My daughter and I just returned from a 5 day trip. We started at Magnetawan and canoed for about 5 minutes to the portage. This really short portage took us to Hambone Lake where we had a slightly longer paddle to get to the tail end of Hambone (called just "the Pond" on the portage sign). The sign also says to try the creek (instead of doing the 55 metre portage to get to Daisy Lake), but at this time of year, the water levels are so low that we'd be doing more pushing than paddling, so we unloaded everything and walked down the incredibly short portage and loaded back up (loading and unloading took longer than the walk).
And now for the embarrassing bit: I tipped the canoe (with me in it) and got completely baptized in Daisy Lake. In my defense, I'm used to loading up the canoe at a beach, not a dock - and there is a dock on Daisy Lake. The water is about 3 feet deep, but there's no real bottom - it's decaying tree sediment, several feet deep of this sludge. So I threw the blue (thankfully waterproof) canoe-pack into the canoe and it didn't lay right, so I stepped in and gave it a yank; and that's when everything shifted and the next thing I knew, I was in the water, under the canoe! Getting out was very difficult as there was no real bottom for me to stand on. I sort of flailed my way back to the dock and heaved myself out. Then Laura and I dragged the canoe out of the water and drained it. Reloading went much better, and I was careful not to step into it until we were ready to leave. I was anxious to find a campsite on Daisy after this little adventure, but we still took the time to check out a few. We ended up on the middle site. It was a pretty good site, with a great sunbathing rock, but it was very short on flat ground. The first spot we tried had quite a severe slope, so we moved over to the one remaining piece of level ground and set the tent up there (much better - still a slope, but not nearly as noticable). After setting up the tent, the first thing I did was have a bath in the lake (no tree sediment here!) and washed all my clothes.
We had great weather while we were on Daisy. It was shortly after 11am when we arrived on Monday, so we had 2 full days here plus Wednesday morning. Our first night, we slept with the fly off the tent and fell asleep with our eyes full of starry visions. The second night, we went out in the canoe and gazed into the heavens for what seemed like hours.
I've tried so many times to describe how I feel when I get to see the stars (the entire Milky Way) laid out above me. Words don't often fail me, but in this case they do. All I can say is that there is a reason we have the word "indescribable" in our vocabulary.
So we lay there, under the never-ending expanse of the night sky and contemplated the love of God and His awesomeness, and then we headed in and went to sleep.
Wednesday was moving day. Because I booked this trip at the last minute, we weren't able to stay on one lake for the entire 5 days; but we lucked out in that we could get Hambone for the next 2 nights and we had to go there anyway to get back to the car, so it didn't seem like too much of a bother to move. We had a leisurely breakfast at 8:30 and were loaded up and ready to roll by 10:30.
I'm not sure what time it was when we reached our new campsite on Hambone Lake. We got here without incident. Hambone was quite windy and the waves were peaking, so I didn't explore too much. The first site was occupied, but the second one was free and after I gave it a quick glance, we decided it would do and started to set up. It was a very large site, with at least 3 good sized flat areas for tents. Someone had fashioned a "table" out of lashed together logs, and there were logs for seats around the fire. All in all, it was a very "commercial" site for Algonquin.
The clouds started rolling in right after supper, and the rain began right on schedule just as we were heading to bed.
Thursday was an interesting day. We managed to cook and eat breakfast (yummy pancakes) before the rain started up again. I rigged the tarp up and we ate under it. Then we washed our dishes and tidied up. The rain stopped again at some point and we went exploring in the canoe. Both the other sites were unoccupied now, so we checked them out. One has a huge hollow log section (big enough for me to crawl through) that they use to keep firewood dry.
When we got back, we went swimming. The sun almost came out, but then it started raining again. We went in the tent to warm up. I finished both my book and Laura's (now she's reading mine). The sun came out again and the tent quickly became stifling hot so we went for another swim and I pretended to fish for a while.
And that's how our whole day went - rain, then sun. We were able to cook and eat in the dry spells and we even had a lovely big fire.
Friday was going home day. We're ready. We miss our beds, we miss baths with real soap. I miss refrigerators and cold bottled water.
It was a great trip. Lots of good memories. Mother-daughter bonding and stretching. Can't wait 'till next year!
One of Elijah's most famous acts was when he challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel. He said, "Let's see whose God is real and whose god is not!" They accepted the challenge and it went something like this. Each built an altar (think elaborate camp fire, stacking the wood just so) and then stood back and prayed, asking their god to light the fire. Only when it was Elijah's turn, he dumped buckets and buckets and buckets of water on the altar. (Think swimming pool).
