I’ve never understood why Nabisco doesn’t market Shreddies in the USA. I grew up on Shreddies, a great breakfast cereal, and was delighted to have it as part of my breakfast this morning with Phil and Marilyn. Here they are at the drop-off point in Coronation Park a little later:

As I got started, I took a couple of pictures, one of the coastline of the lake:

and one looking over to the Toronto skyline:

I spent the whole day on Lakeshore Road. The first segment, still in Oakville was really beautiful. There were large houses:

and lots of color:

A glimpse of the lake:

and another with an interesting, dark sky:

At one point, as I was entering downtown Oakville, someone was shouting at me from behind, and it turned out to be my dear mother-in-law:

She had found me with the SIGHTINGS tab on my website and walked with me for a little while. It was so wonderful to see a familiar face and have company on the road.

By the way, if you would like to own one of these properties:

there is a deal going on; you can get one for as little as $1.2 million:

More color:

and a custom fence:

Eventually I came to the end of Oakville and entered Mississauga:

The change was dramatic, from spacious residential to commercial. Here is a laker:

and an ugly, smelly, noisy chemical plant (Suncorp Energy):

The plant was huge and reminded me a lot of the Bayway refineries in New Jersey, for which that state has a poor national reputation. I walked quickly through all that ugliness and eventually reached a portion of Lakeshore Road where I was able to get a Tim Horton sandwich and a few blocks away visit an art gallery, the Harbour Gallery. I went in there because Sandy (Day 26) had told me he had some art hanging there. I took a picture of the owners and their daughter in front of one of Sandy’s paintings:

That’s Jackie, Denny and Jenna, from the left.

Not too long after leaving there I heard another shout behind me and lo and behold, it was Marnie, an old church friend from my youth:

She lives in Ottawa, was in Toronto, and looked me up, again via the SIGHTINGS tab on the website. She had had a little trouble because I was in the gallery when she was looking, but eventually she found me. We started walking together and I heard ANOTHER shout from behind. It was the biggest surprise of all, my dear wife Fiona:

I knew she was driving up to Toronto today from New Jersey, but I thought she was headed for my son’s house. She also had tracked me down. The three of us walked together for a while and the miles slipped away.

We saw a series of bicycles like this painted different colors:

and a lovely rock garden:

My goal for the day was to reach a motel I had booked in the morning. It didn’t take much argument to convince Fiona that she ought to just stay with me tonight and then head on to Toronto tomorrow. She and Marnie left me to walk back to their cars and Fiona then drove on ahead to the hotel. The intervening distance flew by quickly for me.

I passed the Credit River. Upstream:

and downstream, emptying into the lake:

Here’s a nice idea for a crosswalk:

I met Fiona at the motel and once we were settled in we went out to a fine Greek restaurant, tucked away on Lakeshore Drive.

Tomorrow will be a special day, though not the last day. After going about six miles I will … well, that must wait for tomorrow’s post. But it will be very special, so stay tuned!

I woke up to a beautiful red sky this morning:

(I know, sailor’s warning and all that). Another shot out one of Ed and Wilma’s windows a little later:

Ed drove me back to the Confederation Park where we had left off yesterday. He brought along his bike and walked it part of the way with me, with the intention of riding back to his car later. It was great to have him along and his knowledge of the area enhanced the enjoyment.

Remember the series of electric towers yesterday leading up to the skyway? We reached them here:

Aesthetically they ugly, but Ed said that a study had revealed that it would be too expensive to put the lines underground. All along this path were cottages looking out to the lake:

This is an active rescue boat station; we weren’t sure where the boat was today:

More cottages:

and a view looking backward:

Soon the Burlington Skyway and the lift bridge loomed:

The lift bridge was fascinating; here are some details:

These two bridges, the skyway and the lift bridge, allow ships to pass from the eastern end of Lake Ontario into Hamilton Harbor (or Burlington Bay, depending on your point of view). This is the narrow channel that separates them, first looking out to the lake:

and then looking into the harbor, under the lift bridge:

We used these “bike-friendly” stairs to ascend to the road level of the bridge:

Here are a couple of shots as we crossed the bridge:

The path continued on the other side of the bridge, now in Burlington:

There were continual views of the lake on our right:

The single row of cottages on our left between the path and the road are the subject of a current political battle. There is an attempt to remove them to claim the land for the park. This happened quite disastrously in the 70s in Hamilton (where we had just been on the other side of the bridge) and the fight is only now coming to Burlington. One cottage owner was particularly vociferous:

We had now traversed the entire west end of the lake and were just about lined up for the long due-east path to Toronto:

The first little section of that path:

A naval war memorial:

and in case you don’t recognize the two center flags:

Canada geese heading back to the Burlington Skyway:

About this time, Ed said his good-byes and got on his bike for the trip back to our starting point. Sometime soon I hope to visit him again with my wife and walk some of the trails around his house.

For a little while the path continued through the town:

The couple you see walking toward me in that last picture are Brian and Chris:

Brian caught my eye as we passed so I stopped and explained what I was doing. I never get tired of explaining my trip to people. Brian and Chris have a number of good options for walking around this area.

Google maps put me on a long, straight stretch at this point, about a quarter mile north of Lakeshore Drive. I should just have walked back to Lakeshore because it was pretty boring, punctuated by occasional glances down pretty side streets:

Near the end of this stretch I crossed the Bronte River and there was this nice opportunity in the middle of the bridge to rest and contemplate:

Here’s the view from the bench:

One block later a car pulled into the driveway in front of me and when I saw “Van Harten” on the side of it, I thought — what a coincidence, since my brother works for Van Harten. Of course, it WAS my brother, Jonathan, who, just like his son and daughter-in-law, Jordan and Stacey, had tracked me down using the SIGHTINGS tab on this blog. He is a surveyor and works all over the region. Today he happened to be in Oakville and so decided to look me up! (I was in Oakville by this time.)

Needless to say I was absolutely delighted. I was within two miles of my final destination for the day, Coronation Park, so he offered to buy me a tea and meet me there. I hoofed it there as quickly as I could, but while still trying to enjoy the scenery.

Walking back toward the lake:

Is this a warning about the geese themselves or the mess they leave on the sidewalks?

Vista opening out to the lake again:

Now walking parallel to the lake:

Some fine painted wrought-iron railings on these houses:

I now reached a section of the path along the lake that was exquisite:

There is still lots of color around here; “lake effect” weather affects the south side of the lake, but on the north side the temperature is moderated by the lake so that it is warmer in the fall:

When I turned into the park Jonathan was waiting for me with hot tea from Tim Horton’s (of course) and we made our way to a gazebo in the park just in time to avoid the rain that was just starting up. We met this man, John, who was a serious collector of debris discoverable by metal detector:

He was a pretty interesting fellow, having served for a time in the Canadian Merchant Marines, for example.

At one point I took this picture of the Toronto skyline, looming ever larger on the horizon:

John took a picture of me with Jonathan:

and then shortly after that Phil arrived to pick me up for my night’s lodging. What a great treat to have been able to meet up with Jonathan!

Phil is connected to me in several ways (at least three) and he and his wife Marilyn are very good friends with Dean and Barb, who I stayed with two nights ago. Here is a picture of Phil and his wife Marilyn:

It would be impossible in this small space to list all the ways that Phil and Marilyn have significantly touched the lives of others over the years, both in Canada and around the world. I just wouldn’t be able to do justice to their wonderful lives of service. It was great to spend time with them and they were very gracious to me, in spite of being exhausted because of recent activities. We stayed up later than we should have, talking.