Stubb's Falls 2018

Last week I was away up north to spend time with the family near Huntsville, Ontario.

Think 18 people in one cottage.

I survived.

I even survived some flaming anti-gun liberal family memebrs (Canada - what do you expect?) and amazingly held my tongue even as the Toronto shooting by the ISIS supporter whose motivation will be forever unknown was in the headlines and barbs were sent my way about it. Instead, I indicated I wasn't going to get into a political argument on vacation, and was rather proud of myself for holding back.

As usual we went to Arrowhead Provincial Park which was a decent drive from the cottage and afer paying the entrance fee and parking trekked into Stubbs Falls.

I decided to get some nice scenic shots.

Unfortunately, all around the falls the park rangers had deployed some very prominent sawhorses.

The sign at the entrance to the falls that states "Danger Not A Swimming Area" was not deemed warning enough. Now, every few feet, and just about everywhere you take a picture was a sawhorses with a notice that it was a dangerous and no swimming area.

This certainly cut down on the quality of the views.

I managed to find a spot at the end of the chute sans sawhorses and it came out nicely with a nice, slow shutter speed:

It turns out a swimmer died this June in a mishap at the falls. It appears she was swimming above the falls, but then slipped and then was caught in the rushing water and then pinned beneath a rock. Probably that's why the sudden urge to plaster all of the scenery with the sawhorses stating it is not a swimming area.

Apart from the sawhorses it was yet again a very nice hike and a good time had by all. This week I've been buried in work as a result but catching up and blogging may just get back to usual.

Last Friday At Arrowhead Park

An outing done every time we do the family reunion is a hike around Arrowhead Park to the waterfall.

After parking and paying the entrance fee, you hike down a trail and cross a bridge and keep going until you get to some rocks.

Then you can go over or around the rocks and you reach more rocks and this sign:

Then you get to the falls.

It's a nice series of falls, with some decently fast moving cold water. Once there we saw many kids that were happily immersing themselves or swimming heedless of the sign.

It was time to have some fun with the camera, taking shots of the same scene with different shutter speeds can give very different and pleasing effects:

It's a very picturesque place, with a series of small falls along the river.

On the backside of the falls is a portage for canoeists and kayakers before they hit the falls.

On the way out the kids found a local amphibian.

Arrowhead Park is a very nice place to hike around. On the downside this last Friday when we visited was "Family Day" in Canada, a nicely made up holiday to have a long weekend in July, so the place was packed. Well worth spending a day visiting the park and hiking around, and the camping conditions also look very good for a longer stay as well.

An Ontario Tradition - The Beer Store

Ontario, unlike more libertarian leaning polities, keeps its alcohol sales under tight government regulation and control.

This does not stop minors from getting beer mind you, but it keeps the tax money rolling in.

To purchase beer, you need go to the imaginatively named Beer Store.

Then after entering you look at the displays on the walls and pick the beer you want and tell the clerk how much you want of it, you pay for it, and then they'll get it from the back for you, with it coming out after being pushed on a track covered in rollers to make it zip on out.

Here's two of the wall displays:

As you can see, it's certainly not cheap ($35.95 for a two-four of Labatt's Blue is highway flippin' robbery) and the selection, while much improved from the days of my youth (I remember taking trips to the Martimes with a highlight of the trip being the "smuggling" back of Moosehead beer that was unavailable in Ontario), is still rather small compared to say a Meijer's or Hiller's grocery store.

For wine, liquor and other beers, you have to go to a geographically separate government store, the LCBO, where you can actually pick the bottles you want and take them to the cashier to pay.

On the upside, there were some fine Canadian beers available at the Beer Store that you don't see much anywhere else.

We bought some Granville Island English Bay Pale Ale, having never tried any before and found it quite tasty indeed. Not as hoppy as a full IPA but clean, crisp and perfect for a hot day with some freshly grilled steaks. I'd have it again without hesitation.

Having gotten used to both Michigan selection and relative ease of purchase of beer, not to mention the prices, going back to the Beer Store was a bit of a culture shock.

A Huntsville Car For Keads

I was up in Toronto and Huntsville Ontario last week for some family things.

While walking along main street in Huntsville I passed by a Ford Mustang and remembering Keads' affection for the beasts, I took a couple pictures.

The owner saw me admiring the car and snapping some pictures and offered to pop the hood so I could snap one of the engine.

The car was in darn nice shape and looks like a nice example of Equus Caballus Fordae.

I'm Back

Just returned from the annual family gathering in Huntsville, Ontario.

It was nice to visit the folks and see all the cousins, but it's quite the distance away, seven hours without heavy traffic, and since this is towards Toronto and Toronto's route to cottage country, there was heavy traffic.

On the way up last Friday we hit a traffic jam on Highway 400, broke free of that and then after 10 miles or so on Highway 11 hit a traffic jam where it took an hour to go 3 miles. Why? Well, they had one of two lanes northbound closed for construction. But, they weren't doing any work on it, there were all of two workers standing there jawing as we went past, and in fact they took down the cones about 2 hours after we left, according to other family members stuck in that mes at that time. Nice.

On the upside, I had plenty of time to snag this picture of perhaps the most perfectly named firearms and collectibles store:

In addition, we passed by Weber's, a burger joint so popular they had to build a footbridge over Highway 11 to avoid people being struck by cars crossing the highway to get a burger. Both northbound and southbound parking lots were packed.

While good, in my humble opinion it is rather overrated and not worth the long lines. While it's much better than a fast food joint, there are lots of other superior and much less busy burger places about, but its got a dedicated following and it is in an otherwise rather food-less spot on the highway.

Yes, the people you see in the picture near the top right are lined up to buy a burger, and the parking lots on both sides are full on a Friday afternoon.

We arrived up at the cottage and the rest of the family started rolling in. It was good to see all the cousins, including our newest cousin, a 2-month old baby boy who was rather easy-going and angelic the whole time.

On August 17, Leah celebrated her 7th birthday with all her cousins at the cottage and had a great time doing so.

I spent many a day taking the kids and cousins swimming, paddle-boating, kayaking, and canoeing.

On August 20th, After taking various lots of the kids on numerous canoe trips around the bay, I took Abby alone on a canoe ride to the island cottage. This is a cottage sitting put in Lake Vernon on its own little island. It looks rather mysterious set by itself on the small island and the kids always wonder about it. It's been recently renovated so it no longer looks quite so abandoned.

The view of it from the cottage where we were staying:

Doesn't look all that far away, right? It's just outside the bay and should have been a 15 minute or so trip there and 15 minutes back. Easy right?

Well, as we left the bay, there were some waves and a pretty darn good current going that was pushing us way off from the get-go. We reached the island then as we turned around to get back the current really got a hold of us and it was impossible to head straight back. Instead it took over an hour and a half to fight our way through the current around and back to the cottage. We got pushed way out of sight of the bay and the folks at the cottage were almost to the point of either calling search and rescue or finding a neighbor with a motorboat to start searching for us before we made it back.

While I initially had the theme song from Gilligan's Island in my head as the current took us off course, Abby quickly replaced it as she was stuck on a new song her cousins had taught her and she kept singing it: "Dumb Ways To Die".

That cheerful song really helped set the mood for the return trip. Thankfully, there were no lyrics about taking a canoe into a heavy current...

I managed to get us back, and doing so without tipping Abby off that we were in a bit of a bad situation in that we couldn't simply get back to shore and had to paddle through some serious current, I just explained we had a little current so we were taking the long, scenic tour back. Lots of hard, continuous paddling was involved.

But we made it and I had the paddling workout to last me a whole week worth of exercising. Back at the cottage, Yoda congratulated me on getting back and for living up to the adage: "Do or Do Not, There is no Try".

Back from long canoe trip you are, mmmm.

We also did a day trip to Arrowhead Falls, which was a nice hike to a very scenic spot.

While there, the girls found a smooth rock chute and had fun using it as a fast slide down the rocks:

The kids all got along splendidly and everyone had a great time at the cottage.

The drive back unfortunately got us stuck for a couple hours in Toronto traffic so it took over 11 hours to get home very late last night.

Aside from the madness of traffic, it was a lovely family reunion indeed.

Dive 220 - Alone In Lake Vernon

I had brought my dive gear up to my folk's cottage on the shores of Lake Vernon and I was determined to get a dive in. I had brought my 2 mil wetsuit and single tank setup along. So, with an aluminum 80, a single regulator with a two first stages attached and only a backup light with me as I was without a canister light I headed into the water towing a dive flag as I went.

The light zone extended down to 13 feet. After hitting 13 feet the lake bottom continued to descend but it turned pretty much pitch black and I could just make out a huge tree trunk in front of me.

As I had no can light and no dive buddy, discretion was the better part of valor and I kept out of the pitch dark as there wasn't much worth seeing anyways, considering I couldn't see it even if it was there. Next time I'll bring a can light and a dive buddy.

So I headed into the light zone and wandered around the shallower parts of the lake bottom, and I found a few cans that people had thrown into the lake, which I retrieved and brought back to the dock for disposal.

I also found one pretty decently sized fish that was wandering about:

I then surfaced and gave the kids some submerged rides with them sitting on top of my tank out of the water over to the neighbor's trampoline and they enjoyed that experience.

Then my dad came to the dock and told me about a rock pile that remained from an old large dock that was under a marker buoy and I decided to go check it out.

There were indeed lots of rocks down there:

There was also some large pieces of lumber from the old dock pilings

There was also a crappie load of blue gills making their home among those rocks:

The blue gills were rather interested in what I was doing interloping in their domain and they had no trouble coming right up close to me. it was fun to just sit neutrally buoyant just floating a few inches off the bottom and watch them swim around me.

So while it wasn't the most exciting or challenging dive, it was a rather relaxing one. A long and shallow dive, with the average water temp of 77 degrees and 1500 of the 3000 psi used in the tank by the end.

On the upside, I finally have dove at least a very tiny piece of Lake Vernon and was probably the first diver to visit that portion of the lake.

Then this morning we packed up our stuff, loaded the car and drove home and I'm now back home to reality, and a decent internet connection.

Canadian Cottage Country

These past few days I've been away at a family gathering to celebrate my Dad's 65th Birthday.

We went up on Friday to their cottage near Huntsville, Ontario. Unfortunately this was over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend so traffic to the Great White North was jammed to say the least, and it was a 9 hour drive in traffic extravaganza, complete with a constant chilly and drizzling rain.

The kids loved spending time with their Papa and Bubbie and playing with their cousins and the cottage was packed with seven adults and seven kids. We all had a great time and it was nice to catch up and to celebrate his birthday.

On Saturday, after breakfast, we went to Dorset, about 40km away from the cottage to climb the scenic lookout tower. It turned out lots of other cottage-goers had the same idea to see the beautiful fall colors of the area so there was a decent wait before we could get in to the park and head to the tower.

The scenic tower, 30 meters / 100 feet high is on the site of the historic fire watch tower that was used from 1922-1961 where rangers would constantly view the forest for potential fires and Yogi Bear. The manning of the towers as fire watches ended in 1961 when aircraft replaced eyes on the ground in this role.



Interestingly, the tower is not the original fire watch tower but was placed in this spot in 1967. This replacement tower has an interesting history all of its own - it is a surplus DEW Line Radar Tower that used to house a radar to warn of Soviet bomber attack.

The view from the tower is quite simply spectacular:

Did I mention it is 128 steps up to the top, and 128 steps down, all performed by yours truly while holding a squirming 35 pound 3 year old who is busy hanging on for dear life to at various times one's neck, shirt, jacket, arm and shoulder? The quads and supporting arms reminded me for a solid day afterward, however she enjoyed it and was never in any danger of being dropped.

The next day of course it decided to snow, a wet slushy snow that was quite cold. We hardy few bundled up and went out for a walk, then into town and once back the snow had stopped so we played some street soccer with the kids and of course the little kids won. We then watched a Toronto Maple Leafs game that ended in their crushing defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

On Monday we drove to Toronto to celebrate my niece's birthday and a good time was had by all.

Today we drove home, made decent time except for a very long delay at the border.

It seemed this was inspect everybody very thoroughly day and we had a very enthusiastic Border Patrol officer and she asked us a ton of questions about where we were, asked the kids who the people were in the van (correct answer given - Mommy and Daddy) and she looked inside the van, and saw Leah sleeping and remarked how cute she was. No big deal but certainly one of the most enthusiastic and thorough questionings we've ever gone through. This had Abby very worried and she even talked about it before going to bed tonight as she was concerned the "Police Officer" might take her toys away. I explained to her that her toys were fine and ok to bring back to the US and no one was going to take them away and the officer was doing a good job making sure no one brought in anything that was unsafe and that everyone was who they said they were.

So now I'm back and normal blogging will resume shortly.