The Girls’ Weekend Away

From the ridiculous to the sublime. From unhealthy foods to the yummy, healthy ones. From crying from laughter till your stomach hurts to crying soft tears of thanksgiving that you have these wonderful sister/friends. That’s what our annual sister weekend is all about.

Covid kept us apart too long and we cancelled our reservation at Chatham’s Retro Hotel twice but we finally made it happen and the joy in the air was palpable.

Our mum lent us her bigger van so we could fit our copious luggage and birthday presents inside. We all have birthdays close together so we have a bit of a party every year.

This year we started with breakfast at a pancake place called “Stacks” in Tecumseh.

I thought I ordered 3 small, original pancakes with one chocolate chip pancake but you can see the giant stack of chocolate covered cakes that arrived…ha ha. After this crazy meal we headed off to Chatham and at lunchtime we ended up eating this delightfully healthy charcuterie concoction that Pamela had ordered for the trip. It was yummy!

I’ve only ever been to the Retro Hotel for a meal at the Chilled Cork restaurant there so I actually didn’t know that the rooms were themed. I just knew that the artworks in the lobby were amazing and Chatham is nice and close to our homes in Windsor.

But boy, when we walked into our two rooms (2 different floors) we were yelping with delight at how spacious and cool they looked.

Pamela and I shared the “Brownstone” room which ended up being our meet up place as it was larger and had a games table. Very comfortable and beautifully appointed. It could have used some hooks in the bathroom for towels and clothes and a nightlight too but we figured it all out with the help of a trip to Dollarama…ha ha

Mary and Paula stayed in the “Urban Loft” room, also very comfortable and also needing a few things in the bathroom like a shelf/ hooks.

We laughed so hard when we were on our way out to explore the town because we all crammed into an old fashioned photo booth (and we could all see ourselves in the camera) and the only 2 people you could see in the actual printed photo were Paula and myself. FUNNY!

One day we went to the town of Petrolia and had a walkabout to see all these wooden carvings around ‘Discovery Park”. There had been a horrible storm that went through the area and we missed it when we stayed in the hotel for breakfast. But the ground at the park was still a little wet so we had to be careful.

We saw a whole family fishing off of a small bridge and and really enjoyed our little stroll around the water’s edge too.

Before we left Petrolia I took some photos of interesting buildings there…..