Relatively Speaking

This next part of our trip started at 6:00 a.m. (yes in the morning…alarm clock needed) on Labour day Monday. We wanted to catch the 9:00 o’clock ferry. No, we did not have a reservation. However, it turned out we didn’t need one. We were first in line for standby and got the very last oversize vehicle spot. From there we drove all day towards Windsor. We thought naively that we would stop at one of the many campsites that we had passed by so far on our trip. Turns out there are not as many campsites available in that area and at around 10:00 pm we were tired and needed to sleep… We spent our first night sleeping in a parking lot next to a LCBO outlet. J

We met Jack’s cousins and spent a grand few days visiting and eating. It was great to meet and visit with Wayne Bottomley and his wife Dee in Belle River It was also wonderful to visit with Jacks cousin Carrie, her daughter Cindy and grandson Joel who live in Windsor. From Belle River and the Windsor area we went North East into New Hamburg and visited with Jacks cousin Donna and her husband Wayne. We spent many great hours with Donna and Wayne seeing the beautiful area and exploring Jacks family history. Donna and Wayne took us to the Tavistock Lutheran church graveyard where we saw many of Jack’s ancestors’ grave stones. In particular we saw his great grandfathers John Krantz’s grave. It was a neat feeling to see first hand some of where the Krantz family came from.

Thank you to all of the relatives who fed us (royally) and treated us so warmly. It was Jacks first time to meet with his cousin Wayne and the first time in around 55 years to meet with his cousin Donna.

The landscape and architecture around the New Hamburg area is beautiful. Rolling hills, well established farms with a large traditional Mennonite community complete with horse and carriages and no electricity. Some of the older homes are beautiful large stone and wood houses. We also saw the very first Home Hardware store. There are a lot of small crisscross roads and homesteads. Easy to get lost in. This would be a great place to come back and visit for a week or more. Maybe we will one day.