post storm drive

Lo and behold, the sun came out. Excited by this after a couple of days of mixed precipitation, I headed out in my trusty car with my trusty camera to see what I could see.

First, I had to get into the car. The driver's door was frozen shut, but I managed to get into it via the passenger side, and thumped the driver's door into an open position. This had nothing to do with the ice storm and everything to do with Volkswagen's single irritating design flaw in the MKIV Golf. Namely the door seals. The door curves up into the roof line, and the seal has a large contact patch on it. It is one of those old style "felt" like door seals, which fits well, but water can seep through it to be shunted away by the seal under it. Naturally, it freezes shut the minute the temperature drops below freezing. It always has, and always will. Pain in the ass.

Once in the car, I had to wait a few minutes with an idling engine so that I could see. Moisture and frost on the inside... Sigh.

Finally, I head out!

And the sun is gone.

Undaunted, I go anyway, and created these pictures for you:

This one is my favourite of the bunch

in quest of landscapes

We went on one such quest this afternoon. The day was blustery, windy, and generally blown about. Thankfully, there was no rain to be had, although the sky was overcast.

The quest started, as so many of them do, with a stop in the local coffee shop. This place is a lot like the TV show Cheers, with people yelling "Norm!" all the time. Well, not quite, but there is a good chance of seeing a friendly face each and every time the shop is entered. In this case, we bumped into a good friend of ours who was taking a pause in his day to enjoy a coffee and get some writing done.

There is a lot of pedestrian traffic in the Uptown. Today, through the window, an animated conversation was taking place.

After we left the shop, we sallied forth in search of our landscapes of the day. This is what we found.

out walkabout

Today was one of those marvelous fall days which you read about, but rarely ever get to experience.

We took advantage of that and walked along the Grand River just outside the village of St Jacobs. It is a location well worth walking. The trail there runs along the river, over private property, and is part of a series of hiking trails which include sections of the Trans-Canada Trail.

The colour this fall has been so far pretty spectacular. Some trees have shed all of their leaves, making for a crunchy carpet underfoot, while others are only just starting to think about letting their leaves fall where they may.

Everywhere is the wonderful fall smell of decomposing leaves, walnuts, damp earth, and water. There is nothing quite like it.

Previous year's organic litter offer snacks along the way (thanks to hikers years ago, there are scattered apple trees along the trail).

Eventually, it was time to leave.

I hope your weekend so far is an nice as ours has been.