The Journey Pt 2 - Southern Ontario!

Early on day 3 we crossed through the US-Canadian border at Detroit-Windsor and had to spend an hour there becoming Canadian again. Things went pretty smoothly except when they asked for proof that we had actually lived in Texas. I just sort of drew a blank. I had no idea how to prove I lived there. Then the immigration officer asked to see my U.S. visa, which I had thrown out after my last trip because I thought I wouldn't need it anymore. D had his though, and it had my name on it, so thankfully they let us immigrate back to Canada.

We were going to drive straight to D's dad's place, but decided to take a detour to Elmira, home of the fabled old school Mennonites. In the 10 + years I have known D and his family and friends, I have heard tales of Mennonites in southern Ontario that still drive horses and buggies. I had to see this for myself. And they were everywhere! The first ones I saw were near farms and olden style shops, so that seemed normal.

Buggy 1 from LDH on Vimeo.

But then I started to see them in more incongruous places, like in front of Shopper's Drug Mart and then it just seemed weird.


My favorite part of Elmira, though, were the many road signs depicting horse and buggies. Those were everywhere too!

In addition to hearing about D's exploits in his baby-sitter's horse and buggy, I also have endlessly had to endure stories of Mennonite summer sausage, which can only be found in the Mennonite areas outside of Kitchener-Waterloo. Apparently summer sausage is the most delicious food ever known to humanity. D's favorite is Noah Martin summer sausage. We tried to go to the St. Jacobs Farmers' Market to get some summer sausage, but it was closed on the day we were there. Fortunately, the grocery store in Elmira had an entire wall of summer sausage to choose from. D was able to get his Noah Martin summer sausage. Even though I am a vegetarian, and even though I hated sausages even when I ate meat, I was so curious about the summer sausage that I had heard so much about that I decided to taste it. That was until I smelled it and almost puked. I decided that smelling the summer sausage was as far as I wanted to go in that relationship.

Next stop - Monetville