Saturday August 26 

We took the subway to downtown Toronno (locals say Toronno) and walked along the harbor. The Blue Jays won in a slugfest over the Minnesota Twins so we heard roars rising from the open stadium and bouncing around the city canyons. The ferry carries 453 souls at a time over to Centre Island and it provides an extraordinary view of the city skyline. We walked to the far side to a sandy beach and watched pasty folks who found the beach novel, wading and corralling children in the shallow water as if this were the first time to experience sand and surf. But the salt air is missing along with the majestic powerful roar of surf pounding sand.

Lake Ontario is simply nudging up to the beach in gentle ripples. The children are stripping off their jean shorts to reveal camo or superhero underwear, boxers, briefs, it is all here on display.

Sunday August 27

We drove around the western edge of Lake Ontario through Hamilton and just shy of Niagara to fruit tree land. This area is afforded protection being hard against the western edge of Lake Ontario giving it just enough protection from north winds which are warmed by the lake in winter giving grapevines just enough comfort to keep  from freezing and lake generated snow keeps plenty moisture in the ground. There are vineyards and peach, nectarine, cherry, and apple orchards. We went into the orchards on a trailer pulled by a small tractor and used wide-spreading ladders older than me to pick peaches, nectarines, and a few plums which were not quite fully ripe yet, but should ripen off the vine in time.

This farm was established in 1799. There is a beautiful old tree with a huge trunk and low spreading limbs that I couldn’t identify as to species, so I asked a worker. She said the tree is a Purple Beech and came over with the family from Estonia on the ship, a small sapling traveling in a boot, and planted at the new homestead which became their front yard. Now it’s over 200 years old.

Afterwards we enjoyed fresh cold apple cider and shared a peach muffin from a roadside farmer’s market.

Then we had Cuban sandwiches and pulled pork shoulder with rice and beans and mango spicy salsa. Next door is a place called Bang Bang where they pair gourmet cookies with exotic ice cream. The line is always 30 plus deep. Here are some flavors: bellwoods stout beer n’ brown bread, black tea banana puddin’, Italian eggnog, salted caramel vanilla mojito… can’t even remember what I got but pretty sure I blacked out into a sugar induced coma afterwards.