July 3 to July 5, 2014

From Four Mile Creek in Niagara country to Killarney Provincial Park in Canada

Since we can’t get Internet Connections there will be lots of days between blogs, but I will write every day during Paddy’s power nap times and “publish” when we can…Also have to talk to individuals during these blogs because I don’t have time to email either. I will put their messages in ( ) but everyone is welcome to read them. Also photos are not coming in from phone, will work on that.

Today’s 4^th of July adventures, hiking Granite Ridge and kayaking George Lake in a thunderstorm~

We drove through two sweet little towns (Youngstown and Lewiston*) on Lake Ontario before crossing the border which was easier than we thought it would be…

(Toby: *If only we had biked another mile past Ft. Niagara St. Park we could have sup at the Youngstown Dinner-very sweet.  Definitely, pretty walk and bike.   Certainly Toby, take Cara there next time she comes up to see you for a bike ride through the park and lunch or walk along Lewiston with its pretty hanging flower baskets and shops. Easy on and off to the  I 90 HWY to Buffalo or Canada.)

The drive was long until Barrie up route 400 and then so beautiful in the light rain. Meadow and forest lakes for as far as you could see with white water lilies. I saw a huge moose feeding in one shallow lake.

At Killarney today (one week after my Day of Independence) we hiked up through a hemlock forest lush with moss, lichens and low bush blueberry to a pink granite rock ledge (1.5 billion years old) on the south shore and gazed at the islands in Georgian Bay (Lake Huron) and at the north shore which has quartzite outcroppings around 2 billion years old and the dramatic LaCloche Mountain range. The islands you see in the background if you have a magnifying glass (working on getting the real camera working, no electricity so it is doubtful we will get the battery charged.) have seen thousands of paddlers from the First Peoples to the French trappers, traders and loggers as well as Canadian fishermen and now us foreign enthusiasts. We plan to go down to that area tomorrow.  It is a 8-9km hike vs. this 4km hike from the campground.  I signed up not to drive anywhere in the park so is it walk or bike.

Talking about paddling, we went out in our little 2 man inflatable kayak to the little George Lake where artists have for ages tried to capture the sunlight off the lake and pink granite pinnacles, we got caught in one of those quick thunderstorms coming up. It wants to rain off and on today. I really wanted to go out to the edge and jump off those pinnacles rising from the lake. Water is a little cold for our Long Island Blood.  Air temps today around 65.   I really want to see a bear! It is bear country here, but unless we are really negligent campers we probably won’t.  Everyone is warned what not to do to attract them and there is a $$$ fine if you do.

Since I am waiting for Paddy to wake up from another power nap, I will write about the Proud Mary. She is called a she because she is a land boat and has big wheels. She is 29 feet long with a kitchenette, tiny bath, one bedroom.  The Mennonites, who built her gave her solar panels. Proud Mary has been converted to be the Queen Eliza Jane’s barge (Pat’s second wife, our cat) so she can travels across the country with us.  Pat made a little hidey hole for Eliza under the bed and a special compartment for her bathroom facility as well.  She hates riding in the hidey hole but is confined there as we drive for her safety as well as ours.  Eliza prefers hiding under the couch and when finally stopped for a day sitting in the front window watching “life” go by. The Proud Mary guzzles gas outrageously,10 mpg compared to 40 in my hybrid, but Pat has figured that “Energy Wise” we are using less than in our house the next 4 months and traveling by plane to see Ben be married. We definitely use less electricity because we don’t run appliances often, no tv and run the lights off solar charged batteries and the “waste” energy from running the engine. We take marine baths. We cook one to two meals a day with propane or when “plugged in” with the microwave (upstate NY electricity was either hydropower or wind for the most part so I liked being plugged in vs. using the propane.)  Someday these RVs will be run like the city buses in Providence and other places with hybrid energy or all electric renewable resources.

Decided to hike the Cranberry Bog trail before dinner because it was moderately easy compared what we did earlier.  Well, Pat has to blog on that because he kept calling it the Jeanne/ Yadira Trail and we did see some great beaver dams, but no beavers, cranberries, moose, etc…I kept saying BEGONE biting creatures or I will have to smack you dead…lots of mosquitoes up here!  I sang Welcome Come Whoever you are to the dragonflies and they did follow us for a while, I guess they are tone deaf.

July 5 We saw bears and hiked to the Georgian Bay.  More info to follow. But it is definite to me I need at a walking stick.