Return to Sunday

As my friend Peter McAsh says, “If it’s Sunday, you must be at Leamington Raceway”. And, indeed I was this past Sunday afternoon. It was eventful for a couple of reasons; for me, it was the first time wearing my new contact lenses instead of glasses.

While the track is outside, it’s still required that you have a mask for entry although it appears to be optional to wear it at all times. With the colder weather, fogging up glasses is a reality but contacts made it a breeze. It was also “Harness the Hope and Women’s Driving Challenge Day.” There was the most people at the track I’ve seen in life forever and apparently there was a record amount of money wagered. I didn’t get rich but came home with more in my pocket than when I got there and that’s always a good thing. Spectacular racing once again, horses and fans dressed in pink, and a race that went in 1:56:4. It was a great afternoon.

But, harness racing wasn’t the only game in town.

On the way there, I noticed that the Canadian Transportation Museum and Heritage Village has a nice collection of cars in the parking lot. It’s always a favourite destination for us.

Coming home, I took Concession 3 through Kingsville just to look at the trees and farms. I was quite surprised with a huge collection of cars parked on both sides of the roads. Allsop’s Farm had all kinds of people enjoying their fall activities. It appeared that people were even parking at Jack Miner Public School and hiking down the road to get there.

Speaking of Jack Miner, as soon as I crossed Division Road, I could see that the Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary had its own large crowd as part of the Kingsville Migration Festival. It’s a great place to visit and the trails are dog friendly.

While watching the evening news, it was great to see that the local CTV affiliate had been out to cover the harness racing. The local newspaper also celebrated with all kinds of pictures of Open Streets Windsor.

As I sit back and reflect, I’m just so happy to see the return and support for the great things that are back in operation. We’re not out of this COVID situation yet but we seem to be handling it well; numbers continue to lower and people are getting back into the swing of life again. Albeit now mostly vaccinated and masked.

Fall is always a great season. We always seem to want to gear up and pile on joy because we know that Winter is coming and many of the things that we entertain ourselves with aren’t possible. Even in a normal year, most of the Fall events are outside anyway so it’s a natural.

How did you enjoy the weekend?