Day-Tripping in the Tri-County Area

Hello, Hello, my lovely nerds.
It's been so long that I've written anything.  It feels like such a long time ago since things were... "normal".  We've decided to just stick close to home this summer instead of traveling.  I'm so glad last year we packed in traveling to Florida, Toronto/Kawartha Lakes, and the "epic" Ontario Tour where I met Jerry O'Connell!  This summer we did some day tripping in Essex County, Kent County, and Lambton County.

Windsor/Essex Country

In Essex County, we did some bike rides on, what used to be a train track.  It has long been abandoned and turned into a hiking and biking trail.  What's cool about it, is that there are some bridges over water, so it makes it a bit more scenic than just biking through greenery.  A field naturalist from Essex Country nick-named it the "grand canyon of Essex county".

In addition I went to Holiday Beach.  We parked our van at the parking lot outside the gates and biked in.  Most of the shoreline is eroded so there's not much of a "beach"; because of that, there were large tree stumps roots that looked like they were floating above the water.

Of course, there's Point Pelee.  We went one night for a bbq and to watch the sunset.  There was a new observation tower at the tip that was closed for a while due to Covid but in the last couple of weeks of August it opened to the public.  This tower is very high and made of that "see thru" grate.  The boys and I took it one flight at a time until we only had one flight to get to the top.  I didn't take out my phone for any photos because I'm clumsy and could totally imagine my phone falling thru the grates.

Chatham/Kent County

We took a day trip out to Rondeau Provincial Park in Perth, which is about 1 hr 15 minutes from Windsor.  We packed some drinks, snacks, Subway sandwiches and ate our picnic on the beach.  Let me tell you, the waves were wild; it was a windy day on Lake Erie.  We took a bike ride to a far end of the park that you can't reach by car, where there was a beautiful beach.  Matthew said "is this place real? I feel like I'm in a dream".

Sarnia/Lambton County

At the beginning of July we went to The Pinery Provincial Park, which isn't far from Grand Bend, a popular beach town destination.  We picked up hamburgers in Grand Bend and ate at the Pinery.  We did a hike to a beach, and then a bike ride.  The Pinery is on Lake Huron, and in my opinion, it's the most beautiful of the great lakes.  The water is blue/green and crystal clear.

Other highlights

Matthew and Michael celebrated their birthdays, 11 and 8 respectively.  Dwayne and I celebrated our 16 year anniversary.  Dwayne completed landscaping in front of  our house, I worked on some indoor projects like trying to make the basement office look a little nicer since I will be here for a few more months.  We did not get to see friends and extended family as much as we would of liked to, but we cherished the time we did get together.  The boys returned to school and were so happy to see friends and have a routine even though it won't be an ideal year.

Well, that was our summer.  I worked from home.  Dwayne and the boys did some more outings together and went swimming at his sister's house.  We're midway into September and summer temperatures seemed to have just dropped to fall temperatures.

Did you do any travelling or do "staycations" this summer?