Waterfront Trail

Sometimes your hometown is best appreciated from a little further away.

Sunday Seven – Toronto, Slightly Off the Beaten Path

While brainstorming topics for this week’s Sunday round-up, I came to the somewhat-shocking realization that I have yet to write about my own backyard, Toronto!

I have a love-hate relationship with the city: I love the multicultural dynamic and mix of communities, but rather dislike the cocky attitude that exists. I love getting around on my bike, but hate the lack of lanes. I am mortified by our mayor. It took moving away for a year and then leaving the country for several months more to fully grasp that I missed the damn place, and particularly the following seven aspects of it:

Staycation

It boggles my mind, but I’ve been home for almost a month. Such big plans I had for this month, too. In true Sam fashion, I made an enormous “to-do” list and thought “this is going to be great. Uber productive. Time will fly”.

Well it did fly, but I was not all that productive. Turns out I was rather exhausted, and spent a lot of the month sleeping and enjoying the weather from the peacefulness of our back deck. I did some baking. Read a couple books. Started (and should finish this weekend) refinishing some furniture that’s been kicking around in the basement since I moved. And in a bold move, I signed up for a rather-militant bootcamp that has been truthfully kicking my ass and likely contributing to all the sleeping.

One of the “to-do’s” on my list was to do some more local exploration. After all my globetrotting I realized that I don’t travel much in my own backyard. Not meaning my own province, which thanks to my job I do get to see quite a bit of. But the regional area I live in. After hanging out at Lake Scugog this weekend I decided that my last week of vacation before heading back to the office next week would involve some local adventures.

 Yesterday my dad and I rode our bikes to Port Hope along the Waterfront Trail.

So, Port Hope is far. It was about a 70km bike ride. Much of the trail wasn’t entirely suitable for my bike’s thin tires and I did a few fantastic skids down some rocky hills and am amazed I didn’t blow a tire. And the trail disappeared on occasion, leaving us face to face with the barbed wire fence surrounding the local power plant, wondering which direction we should go in. But several achy hours later we made it, and overall the journey was pretty amazing. I (and I don’t think I’m alone in this) don’t often appreciate the beautiful surroundings in my own backyard. I love mountains and oceans and generally gripe about Ontario at every opportunity (it’s hot! it smells! it’s cold! etc.). But the reality is, some parts of it are pretty. We rode parallel to the shoreline of Lake Ontario, heard birds chirping, pedalled through farmer’s fields and marshes and barely saw a car the entire afternoon. Minus the intense burning pain in my legs and behind, it was quite pleasant.

So while it’s nice to get away and give yourself a change of scenery for vacations, I’m also going to try to remember to venture out more in my neck of the woods once in awhile too. And seeing it’s the Canada Day long weekend, I’m sure lots of y’all out there are doing the same thing too during the next few days – so let’s enjoy our swell country, whatever part of it you may be in!

(If you’re at a cottage, I am jealous. If you’re in BC, I am also jealous.)