Favourite Adventures of 2017

Happy New Year Everyone!  I like to look back at the year and reassure myself that we have got out to enjoy some adventures, so here are a few of my favourites of 2017.

In February we heard reports of Snowy Owls over near Chesley.  It took two trips and a lot of spotting with binoculars, but we found the Snowy Owls, distant as they were across the fields.  By the time we were finished we had counted over 20 of them.

In April we headed west for two weeks, mainly visiting our daughter and her family, but also taking off on a little trip down into Washington State, to see the tulip fields in the Skagit Valley.  Amazing!

Back home in May, one of my favourite local adventures every year is to walk the trails at Old Baldy to see the spring wildflowers.  This is Dutchman's Breeches, one of many in the woods there.  The three weeks when the world is turning green, but before the bugs come out is one of the most beautiful times of the year.

In June we managed a short trip in our camper van up to Tobermory, and visited Flowerpot Island, part of the Bruce Peninsula National Park there.  Getting a picture without people in it was a challenge, but we had a beautiful day for our visit.

Later in July, a friend and I paddled past the claybanks east of Meaford, something I've been wanting to see for several years.  We had to wait for a calm day on the bay!

One of my personal adventures this year was to follow a number of crop fields over the season, watching crops from early spring until harvest.  I learned a lot actually, and enjoyed it.  These are bales of wheat straw after the wheat harvest in August.

Then in September I got to join my canoeing buddies for the first time in several years as we travelled to the French River in northern Ontario - but stayed in a lodge and avoided portaging.  A wonderful adventure - these are the famous Dalles Rapids, site of log drives in days gone by, and challenging canoeing today.

We got out west again for a week in November, and though it was a rainy week, my son-in-law, grandson and I went in search of the Giant Douglas Fir in Cultus Lake Provincial Park.  Probably the biggest living tree I have ever seen!

Finally, in December I got out locally to explore the Woodford Crevice, a narrow crevice in the limestone cliffs on the Bruce Trail east of Woodford.  They warn you not to use it if you're claustrophobic, but we made it through fine.

I'm hoping for a better 2018 in our own lives, because we devoted so much of our time and effort in 2017 to moving, and then I had surgery which I'm still recovering from.  May 2018 be a more relaxed and more adventurous year for everyone.  And may peace find its way to the planet!