Post by . s p o r e l e t t ♪ on Aug 30, 2009 22:06:28 GMT -6
So, as you will know if you have read the going-away topic I made several days ago, I went on a short vacation quite recently. I have only just returned, and in fact I had such a good time that I have decided to share it with all of you. To begin, the location where my mother and I spent the past few days is a lodge in Algonquin Park, in Ontario. It was quite nice, we got our own lakeside cabin with full plumbing and our own canoe. In addition, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all provided free to the resort guests, and all the meals were very satisfying.
The first day of our vacation started late. My mother and I are bother night-owls, not particularly fond of rising early, and as such we didn't leave the house until after noon. We drove for several hours up to the resort, stopping once along the way to visit a friend of my mother's, and got there around six. We had signed up for the early dinner seating, so we hurried to put our belongings in our cabin so that we could go and eat. The resort was located on a small peninsula, and multiple hummingbird feeders hung in front of the windows on various buildings guaranteed us multiple sightings of the season's last ruby-throated hummingbirds. Since it was a bit late to do anything adventurous on our own after dinner, we drove out to a public wolf howl and shivered through the hour-long slide show before heading out on the road to (hopefully) hear some wolves.
I neglected to mention that so far our summer up here in Ontario has been quite cool and wet, so it was actually rather chilly by the time dinner was over and the program began. I get cold rather easily, so I huddled in multiple layers beside my mother and waited dully for the howling part. It should be known that in addition to not bringing a warm jacket, I also didn't bring my contact lenses with me on this trip. Instead I brought my glasses, which are considerably easier to take on and off, but aren't my current prescription. Therefore everything distant I saw during this trip was rather blurry, and so between the chill and my vision, I wasn't able to enjoy the slide show at all.
Back to the wolf howl, when it was actually time to leave for the howl, we were informed that there were about 1500 of us currently attending in around 500 cars. Finally it was time for us all to depart, so Mother and I stumbled blindly back to our car (we didn't even pack a flashlight). It took over an hour to shepherd all of us down the highway to the howling site, but we eventually made it at about 10:30 at night. The weather was cool, but calm, and we all waited silently in a parking lot for the rangers to begin howling to the wolves. Well, most of us waited silently. Some people a couple of cars down from us were talking loudly in some foreign language the whole time, and near the end of the rangers' howls they set off their car alarm. We heard no response from the wolves that night, and returned to our cabin weary and ready to end our first day. The beds had thick quilts on them to keep off the chill, so we slept well.
The following day was relatively warm and partly sunny, unlike the next two days which we had heard were going to be rainy. That being the case, Mother and I set off immediately after breakfast for an exploratory trip around the lake in our canoe. Caught up in our excitement, we neglected to bring our camera and so didn't photograph anything we saw (which included a frog, two common mergansers, some loons, and some ducks). We returned to the cabin in time for lunch and encountered a friendly chipmunk as we were docking our canoe. Regretfully we had nothing to give it, but we made sure to acquire a bag of unsalted nuts in case we should see it again in the future.
After lunch, we took advantage of the nice weather and drove to a short hiking trail. By 'short,' I mean 2 km of rocky hills, stairs, and even short stretches of level terrain (mostly not though). The walk took us around a few ponds and a lake all made by beavers, and we saw many beaver lodges along the way. Though we didn't see any wildlife during the walk, we did have a great view of the beautiful natural surroundings. On our way back, we pulled over when we saw several cars at the edge of the road and people looking at something in the distance. The tiny shape of a moose was visible some distance from the highway, and we snapped a fuzzy picture. We finished in time for dinner, and then attended a private wolf howl for only guests of the resort we were at. Since there were only 15 cars to manage this time, we arrived at our sites much more quickly and finished the howl before ten. Unfortunately we didn't hear wolves this night either, but we returned to our cabin with light hearts nonetheless.
The next day was, as expected, cold and rainy. My mother and I hurried to breakfast and back, and spent the morning reading in our cabin. After we ventured out again for lunch, we drove to the Visitor's Center and got ourselves some souvenirs. My enjoyment of the actual exhibits was inhibited by the presence of other people (and their children), who had also flocked to the center for something to do that didn't involve getting rained on. I regret to say that I've no fondness for children, and not much more for people in general. Not when they're being loud and obnoxious anyway, which children usually are and adults sometimes as well. That night we didn't attend any public events, only read in our cabin. As we were reading, we became aware of a faint sound coming in our window across the lake: the wolves, which had failed to appear either of the previous nights, were howling. Mother got up and opened the window in case they howled again, but they did not. At about midnight the power abruptly gave out, so we brushed our teeth by the light of my mother's cell phone and fumbled our way into bed.
The fourth, and final, day of our trip was still slightly rainy, but not so much that we didn't venture outside. After breakfast, Mother and I took the canoe out for a final paddle around the lake. We explored the small island on the lake and fed some ducks the nuts that we originally got for the chipmunks. Finally, we played a game of shuffleboard (which we were both terrible at, and eventually tied), accepted a packed lunch from the resort, and began our journey home. We didn't make it far before we spotted another group of cars pulled-over to look at something. Getting out of the car, we wandered over to where most of the people were and asked what they were looking at. A woman replied that a mother and one baby were on one side of the road, while a second baby was trapped on our side.
Now, I still didn't know from her explanation what kind of animal we were talking about, but after a short while I determined that it was bears. We looked around for a while, wondering where they were, and eventually turned to go back to our car. This is the point where I grabbed my mother and gasped, "Oh my God, a bear!" Standing on the rocks just a couple meters away from our car was the second bear cub, about the size of a medium-sized dog and completely black except for its brown muzzle. Staring at the cub in shock, we realized that we had (stupidly) left our camera inside the car, and obviously we couldn't get it now. Thus we managed to end our encounter without a single picture, much to my disappointment. After a short while the cub vanished from its spot, and we hurried over to the car and got in. I grabbed the camera and stared wildly out the windows, but after the cub dashed across the highway to rejoin its mother, we drove away without a single photo.
Thus ends the important features of my vacation to Algonquin. My mother and I drove for several hours until we reached home at around seven without seeing anything else of interest, but all in all I'd have to say that the entire experience was extremely pleasurable, and I sincerely hope we will be able to return next summer. It was a lot of interesting occurrences to happen in under four days, and I treasure every one of them. Only time will tell if I have experiences to match them next year.
Pictures: [x] This is the cabin when we first arrived. Our cabin consisted of a front room with beds, tables, and a dresser, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower. That's me putting my clothes in the dresser.
[x] This is a view from a clifftop on the hiking trail that we walked on our second day. The pond that you see down below is one that we walked around during the beginning of the trail, meaning that we hiked around the pond and climbed the entire cliff to take that picture. Then we hiked back down in order to complete the trail and return to our car.
[x] This is a beaver dam that we saw on our hike. It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but the dam was actually quite big, quite possibly 30 feet across. (it might have been bigger or smaller. I suck at measuring, but it was big.)
[x] That fuzzy brown blob that you are looking at is the moose that we spied off the highway. Our camera isn't very good, so we weren't able to get a very clear picture of it.
[x] This is my mother feeding the ducks that we encountered while canoeing. They were very tame, as you can see, especially two half-grown chicks who accompanied their mother.
[x] This is a picture we took of the outside of our cabin right before we left. All the buildings in the resort were painted like this, but despite the gaudy appearance the cabins really did look quite nice nestled into the shaded woodlands.
The first day of our vacation started late. My mother and I are bother night-owls, not particularly fond of rising early, and as such we didn't leave the house until after noon. We drove for several hours up to the resort, stopping once along the way to visit a friend of my mother's, and got there around six. We had signed up for the early dinner seating, so we hurried to put our belongings in our cabin so that we could go and eat. The resort was located on a small peninsula, and multiple hummingbird feeders hung in front of the windows on various buildings guaranteed us multiple sightings of the season's last ruby-throated hummingbirds. Since it was a bit late to do anything adventurous on our own after dinner, we drove out to a public wolf howl and shivered through the hour-long slide show before heading out on the road to (hopefully) hear some wolves.
I neglected to mention that so far our summer up here in Ontario has been quite cool and wet, so it was actually rather chilly by the time dinner was over and the program began. I get cold rather easily, so I huddled in multiple layers beside my mother and waited dully for the howling part. It should be known that in addition to not bringing a warm jacket, I also didn't bring my contact lenses with me on this trip. Instead I brought my glasses, which are considerably easier to take on and off, but aren't my current prescription. Therefore everything distant I saw during this trip was rather blurry, and so between the chill and my vision, I wasn't able to enjoy the slide show at all.
Back to the wolf howl, when it was actually time to leave for the howl, we were informed that there were about 1500 of us currently attending in around 500 cars. Finally it was time for us all to depart, so Mother and I stumbled blindly back to our car (we didn't even pack a flashlight). It took over an hour to shepherd all of us down the highway to the howling site, but we eventually made it at about 10:30 at night. The weather was cool, but calm, and we all waited silently in a parking lot for the rangers to begin howling to the wolves. Well, most of us waited silently. Some people a couple of cars down from us were talking loudly in some foreign language the whole time, and near the end of the rangers' howls they set off their car alarm. We heard no response from the wolves that night, and returned to our cabin weary and ready to end our first day. The beds had thick quilts on them to keep off the chill, so we slept well.
The following day was relatively warm and partly sunny, unlike the next two days which we had heard were going to be rainy. That being the case, Mother and I set off immediately after breakfast for an exploratory trip around the lake in our canoe. Caught up in our excitement, we neglected to bring our camera and so didn't photograph anything we saw (which included a frog, two common mergansers, some loons, and some ducks). We returned to the cabin in time for lunch and encountered a friendly chipmunk as we were docking our canoe. Regretfully we had nothing to give it, but we made sure to acquire a bag of unsalted nuts in case we should see it again in the future.
After lunch, we took advantage of the nice weather and drove to a short hiking trail. By 'short,' I mean 2 km of rocky hills, stairs, and even short stretches of level terrain (mostly not though). The walk took us around a few ponds and a lake all made by beavers, and we saw many beaver lodges along the way. Though we didn't see any wildlife during the walk, we did have a great view of the beautiful natural surroundings. On our way back, we pulled over when we saw several cars at the edge of the road and people looking at something in the distance. The tiny shape of a moose was visible some distance from the highway, and we snapped a fuzzy picture. We finished in time for dinner, and then attended a private wolf howl for only guests of the resort we were at. Since there were only 15 cars to manage this time, we arrived at our sites much more quickly and finished the howl before ten. Unfortunately we didn't hear wolves this night either, but we returned to our cabin with light hearts nonetheless.
The next day was, as expected, cold and rainy. My mother and I hurried to breakfast and back, and spent the morning reading in our cabin. After we ventured out again for lunch, we drove to the Visitor's Center and got ourselves some souvenirs. My enjoyment of the actual exhibits was inhibited by the presence of other people (and their children), who had also flocked to the center for something to do that didn't involve getting rained on. I regret to say that I've no fondness for children, and not much more for people in general. Not when they're being loud and obnoxious anyway, which children usually are and adults sometimes as well. That night we didn't attend any public events, only read in our cabin. As we were reading, we became aware of a faint sound coming in our window across the lake: the wolves, which had failed to appear either of the previous nights, were howling. Mother got up and opened the window in case they howled again, but they did not. At about midnight the power abruptly gave out, so we brushed our teeth by the light of my mother's cell phone and fumbled our way into bed.
The fourth, and final, day of our trip was still slightly rainy, but not so much that we didn't venture outside. After breakfast, Mother and I took the canoe out for a final paddle around the lake. We explored the small island on the lake and fed some ducks the nuts that we originally got for the chipmunks. Finally, we played a game of shuffleboard (which we were both terrible at, and eventually tied), accepted a packed lunch from the resort, and began our journey home. We didn't make it far before we spotted another group of cars pulled-over to look at something. Getting out of the car, we wandered over to where most of the people were and asked what they were looking at. A woman replied that a mother and one baby were on one side of the road, while a second baby was trapped on our side.
Now, I still didn't know from her explanation what kind of animal we were talking about, but after a short while I determined that it was bears. We looked around for a while, wondering where they were, and eventually turned to go back to our car. This is the point where I grabbed my mother and gasped, "Oh my God, a bear!" Standing on the rocks just a couple meters away from our car was the second bear cub, about the size of a medium-sized dog and completely black except for its brown muzzle. Staring at the cub in shock, we realized that we had (stupidly) left our camera inside the car, and obviously we couldn't get it now. Thus we managed to end our encounter without a single picture, much to my disappointment. After a short while the cub vanished from its spot, and we hurried over to the car and got in. I grabbed the camera and stared wildly out the windows, but after the cub dashed across the highway to rejoin its mother, we drove away without a single photo.
Thus ends the important features of my vacation to Algonquin. My mother and I drove for several hours until we reached home at around seven without seeing anything else of interest, but all in all I'd have to say that the entire experience was extremely pleasurable, and I sincerely hope we will be able to return next summer. It was a lot of interesting occurrences to happen in under four days, and I treasure every one of them. Only time will tell if I have experiences to match them next year.
Pictures: [x] This is the cabin when we first arrived. Our cabin consisted of a front room with beds, tables, and a dresser, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower. That's me putting my clothes in the dresser.
[x] This is a view from a clifftop on the hiking trail that we walked on our second day. The pond that you see down below is one that we walked around during the beginning of the trail, meaning that we hiked around the pond and climbed the entire cliff to take that picture. Then we hiked back down in order to complete the trail and return to our car.
[x] This is a beaver dam that we saw on our hike. It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but the dam was actually quite big, quite possibly 30 feet across. (it might have been bigger or smaller. I suck at measuring, but it was big.)
[x] That fuzzy brown blob that you are looking at is the moose that we spied off the highway. Our camera isn't very good, so we weren't able to get a very clear picture of it.
[x] This is my mother feeding the ducks that we encountered while canoeing. They were very tame, as you can see, especially two half-grown chicks who accompanied their mother.
[x] This is a picture we took of the outside of our cabin right before we left. All the buildings in the resort were painted like this, but despite the gaudy appearance the cabins really did look quite nice nestled into the shaded woodlands.
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