We enjoyed another sunny top down day today; although it is now cloudy and predicted to rain tomorrow and perhaps for the next three days.  Boo Hoo.

We also had another short driving day.  We attended a wonderful worship service at Essa Road Presbyterian Church in Barrie before we left for Ontairo’s premier ski resort – Blue Mountains, about 80 km away.  Check-in begins at 4 pm but we arrived at 2 even after stopping in nearby Collingwood for some groceries; fortunately our room was ready.

The next five nights we stay at the Intrawest Resort at Blue Mountains.  This is one of Club Intrawest’s properties so we only had to use some of our time share points and did not have to pay any exchange fees or other charges.  So – five nights in one place with no bill at the end of the stay.  All is well.

Since it is such a short drive there were not really any opportunities to take exciting photos but we are now in farm country so I snapped a few shots of the farms as we passed.

This is also a summer and winter playground (Collingwood, about 20 km from here is situated at the bottom of the Georgian Bay).  And obviously some wealthy people either live here or have some ‘huge’ summer cottages here. We passed many manicured estates with beautiful large homes.

We are staying in a studio that is one large room with a mini-kitchen (no stove, just a microwave and mini-fridge), but it is really nice; a large bathroom, king-sized bed looking right out the picture window, lots of storage space and very, very friendly and helpful staff. There are quite a few restaurants in the area so we will eat breakfast and lunch in our studio and dinner out.  Oh, the stress and trials I must bear….

 Our deck the view from our deck

The resort area here is bigger than Whistler.

There are rental condos and apartments and hotels all over the Village.  We haven’t wandered around yet, but the most amazing sight to me is the Blue Mountains Ski Hill.  I apologize to any readers from Ontario that have a soft spot in their hearts for this ski hill, but coming from BC this is almost laughable.  The “mountain” is  not even close to half the height of the Fly Hills at home; it would be a pretty easy afternoon hike to get to the top. The entire side of the mountain stretching for a couple of km or more is striped with ski runs divided by sections of trees.  There is a ski lift at each run and you could probably ski down them in three minutes.  A road even goes to the top and along the crest of the mountain (really just a benchof farm land, not a mountain at all) with parking lots so you can drive up there, park your car and walk over to ski down the hill.  I haven’t taken a photo of it yet but here is a picture from the brochure.  I just can’t get over it,

Unless something really exciting happens that I need to share immediately I will probably only post one or two blogs over the next five days, so, dear readers, you will just have to wait with bated breath until you hear from me again.  Not.