Just South of HWY 17 and 1st Line in the Primrose area on the Bruce Trail

Last week was quite the emotional rollercoaster, from the interview (still have not heard anything) and my Dad in the hospital – it has been very stressful. Fortunately the immediate complication with my father proved to be negative and he has been improving since. *phew* He is alert, eating and his energy is slowly returning to him. He was well enough that bdot kept her plans for her Girls Weekend. So I was on my own for the weekend.

Friday afternoon I decided to meet my Mom and the hospital and visit my Dad. I mistakenly thought I left early enough (around 3) to avoid traffic towards Niagara. Ha. I was wrong. Very wrong. What should have been an 1h15m drive was a 3hr starting and stopping-bumper to bumper clusterfsck. Sigh. Needless to say that changed my plans somewhat… I had intended on grabbing dinner with my Mom after the visit but that had to be cut. The visit was good. Compared to earlier in the week my Dad seemed much better. Sure there are still many serious issues but the short term concerns have improved considerably. He was talkative and we enjoyed the first period of the Habs game he was even sarcastic and joking – a sure indicator of improvement. Most importantly I thought his attitude was better. Understandably too. The doctors finally found a reason for his discomfort and had a remedy instead of another unknown. The last report from my mother (yesterday) said he is continuing to improve slowly.

After being in the car then at the hospital all of Friday I wanted to get outside Saturday. I planned a few hiking options. It was a beautiful day, warm, clear,… perfect for hiking. I ended up hiking in Primrose area of the Bruce Trail. The first hike was on the Primrose Loop. It was a bit of drive but parking was easy to find just north of 89 on HWY 19 past Primrose School. The trailhead in just down the road on the opposite side that the parking lot was on. Look for the Prince of Wales side trail sign. It will lead to the Primrose loop. I’m not sure if I did the loop properly or not but I found the hike pretty underwhelming. For all the climbing I did there was little payoff in vistas or interesting terrain. It was just tight rows of pine trees and mud. No rocks, no water. I likely wouldn’t do that loop again.

Since I was a little disappointed I decided to try a section of the Bruce Trail slightly north of the Primrose Loop. There is a parking lot on 1st Line just south of HWY 17 (the green sign for the Mulmur Hills parking lot is 716599). This section of the Bruce Trail was MUCH more interesting. I hiked east toward 2nd Line. A few minutes into the hike you are in big open space with rolling hills and grasses.

Mulmur Hills. Dog is ready to check it out!

The terrain changed from grasses to forest after a few minutes. The trail crosses many streams and a few side trails including: The Moss Haven Side Trail and the Enchanted Forest Side Trail. There was plenty to look at on this section redeeming the day of hiking. It is quite hilly and I hiked out to 2nd Line before turning around and taking the Moss Haven Side Trail short-cut. The section with the switchbacks and Birch trees was quite lovely. The Moss Haven Side Trail is quite stunning as it runs along a river and up a few hilly sections. I’d certainly return to hike more of this section of the Bruce Trail, East from 2nd Line and West from the parking lot.

Oh joy. More switchbacks.

After the afternoon of hiking I was bagged. I wanted to chill on the couch with a movie. It took me 30m to find a movie I wanted to watch on crappy Canadian Netflix. I settled on Noah on RT which was okay but not awesome. ZZZZ.

A fews weeks back you may recall I ordered the Raspberry Pi 2 (which I still love)… Anyway. There was a few dollars of brokerage from the shipping company. Let’s call them DOWNs. So DOWNs sends me a bill. Fine. I go online to pay it thinking it will take a few minutes, no big deal… Well… it was a big deal. On the bill is a customer ID number. So LOGICALLY when you go to the website for BILL PAYMENT you would think – drop the ID in and select a method of payment. The ID was 10 characters long. The website took ONLY 6, 7, or 8 characters depending on the type of bill. So NO WHERE would it accept my stupid 10 digit ID. THIS IS YOUR SYSTEM. So I contact their customer support with a WTF e-mail. They respond saying “Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention. I sincerely apologize for any frustration this situation has caused. You are able to pay invoices on line with a six digit UPS account number.” Yes I can see that but you sent me a TEN DIGIT ID that YOUR SYSTEM DOESN’T RECOGNIZE! So a few back and forths got me no where so I just sent them a cheque in the mail – because a major shipping company should require a cheque in the mail instead of some form of online payment. Sigh. Done? No. Wait there is more! So the cheque gets cashed and I thought nothing else about it until I started getting those ‘you haven’t paid your bill harassment calls’. What! Are you kidding. So not only can you not pay the bill easily… but when you DO pay it their system is so inept they don’t cancel (what I assume) is the automated harassment call process. Wow. So I contact support AGAIN and said look this is paid, stop the fscking calls. Oh. Lo and behold the rep finds the bill IS paid. I eagerly completed a customer satisfaction report on the interactions. I think I used the word abysmal and said I’d pay more to avoid using DOWNs in the future. How embarrassing for them. Ugh.

Bdot is home. She had a mixed weekend away. She wasn’t feeling well so could partake in much revelry.