The original plan was to visit the lavender fields and eat lavender ice cream. However, the day before we planned to go, my friend suggested that we also stop by Bogle Seeds to see the sunflowers, after pictures flooded everyone's feed from the previous weekend.
We knew it would probably become a busy nightmare, so we all agreed to meet early in the morning. After a quick pit stop at Timmie's, we were on our way.
It was relatively smooth driving until we got to the entrance of the farm; there were cars lining up to get in from both directions. Once we finally entered the farm and paid our entrance fee, we looped around the parking lot and nabbed one of the last spots.
The sunflowers immediately beside the parking area were looking a wee bit sad, with their droopy petals. However, as we walked further into the field, we realized the field was massive, with two paths flanked by rows and rows of sunflowers. We chose the less busy path, and walked along for awhile, snapping photos for each other.
My friend suddenly decided we should do a jumping photo together, and we asked the closest friendly stranger if they would help us capture the moment. It was quite the feat, but twenty-odd photos later, there was not a single successful shot. In fact, the majority of the photographs were of us decidedly not airborne.
The skies began clouding over, and at first we thought we would be able to continue through the drizzle. When the drizzle quickly turned into a heavy downpour, we ran with the rest of the crowd to seek shelter. My friends both started getting bit by mosquitoes as the rain came, and a quick counsel was held to decide whether we should wait out the rain.
I convinced them to stay a little longer, and armed with mosquito repellent, we started along the other path in the field. The first sight that greeted us was a rather sinister-looking sunflower, but its neighbours were decidedly much cuter. What was less cute was the fact that a couple of people were going around pocketing seeds...
The path continued around the entire field, and as the sun was out in full force, we finished the loop at our leisure.
We also found another kind stranger to attempt the jumping photo once more - this gentleman was firm that he would do the countdown, and he succeeded with his second shot.
Heading back to the car, we saw the insane traffic around the farm. There were cars lined up along the perimeter of the farm, and it took nearly twenty minutes to exit the parking lot. Once we turned onto the highway, we saw cars parked along both sides of the road, and families walking en masse across the highway to the farm. Relieved that we avoided the craziness, we headed towards Hamilton for lunch.
After parking, we headed to the farmer's market, and while one of my friends was successful in buying some greens, we weren't really interested in the lunch offerings. We headed down in search of a food court, and after much moseying around, we stumbled upon one that was almost entirely closed.
Consulting Google, we went out above ground and started walking east on King Street. We were walking towards a spot suggested by Google when we passed by a cafe with bar seating open to the sidewalk. My friends were both intrigued by the decor, so we decided to take a gander at the menu.
I shared a Grimsby Smoke with one of my friends, while the other opted for the Smoked Turkey. We got two different house made lemonades, and settled upstairs.
As we were waiting, a man who had been dining a few tables over suddenly came up to us and offered us a mini schedule with the Blue Jays games. He worked as a snack vendor at the Rogers Centre, and invited us to drop by and say hi if we were ever in the area.
When our sandwiches came, we were all happy with our choices - my future concert buddy and I agreed to come back when we in town the a couple of months later.
The original plan was to head to the lavender farm afterwards, but we had spent more time than we anticipated at the sunflower farm, and we decided it wouldn't be worth the admission fee to spend just over an hour there. Hiking was also out of the question as none of us had the proper footwear, so we decided to head to North York for some bubble tea.
Over bubble tea and fried chicken, we discovered that the sunflower farm was suddenly shut down a couple hours after we left. The lack of parking led to dangerous road conditions such as those we had witnessed earlier, and the farm, in its second week of operations, was shut down for the rest of the season.
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