Tell Elora I love her

I'm just back from a long weekend in Oh Canada, with a few stories to tell--and hopefully a few posts to write, as of late I've been asleep at my keyboard and have failed to keep up my end of the blog bargain, i.e., I write; you read and hopefully enjoy and comment. So I'll try to make amends starting here and now.

One of the best parts of the trip was a visit to Elora, Ontario, a place I heard described by several while there as being one of the loveliest towns in the province. And after having spent an afternoon there, I'm inclined to agree.

Imagine the visual excitement and aesthetic pleasure of driving into a small town with streets lined with limestone shops and tidy homes, as large Canadian mapleleaf flags waved serenely in the temperate breeze. (And imagine you will have to because for some reason I failed to get a picture of this lovely scene!)

The temps were in the 70s F (or, if you prefer, the mid-20s C); the humidity, low; the streets, bustling with weekenders. I found a shady spot to park and made my way along Metcalfe Street. Not having a lot of time--daytripping, I was trying to cover Kitchener-Waterloo, St. Jacobs, Elora, Fergus, and Guelph in an afternoon--I breezed through Elora, taking a walk down by the Grand River and the old mill, enjoying some maple walnut ice cream at Beaver Tails (I don't make these things up, folks), and then strolling back toward the river again. There I was able to study the waterfall and gorge that Elora is famed for (other than its charm, of course), a photo of which accompanies this post.

Maple ice cream and mapleleaf flags--does it get any more stereotypically Canadian than that? All I needed was to be to be serenaded by Nelson Eddy (in full Mountie drag) against a backdrop of Lake Louise, or keeping, with the mounted police them, to be rescued by Dudley Do-Right, as Snidely Whiplash (shapeshifting into the form of a rabid beaver or a cranky moose) attempted to tie me to tracks of a Toronto-bound Go Transit train.

Sigh. A boy can dream, but reality's a nightmare. Rose Marie or Nell Fenwick I ain't.

It was a lovely respite in a harried, insane world, taking place the same weekend that it became dangerous and verboten to have a bottle of Aquafina and an old beeper in close proximity in a carry-on bag aboard any flight, domestic or international.

Before Armageddon, I'd like a few more moments like that, please. A little more Canada, a lot less catastrophe, thank you.