Penn Lake Park Campground, Marathon, Ontario, Canada
As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. Proverbs 27:19
Oh! No! We actually lost about a half pound of bacon! How in the world could that possibly happen??? I cooked it for breakfast a few days ago. Cooked the whole pound because it stores well in the frig. Went to get a couple of pieces to cut up and add to the German Fries this morning; and couldn’t find it! Blaine searched while I continued cooking. Didn’t find it. I tore the frig apart after breakfast. Didn’t find it. Best we can gather is that it got thrown away when we cleaned up that first morning. Now, we’re in mourning. . . .
Besides the waste (bacon’s not cheap here in Ontario), it’s bacon for cryin’ out loud!
We should be tarred and feathered.
I have few words for today’s outing. It was simply the most splendid day in maybe – ever! Or at least in quite a while. But I imagine if you start mentioning things, what about . . . , it’s entirely possible that you’ll place me in a quandary if you force me to choose, for how can you choose the best of all of God’s indescribable creation?
We went kayaking around coves and actually on Lake Superior! For the most part, I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking. There seem to be more than I remember taking. Now I’m thinking that much of the time we were on the water, Blaine was the propulsion and I the documenter.
About 25 minutes from home is Pukaskwa National Park. Established in 1971, it’s the only true wilderness park out of Canada’s more than forty National Parks. Covering 725 square miles, it protects part of the longest undeveloped shoreline anywhere on the Great Lakes.
This is where we went exploring today!
Before we jumped in the water though, we took a walk on their 1.5-mile Southern Headland Trail. It was a pretty great trail, and as you will see in the pictures, they still have the red chairs up from last year’s Canadian Parks celebration.
As an FYI – this huge park only has 7 hiking trails, and they all start from the same parking lot. We’ve never seen that before.
Blaine tried a back road.
We ended up here and decided to turn around.
They have three bronze statues at the Visitor Center.
We learned later that they’re life-sized replicas of actual animals that were seen on the Park’s motion detectors.
First we check out the boat launch area.
Looks like it’ll be a breeze!
Starting out on the Headland.
Someone(s) did a lot of work building steps for this hike.
Look at that view!
That’s a raven in the top of that center tree.
Look! The red chairs!
We saw these all over our Canadian trip last year. They set them out in all the Parks in honor of their 150 year anniversary.
For whatever weird reason, they were covered with these giant flies! Gross!
There were storyboards all along the trail like this.
This is the only one I took a picture of though.
Fungus? Mushroom?
That tan spot is just a different color of rock .
But in the distance, there’s a kayaker on his way.
The specks in the water at the end of the rock is a Common Merganser family.
There’s a sight you won’t often see . . .
Blaine with his ball cap turned around. : ) He was trying to keep the sun off his neck.
The trail took us down to a beach area full of driftwood.
A glimpse of other parts of this great hike.
But now, I was chomping at the bit to get on the water. I think Blaine was too, he just wasn’t quite so demonstrative as I was today.
We drove the Jeep down, but couldn’t leave it, so after we got the boat ready, Blaine had to return the Jeep to the parking lot and walk the short distance back.
Want to know what I was feeling like once I was on the water? Imagine a child who just received everything they wanted for Christmas . . . plus some things they never even thought to ask for! If I could’ve jumped up and down, spinning and leaping for joy, I would have! But that would’ve capsized the boat.
We paddled around some cove areas before we actually went out on the Big Water.
We were astounded at how clear – – and deep – – the water is!
You can see the clarity, but you can’t tell how deep it is! Blaine read somewhere that you can see up to sixty feet!
I know that in some places that’s just how deep we were looking!
We had our eye on that big white rock island to the right for lunch . . .
We crept up on this rock to see if we could see the ‘fallen’ part laying in the water. But we couldn’t.
But see that little gray knob? Guess who wanted to try to get to the top of it? : )
So he did!
Guess who sat in the boat…
…taking pictures and videos?
You get one attempt to guess where I went.
He assured me there was an easier way than climbing straight up a rock.
There was. : )
I was thrilled I’d followed him!
I made Blaine stop on the way down and take this picture.
It was the least he could do after risking my life. : )
I’m not sure why, but actually being on Superior and seemingly paddling out into nothingness, was both exhilarating and eerie. It was like the beginning of Jaws – – that whole duh, duh . . . duh, duh . . . duh, duh, duh, duh . . . . both exhilarating and eerie! No sharks in Lake Superior, though! Whew!
On to lunch.
If you just look to the right, we’re not so far from ‘civilization’.
Actually, there’s a trail over there somewhere.
Upon closer inspection, the white rock isn’t a lunch option.
It’s huge! And covered with seagull excrement. Ewwww . . . .
What now?
Second choice is that higher rock island.
It even has a ‘built in ramp’ where we can dock the kayak! (there on the left)
Besides a ramp and a great view, it also had hundreds of gnatty-type bugs all over it!
Plan C.
The smaller island to the left.
Just call me Goldilocks because this one was just right!
Wonder what the red stuff is?
Time to go. . . : (
Once our more than amazing lunch break was over, we took off for what we had dubbed ‘Seagull Island’. As you saw and heard in the previous pictures, the name seemed really appropriate. And naturally, they hollered a bit at us when we got closer, but no more so than we’d been hearing all along.
Creative photography! : )
We’re headed around to the back side of ‘seagull island’.
It was shortly after we rounded the bend that things got interesting.
It would seem that the opposite side might just be their nursery. Have you ever seen a baby or even a young seagull before? In all our years of going to the Atlantic Coast for vacation, plus all the other places we’ve visited, we never have. Well, we saw a couple today! And the moms and dads and aunts and uncles and other community members didn’t seem too happy about our little discovery. It was a lot like those old WWII fighter pilot movies! The diving and screaming “engines” as they swooped down over us. And just like those psycho pilots and men on the ground we just laughed at them as we surged ahead.
What’s that in the water way up there?
A young gull!
A final farewell!
That little one to the right is where we were sitting for lunch. : )
Once past seagull island, we were on our way across the water once again, heading to a new area screaming for exploration, when we saw another small brown shape swimming out ahead of us. Just as we were drawing near enough to see what it was, it came up part way out of the water and was almost the size of a full-grown seagull! Which was weird in itself, but as Blaine’s telling it it’d better turn around and head back home, two gulls came screaming towards us – one going after their ‘teenager’ and turning it around (picture a mom tugging on her son’s ear as she drags him back home. 😊), the other swooping back and forth over us warning us away. I kept thinking, please don’t put a hole in our boat! But it never really got that close.
Over to those black rocks!
Wow! How incredible they were! You may be wondering how we can be so enthralled by a bunch of rocks, but they were just so majestic! I’m sure they won’t come across that way to you – at least not often – but they really were!
We were fascinated by how the various veins of different rock ran through the ancient lava flow.
Mmmm . . .
Wonder who got the itch to climb again?
I didn’t go this time. I had to stay behind and hold the boat. Literally.
There I am.
Still holding.
After Blaine returned, I took a couple of pictures from my perspective on the water.
See the watermark?
You’d never know it – – we certainly were surprised – – but there were swells every 15-20 seconds while I sat there!
He was up there somewhere. : )
There was a boat down there in that cove area.
We didn’t explore that one.
Hopefully we’ll have a chance on another day while we’re in town!
Heading back in the general direction of the docking area, but there’s still exploring to do!
We did go into this one.
Ulp . . . dead end.
Even dead ends are beautiful here!
Leaving the dead end.
A few minutes later, and we found a cove with a fairly easy ‘out’.
We needed to stretch our legs.
Mossy stuff on top of our mini-mountain.
Back in the kayak.
We came over to check out the round rocks.
Notice the tiny rock island on the right.
The island’s just a tiny thing.
That’s our dock beach up there.
Home again.
Probably one of the few times I was sad to go home . . .
That’s the beginning of the trail we were on this morning.
Seems like forever ago, doesn’t it?
Flowers while you wait. . .
Blaine’s getting the Jeep. : )
A humorous way to end our day – –
This couple put their kayaks in the water while I was waiting for Blaine to return.
They took off in opposite directions! Haha!
Apparently there was a miscommunication (or lack thereof). He called to her, and she awkwardly started paddling towards him.
She didn’t seem very well suited for paddling on her own. There was no fluidity of motion and her paddles weren’t positioned properly in the water. Wonder how far they got?
How blessed we were this day!