Killarney Day 2 - Sunday Aug 9/09

Well, that wine went down pretty quick last night! We realized that a bottle of rum would have been a great thing to pack with us (a little more weight efficient), but could only half convince Josh that it would be a good idea for him to hike back out (only 3.7km after all) and drive to the town of Killarney to find an LCBO. He decided that the likelihood of one being open was a little slim. Oh well.

We were in bed by 10pm last night, but no one slept well. Woke up this morning to a thunderstorm rumbling across the lakes at about 7am. Between the lakes and the rocks, everything echoes up here for so long! It's mighty impressive. I was a little concerned of our location as we were on a pretty open and high point over the lake - not really a safe place to be in a thunderstorm! But the storm never did come right over us, and it didn't last very long anyway. [Note: this is the day that major thunderstorm systems moved across southwestern Ontario - we didn't get any of that up here.]

Packing up in the rain sucked and everything was pretty wet. So much for our bacon breakfast; we grabbed some granola bars instead. Late start at 11am because we were hoping the rain would stop.

We stopped for lunch along the trail at a pretty rock outcrop with a view of the big white mountain we've been catching glimpses of since we arrived in the area. We pulled out the stove and cooked up the bacon and had bacon & tomato sandwiches on english muffins (needed to get that all eaten up to get rid of the weight in our packs). It had stopped raining by then and turned into a pretty nice day.

Some nasty hills in the afternoon where the trail headed straight up these rocky paths with water running down them through the rocks. That part of the trail slowed us down - but it's probably just a taste of what's to come.

The trail comes out at the end of Three Narrows Lake at an actual concrete dam. The river here is pretty deep and wide, so the actual trail goes down the river edge for about a kilometre before crossing the river and working it's way back up the other side. We were tired, and ready for a shortcut so we scoped things out, and crossed right at the dam instead. We had to do a bit of bushwhacking on the other side of the river to find the trail again, but we didn't get too turned around. This little shortcut saved us about an hour of walking, so it was well worth it!

12.7km later, we arrived at site #H16 on Three Narrows Lake around 4:30, got our stuff all scattered out in the sunshine to dry, and went for a swim. It was beautiful - refreshing, but not unbearably cold. Plus, it was worth it just to rinse off all the sweat, grime and bug spray!

Pretty simple meal of Mr Noodles tonight (just because it was quick more than anything). Just hanging out now; Josh & Heather are trying to feed a snapping turtle. Deanne is cleaning up a bit of laundry. And I'm sitting here listening to the sound of absolute silence broken only by the odd fish jumping in the lake, and mosquitoes buzzing around me.

Its a pretty beautiful lake.
Not going to lie though, my back hurts from carrying a pack all day. Feet look good though. Need some time to dry out, but so far, no blisters.

Killarney Day 1: Sat Aug 8/09

As the name of my blog suggests, I tend to travel a lot. Visiting friends mostly, but also road trips, vacations, camping. I won't say that 'I've been everywhere man', but I've been a lot of places.

My vacation this year was not exotic, nor did I take a plane or train to get there. For 8 days I carried all my necessary clothes & equipment on my back, strapped a good pair of boots to my feet, and hiked the 78km La Cloche Silhouette Trail through Killarney Provincial Park with three other people. Killarney is on the shore of Georgian Bay, north of Manitoulin Island. It is a popular destination for boaters and canoe enthusiasts. We chose a different approach and decided to get the backpacking perspective of the park. Starting on the southern end of the park at George Lake Campground, we hiked the 78km trail in a clockwise direction which took us on a rugged, and somewhat challenging, hike in a loop around the park through the La Cloche Mountains.

I journaled everyday I was there, and took somewhere in the neighbourhood of 500 pictures along the way. So lets get started!


Day 1: Saturday Aug 8/09

Well... we left Heather's aunt & uncle's place in Huntsville at 9am this morning after a not-very-great night's sleep.

Three hours to Killarney from there, we got our permits, parked the van, and started down the trail. Past all the people hanging out at the beach, some asking us where we were going, across a little bridge, filled with confidence and excitement about getting started, and... realized that we didn't actually know where the trail started! Three paths to pick from, we picked the best marked one and off we went (yes, it was the right one!)

We only had to walk 3.7km to get to our first site. We did this purposefully (you have to book all your campsites well in advance of arriving at the park) because we weren't sure at what time of day we'd be able to start our hike. It was a nice easy walk with a couple neat views over quartzite rock outcrops.

The La Cloche Mountain Range is the only true mountain range in Ontario and, being exposed Canadian Shield, is pretty much the oldest mountain range in the world. Maybe there isn't snow on them, and they don't stretch above the tree line by any means, but they are definitely mountains. Some of the views we've seen are already pretty spectacular: crystal clear water, stunningly white rock faces, and hills which definately give the place a mountainous feel. It's some of the most rugged and beautiful country you could ever imagine; hard to believe that it's right here in Ontario.

Quick hike today. We got to our site at about 2pm and got things set up pretty quick because it was spitting rain. I'm impressed with the site; hopefully they're all this nice. H4 - right on the edge of Acid Lake. The fire pit is up on a rock outcrop looking over the lake. The tents started down below nestled under the trees with nice cushy pine needles to pad our sleep, but were later moved to higher ground up closer to the fire after we realized that the rain was flooding us out! There's a box (privy) not too far away with a fun little washroom sign marking the way. Also a nice big fire pit with logs around it for sitting on - that's a bonus I wasn't expecting!

We got a good big fire started right away and by 3:30 we decided that we were hungry enough to have an early dinner. We're going all out tonight with steak (being cooked on a big rock over the fire) sweet potatoes (wrapped in tinfoil in the fire) and carrots. OH, and don't forget the 4 water bottles full of wine! A great deal of commotion over by the fire tells me that our cooking rock heated up too fast and broke in half, almost dumping our steaks in the fire!

I'm sitting here writing with a view over a turquoise blue lake, rolling quartzite hills in the distance, and a loon floating by. Can't help but be reminded that God is Good! It would be awesome if the clouds would clear to give us a gorgeous sunset over the water, but maybe another day :) For now, I've got a song running through my head that Deanne mentioned earlier: 'Hear by the water, I'll build an alter to praise you'. There goes the loon out across the lake again. I should go see how dinner's coming along.

Home

How many places can be called 'home' by one person?

I am officially on my second week of vacation (don't worry, I plan to blog extensively about my first week) and have just nicely arrived at Camp Edgewood to hang out for the week. There's no one here aside from myself, the head lifeguard, the program coordinator, and the camp director (but I haven't even seen him yet). The camp is empty and quiet - just the way I like it!

It occurred to me, as I was meandering around in the dark with nothing but a cheap flashlight to guide my way (and believe me when I say it is DARK here with all the lights off!), that I'm very comfortable with this place; I enjoy being here; there is a familiarity here that I crave. This is home.

I have a lot of homes; places which are safe and comfortable, where I can just be me and don't have to worry about impressing anyone. My apartment obviously is my home - and that space is ALL mine to do with what I please! My parent's place will always be home; my mom still feeds me even when I show up unannounced, and my dad & I 'bond' in front of the tv with our eyes closed on Sunday afternoons. Church is home: the people there watched me grow up; maybe we only ever talk about the weather, but they're still family. My friends' homes are mine too - 'entertaining' me certainly isn't necessary in those homes, it's all about just being in the presence of people I care about.

People talk about having a second home; I'm lucky enough to have a third, forth, fifth... Home obviously isn't a concrete location, but a place filled with comforts and memories and friends and family and goodness. Like the song says, 'Home is where the heart is, so your real home is in your chest'. So... I guess the moral to the story is... be like a turtle and take your home with you.
:P

Goin' Green

I don't talk politics much. I grew up in an atmosphere where voting persuasions were all kept closely guarded secrets lest someone make fun of you for the way you voted. We don't talk about it because we might offend someone, or, more likely, someone might make us look like idiots and that's a pretty crappy feeling so it's easier just to avoid the topic altogether.

But if we don't talk about it, how are we ever going to learn, or decide who we want to vote for and for what reasons? So I'm going to go out on a limb here and talk about it even though I'm not a very politically minded person.

The first few elections I ever had an opportunity to vote in I voted NDP. Somehow, when I was young and naive, I decided that capitalism was wrong, and socialism was the way to go. Conservatives were the devil, and NDP was the way to vote. I losened up after that and became a fairly faithful Liberal voter. Why? Mostly because they were winning and they weren't the devil. Then I lost my faith in the whole system for awhile and decided my vote didn't matter much anyway because people in this riding were just going to keep voting in the devil no matter who I voted for, so I just quit voting for awhile.

The last couple elections though, both provincially and federally, I've gone Green. I know they're not going to win, they certainly aren't going to pull a majority government out of their butts anytime soon, but there's something about them that is just very fresh and inviting. Plus, Elizabeth May is freaking smart, and well rounded, and blew away all the other candidates on the last federal televised debate!

This evening, she spoke in Owen Sound. It's one of three or four places she's considering running in during the next election due to the unbelievable success of the party in this area. (By the way, she's predicting an election call in September with us being at the polls as early as November - woohooo.) The Green Party is doing everything they can to finally get themselves a seat, and obviously, they'd like their leader to have that seat.

The picture here by the way, is of Elizabeth May and Dick Hibma (the Green Party candidate who ran in the area in the last federal election - he came in 2nd behind the stalwart devil party [Prolly shouldn't keep calling them that, eh? Should at least try to be nice to the Tories even though they're not my favourite.]). Shane Jolley, the local provincial candidate for the Green Party was also in the crowd.

Elizabeth May did not show up in Owen Sound to speak about her Green Party platform. She spoke about putting integrity back into democracy. About restoring respect in, and within, the system. It was a great talk!

She talked about non-partisanship: political parties not being in it for the win and the rights to be the king of the hill, but parties working together and co-operating for the greater good of the country! Wouldn't that be grand?! She talked about the title 'Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition' - they might be the opposing party, but they should still be working towards the same purpose, not spending their time running attack ads and swearing at each other during question period! LOYAL Opposition: Loyal to the country, and to the people who put them into power.

She talked for an hour, and I could have easily listened to her for another hour. The woman is smart! She knows what she's talking about, she'd dedicated to the cause, and she's an incredibly gifted speaker. I firmly believe that she is committed to restoring integrity, respect, principals, and inter-party co-operation to our federal government. As much as the Green Party is important, she understands that government is government and everyone needs to work together, regardless of party affiliation, to make it work well. The cross she wears around her neck is an extra indication (to me anyway) that she actually means what she says.

She also talked a lot about 'First Past the Post' voting vs 'Proportional Representation' voting. With our 1100 year old First Past the Post method of voting, we have now reached an all time low 58.8% voter turnout because people feel like their votes don't make a difference. Did you know that with this electoral system, the Green Party got 1 million votes the last election but won zero seats whereas the Bloc Quebecois had 1.3 million votes and won 49 seats!! That's Canadian democracy at play. Woo. Proportional Representation would fix that. It would actually give the parties a number of seats based on how many votes they earned, and give the voter an actual voice in the election.

Elizabeth May has done something no one else has ever done - get me excited about politics! I'm voting Green next election. You could vote Green too - but more importantly, JUST VOTE! And the next time we have a referendum about changing our voting system to Proportional Representation, vote for that too!

Ugly

"The Ugly Truth". Oh... what can I say? You know when you're watching tv and you get caught offguard with a questionable sitcom sex joke, and you really want to laugh but there's that awkward moment where you catch a glimpse of your mother and you realize that if you laugh she might just judge your moral integrity, so you stifle your laugh like it was a horrendous seizure-like sneeze/coughing fit because she raised you better than to laugh at smutty sex jokes?

I remember way back in high school a friend of mine telling me that he censored a lot of the movies his parents would watch; he'd preview them and decide if they were appropriate for his parents. At the time, I thought this was a little strange and backwards. But over the years, I have started doing the same thing - buying a movie, watching it, and if it is parent-worthy, passing it along to them to watch. Because, as we all know, parents are generally not informed, nor on top of today's societal acceptance of 'what's cool', nor should they be subjected to any sort of crass behaviour or rude language. Parents, after all, are not human and so they should be sheltered from all fallible human behaviour (fiction or otherwise) lest they think disparaging thoughts about us, their children, and the sort of smut we watch at the movies.

So when my parents invited me along to see 'The Ugly Truth' with them this evening, I assumed it was a nice fun family-friendly romantic comedy. :)

Boy... was I wrong!

What do you do when you're sitting in a theatre, beside your parents, and the cleanest joke in the whole movie would make your grandmother roll over in her grave??

*sigh* Just laugh. I did, they did, we had fun. Apparently, I am now officially old enough to sit beside my parents and laugh at dirty jokes without being embarrassed about it. My dad putting his arm around my shoulder after the movie was over and asking me if I had learned anything on the other hand....

In other news, my cousin happened to drop by my place just as I was coming back from the movie theatre! Perfect timing! She lives in Calgary, so it was fun to catch up with her.

Also, Elizabeth May (yes, THAT Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party) is going to be speaking tomorrow evening here in town. Outdoor venue, music beforehand, nice weather, maybe I'll go. Afterall, she is thinking of running in our riding in the next election - could be history in the making in my own backyard!

pwnd

I have a smart car. Too smart for it's own good some days.

Not only does it start like a spaceship (look ma! no keys!), but it also has a sensor built into the passenger seat which will set off a flashing seatbelt light and a constant warning beep if the passenger sitting in that seat weighs over 40lbs and refuses to fasten the seatbelt.

Pretty cool safety feature. Until, the passenger isn't human. Then it's just annoying.

Say, for instance, you have about 75 rolls of various coinage sitting on the seat. That's about the right weight to set it off. (not to mention, rip your arm out of its socket while trying to lift it all!)

Doing some fairly quick math, you can guess that I had somewhere between $37.50 (if it were all pennies) and $3750 (if it were all toonies) in coin in my possession at the time. Too bad none of it was mine.