Once a week I like to recommend something fun for the family to do. I’m not picky. I’ll write about a good song or a crazy vacation, as long as I’ve tried it and liked it. There’s really no shortage of things to do for kicks. Still, every so often, I come up dry. So does everybody, right? Sometimes you want to get out of the house and do something, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what you feel like doing. Guess what? That’s okay, too.
Just get into the car and drive. Strap in the kids and nose your vehicle toward the closest city limit and plow right through. Keep going until you come to “the country”. Young C loves it when we leave the city and I tell him we’re in the country. Sometimes we even see cows or horses out to pasture. Bonus.
Once you’re in the country, then you can stop at little road-side fruit stands, restaurants, or rest stops. You can pack a picnic lunch or pick up something along the way. I like to drive right through the country and into a nearby town for a quick lunch and a nice walk before heading back home. En route to Niagara Falls a couple weeks ago, we stopped for lunch at Niagara-on-the-lake which a beautiful little town. But it doesn’t always have to be so picturesque. This past weekend we spent the afternoon walking around Hamilton — a real city in its own right that we’d never gone to.
There are also lots of parks and picnic areas out of the city. Spend an impromptu couple hours with the family in any one of these, or book a spot for a larger get-together. We attended a welcoming ceremony at Sibbald Point last Saturday at a beautiful picinic shelter right on the shore of Lake Simcoe.
Maybe it’s just because this is our first spring as car owners and it’s all just novelty, but I can’t see us getting sick of these day trips anytime soon. We really couldn’t escape from the city like this when we didn’t have a car. While car ownership represents a huge jump in our monthly financial commitments, one of the things you are buying is this kind of freedom. We don’t use it to drive downtown or to do grocery shopping or any other daily chore. It is really only needed for cross-town and out-of-town excursions. And I love, love, love it. A quick jaunt out of town on a weekend afternoon is almost free, after all, and a great way to give the family some of that “quality time” I keep hearing about.
(Image courtesy of Tostie14 at Flickr.)
2 replies on “The Impromptu Day Trip”
You should try Downey Farms in Brampton one day! It was cute. There were about 8 little ducklings walking around and they’d walk right up to you for some cuddles! and of course, so did the goats! lol. But you get to walk around as much as you like in this penned area where all the animals are. The kids.. and even me and Mike LOVED it!
Good for you. Doesn’t get much better than this.