We got a couple of nice weather days in Algonquin Park. On the first good day, Vicki and I went for a paddle. Paddling across Pog Lake didn’t fell like anything other than a good paddle with my wife and best friend, but when we turned the corner into the Madawaska River, and got into the corridor of trees and river, I suddenly felt a spiritual connection that I hadn’t felt in decades. A swallowtail butterfly nearly landed on my kayak, and Vicki said “that’s your mom”.
We paddled down to the dam, and then turned around and paddled upstream to Lake of Two Rivers. There was a strong breeze and there were waves that shouldn’t have bothered me at all, except the thermarest pad I’ve been using for my sit bone pain raises my center of gravity just enough to made me feel like I’m paddling my Epic V12 instead of my Epic V10 Sport. So I decided discretion is the better part of valor, and turned around. And nearly dumped twice while turning around. Swallowtails showed up a few times as we paddled home.
The next day, we rode our bikes on the rail-to-trail path. Last time I visited Algonquin Park, part of that abandoned railroad was used for the Booth Rock interpretive trail, but now it’s a full blown trail for many miles.
We rode through the campground to a t-junction with the trail, and as we were standing there looking at a sign with historic information about the railroad, we heard an awful screeching. We looked over, and a couple on e-bikes were heading straight at us rather than going around (there was plenty of room to go around, like I said it was a t-junction). The screeching wasn’t them, it was that the woman still had the power on but also had the brakes on, so the brakes were screeching. She fell over (not sure if intentionally) which prevented her from plowing into us full power. I’d like to suggest that the EU is correct to require e-bikes to only have pedal assist, and not have a throttle.
The trail was mostly smooth, but with occasional wet spots. A couple of swallowtails showed up to come along with us. A couple of places we smelled something very close to the smell of horse poop. We figured it was probably moose or deer, until I actually saw one of the poops, and it was definitely bear. I figured I was safe, because if I couldn’t outrun the bear on my bike, I could at least out run Vicki.
During our time at Algonquin, one of my former class mates texted me out of the blue, saying he’d seen from a facebook post that we were in the Huntsville area and would we want to come spend some time at his cottage. Our next stop after Algonquin was supposed to be two nights in Parry Sound, so we thought maybe we’d shorten that to one night and spend one night with John and his wife.
But after the bike ride, both Vicki and I decided that we wanted another day in Algonquin. So we cancelled both days in Parry Sound, booked another night in Pog Lake (which involved moving to another campsite), and then going direct from there to John’s cottage. Unfortunately the new campsite was just overrun by swarms of mosquitos and blackflies and then it started to rain. But I’d rather spend a day in Algonquin with the screens open listening to the rain and the loons and smelling the fresh air than spending two days driving up to Parry Sound and back.
It was great catching up with John, and his wife is very nice as well. John was always the great organizer even back at uni, so I’m not surprised he was in touch with a great many former classmates as well and they have frequent get togethers. I’d like to get in on some of that action myself.