Back to where it all began!!!!

We headed back to the Niagara Region and our spot at the Shangri-La Family Campground where we started this adventure a year ago.  Much, much wiser I might add.

After dropping our trailer off at our site we headed further down the QEW to just outside Fort Erie and Atkin Acres, our friends Shelley and Rob Atkin beautiful property in the country.  Our stay here went by too quickly, starting off with a nice quiet evening with Shelley and Rob before the main event.  Saturday was a busy day with the Niagara Region ALS Walk in the morning, after walk cocktails at Barb’s  then back to Shelley and Rob’s for a combined Rob’s Roses (our ALS Walk Team) Party and Birthday Party for Rob.  This day is always capped off with a huge bonfire as things wind down.  After the craze of the Walk day it was nice Sunday morning to have a nice quiet morning with Shelley and Rob before heading back to Jordan where our campground is.

On our way back we decided to take the Niagara Parkway instead of the freeway and as we were going through Chippewa we decided to see if Tante Chrystal was home.  Which she was so, we parked Juergen on the street in front of her house and had a nice little visit. Vowing to come back in a couple weeks and  give her more notice.

As we settled in again at the Shangri-La we hit some of our favourite spots from a year before, the Red Barn for some amazing strawberries, Sue Ann Staff Winery for some amazing wine and to say hi to Brix!( their beautiful Burnese Mountain dog)  It was a very nice feeling being welcomed back to both locations as soon as we walked in.  It felt good to finally get to cycle on some hills again, which is a huge benefit of living on the edge of the Naigara Escarpment.  Cycling means getting together with Kate and Mike as well as Eva and Guy.  We had the pleasure of getting together a few times for good food and good times.  Cycling also took us to some new wineries this year such as Calamus ( which has an observatory), Hernders, Rosewood, Niagara College and Creekside just to name a few of them.

We also had visitors too!  Lynn and Julie (and Aubrey) brought their trailer down for a weekend.  The weekend started off with a campfire and pizza pie irons for dinner and some nice wine to help them relax.  Saturday after breakfast we headed out on the Bruce Trial over to Ball’s Falls.  This is the same hike we did last year but what a difference water makes, it was lush and green with lots of water.  Saturday was finished off with a perch fish fry using their outside kitchen on their trailer.  We capped the weekend off with Sunday lunch at The Lake House and then back to the campground for tea and rhubarb pie.

After Lynn and Julie headed home we kept the Zehr theme going and hopped on the Harley’s to head up to Grimsby to Marilyn (Zehr) and her partner Svinda.  We had a wonderful evening connecting again with Marilyn and getting to know Svinda.  Lot’s of good conversation and looking forward to the next time our paths cross.  As a side note, thanks to their suggestion we found the mead at Rosewood and it was delicious!

As our stay at the Shangri-La was wrapping up Peter and Dianne came down for a couple nights and stayed with us in Juergen.  It was a great visit of visiting!  We saw Tante Krystal for a koffee klutch, Charlie at the Flying Saucer and then we had Marcus over to our place and then visited him at his.  Before we knew it our time had come and gone and it was time to move on again.  So, loaded up with lots of wine, some mead and some beer we rolled out of the Shangri-La and headed back to Atkin Acres for a few days.

Shelley took some time off work so the three of us went to Elements for lunch with a table looking over the brink of the Falls. The next day June and Shelley pampered themselves at the Spa while Larry went golfing.  In the evening she introduced us to Phase 10 (the dice version) which is a fun little game and can be played anywhere so very good for an RV lifestyle.  The weekend was capped off with a cycle along the Parkway, a quick visit to Old Fort Erie and then a commemorative Big Mac barbeque to mark the place where June and Shelley met years ago and the fact that you can now buy Big Mac Sauce!  We concluded our Niagara Region stay with some Champagne and Orange Juice with Shelley and headed down the road again!