Port Dover on a Friday???

Today was the hottest day of the week, for sure… It was well over 30 deg. C. today with lots of sun again.  We decided to take a motorcycle ride today, as maybe we could cool off doing that!

I have always wanted to go down and visit Port Dover on Lake Erie.  It is a pretty little town, and on every Friday the 13th each year, it is over run by motorcycles!  A couple guys in Port Dover started this tradition many years ago, and it has grown out of control.  I believe over 10,000 people show up now for Friday the 13th.  They come from all over Canada and the U.S.A. now.

So we took a chance and went today, being it was only the 2nd of the month, I felt we were safe!

On the way down we stopped in a little Town called Delhi, and visited Tim Horton”s, one of the most famous coffee shops in Canada for sure, however, look below to see what I found!

Cannot ever remember seeing a designated spot for horse and buggy parking… and it looks like some horse left something behind…  wonder if the Staff at Tim’s have to come and clean that up???

Yes, we are in Mennonite country, and actually, while I was the Branch Manager of National Trust and working in Mount Forest, we had a tie up for the horses in our back parking lot.

Port Dover is quite nice… here is Judy walking the waterfront down on a canal leading into Lake Erie.

Well developed water front area.

This is the lower end of the Main Street, and it would be just jammed with bikes on any Friday the 13th.

Developed Commercial area on the water…

A nice Marina to keep the boaters happy…

And how about a nice beach to keep the beach bums happy, it is obvious no one works in Port Dover on Friday afternoon, they are all at the beach…

For about $14.00 you could get about a 1 1/2 hour boat tour of the area…

Port Dover has been around since 1879, and at one time in 1814, was razed by American Troops!  When farming went flat for a while, people ran rum in boats from Port Dover over to the U.S. 

We carried on Lakeshore Drive, from Port Dover down to Nanticoke.  Below is the Ontario Power Generation Plant at Nanticoke.  It is right on Lake Erie, and is a coal fired plant.  2 of the 8 generation units have been retired, and the remaining 6 are only used during peak periods of use.  Ontario wants to get right out of using coal and may convert this plant to Natural Gas in the future.

Across the road from the Power Plant, is a very large Esso Oil Refinery.  It has been here for years, and provides a lot of gasoline to southern Ontario. 

We stopped on a bridge on the road, that went over a couple big conveyor belts at the refinery.  they led right down to Lake Erie and I am not sure what they use it for.  On the far right of the picture below, it looked like a water trough to bring up some lake water to the plant.

About a 200 Klick drive today and we cooled off in the pool as soon as we got back to the Park!  Perfect way to end a ride!

Till tomorrow…