Saturday July 25, 2009-Orillia

A friend of mine sent me this. I thought it was cute.

Always keep several

get well cards on the mantle...
so if unexpected guests arrive,
they will think you've been sick
and unable to clean.

It rained again in the middle of the night so I had to close my window again. This is getting tiresome! It stopped this morning for me to go for my walk although it looked like it might rain any second.

After breakfast, we headed into Orillia as I had read on-line that there was a Farmer's Market and indeed there was. There was also a downtown sidewalk sale.

Farmer's Market (didn't buy anything)

Opera House

Street Fair

Sidewalk Sale

Really big blow-up guy - it was funny watching him dance let alone walk!

Interesting jewelry store - the lights inside are huge chandeliers-very pretty


Orillia is a very clean town and their downtown looks to be flourishing unlike many other places we've seen where downtown stores have closed due to malls opening on the outskirts of town. There is also a very interesting building called the Opera House right next to where the market is held. One of the reasons I wanted to go to the market was because they advertised a booth that sold gluten-free baking. Apparently the gluten-free baker has had cancer and is recuperating but I was told that there is a bakery, Orillia Bakery that does gluten-free baking in town. We'll have to check that out.

While there I saw a Natural Foods store. It is difficult in some areas to get Gordon's corn tortillas in Ontario that he uses instead of bread while here in Ontario and they did have some so we bought 2 packages. They freeze well. Our next stop is Lindsay and we've been unsuccessful at finding them in that area so now we're stocked up and should have enough till we're back at Ottawa.

The houses are very nice and well kept with lots of flowers. I'll get photos another day when the weather is nicer.

We also drove around trying to find some vantage points on the water but weren't very successful today.

After lunch, I lay down to read and fell asleep again. The rains came again this afternoon!

Happy birthday today to my favourite aunt, Aunt Ruth and also to my sister-in-law, Carol.

To read Gordon's journal, click here.

Friday July 24, 2009

Today was another day of some cloud, some sun and some rain.

I got to go for my walk this morning and after breakfast I got the bed changed and the laundry done.

Not much this afternoon, read some and around 3 p.m. we went out for a drive. I thought there was a Farmer's Market in the little town of Hawkestone but it doesn't start till next week. We stopped at the General Store in Hawkestone to get a loaf of bread and while there the power went out. When we got home the power was out here too so the gate into the park wouldn't work. Luckily our site is right inside the gate so we were able to park by the office and walk to the RV. It was raining a bit but we have no idea what happened with the power.

Since the power was out we decided to drive into Barrie. I had found a Taco Bell at the Georgian Mall so we headed there. Gordon had Taco Bell, I had Subway then we walked around the Mall then across the street to Walmart to pick up a few things before heading to Downtown Barrie and Heritage Park.

Loon on Lake Simcoe - A reader, Judy, has identified this as a double-crested cormorant, thanks Judy!

Kids running through the fountains in Heritage Park

Spirit Catcher Sculpture

We were home at 7:30 and the power was back on! Yay!!

Thursday July 23, 2009-Lots and Lots of Rain!

After posting my blog last night we went out for a little drive around the area. Here are some photos.

Sailboat on Lake Simcoe

Sunset over the fields

I had opened my window when I went to bed last night and woke up shortly after 1 a.m. to rain so I got up and closed the window and fell back to sleep only to wake up to more rain and so it continued. We had a lot of heavy rain and it knocked out the satellite for quite a bit of time. It was a great day to rest! We’ve been on the go so much the last month that it was nice to take the day off. I was totally fed up with getting to a new area and then having to spend our time traveling to the next area that we wanted to be in to try to find a campground. Ontario campgrounds leave a lot to be desired!

We try to look at a campground around here before we take the RV to it. Some of the ones we’ve seen if we had just gone ahead with the RV we would have had a heck of a time getting out of it.

If anyone is looking at going to the Georgian Bay area with a big rig, I would recommend staying on the Bruce Peninsula. We didn’t have a problem finding a campground there.

Anyway, we both really like our site here at Heidi’s. Our site is private the way it’s situated and we have trees, we’re just not surrounded with them. Most of the sites here are seasonal sites and each site has trees on both sides of the rig so they are very private but most wouldn’t work for us. There’s something to be said for aircards although we wouldn’t have had internet in most of the places we’ve been the past month as we had no cell service. We’re now back in the land of the living with our cell service back. Not that I care much about cell service. I hate talking on the phone! I’ll bet my parents wished that I had hated talking on the phone as a teenager! What did me in was being a claims adjuster. You just always knew that when the phone rang, it was a problem.

It really really rained until late afternoon so I hemmed a couple of pair of Gordon's pants that I had been putting off and then had a long afternoon nap. I had taken a Benadryl for my eye allergies so it made me really sleepy.

The sun came out after dinner. That was a pleasant sight!

Wednesday July 22, 2009-Now near Lake Simcoe

Here's a final photo from the KOA at Parry Sound.


Yesterday we decided to head inland from Georgian Bay today and were lucky to find a campground between Orillia and Barrie, Ontario at Hawkestone. It's called Heidi's Campground. We called and made a reservation for one night in case it didn't suit us.

We pulled out of Parry Sound KOA at 9:45 a.m. and arrived at Heidi's at about 11:30 a.m. We were set up by about 1 p.m. We had a bit of sun on our drive, no rain and quite a bit of sun by the time we arrived with 24C (75F) temperatures. We have a really nice long pullthru site and great access for the satellites. We're close to the office which is where the laundry room is so I'll be getting that done later this week.

One last photo of Georgian Bay on our way down Hwy 400

Arrival at Heidi's

Our site

A cute miniature covered bridge and water wheel on the property

Path to the covered bridge



It's quite a large park so we drove around to get the lay of the land and see if there were any disgusting seasonal sites around (there weren't), checked out the washrooms as we usually do on arrival and then went back to the office and signed up to stay here until we leave for Lindsay on August 10th, so we're here for a while.

The good thing about that is we're only about an hour from Georgian Bay so we'll be able to take a day drive or two over there as well as check out this area. Neither of us have been here before to stay and had only passed through once on our way west in 2005.

After we got organized, we walked down to Heidi's RV Superstore. Yes, they sell RVs and have a parts store. They had a couple of Titaniums on the lot so we went through them but we still like our layout better.

I had an afternoon nap. Our high today was 26C (79F). It sounds like we have lots of rain to look forward to over the next few days.

Tuesday July 21, 2009-Trip to Honey Harbour

I had a nice walk this morning on the trails that are part of the park.

Trail

Lots of tree roots on the path


Here are some photos around the park.

Pretty site but no hope of satellite here!



After breakfast we decided to drive to Honey Harbour and see if we could find any RV parks. Here is a photo of Honey Harbour.

Samuel de Champlain arrived here in 1615 in his canoe.

We had no luck with campgrounds at Honey Harbour so we drove to Port Severn. Here's the information centre where we had a picnic. No luck with campgrounds there either. Too many trees or no big rig sites.

We drove to the lock #45 at the head of the Trent-Severn Waterway. The lock is full.


The doors open...

And away go the boats!

I thought these flowers were pretty against the brick wall.

We're frustrated and disappointed with rv parks in this area. Apparently several have sold out to golf courses and such that will give the area a greater tax base. They don't want rv parks here because of all the sewage but then you look at all the boats in the harbours. Where does their sewage go?

So, we've decided to abandon the Georgian Bay area and head inland. Stay tuned....

Monday July 20, 2009-Now at Parry Sound

Last night when we went out to see the Big Nickel at night our onboard computer on the truck said we had a lamp out. We discovered it was a headlight so Gordon went to the dealer first thing this morning to get that replaced.

By the time he got back I had most of the inside stuff that I do ready for travel so by the time we got everything together and the tanks dumped we left Carol's Campsite at Sudbury, Ontario at about 10:06 a.m. under sunny skies and 17C (63F).

We had an uneventful trip, stopping once and arrived at the KOA just south of Parry Sound exactly 2 hours later. We were set up except for the internet satellite by 1 p.m. We're not putting the TV satellite up as we're only here for two nights. We only get one channel so we don't have to wonder what to watch!

Arrival at KOA Parry Sound

Our site

The KOA has free wifi but we couldn't get in using our Mac computers so I switched over to the PC side (it's an Intel Mac) and I got in right away. So Gordon went ahead and set up our own internet satellite. So I started writing my blog today on the PC! I haven't used PC in such a long time, it's taking a while to get used to. We eventually did get in through the Mac.

After setting up, we went into town as we had been told there was a tower that you could climb that overlooks Georgian Bay. I climbed to the second level but Gordon made it to the top. I have a problem with heights and the steps were open at the back and you could also see through the steps. It was worse coming down!

The sign for the Lookout Tower

View from the tower

This is the tower

Pretty lilies in the park



Then we stopped at the Town Dock/Marina and looked around.

Walking along the water

A lot of planes at the marina


Me in front of the lighthouse (it's not a real one, but a kiosk for one of the bay cruises)

Another stop at Superwalmart and a couple of campgrounds to see if we could find a place to stay as we have to leave here on Wednesday. So far, no luck. We saw a really nice park called Trailhead but it was very heavily treed.

It was a beautiful sunny day today - 24C (75F).

Sunday July 19, 2009 - Last Day in Sudbury

We took a day off from traveling the area today as we were both pooped! So the plan to get back to Onaping Falls didn't work out for this trip.

I did get to go on my morning walk today. I again walked down the gravel road to Richard Lake. Every time I go that way there is a rather large bird that squawks at me coming and going. I've no idea why, I would think that baby birds are out of the nest by now but he certainly has objection to me walking there.

We had showers at the campground shower house this morning and I sat outside and read while partially drying my hair. I sure do like it shorter!

After lunch, I took a recipe that my stepdaughter had sent me for Tuna Noodle Casserole and adapted it to be gluten free. I also tried something that I had read about on the internet but couldn't find a complete recipe for - instead of milk I used coconut milk. We'll see how it turns out! I'm hoping for a richer flavour than milk would give.

Today has been cloudy with some sunny breaks and even a rain shower (again) but quite pleasant overall. We've had the door and windows open which has been pretty rare this summer. Our high today has been hovering around 23C (73F).

We went out at sunset tonight for the purpose of photographing the Big Nickel with it lighted up. I was disappointed with the lighting but here's a photo of it. Sunset was pretty too!