Shades of Neil Young, here I am at last sitting by a quiet northern ontario lake. Night has fallen and although there are a few other campers here, there are none in sight. It's warm, with a gentle breeze, late enough in the year that the mosquitoes and black flies are gone...oh, life is good.
I finally launched my kayak today,for the first time this year. Got in 15 minutes of paddling on a lake like a mirror before the wind suddenly picked up and made me wish Id put on my sprayskirt. Mirror to whitecaps in under 5 minutes. It was a bouncy ride back.
Got ready to make a little dinner, and discovered that all the water taps in the park say "unsafe for drinking". Seems like they coulda warned about that up front! Decided an apple was enough for dinner anyway, and then found a little store just few miles down the road that had water. And Glenfiddich. So I'm set!
The store is in the tiny town of Wabigoon, on Wabigoon Lake ... Perhaps the canadian version of Lake Woebegone?
What with finding cabelas, deciding on a new camping mattress, and finding a Starbucks, it was almost noon before I managed to extricate myself from the greater Winnipeg metroplex this morning. But just a half hour east of town, the prairie was suddenly replaced by small birches and poplars. A few miles further on and I was driving through forest of birch, spruce, granite, lake after lake, and hardly any traffic. I spent much of this drive wishing I was on my bike, big wide shoulders to ride on, and 12 mph is SO much better for enjoying the scenery.
The other thing I bought at Cabelas was a head lamp. Unwilling to spend $50 to get one like the one I left at home, I opted for the $10 one. Which doesn't work at all, dammit. I mean it wont even turn on. So I spent 20 frustrating minutes digging through my car trying to find the other cheap flashlight I bought earlier, before finally remembering where id put it so it wouldn't get lost. And even worse, I later discovered that indeed I did NOT leave the other one at home..... Sigh.....This is just going to get worse as I get older, isn't it?
I forgot to tell you about leaving my venerable camping coffee mug on top of my car a few days ago, where it held on for at least a hundred miles before I finally decided to stop and see why it sounded like something was rolling around up there.
Ok, gonna turn off the electronics and enjoy the dark.
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