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Planning Ahead

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - Today Sandra and I drove over to a campground that's closer to Garth & Betty's cottages, but found the campground had no sites open for when we return to this area in August.
    So, while we were in that part of the region we drove further east to Buckhorn, Ontario and explored some territory in that vicinity we hadn't seen before.
    While there we parked by the Buckhorn Locks in the Trent-Severn Waterway and enjoyed the picnic lunch we had packed for the occasion.
    I also took some photos even though it wasn't good light for photography. Here's one of Lower Buckhorn Lake as seen from the lower end of the locks.

Reservations Made

Before we'd left on our drive today, Sandra and I sat down with our computers and decided where we were going after we leave here on July 4th and decided on Tobermory, Ontario at the tip of the very picturesque Bruce Peninsula. We then successfully made reservations at the Tobermory Village Campground.
    According to everything we've heard and read, the tip of the Bruce Peninsula is one of the most scenic parts of Ontario and I'm quite looking forward to it. It's been quite a while since we've stayed in that kind of area where there's a picture everywhere you point a camera, southeast New Mexico being the last.

Heat Wave

We had a respite from the sweltering heat we experienced earlier in the month, but it was shortlived and we've had about a week with temperatures returning to the low to mid-90sF (low 30sC) and accompanied by high humidity. We've been running the air conditioning nearly the whole time the sun is up, but according to the weather report this evening we should only have one more day of this before the beautiful clean and cool Canadian air forces out that hot and humid interloping air from south of the border. I think they also said on the news that this has been the hottest June on record. It's becoming harder to not believe in global warming..

The Latest Grandchild

Saturday, June 25, 2005 - Here's another photo sent by my daughter Michelle, this one of her brother Ian (my son) holding his daughter Lillian, the latest addition to the family.
    In this photo (click on it to see a larger image) Lillian is a bit over a month and a half old and is looking very healthy and well-fed.
    The photo was taken at a small reunion at the home of the mother of my children which was attended by members of her family from as far away as Arizona and Idaho.

Weather

Phew! The heat wave has returned after a week of clouds and rain. Although it's not as hot as yesterday, I'm sure glad the RV has air conditioning.

We Reach the High Point of Our Visit

Friday, June 24, 2005 - The last couple of days Sandra and I have been touring around the region, seeing areas of it we'd never seen before and others we'd seen and liked but hadn't seen that much of.

Kirkfield

Wednesday, we headed north with tentative plans to see what the Queen Elizabeth Wildlands Provincial Park looked like. We drove and drove, took some side roads, looked here and there and never did find the place but did manage to find the Kirkfield Lift Lock, pictured here, one of two hydraulic lift locks on the Trent-Severn Waterway.
    The lock was quite interesting since it operates on a different principle than typical canal locks. Unfortunately, no boats went through while we were there so we didn't get to see it operate, but since it is at the highest altitude of the Trent-Severn Waterway (water on one side of the lock flows west and on the other side east) so I can say with certainty that we reached the high point of our visit by being there.

Port Perry

    Then Thursday we headed southwest, our destination being Port Perry on Scugog Lake, the headwaters of the river that runs by our campground about 30 miles away by road.
    Port Perry is a quaint little town that has a park and marina along the lakeshore. Pictured here is the gazebo in the lakeside park.
    This visit we got out of the truck and walked around, saw the park, marina, and downtown area with its shops that didn't have anything we wanted but were fun to look in nonetheless.

Happy Father's Day

Sunday, June 19, 2005 - To celebrate Father's Day Sandra and I drove over to Betty and Garth's who then drove us all to the Eganridge Country Club near Fenelon Falls for lunch.
    Since Eganridge is on the banks of Sturgeon Lake, the original plan had been to get there by boat but unfortunately the weather, being cloudy and chilly, was not conducive for that despite the forecast yesterday calling for a sunny warm day today.
    Lunch was good and the low carb hamburger I ate agreed with my fussy digestive system. Sandra had Thai Chicken, Garth crab cakes, and Betty a fajita. The photo here, taken by our waitress, shows l-r: Garth, Betty, Sandra, and yours truly. As always, click on it for a larger view.

The Grandchildren

Friday, June 17, 2005 - It's been a while since I've mentioned our grandchildren here on the NN News page, Lillian's photo a month ago being the last, because the only news I've heard has been that all's well except for a trampoline accident Grace had that required a few stitches on a foot.
    Anyway, I thought it was time to post another grandkid photo, so here's one my daughter Michelle sent that she took during a visit to her brother Ian's home shortly after the birth of his daughter Lillian.
    Pictured here, l-r: Ian's son Caden and Michelle's daughters Grace and Faith.
    If I'm not mistaken (and men are notoriously bad for remembering such things), when the photo was taken Caden would have been 2 years old, Grace 4, and Faith nearly 2.
    It's no doubt impossible for a grandparent to be completely objective, but be that as it may, this is a fine looking bunch of kids.

Finally, A Break In The Heat

Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - Well, here we are halfway through June already. The time do fly.
    We haven't been doing much since Sunday except using the new satellite connection and trying to stay cool. The days have been running in the mid to upper 80sF/ low 30sC with high humidity and the air conditioning has been getting a real workout. Today is the first pleasant day we've had temperaturewise in quite a while, but it's overcast with scattered showers. In fact, as I write this it is pouring and last evening we had fairly violent thunderstorms. Not complaining though because they needed the rain around here.
    This photo here is from the campground's pot luck dinner on Saturday evening. Pictured l-r are: Betty, Garth, and Sandra.

Initial Satellite Experiences

We've had the satellite connection for about 3 days now and it has performed much as we expected. Not as fast as our old 2.2Mb ADSL service but magnitudes faster than dialup. On a couple small downloads I've done, the download rate ranged between 60kB to 100kB/s, which is certainly fast enough to be usable. This is also about average to what we got using wi-fi, which of course varied widely, depending on the quality of the connection at the source and our distance from it. I saw wi-fi speeds that ranged from as slow or slower than dialup to faster than DSL or cable. The extremes were rare though.
    The only real difference between satellite and wired access I can see is that the satellite connection is effected by adverse weather. Like, we lost contact with the satellite yesterday evening during the thunderstorms, so heavy rain and dense clouds are enough to break the connection. But we were told this before we signed up so it wasn't unexpected and it wasn't out for long and I always unplug everything during thunderstorms anyway (since losing a fax machine once to a power surge from a thunderstorm).
    The satellite's sensitivity to weather is far less annoying than the majority of campground wi-fi systems we accessed over the winter, which routinely lost the connection to the internet for no apparent reason and their wireless router had to be restarted to get it back. This, of course, usually happened at the worst possible times, like the middle of the night when no one was around to restart it.
    And the satellite isn't as sensitive as I might be making it sound. Like, as I said above, it is raining at the moment and the clouds are heavy and I'm still in contact with the satellite. And if I did lose it, it would be back as soon as the dense part of the cloud passed by, so it's not a big deal.
    What has been a big deal is being able to get up in the wee hours and have the internet available in the RV. Just gotta love it.

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For Older News

To read details of our previous stops and camps, visit the News Archives.