Aug 31 – August at the Cottage

We have had a busy month at the cottage. The weather has been great and it was only in the last few days that we had any significant rain.

This post is mostly made up of drone shots because I have lots of land based shots of the cottage from previous years.

In the first week we had a nice visit with our daughter, who spent part of her holidays up here.

We had quite a few calm days on the lake so we went out blueberry picking a few times and fishing once. The fishing around here has been terrible for many years due to the cormorants eating all the fish. They seem to have left and the fish are coming back.

When we went out, I watched while my cousin Heather and her husband Mark had fishing licenses. Since Jennie is of a certain age, she no longer needs a license.

At one point Heather and Mark both hooked the same fish but it was way too small to keep.

Jennie managed to catch the biggest fish of the day (about a 3 lb smallmouth bass).

Everyone caught one good keeper.

Mark graciously cleaned them all and we immediately had ours for lunch.

On the 14th we made a quick trip home to pick up some stuff that we wanted for our extended stay at the cottage. I spent most of the time weeding and 8 lawn bags later at least the front yard look a bit more presentable.

On the way back north we stopped and spent the weekend with some university friends at the Dunchurch Fall Fair near Parry Sound.

We have gone to the fair in other years so I won’t repeat the photos here, although someone took a picture of us at the square dance on Saturday night.

 

This is the highlight of the weekend for Jennie. It always takes us a few squares before we remember the basic moves and are not crashing into everyone else.

One of the couples is in the process of building their retirement home. I took a few drone shots.

They have a great porch at the back that has screens and windows that slide up. In other years we have had to brave the mosquitoes.

Jennie also got a long baby fix with their newest grandchild, 7 week old Nora.

Heading back to the cottage, our other couple of university friends that had gone to the fair, Brad and Liz, continued north to stay for a few days. Thankfully on one of their days here we had a really calm lake so we headed about 50 km east along the north channel to a set of islands called The Benjamins.

They are made up of beautiful red granite and there is a very picturesque small channel between two of the islands. I have posted a lot of pictures in previous years but the drone shots give a unique perspective. It was also very calm so I got a lot of underwater detail from the high viewpoint.

We explored around for a while before having a snack and heading back.

My other cousin Dean’s family had also come for a visit. Since the family has 6 cottages in a row so we all have our own places to stay.

Dean and family like to tube behind their boat so I had the drone out for a few shots of them.

And a shot of our cottage.

Last week on a another amazingly calm day I headed out to an island in front of the cottage with the drone. It is called Round Island for obvious reasons, although it looks less round from the air.

I can park the boat at a protected cove just around the point on the left edge of the above picture. Then I work my way through the bush and spider webs up to the very high cliffs facing us, also in the picture above.

The arrow below points to tiny me.

The island from some other angles.

I love this shot for how much you can see underwater.

Me again up on a different cliff.

Some nearby islands.

Turnbull Island, below has a nice protected harbour where a lot of cruising sail and power boats spend the night.

Jennie and I and Heather and Mark waited for another very calm day to make the long trip down to Killarney for some fish and chips.

We have a done the trip twice before in other years and we always joke that they are very expensive fish and chips because it is a 220 km round trip and the boat is not exactly easy on gas.

We had hoped to check out all the large yachts, both power and sail, making their way along the North Channel but we didn’t see anybody until we got to Little Current and even then there were not many.  I didn’t take any pictures during the trip.

The harbour at Killarney is a long narrow channel between the mainland and an island. We managed to get a nice mooring sport next to the picnic tables at the fish and chip place. Our boat is the one on the right facing us.

The line up for food wasn’t too bad but it was always busy.

As usual it was very good.

We walked along the main street to work off some of the food.

They took the high road, we took the low road.

Some old boats.

And really old, with some monster new ones in the background.

The water is really high this year so they have had to replace some of the docks that are now underwater.

After the walk we sort of defeated the purpose by getting ice cream. We went back to the boat to relax and enjoy the great weather.

Then back out along the channel to start the long journey home.

We will be at the cottage for around another 3 weeks.

We have had a lot of clear nights so I will show some of my astronomy pictures in another post once I get them organized.

Aug 1 - TRNP Petrified Forest Trail

Today we drove the short distance to the northwest corner of the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park to explore the petrified forest.

There are two areas of petrified wood. From the trailhead it is a 5 km out and back to either one. We chose the north forest.

The weather today was not too bad. There is absolutely no shade on this trail. There was enough light cloud and a good strong wind so we almost never felt like we were baking.

First you cross a grassy field to climb up the ridge in the distance.

We both got quite a scare as 5 pheasants flew up from the grass right beside us. We didn’t expect anything because someone was not that far ahead of us and the fowl  waited until we were only a few feet from them to take to the skies.

Getting closer to the ridge and back to Badland type country instead of Grassland.

Jennie used the umbrella at first but then decided that the wind kept her cool enough.

A small cave off to the side.

Got to watch out for the holes.

Looking back towards the car.

A photosphere.

Then we went across a large grassy plain. You can barely see some black dots of the two groups ahead of us, heading towards the upper right.

The couple ahead of us are on the horizon.

I love these wide open spaces with dramatic skies.

Where that couple was, you climb down a ridge and the petrified wood is in that huge white area below us.

A photosphere.

The whole curved white area is covered in the petrified stumps.

Down we go.

We started at the area closest to the ridge and worked our way around.

Out in the flat muddy area we saw this colourful caterpillar. It didn’t look dead but I was no idea how it would get out there.

It was strange to pick up something that looked like wood and have it weight 3 or 4 times too much.

A couple of photospheres in this area.

We crossed a narrow mud bridge to get by this deep eroded valley.

 

If there is a high spot I will climb it.

The photosphere.

Lots of interesting shapes as well as the wood.

Even some cannonballs.

Something else to climb.

Afterwards I looked and it didn’t seem as securely attached as I thought.

The farthest area had the biggest pieces of what used to be wood.

That’s not me (yet).

My turn.

The photosphere from below the cone and one while standing on it.

Once again I couldn’t stop taking picture and can’t stop posting a lot of them.

Another photosphere.

It took us a while to realize that these were petrified logs.

We decided that we had wandered around and seen enough so we headed back.

To the west of us we could see that it was raining in several spots. The wind was also coming from the west but the dark clouds looked far enough away to not be a problem.

Just as we were about to climb the short but steep ridge, we got a clear spot of direct sun above us. Since we were also shielded from the wind it made for the only part of the day that was really hot.

Back over the grassy plain. Love looking at those skies.

 

And down to the car.

We stopped in “downtown” Medora to quickly check out a few shops before heading back to the RV.

Thankfully the wind was strong enough that we can survive with out running the generator. I hate using it because it is so loud. The campsites around us are filling up with tenters and it would really bother them.

And so today, sadly, ends this year’s adventure out west. It will be a 3 day drive back to Ontario and our cottage where we will be spending the rest of the summer.

It also just happens to be our 37th wedding anniversary. We had leftovers from our dinner out yesterday. Very romantic.

I hope you enjoyed following along.