Can You Spot the Snake?

Before it got cold again, we went for a walk on the trail near our house. Can you spot the snake in this picture? :)

 

 

 

Hot Summer Day

We decided that we would be smart and go for a walk at the hottest point in the day. Smrt. :) Here is the route we took. It was 1.61 miles and hit almost all of the little trails near us.

Clearly this satellite image was taken prior to our development! Our house is the checkered flag. Right above  'Robert' there is a pond full of geese. At the end of Doon Creek Street there is a new parkette. I'm hoping my sister and nephews will do a Canadian Edition park review for us. =P 

Here is a shot of some flowers along the trail. Beautiful~

Canadian Adventure: Day 5

Last day! :( Ian and I planned to do the Old Railway Bike Trail and we did.... sort of. We got up early and rode through the Pog Lake campsites down to the dam and across to the trail. Oh... the bugs. I was coated in Deer Flies. Ian had a bee nesting in his hair. I couldn't stop to rest because I would just get surrounded. It was a nightmare. Even worse was that the area was gorgeous... especially early in the morning. But the bugs... I pretty much had a meltdown. We went about 2 or so kilometers in and turned back around. Maybe we'll go back when the bugs aren't as bad!

Once we got back to camp and showered, Ian's mom thought we should go "Moose Hunting" aka "Driving up and down the road to spot Moose eating breakfast". Unfortunately, we didn't see any... just a Heron. We did go back to up to Opeongo Lake. It was the best view.... The water was like glass. So very pretty. I can't wait to go back to this one too.

As I have said many times in every post, I want to go camping there again. A big thank you to Ian's parents, Duncan & Maureen for taking us along. We had a lot of fun. It helped me relax a bit. I was able to put the upcoming move to the back of my mind and enjoy the time off. I hope to see Algonquin next year!

Canadian Adventure: Day 4

This was the BEST day. This was the day that I saw a Moose! :)

This is a Cow Moose - aka a female moose. She was beautiful! It was so cool to see a moose in person. They are so big and odd looking. We stopped to look at a wild turkey that was at the side of the road... And I joked about how while we are watching this turkey there is a moose behind us. We drove a little up the road and there was one!

After awhile, more cars and people started to show up. She got nervous and trotted back into the forest. It was amazing though...

We headed to the next hike - Beaver Pond Trail (Rated: MODERATE). This one was great because we saw some turtles and a beaver munching on some lily pads!

We went to the Visitor's Information Center again and this is the view from there:

One of my favorite spots was Canoe Lake. I would like to go back for sure. We just sat on the dock and had an ice cream. Also, we watched a family try out canoeing for the first time. They slammed into the dock two or three times and we left after they hit the shore line for the second time. (It was hysterical!)

Canadian Adventure: Day 3

On the third day, we tackled a big hike - Booth's Rock Trail (Rated: DIFFICULT).

I honestly don't have many pictures of this day. A whole 4! The hike was difficult. I made it and the view at the top was beautiful.

Canadian Adventure: Day 2

One of the first things we did the next day (Canada Day!) was go to the Algonquin Park Visitor's Center. Later on in the trip I got some shots of the view up there... but we walked through the museum exhibit and posed with some animals... Also, I have no explanation as to why Moose get sexy.

After the visitor's center, we went back to camp for lunch and then headed to the Algonquin Logging Museum.

We watched a short film regarding logging in Algonquin Park, which was surprisingly interesting (it helps that I love documentaries). The conditions people worked in were crazy... not to mention the method of removing the logs - by river. After the film ended, the screen rolled up and was open to the outside. This began the Algonquin Logging Museum Trail (Rated: EASY).

Following the Logging Museum Trail, we drove around a bit looking at different campsites. We headed up to Lake Opeongo and visited the store there. The best part... on the way back, we saw a beaver! It was so cool. The beaver had walked across the road and was chewing on some branches. Once it had them, it walked back across and into the lake. SO AWESOME. Here is the best shot! He was a lot bigger than I was expecting... and totally unconcerned with his audience.

On the way back to camp, we stopped by the Spruce Bog Trail (Rated: EASY).

This one was difficult for me because every time I would stop, I would get COVERED in bugs. Deer Flies, Mosquitoes, Bees, you name it. If it was an insect, it liked me. Because of this, I couldn't really stop and enjoy the trail with everyone else. Ian's family quickly discovered that I can't handle bugs... especially ones that bite or buzz your ears. /shudder

And that's all for Day 2!

Canadian Adventure: Day 1

For the long Canada Day weekend, we went camping with Ian's parents to Algonquin Park. It took us about 5 or so hours to get there. The drive was interesting and went fast for me. Soon after entering the park, we went to our first trail - Whiskey Rapids (Rated: MODERATE).

We wanted to make it quick so we went backwards on the trail and made it to the "rapids" part (left arrow). That's in quotes because it wasn't very.. "rapid-y". I also put an arrow to the location of the parking lot. We have made a note that... RVs don't really fit there! Duncan had quite a time turning it around. It was pretty though... maybe next time we will do the full loop.

It was a good way to start off our camping trip. Day One was pretty quiet but it got busy from there!

Happy Trails: Grand Trunk Trail

Before we headed off to our adventure in Algonquin Park, Ian and I went in search of another local trail. We were pretty disappointed that the trail suggested by the Grand River Country Trail book was actually private. But that helped us stumble onto this gem - The Grand River Trunk Trial. It is a part of the GORBA (Guelph Off-Road Bike Association) Trail System. It was great day exploring different side trails. We made it about half way through the main trial to the Guelph Lake Dam. As some would say... gorgeous weather. We will definitely be going back! (Wow. How many times can I say trail? Count: 10)

Happy Trails: Linear Trail

Finally! A trail that doesn't disappoint! The Linear Trail in Cambridge was great... 6 kilometers in total. Beautiful!

This is the start of the trail which was very promising for us. The first part was covered in shade right next to Speed River.

At one point, Speed River connects to the Grand River. This spot was so pretty - lots of geese and seagulls on the river. The arrow points to where The House is.

Ian couldn't escape the camera~

And I still can't take a picture of us both.

It's still a little weird to see people fishing at a local river. But it was a beautiful day out. We will definitely be going back!

Happy Trails: Jacob's Landing Trail

We chose another trail out of the book to explore last weekend and struck out again I think... Jacob's Landing Trail is in what is considered "Old Hespeler" and has a ton of charm.

The one problem... it seems a good portion of this trail has been turned into private property. The red arrow is the point that we shouldn't have crossed. We went a little further along the railroad tracks. It was still a gorgeous walk around Mill Pond.

Lots of birds on the lake too... including a white swan!

The trail starts with a dam next to an old saw mill. The river is super shallow but I was still surprised to see how close you could get to the water's edge.

It was really disappointing that the trail was so short... about 1 kilometer was cut off. I would still come back for the walk though.

Happy Trails: Riverside Park

I've been wanting to crack open this book:

I decided this was the weekend to do it. I was slightly wrong when I judged the season. Summer doesn't officially start until late June. I thought it would be fine because the weather was going to be nice and sunny. What I wasn't prepared for was the mud. Oh, the mud. We ended up doing the Riverside Park Loop here in Cambridge.

It is estimated to be a 4km loop but by the time we got back to the car we were sure we took a wrong turn somewhere. You'll see on the map above a dotted red line. We think we missed a turn and cut across what turned out to be a VERY muddy patch. How muddy? Yeah...

The trail started with a bridge over Speed River. We saw quite a few geese trying to "paddle" upstream - that was amusing.

Ian spotted Mr. Turtle on a log as we were crossing the bridge.

I even snuck in a picture of Ian. "Why are you taking ANOTHER picture?" =P