Another Sunny morning !!!
Today is an out and back trip from Grand Bend into oil country, yes Southern Ontario is the home to Canada's First Oil Well (sorry it was not Alberta), but sleepy Petrolia. Oil was found here in the 1850's, which lead to the great "oil rush" and the establishment of Imperial Oil (now Esso). [http://www.petroliadiscovery.com/] and [http://www.firstoilwell.com/]
Petrolia again is one of Ontario's town which is doing very well, the old brick Victorian era CN station is now the library, and what what the platforms behind the building is a brand new farmers market area. An excellent place for lunch is:
After Petrolia one needs to visit the hart of oil country, Oil Springs, yes this village is still there, [http://www.oilsprings.ca/] not much left, but there is a Post Office and a few old buildings, so the place was mine for my various photos etc.. If you continue South on Kelly Street (which is paved) you will come to the Oil Museum of Canada, which has the old New York Central RR station building from Oil Springs and operating oil Wells still using a "jerker line", take Gum Bed Road West back to the main highway, all other roads are gravel/dirt.
Next stop on my tour is Alvinston, not much happening here, just another sleepy farm village on the Eastern edge of oil country. North to Watford, I have a planned photo shoot of VIA Rail Train #81, at 15:03, does not stop here anymore but flies by at 130kph with two cars, I guess not much passenger traffic to Sarnia these days. This is followed almost immediately by an East bound CN freight, these two trains meet about 5km to the West of Watford at a long 8km stretch of double track.
After all this excitement it is time to turn North and back to Grand Bend, on my way back I stopped in at Forest for my MOAZ photo in front off the old Forest CN station, now the town's library.
After Forest it was time to live on the edge, exploring Ipperwash, site of the Native uprising and unfortunate shooting of Dudley George back in 1995 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipperwash_Crisis], maters are still not resolved to this day, with the Natives still occupying the old Ipperwash Military Base, and Ipperwash Prov.Park. What is of interest is there are no road signs for "Ipperwash", only "Ipperwash Beach", it is tho Ipperwash never existed, just a strange area.
Two signs which stand out for the day's ride are: "Real Firewood", on Hwy21 just South of Grand Bend - ok is there artificial firewood? and at the entrance to the old Ipperwash site, now manned by the Natives, big no trespassing sign, with a smaller one below that reads "Drug Dealers Welcome", yes on the edge!
So all in all 200km was ridden today, not fingerless glove weather, but I did remove my inner jacket liner for the first time on this trip, as it was 14c today - progress.
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