Travelling without a plan

Our original intent was to ride out to Ottawa to spend the weekend with my sister, her husband, and their two cats. What actually happened was a little off target. I had completely forgotten that they had made plans to meet up with some friends for a week-long trip to Las Vegas and had asked if they could stay the night with us before catching their flight out from Buffalo. Oops!

As it turned out, however, they had been unsuccessful in recruiting anyone to cat sit for them while they were going to be away. Well! We could still go out to Ottawa, but instead of being a burden, we'd be doing them a favour. Ha! Done! Sold!

But then there was the weather. As much as we love riding, we don't "love" riding in pouring rain if we know it's going to happen. We waited until the last possible moment, hoping the weather forecasts would change (remember Earl?). We caved and rented a car. And boy was that the best decision, hands down.

We left Toronto just before noon. The sun was out in full force. The weather was absolutely perfect ... if we were on bikes. Grr. When I saw the signs for Prince Edward County, we made an impromptu decision to have lunch in Picton. We had hoped to stop in at Buddha Dog, but they were closed. Instead, we walked into The Painted Peppercorn, located just around the corner from Buddha Dog. We both enjoyed lamb burgers with salad. The burgers were fantastic; the patty was moist and full of flavour. The portion size was satisfying. We'll definitely be back!

As we ate lunch, the weather started to change. By the time we walked back to our rental car, it had started spitting. The rental started to look more appealing. We continued our journey to Ottawa. After a ridiculous amount of time spent crawling through construction zones, traffic finally started to move freely again. We passed a rider on a Ducati who was wearing very minimal gear: helmet, jacket, and gloves. He was stopped on the side of the highway. I commented that he better be stopped because he was putting on rain gear as we could see huge dark clouds looming up ahead of us. He passed us about 5 minutes after that. About 15 minutes later, the rain came down so hard that we could barely see any vehicles around us. We spotted the same Ducati rider stopped under a bridge. Wise move.

We drove through this crazy rainfall for quite a distance. It eventually cleared up. And then it came back with a vengence. This time, the rainfall was so heavy that we slowed down to a crawl and turned on the hazards; all the vehicles around us did the same. Wow. When we got through this second storm, we were extremely thankful for the rental car. Riding would have been absolute misery and extremely dangerous.

And now we're here! Safe and sound. And DRY. Yay!

A Tale of Two Cities

As a combination birthday and name day present, we sent Matt's parents to Québec City for a mini vacation.  They left on Thursday evening and returned on Sunday evening.  When we picked them up from the airport on Sunday, they were all smiles.  What a fantastic experience for them!  And if they're reading this, maybe they would be willing to share some photos and write a few words about their trip so that we can post it here.  Heehee.  =)

Since Matt's parents were out of town, we took a short trip of our own.  After a quick breakfast on Saturday morning, we headed out to Prince Edward County.  Our first stop of many that day was at Huff Estates Winery.  After purchasing a few bottles, we decided that we should find somewhere to stop for lunch.  We wandered into the Marshmallow Room Bakery & Tea Shop.  With a name like that, who could resist!  We purchased 2 slices of tarts (a sour cherry, peach, and chocolate slice for me, I can't remember what Matt's slice was right now) and 2 oatmeal raisin cookies.  Pastries for lunch, mmm.  After gobbling down our tarts, we headed across the street to Slickers Ice Cream for dessert.  Campfire crème.  Yummy!

After lunch, we stopped in at Black Prince Winery.  Next, we stopped in at the County's only micro brewery, Barley Days Brewery.  We left both places with a few items.  Good thing we had lots of room in the trunk! 

Next, we stopped in Picton.  We parked in one of the free parking lots and then meandered up and down Main St. and some side streets.  We managed to wander into Buddha Dog.  Yes, there *is* such a thing as gourmet hot dogs.  =)  They're small on size, but big on flavour once you add locally produced cheese and a sauce dreamed up by local chefs and made using locally sourced ingredients.  (Lucky for us, there's a Buddha Dog in Toronto, with their own locally sourced sauces.  I think we'll have to go investigate it at a later date.)  After finishing our gourmet dogs, we went to Bean Counter to pickup some caffeinated beverages.  It is located a couple of doors down from Buddha Dog.  Although they had gelato, I resisted temptation.  After more wandering, we went back to the car and headed to our accommodations for the night to check-in.  Seeing as it was only about 4:45pm after our check-in, we hit up one more winery, Waupoos Estates Winery.  A winery on waterfront property.  Wow.  It was very picturesque.  A few more bottles found their way into the trunk. 

Seeing as we didn't make any dinner reservations, we thought we might have a better chance by having an early dinner.  We arrived at Harvest just before 6pm.  We were told they were fully booked, but we could come back at 9pm.  Yikes.  Next, we tried Angéline's, located across the street from Harvest.  It was a little fancier than we were prepared for.  We ate dinner at the Barley Room, a lively local pub.  We indulged in an almond encrusted brie for an appetizer and baby back ribs basted with a blackberry smoked barbecue sauce.  Very tasty!

In the morning, we enjoyed a lazy breakfast at our B&B.  As we were getting ready to head out, we discovered that the husband of our host had a passion for classic cars.  We had an impromptu tour of his private collection, what a treat! 

After breakfast, we stopped in at Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company and Black River Cheese Company.  Amazing cheeses.  We'll be making some day trips in the future to get some more!  For lunch, we went to Blumen.  We lucked out and had their gazebo area all to ourselves.  Our final stop before heading back to Toronto was at Sandbanks Estate Winery.  They had a self-guided vineyard tour that allowed us to explore their grounds.  We purchased our final bottles, and finally headed home.

Matt feedback on the wines:  It was a hit and miss; there were some decent stuff but overall at a higher price than Niagara equivalents.

So what did we have for dinner that night?  Why, a platter of fine cheeses and a variety of meats along with a bottle of wine.  ;)