bridge

and looked for access to the trail.

We were starting at km0 of the Iroquoia section.

It was sunny, cool and

the views and fall colours

were lovely.

Unfortunately lots of other people also decided to enjoy it. Some socially distanced but many did not, perhaps assuming that being outside is enough.

We had the trail to ourselves where it got rough. These parts were quite tiring as we constantly had to look down, picking our pole and foot placements on wet leaves and rocks.

We had to climb this hill to get up to the car but we found out what the event was. All these bicyclists were "Everesting"

Everesting is an activity in which cyclists ascend and descend a given hill multiple times, in order to have cumulatively climbed 8,848 metres (the elevation of Mount Everest) from Wiki.

On Fifty Road they had to go up and down 84 times!

We had a late lunch at the restaurant in Grimsby that we ate at before, sitting on the patio,

and enjoyed the food just as much. Potato skins, hot lobster dip with nachos and beet and goat cheese salad.

Then to Serenity Ranch Bed and Breakfast for a hot bath and comfy bed.