Travel elicits many emotions, from awe to anger and from upgrade ecstasy to gift-shop remorse. But over the course of my Canadian wanderings there’s something more: Pride. That's what this daily series is all about: Sharing my proud perspective on the places and experiences that make my country the greatest on Earth. Some of my selections are world-famous, others are little-known, a few are acquired tastes, and this one is a shout-out to my distant simian ancestors.

As I lunge into thin air on Blue Mountain’s new Timber Challenge high ropes course, I can’t help but wish I was back on my Segway.

A few hours earlier, I took a 90-minute Mountaintop Segway Tour, another of the Collingwood resort’s new summer diversions. Since June of 2012, a small fleet of the two-wheeled, self-balancing oddities — fitted with knobby tires for off-road rides — has been whisking visitors along gravel paths and forest trails atop the Niagara Escarpment.

These quirky excursions, along with an 18-hole mini-putt course carved into Blue’s ski slopes and the child-friendly Woodlot low ropes course, represent the biggest expansion in summer activities at the resort since the Monterra golf course opened in 1989.

By Hole 7 of the Cascade Putting Course, my two year old daughter finally learns not to run ahead on every hole, pick up all the golf balls, and deposit them in the various water hazards. For the remaining holes she agrees to tee off with our family foursome, but swings her putter with such abandon that it makes contact not once, not twice, but thrice, with my groin. 

The Segway tour is much less stressful. Apart from some good-natured ribbing by passing mountain bikers — “Dude, you lost your pedals!” — it is a serene, near-effortless experience punctuated by the occasional need to steer around a tree root or wedding photo shoot.

“It’s something most people have never tried before, and just about anyone can do,” says Blake Beauchamp, my enthusiastic 20-year-old guide who, after just a few weeks on the job, has honed his Segway skills to the point where he can navigate the entire 7-kilometre route “with no hands.”

The high ropes, however, require the full use of my extremities. After another twenty-something shows me how to buckle my safety harness and use a pair of carabiner-style clips to stay secured to safety cables, I set out on the confidence-boosting wooden catwalks of a beginner course, one of seven increasingly difficult routes, graded green, blue and black, that serve up more than 75 aerial obstacles.

To move up to the blue level, I must complete at least one green track, which, once I get into the Zen-like rhythm of clipping and unclipping, is a fun yet easily surmountable challenge. I consider trying another green course but, with my family freshly arrived to cheer me on, I whiz down the concluding zip line and head straight for Blue No. 1.

Read the rest of the story in the Toronto Star.

Snowy vista (pictured) outside my office* window? Check. Sidewalk shoveled? Check. Spray-on disposable child snow-pants deployed? I wish!

It's beginning to look a lot like ski season around these parts, so I’m really starting to crave some Ontario turns. I was up at Blue Mountain Resort last month for a “Soak and a Statuette” (you know, that old chestnut), and it was coming down pretty heavily for mid-freaking-November.

Then I remembered that never-before-skied moment from February last year, when I hit one of Blue’s runs all by myself — as in alone, solo, with no one on the trail except yours truly.

On a typical winter weekend Ontario's largest ski resort is packed. This was certainly the case during my February visit, when most of the lift lines spilled out of their roped-off lanes and every restaurant and bar was hopping.

But one section of the hill (pictured below) was dreamily serene. How did I get away from the madding ski crowd? By heading off-piste, Ontario-style, to "The Orchard" (pictured below), a 64-acre section of cleared and graded Niagara Escarpment that was labelled as "shoeshoe trails" for years. But that changed last season, when Blue completed a $10 million expansion consisting of a high-speed, six-person chairlift and night skiing on three of the Orchard's six new runs, one of which, at 1.6 kilometres, is the longest beginner trail in the province.

My alone-time on the trail only lasted about 15 seconds, as I was soon followed by Collin Matanowitsch, the PR manager at Blue, who gave me the go-ahead to take a test run out of bounds.

The life-long resident of nearby Collingwood seemed quite pleased to be joining me, what with the inch of fresh snow coating the gentle, groomed slope. You just can’t go wrong with fresh tracks right after the demolition derby of Happy Valley.

Even when it lacked a lift, Blue opened the Orchard on select powder days; it took me about five minutes of leisurely cross-country to get there from the Beaver Tails hut near the top of the Southern Comfort chair.

So let it snow, okay? Because without it, there will be no Beaver Tails atop the Niagara Escarpment.

*More like a dining-room table walled off with Lego bricks, kindergarten art creations, Hama-bead kits and a drowsy raccoon.

The bad news: Mostly Amazing did not win the "Travel Blog Award" at last week's Ontario Tourism Awards Gala at Blue Mountain Resort. (It went to Colin Field, whose hunger-inducing post explored Henry’s, a restaurant in the middle of Georgian Bay's 30,000 Islands.)

The good news: I did win the "Travel Media Award" (pictured below) for a 2013 Toronto Star roundup of winter getaways across Ontario. (Cue fireworks and/or fanfare.) The key to victory: The story kicked off with a wiener dog (technically a dachshund-husky cross) pulling small children on a dogsled at Deerhurst Resort near Huntsville. In truth, the wiener dog really wanted to do the pulling, but the ropes kept getting tangled and...well...just read the article.  

The bad news: Chilli, the seven-year-old tubular canine in question (pictured above), was unable to join me at the awards. Her people informed me that she had a prior engagement with the Society of Canadian Hounds Now Involved in Tugging Stuff Around Lots (or SCHNITSAL).  

The good news:  In pessimistic anticipation of leaving the awards empty-handed, I hedged my bets by booking a visit to the Scandinave Spa Blue Mountain (pictured below). It is impossible to feel disappointment or stress while lazing in the bucolic complex's steamy pools, sauna and steam room. You might even feel a sense of healthy accomplishment when you plunge into one of the frigid pools that comprise Scandinave's wellness circuit of hot-cold-rest, which can be completed in a Muskoka chair-filled chill-out room or around smoldering outdoor fire pits. 

The bad news: Bringing fancy glass statuettes into the Scandinave pool complex is strictly prohibited, even if they are dangling from chunky gold necklaces. Just so you know...