Ontario | Change Is Hard

August 21, 2023
by dawnkinster 24 Comments

The adventure continues

Time is marching on, faster and faster, and if I don’t write this post now I will begin to forget all the fun stuff we did on our four night camping trip in Ontario Canada, on the shores of beautiful Lake Huron.

*The beach in downtown Kincardine. It reminded me of the beach on a Caribbean island.*

We were able to stay two nights at Point Farms Provincial Park, but they were booked for the weekend, so we planned on packing up Friday morning and moving to our next reserved campsite at MacGregor Provincial Park about an hour north, beyond the town of Kincardine, where the bagpipe parade would happen on Saturday evening.

*The beach at Point Farms, early in the morning.*

Very early Friday morning the sound of the lake roaring woke us. We hadn’t heard the lake from our site during any part of our two day stay, but Friday morning it was obvious something was going on.

Both of us popped out of our tents and said, “Is that the lake??” Then we scurried down the long set of stairs to the beach to see what there was to see.

The sun was just getting high enough in the sky to start illuminating the water and there were pretty little puffy clouds turning pink along the horizon.

We spent a long time wandering the beach and taking pictures. Good thing we had until 3 to vacate our site!

Eventually we went back up to the campsite and began to pack.

*Didn’t count the steps, best not to know how many.*

Normally it takes about an hour to get everything stowed in the car. It takes longer than that if everything is kind of wet, which it was.

But we only had to go about an hour north, so no worries. Plus there were lots and lots of pretty barns between where we were and where we were going to be.

I guess I’ll show you those in a separate post, there were so many!

*Well, OK, here’s one of the pretty barns we saw that day.*

Finally we arrived at Kincardine, but we were too early to check into MacGregor Provincial Park and our site. So we explored the town’s beach, watching beautiful sailboats and clouds move at the horizon…

*A steady wind caused both the boat and the clouds to move right along.*

…and a very large boat come into the marina….

*The boat’s name was 2nd Seabatical, and it was from Houston.*

….and of course we saw the town’s lighthouse.

*The photogenic lighthouse next to the marina.*

Kincardine is another pretty town, and we enjoyed walking on the beach…

…and eating a quick lunch sitting on a bench along the boardwalk watching people and their dogs.

*We talked to this doggy grandma about her dogs and the town of Kincardine.*

Eventually we made our way to McGregor Provincial Park.

*This is a giant bat house near the ranger office. They said no bats lived in it, they chose to live somewhere else. Silly bats.*

This park had sites tucked in among the trees and brush, so there was quite a bit of privacy, though noise from other sites certainly carried over to us.

*Setting up at our very nice site, which was surrounded by poison ivy.*

We explored the park; the beach that didn’t allow dogs…

….and the beach allowing dogs. The dog beach was definitely the better choice.

And then we walked out to the end of sunset point, to consider whether that might be a prime stargazing location. It seemed promising.

*Friday afternoon out on Sunset Point. There would be no stars that night.*

But we were really there to see the bagpipe parade, the parade that had sparked this entire trip. So… did we find the parade? Well of course we did! Even better, as we walked into the park where the bagpipers were congregating, we met Quinton, a beautiful little sheltie boy and his owner.

*Quinton showing off his tricks and getting a treat, of course.*

We had a great conversation with Quinton’s dad, learning some of the history of Kincardine, what the winters were like (not as snowy as they used to be), why the parade route was altered (Queen street was being dug up to replace ancient pipes underneath), our mutual love of shelties (he had 2 before Quinton, one died of kidney failure at age 7), and where to stand to get the best view of the parade.

Then we went to listen to the bagpipes warm up, talked to one of the pipers and headed over to the parade route, smiling in anticipation.

The sun was setting over Lake Huron as the pipers began to march and play.

It was pretty magical, though odd, as they marched down the street for a block, then did a complicated turn and marched back up the block again, then turned and marched part of the way down again.

I hope when Queen Street is opened again they might be able to march further in one direction. I imagine they hope so too.

*They do this every Saturday evening all summer!*

After the ‘parade’ the musicians moved to the center of the park, formed a big circle and played for the several hundred members of the appreciative audience that had settled on chairs and picnic tables.

*It felt like the whole town turned out.*

Kids played in the grass, neighbors caught up on their personal news, extended families gathered, people nodded and tapped their toes to the music. It was a beautiful evening of community togetherness.

*Even the lighthouse showed up to give high fives!*

My sister and I were both smiling as we made our way back down to the beach where we had parked. Mission accomplished, we’d seen the bagpipe parade, the event that spurred this entire trip.

*One of many beautiful buildings on our walk back to the car.*

But….would there finally be stars on this, Saturday night, our last night in Canada?

I guess you’ll have to wait and see.

September 22, 2019
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

Oh Canada!

What’s on Canada’s Lake Superior shore you may wonder. Well, I can’t show you everything, it’s a big lake, and a long shore after all, but I can show you a few of the things that caught my attention.

First of all, there are a lot of waterfalls, most of them huge. I liked the big vistas…

Kakabeka Falls, near Thunder Bay

…but I really enjoyed trying to capture some of the smaller details, like these shelves of rock with water pouring over.

Water cascading.

Some people enjoy seeing the water smoothed, other people like seeing the droplets.

Another view of cascading water.

I like waterfalls both ways.

Also near Thunder Bay is a memorial park honoring Terry Fox, the young man who was running a marathon a day, across Canada, to raise money for cancer research.

Looking out over Thunder Bay. Forever young.

The park marks the spot he had to stop, back in 1980 when his cancer returned.

One day we were driving through Thunder Bay when I noticed the sun on a red ship moored out in the bay.

Wondering if the sun will wake the gentle sleeping giant.

Only later, looking through images, did I realize that in the background I had accidentally captured the sleeping giant. Do you see him? I almost cut off his head!

Here’s another view of the sleeping giant. Way up there is where we watched the sun set one evening, you saw those images in an earlier post.

The giant sleeps on.

Not far from Thunder Bay we stopped at another fur trading post, Fort William, and learned more about how the fur trading business worked.

There was another huge information center.

Notice the porch pillar is a tree sitting on a rock.

With lots of beautiful art inside.

Wood carvings inside.

And then you could take the shuttle or walk through a beautiful woods to get to the fort.

A beautiful walk, though we took the bus back to our car after our long tour of the fort.

Once there we were taken on a guided tour.

Trading modern goods for valuable furs.

There was a hierarchy in the business, among the owners or stockholders, and those that went into the wild to trade pots and pans for furs, and those that worked in the post.

The dining room. Depending on your rank you got to sit in different areas of the room.

It was interesting to realize that, in the end, it was the fashion industry that drove all this activity. The furs were sent back East to be made into felted hats, to edge beautiful gowns, or to be made into coats for the wealthy and powerful.

After our official tour we were allowed to wander through the rest of the buildings inside the fort.

Canoe maintenance building.

Lots of interesting places to explore, all labeled in three languages, English, French and the Native American language of the Ojibwa.

Three ways to say the same thing.

After we left the Thunder Bay area we stopped at an amethyst mine. Apparently there’s a relatively small area of Canada that has amethyst.

Explaining how the stones grown in fissures in granite.

This family has owned the land for several decades and gives short tours to explain how amethyst grows. It was pretty.

Pretty in purple.

But I was just as attracted to the old trucks parked on the land.

These guys have paid their dues.

We still had a long way to go, so we moved on…back along the shore of Lake Superior, with it’s beautiful blue water and rocky or sandy beaches.

Miles of beach, endless water and sky.

Some of it is hilly, small mountains really, and along the way we came around a curve to see this:

It looked like a toy, the bright colors of the train against the green of the mountain and the brilliant blue of Lake Superior.

It looked like a toy train going around the mountain. Luckily there was a scenic overlook right there so I got to capture the sun glinting off all those cars of containers.

Oh, I can’t forget to show you the giant Canada goose…

Located at an information center. Make sure you stop in when you go by.

… and Sandy Beach where a group of seven artists used to paint.

A lovely spot to paint.

And the wild blueberry farm we drove through, the berry plants already turning red in preparation for fall.

The colors were gorgeous.

And of course I can’t forget to tell you about the pictographs in Lake Superior Provincial Park.

We figured a short walk down to the shore would be easy. We were wrong.

400 meters. A piece of cake. Unfortunately no one told us we’d start looking like the dog and return looking like the pictograph.

It was a very rocky, uneven trail. One way down went between these huge granite cliffs. It was sort of like walking down a natural stone staircase in a grand home.

Going down.

Once we finally got down to the shore, covered in huge slabs of slippery granite, we found a few pictographs.

Ancient images.

There were more, and some larger, further along the ledge, but we didn’t want to risk sliding into the cold lake, especially with no easy way of getting back out!

Not going any further than this!

Then we started the long trek back to the car, following the other path which was strewn with boulders.

It was a long, difficult climb back up to the car.

Maybe if the lake level is down this would be a fun thing to do again. Or not.

After that adventure we were ready to stop, but we kept driving until we got to Sault St. Marie, Onterio where we finally rested for our last night in Canada. We loved our trip around Lake Superior. Who knew that was a thing?

I’m sure I missed telling you about some of the sights, but that just means you’ll have to come on up and do it for yourself. I’m sure you’ll find even more delightful things on your adventure.

If nothing else, there will always be the waterfalls!

September is the perfect time to explore Ontario!

If I were you I’d put Ontario on your bucket list.

September 12, 2019
by dawnkinster 16 Comments

Hotel carpet recap

A family friend travels often for work and began posting what she called her “ugly hotel carpet” pictures a few years ago. I caught the bug and have posted on Facebook my version of ugly hotel carpets during some of my travels. This past two weeks several people mentioned that the carpet images might make a great collage.

So let’s see what WordPress will produce if I provide the images.