Anniversary Adventure Weekend (Blue Mountain Resort)

Our anniversary was a few weeks ago, but we didn't have time to celebrate until just this past weekend. We don't normally make a big to-do about our anniversary - just dinner usually - but we were bored and decided to have some fun.  So we went to Blue Mountain resort near Collingwood, Ontario to try out the summer activities. The last time we were at Blue Mountain it rained the entire weekend, so we weren't able to do anything outdoors. This weekend was beautiful though and we "played" until we were exhausted.

We stayed in the resort village at Seasons at Blue - with a room that looked out on the mountains. This was the view on Saturday morning. Perfect.

We started the day with a trip to the Collingwood Farmers Market. It's a small market, but they have a wide variety of things for sale - vegetables, fruit, smoked meats, bread, jam, cookies, and handmade furniture. We bought some salami, jam, zucchini, and...something else, but it's a gift so I can't talk about it.

We also met this German shepherd puppy. He came from a litter of eleven puppies that had been abandoned. How adorable is that face? I didn't want to leave him. Sigh. Puppies.

But we had to get back to the resort because we had an appointment with some trees. We'd signed up to try out the Timber Challenge High Ropes. There are seven different courses with rope bridges, cargo nets, zip lines, and wobbly wooden bridges, all 10 to 50 feet above the ground.

You start out with ground school to learn how to use the equipment, then you work your way up through harder and harder elements. I'm not particularly afraid of heights - if I feel secure - but when the bridge you're on is swinging around, or you're walking across a cable with just dangling ropes to hold on to - that's scary. 

Here I am on my first zip line. I forgot to plant my feet at the end and almost fell backwards. Bit of a moment of panic there.

There aren't a lot of pictures of me on the course as Tom got yelled at for using the camera phone up on the platforms, but I got some photos of him once I was back on the ground.

This one scared me the most. Tom called it the "pogo sticks". He crossed it twice, but once was enough for me. Those poles are only attached at the top. If you go back to the first picture you can barely see the bottoms of the poles in the top left of the photo. That's how high up we were.

And check out my new bruises! I didn't even feel them until the next day. Both of my forearms are pretty beat up too. One guy who did the hardest course came back down with scraped and bloody arms. This was tough!

After 3 hours were were tired and hungry so we headed back down the mountain for some food. But on the way Tom decided that he wanted to try out the climbing wall. It wasn't a difficult one but he'd never done it before so he couldn't say no.

We stopped for dinner at Rusty's at Blue, a restaurant in the village, and I had the most amazing Cajun catfish tacos. These were seriously the best tacos I've ever eaten. Huge pieces of fish, spicy sauce, guacamole, and homemade tortillas.

We spent the rest of the evening in the pool and hot tub, and then crashed for the night. The next morning we got up and headed out again, to the Ridge Runner this time. It's a mountain coaster where you control how fast you go, and you can reach speeds of 25 mph if you go full out. I couldn't take pictures while on it (holding on too tight!), so here are some from our last visit and from around the 'net.

source

Once the adrenaline rush had worn off, we grabbed some lunch at an Irish Pub, and then rode the gondola up the mountain to take a walk around the Niagara escarpment.

Watch out for those Segway gangs!

By this time it was starting to get overcast and threatening rain, so we toured through the shops, grabbed some frozen yogurt, and headed home. This is the first time we planned something for our anniversary, and it was a blast. Can't wait 'til next year!