As much as the combination of Air Canada Rouge's seatback TV-free, child-sized seats while wearing an N95 mask was rough, I was ecstatic to be back in Essex County for a whole month from late December into late January.

That first Friday, Donnie was in touch to see about hanging out. Trying to think of ruins on our side of the border, I suggested the abandoned incinerator in Chatham because my mind always thinks of the abandoned incinerator in Chatham. Donnie said he never thinks of the Chatham incinerator and actually he forgets that it exists most days.

Off we go!

One of my favourite things was walking into Donnie's house and him confidently asking, "so when are you going to the States?" Even though this was still a time of vaccine passports and people facing quarantine - or changing pandemic rules leaving you stuck in America - he knew that there was zero question about whether or not I was going.

I let him know that I was crossing in 10 days :)

One of my least favourite things happened at the incinerator as D asked for a beer and I confidently passed him a Fat Tire, seeing as he doesn't care about the taste of beer and just needs it to be a decent percentage so he doesn't get bloated, tired and grumpy. A Fat Tire is perfect, I thought.

Except that he found the Fat Tire so offensive that he couldn't finish it and was baffled when I said it was easily a top 10 beer in life. Instead he was left to a Busch Light where the aforementioned bloat, tiredness, and grumpiness came in short order.

As we were leaving the incinerator, a police car rolled by and then quickly turned as if they were coming back around the block.

This left us hanging out in a random Chatham park as we waited him out. As a fan of finding myself in random locations, I quite enjoyed that here we stood in obscure Henry Weaver Park, mere days after landing back in Essex County.

Returning through Tilbury and then making a turn down towards Leamington, the rest of the group had recently been to Leamington's International Tavern and figured it was an old school dive I'd like.

Stepping up to grab a pitcher, the OV was flat and the bartender offered to replace it with whatever - I just needed to let her know what beer my friends & I like. Deciding they probably didn't have King Cobra on tap, I hesitated and the guy at the bar interjected with, "cold. It seems they like cold beer."

The rest of the night was heading towards being a bust after everyone got cold at the incinerator and Leamington was quiet.

Except that we then ran into Cole's friend and that meant Hennessey shots? And then Steve bought a bunch of OVs?

Quite the 180, but it ramped things back up.

There were the customary walks around Belle River too.

Passing new houses sort of near our old Forest Hills dirt jumps, I ended up on a farmer's dirt track and then at the train bridge over Duck Creek. For all of the years spent around this town, I don't think I'd ever visited this bridge, which was pretty exciting when it feels like I've seen every last sidewalk crack in Belle River.

Of course I had to climb down and underneath to the muddy banks of Duck Creek.

Sometimes when I'm back home, it can feel like I'm continuously going on the same Sunday drives since my parents complain about taking their cars on gravel roads and also putting on too many kilometers.

Essex, Stoney Point, Comber, Tilbury, over and over and over again.

So after my customary stop at the lighthouse in Lighthouse Cove, I pushed on further towards Pain Court on this the last day of 2021. Along the way I found something new in this former bridge that used to span the Thames River.

This bridge isn't present in a 2005 aerial image of the area and it doesn't even look like it's there in the 1985 aerial image (although it's a bit blurry and hard to say conclusively).

This lattice guardrail beam bridge looks like it could have been very similar to the nearby bridge that still stands on Drake Road over Jeannettes Creek.

Only a few minutes up the road, I pulled into the town of Pain Court for a look around a place I don't reach too often.

It's the above house that I posted on facebook as a "goodbye to 2021". A pro BMXer I sort of know from St. John's, said it looks like a good hop up the 4 stair, then quick hop over the rail on the other side of the porch. It oddly didn't even cross my mind until he pointed it out, haha.

It was now 2:30 and I obviously had New Year's plans tonight, meaning it was time to head home. Along the way I stopped at the Beer Store in BR and asked if they had any 40s of Olde English and the kid who looked so young I questioned how he could work at a Beer Store, replied with a scoff and "Olde English? No." Pfft.

Otherwise, it had been a pretty good day so far. A new abandoned bridge, some swans, Pain Court, the lighthouse at Lighthouse Cove - I couldn't complain.

That is until plans fell apart at 6pm at night. Fuck.

There were very few sporting events going on, partly due to COVID and anyway, how the heck would I get from my parents' house to the Windsor Airport to rent a car at this hour? And regardless, half of those sporting events were off the table as I didn't want to risk going to the States twice on this trip home. In addition, Isy was getting tired of me avoiding New Year's with her family, so this was possibly my last opportunity to do my own thang for a few years on NYE.

I was so low. Easily my favourite holiday and I didn't want to just walk around Belle River or sit in my parents' basement watching reruns of True Detective Season 1 or write about some trip that I did 2.5 years prior or even go biking or whatever.

From the highs of finding that abandoned bridge landing to the lows of watching the clock tick away in a Belle River basement, the highs flew right back as I got a call from Steve and saying that we were going to hang out. He was on his way out to BR and would scoop me up and we'd return west back to Windsor.

Oh hell yeah.

First thing, we decided to grab a room at the questionable Travellers Choice Motel in the far west.

Stating that I needed a room, the motel owner told me to stick my hands through the slot and then spritzed them with sanitizer. This was followed by also sanitizing my ID and credit card when I handed them over.

Okay buddy, can I just get a room so my man friend and I can go put on Pretty Woman in described video?

Donnie showed up a handful of hours later and we all went down to the park right by the Ambassador Bridge to listen to Detroit's celebratory gunfire. We talked about the times where Donnie has actually went over to Detroit on New Year's Eve and the level of terror that everyone whose accompanied him has felt. I concluded that I'm good on ever heading over there just to see guys shooting off guns from liquor store parking lots to mark the new year.

We cruised around to a few different places afterwards, grabbed Pizza Plus, returned to watch some First 48 at the motel, then at the end of the night at 4am, Donnie offered, "you don't have to sleep at the Travellers Choice. Check out of your room and let's get out of here."

There wasn't anything all too exciting for the next few days, save for the fact that I finally accepted shovelling the skatepark in Belle River too.

If we fast forward a week, there was a bit more riding as the snow went away. A sunny day was spent at Atkinson, along with a balaclava day in Tilbury.

The last Friday I was home, I got a message from Donnie & Steve about a solution to finding something to do in Windsor as they both didn't want to head to Detroit due to Covid restrictions. In addition, the new Omicron variant had effectively closed every bar, restaurant and event space in Windsor.

Apparently it's always been a dream of theirs to have a barrel fire like a hobo or a Wu-Tang member. Although it caught me off guard, I didn't have any opposition to this and it seemed like a fun enough idea.

Also of note, in the above picture there's a Mickey's 40, which is something you can't get in Canada. I was able to secure a couple special 40s for this night and I let the boys pick first and then I got whatever was left - which didn't work out great when the King Cobra (6.0% ABV) and the Mickey's (5.6%) went and I was stuck with the Steel Reserve 211 (8.1%).

There was part of me that thought maybe the Chatham/Leamington night was my fault due to getting a bit too on the sauce and now I had the assignment of drinking the 40 which according to Steve, makes your head go all "(wacky noise) (hand waving) (eyes into the back of your head)."

We didn't even leave the house until after midnight on account of everyone watching some new horror movie and drinking PBRs.

I didn't actually watch Terrifier because I don't like the lingering fear for weeks/months after watching scary movies. I instead read a book, which sure paid off when we went to this dark overpass for our barrel fire. No fear of sadistic clowns coming out of the darkness for me!

Teenage me would have been psyched to act out the C.R.E.A.M. music video.

Nowadays I still love an urban bonfire (and if we're being honest, part of me still appreciates acting out a Wu-Tang video).

♫ "I grew up on the crime side, the North Essex News side..." ♫

Later on, I kept insisting that I'd left my 40 behind at the bonfire spot and eventually Donnie and Steve got tired of my insistence. Even though there was a steep hill to slide down and they were certain no 40s were left behind, they returned to the parking lot above and told me I was free to go look.

I'm happy my brain kicked in and I realized the steepness of the hill at that point, but sure enough, I skidded to the bottom only to find nilch, nada.

For all my bitching about why we were waiting until after midnight to go out, it did set us up for easily making the next day's light.

In addition to urban bonfires, I love staying up all night, so this was turning out pretty solid.

Steve would dip out and leave Donnie and I to stay up another couple hours watching music videos. I kept wanting to put on nonsense like "I'm Different" by 2 Chainz because Titty Boi says "you ain't going anywhere like a bad navi." Donnie wanted me to put on new videos that I actually like, but that's not my specialty.

This all resulted in waking up late in the afternoon and needing to get down to Whitfield's in LaSalle that night. With no car available, I saw an opportunity here to grab Taco Bell along the way and dine along Huron Line.

At Whitfield's we turned hockey on, and along with Roach, chopped it up with regards to real and fantasy puck.

Whitfield eventually had to get to bed because he had work the next day, but he told me that Vicky had made stuffed peppers and that I was welcome to them. Oh, that'll play!

Walking back to Donnie's the next day, I enjoyed going through the newish trails and nature area next to Huron Church.

With only one day left, I had to get back to the Annunciation Church in Stoney Point with my real camera. Earlier in this trip, I had seen the side door wide open and knowing that the owners had applied to demolish the building in order to build townhouses, it seemed possible that they were doing the old "leave the place unsecured and hope a fire bug saves the owners on demo costs" trick.

I didn't know when I'd be back home next and this was a pretty important building to me, so I had to get some better pictures.

There's this old picture of my grandparent's grandparents and their parents outside of a church on a wedding day long ago. It's supposedly from Stoney Point, but this church was only built in 1905 and the previous building was a "wood structure" which wouldn't match up with the stone in the background of that family photo.

So for years I'd cherished this church because of that tie-in, but in demolition I think I've learned that the photograph is actually labelled wrong.

I love all of the small towns and villages of Essex & Kent County and hate to see any of them lose their last feature or their key feature - and the Annunciation Church here in Stoney Point is easily the key feature of this village of 600 people. Now the village is down to just a convenience store, small library, park, hardware store, pizza place, school and a boatyard; where none of those buildings tower over the surrounding landscape and announce Stoney Point like this gorgeous redbrick church.

The other soft spot in my heart comes from riding the stairs out front. Stoney Point was always a little far to reach on my BMX, but whenever I did, the whole platform with a two-stair up and then a distant two-stair down bracketed with curved ledges, made it feel like I was riding a legit spot where you could easily film something. It felt like my personal version of a California schoolyard, or that crazy city park in Phoenix from On The Down Low.

As early as 2000, the wheels were in motion to close the churches in Comber, St. Joachim, and Stoney Point in order to build a new central church. I never understood this decision instead of just picking one of the churches to keep and maintain, especially as all three of these towns are only ten minutes from each other in a small triangle.

Apparently 65% of the parishioners were in favour of building a new structure though, so that removes the questions that've lingered in my head for the last 20 years.

The new central-to-Comber church opened in 2006. The Stoney Point church was purchased and owned by a Toronto couple soon after and up until 2018; and while it didn't seem the most active, during that time the building was secure and the exterior was in decent enough shape. Following a sale in 2018 though, things started to get rundown around the property and soon enough a demolition permit was applied for and granted. This came after an engineers report from an engineer that the owners hired, who stated, "not structurally safe and sound. It is a danger of the public safety and well being. It should be demolished in my opinion."

The church was demolished in November of 2023. The land was briefly for sale for $1,350,000.

Seeking out the church listing, I like how it brings you to a real estate site that uses a picture of the church to show the (former) appeal of Stoney Point.

Walking back to the car, I noticed the old Stoney Point Tavern looking pretty rough.

Sure enough, the municipality bought the building in order to demolish the hazard and create an access point for the park to the north.

It also went away in November of 2023.

I tend to ride Stoney Point a fair bit when I'm home at Christmas. It's more secluded than Belle River's main street skatepark, it's a bit better designed, and fewer people living nearby means you're less likely to run into anyone else there.

All these years the Annunciation Church has overlooked the Stoney Point Skatepark and I'll miss seeing it glow in that golden winter light.