Horse-country

It was a beautiful day, made for a drive--sunny, but not too hot. Humidity, which made us sweat extensively for the past month or so, was finally chased away by a persistent breeze. So, Meg and I decided to go to Barrie, about an hour drive north.

Barrie lays on lake Simcoe. Its waterfront is charming, but just like Toronto's, there are no attractions to make even those who are not into suntanning and seadooing, come out and play. We walked around Heritage Park, watched a huge, racially-mixed flock of geese and ducks claim the little pond behind a gazebo adorned with flower baskets. We continued on, treading carefully to avoid geese-poop which littered the whole waterfront, grass and the boardwalk. If you ask me, the Americans are doing us a favor by killing those birds when they fly down south. What use is poultry if you're not allowed to eat it?

Farther down the shore is a big splash-pool area crowded with shivering kids with purple lips, braving the chilly breeze soaked wet. The parents are dispersed everywhere on the grass surrounding the splash-pool, snapping cellphone pictures and generally not concerned with the prospect of the kids contracting pneumonia.

The street and stores in the area were mostly deserted. The only place that showed signs of activity and had a terrace overlooking the lake was Hooters, and I'm ashamed to admit I took my wife there for a drink. We sat under a fake orange palm tree, on terribly uncomfortable plastic Adirondack chairs (which are in Canada called Muskoka chairs, by the region in Ontario) and looked at the lake and the geese.

Returning home was a beautiful drive--we went all around the lake Simcoe and through the horse-country. I don't think I've ever seen so many ranches with horses. They were small and big, sliced with many corrals or open fields, with ponds and creeks and barns. And all of them had a few or many horses grazing and walking about. It felt like being far in the prairies, though we were not an hour drive from home.

No matter how well we think we know the area around home, there's always something new and wonderful to discover.