We Visit Almonte and Christmas in July!

That's some beard, Santa!

Santa's 'sleigh'

Mill Falls, Almonte

Today was cloudy and cool with a threat of rain all day. Nearly all the cows in the field were laying down, a sure sign of rain.

Late this morning we went for a drive and wound up in Almonte, a little town just north of Carleton Place. It’s a very “in” place to live so the prices of homes are out of sight. Almonte has turned into quite an artsy place with all sorts of little curiosity and art shops on the main street. We parked and walked around for a bit and took some photos. Almonte has a waterfall called “Mill Falls”. The blurb below came from the ‘Waterfalls of Ontario’ site and from the Almonte site:

The town of Almonte was once called Shepherd's Falls, and it contains 2 waterfalls within short distance, each with two distinct waterfalls (see also Grand Falls). Mill Falls is a set of two pretty plunge class waterfalls, a rare class in Eastern Ontario (but see Rideau Falls). Each waterfall is about 8 m wide, with the upper falls about 3-4 m in height and the lower a good 5 m high. A wooden footbridge leads over the top of the smaller, upper falls to a private residence.

Visiting Mill Falls is, unfortunately, not the best waterfalling experience. Both are located on private property, and while you easily view the upper falls from the road, the lower falls is only visible from private property.

Almonte is also notable for being the boyhood home of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball.

When we got back we had a nap and was doing some interneting when we looked out the window and saw Santa Claus go by on a decorated wagon being pulled by the orange tractor so we got our cameras and headed down to the beach. The campground has a “Kid’s Day” every year in July and call it Christmas in July so we got photos of Santa handing out gifts to the kids. They had all sorts of contests and things going on today. On our walk back from the beach there was a cute little woodpecker in a dead tree that we took some photos of.