Ontario Visited News – Our SHAW FESTIVAL Adventure!
~ Adventure #1 – Planning and Getting There ~
Thornbury, ON – 15 years ago, Festival Nomad (a.k.a. Gary McWilliams) and I, Scoop (a.k.a. Judi McWilliams) too a picnic trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Shaw Festival.
To Gary’s surprise, after the picnic, I told him we were staying overnight and going to the Shaw Festival for a play!
That was to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary…
Fast forward 15 years later, and we now celebrate our 40th.
This time, the Shaw Festival invited Ontario Visited to come and experience THE SHAW!
We booked several tickets for our Shaw Festival Adventure. Our first “adventure”, was to be the Beyond the Stage Tour. This was a morning tour. Later that night, we booked The Game of Love and Chance. This was a live performance in the beautiful Spiegeltent outdoor traveling tent (looks like our Chance turned out perfect 40 years later) The next night we were to see Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.
With the ticket all set, it was time to plan our visit …
We considered the travel time (google maps), and realized that the journey could take 4 hours.
Taking into consideration, that the Festival Nomad likes to travel on “roads less traveled”, we knew it was going to take a “little” longer. Wanting to be on time for THE SHAW, so we booked an extra night at a quaint B&B, Cedar Gables.
We hit the road early, enjoying local communities along the way, making new discoveries of towns we had never taken the time to explore.
All was going well. and, then … you guessed it … CONSTRUCTION!
It was great, because Gary knew the Oakville and Burlington areas, so we were able to wind our way up and down, down and up around the construction area. It was “interesting”, but we eventually made it.
We were welcomed by our Cedar Gables hostess, Daina Grigjanis-Meusel, who quickly helped us into her beautiful home. As we hadn’t eaten all day, Daina hooked us up with a local pizza shop. Within a short time, the unique homemade pizza was delivered two weary travelers. After that, fresh peaches from our hostess, and then a quick rest. Our SHAW “adventure” was waiting for us!
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