April 18 2021 - Beautiful Towns with Beautiful Beaches

The 25 most beautiful towns/villages in the world sort of articles have Spain, Greece, Italy, and various mountainous sea towns on display.  Their houses are perched on cliffs that descend to the ocean. Without doubt, Niagara-on-the-Lake is a pretty town too.  It is perched at the fork of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, so there's much water scenery. And the houses are heritage and historic, like those seaside buildings on Mediterranean cliffs with matching red roofs. I realize that Ontario has lots of seaside and lakeside towns that overlook expanses of water. So which ones are at the top of the list? Perhaps it would be Wasago Beach - as it is the longest freshwater beach in the world.  It is 90 minutes north of Toronto so accessible to millions.  It has warm and shallow water - this sounds ideal.  Quieter and more natural areas are considered perfect for settling down in the sun with a good book.  Really? Why would you put your head down in a book rather than looking out to the vast blue waves? I suggest moving on to the part where you bring your dog with you and head to section 3 where they can "frolic in the waves".  Wasaga Beach's beautiful beach means beautiful sand, and that's what made it remain undeveloped.  The land was too poor for farming in the 1800s. But the Lake's beautiful sand also means lots of maintenance as Lake Ontario water levels that have been rising.  And sand shifts in  the big November storms each year causing damage.  But still all that sand and water is a delight to the human eye. As we consider this summer, we might not get to Wasago with COVID, but we can know it is close-by for future visits. I couldn't resist showing you aerial images of the vast curve of beach along with the splendid river beside it.   Here's a happy collage of lilies. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

 

March 20 2020 - Berserk on Florida Beaches

"Youth is wasted on the young" This is attributed to Oscar Wilde and to George Bernard Shaw.  It is considered to combine wistfulness together with jealousy. This is a perfect quote for the pictures of college students on the beaches of the Eastern U.S. where Florida  and other southern states are struggling to get on with closing beaches, and then to make the closures actually happen.  That's because the headline yesterday - on March 19th (a week after closures of everything was underway here) - was: 'If I get corona, I get corona': Coronavirus pandemic doesn't slow spring breakers' party This comes from a CBS video and is the headline that is being repeated over and over on social media and other news sites. We Canadians turn out to have our own eccentrics and foolish people - at the other end of the age spectrum.  The National Post covered the story of Bruce Beach, born 1934.  He lives in Horning's Mills, 2 hours northwest of Toronto.  He has built 10,000 square foot nuclear fallout shelter out of old school buses, buried beneath several metres of concrete and soil.  The National Post article from 2017 is HERE. The article repeats that he is originally from Kansas. The Global News article in 2015 describes how it is the site of the biggest preparedness event in Canada. The article is HERE.  This article has pictures of the 'bunkers' and gives sufficient creepy details of the zombie survival event.  This makes Bruce Beach a worrisome figure and a pathetic one given he predicted the doomsday date to be December, 2002.   So I guess foolishness isn't wasted on any age group.  We're on to blue lilies today.  It is Brian's birthday and so we celebrate the hybridizer's wildest dreams.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://www.blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Lake Ontario South Shore Beaches

A few weeks ago I was looking for more information on the Charles Daley Park dynamic lagoon.  I came upon the 2009 study of south shore beaches.  I had no idea that there were 58 distinct shoreline areas.  The formal definition is 'reaches'.  These are "a length of shoreline having common physiographic characteristics, shore dynamics, environmental elements and land use."

Our picture today is Port Dalhousie's lighthouses from the west side - from Lakeside Park.  It is 28 on the map.  At the shore is what remains of the amusement park at Lakeside Park.  All that's left is the antique Carousel which has been beautifully preserved.  One can still ride for 5 cents in the summer.  Lakeside Park has a long, long sandy beach with great views of the sky in both directions.  It seems particularly exposed here.  The day of these pictures there were huge waves beating a frozen shoreline.  In Grimsby there was no ice on the shore yet.

We'll be visiting many of these points on the south shore and see what these different reaches have to offer.