As I write this post, I am still on vacation but last week, some visits were relating to woodworking in vacation.  

Niagara 

Our vacation was located in the beautiful location of Niagara in Ontario.  Yes there was the falls, but beyond the obvious, there was some other attractions that were worth while.  

Cherry Picking

We had the kids with us and having the occasion to fruit pick was a nice opportunity to show them what is was.  Peach season was not yet there, too early but was able to get some cherries along the way.  

Although it was towards the end of the season, the cherries were still pickable if this can be said.  They were still very nice to pick and with the sun glowing between the branches, this made for some great picture.  

I was able to see some cherry trees in there natural environment with there fruit hanging from the branches.  They were not very tall trees, i'd say in total about 7' tall, maybe a but more but not much.  I live close by to other farms that picking strawberries and apples (in season) is easy but picking cherries was not a common activity that was easy access to us.  This was very interesting and worth doing again if we are in the area.

Local Distillery 

I am a growing fan of whisky and starting to know what I like and dislike.  Canadian whisky is a taste that I am cultivating and when looking for activities to do while in the Niagara region, visiting a local distillery was high on the todo list.  

We are not drinkers of wine so visiting a winery and the vines was not something that was too appealing to us.  

After doing some research, we found Dillon Distillery which was about 20 minutes from our hotel.  Visits are organised on a regular basis and are very well done by one of the distillers.  Included in the visit, was the ability to taste a subset of what they produce.  All there products are available in there store part of the distillery and are offered in local LCBO which carries there product.  

I Brought back there Rye Whiskey and tasted other products.  The visit and the tasting made the trip worth while.  The kids were also able to visit and were pretty curious.  Also noted the smell which was pretty distinct of a distillery.  I really recommend the visit if you are in the area.  

Lee Valley

One last note, Lee Valley opened a store in Niagara Falls not too long ago and as I needed some products from them, it was convenient to stop by and get what I needed in person. 

I've been to a few Lee Valley stores and I can say that the new look is very nice and finally, being able to touche there tools that they manufacture, i.e. the saws, plane chisels is very good.  There are work bench with wood and you can try the tool to the wood and the employees are there to help.  

This tool testing is finally a very good initiative to do as other manufacturer, i.e. one of there biggest competitors did exactly that so that users were exposed to there tools and not into glassed cabinets.  Kudos for that.  

Other tools were in demos where these tools are available through LeeValley which is also a very good selling point to offer the users to test drive.