We spent the day out and about with Ian and Sue as our tour guides… definitely the best tour of my life! Thank you so very much, Ian and Sue, for all of the following.
- A hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon with me slipping only the tiniest tid-bits to both Winston, the dog, and Black Jackie, the cat.
- Visit to the McMichael Gallery in nearby Kleinburg to see the amazing Group of Seven collection along with many other well known Canadian artists (some of our favs and some new). A small gallery in comparrison to others but none the less incredible and so diverse in artistic representation. I’ve only included a few pics in the days photos and mostly of the beautiful property and some people shots, but if you are interested, click to see all the pics of The McMichael Gallery
- Back to Ian and Sue’s for a yummy lunch of cold meat sandwiches and a cold glass of sangria 😄
- Off again to visit one of the region’s managed woodlots and tour the “Living” conference and educational workshop building located there (a green “Leeds Certified” building and the only one in North America to achieve the “living” status). Ian’s title is the Manager of Natural Heritage and Forestry Environmental Promotion and Protection for the Regional Municipality of York, and he takes great pride in his legacy of reforestation and green space development. Ian told us the story of the devestation of the land here in the 1800s due to deforestation and the government’s current efforts and successes in returning it to its natural state. We strolled nearly 3 kms of the many well-maintained public trails looking for birds (saw and heard lots) and enjoy the trilliums (thousands of them, red and white).
- Back to their house again to relax on the patio before preparing a scrumptious home-cooked dinner of chicken fettuccine alfredo. It was a wonderful evening of food and laughs and sharing memories over the old photo albums of our time together in Black’s Harbour, 30 years ago! What a happy emotional moment and the cresendo finish to our road-trip!
- Tomorrow we will head East, following the Great Lake waters down the St. Lawrence toward the Atlantic and then down the Saint John toward home.
Here are the photo highlights of Exploring Aurora
nellyglass studio 