The Turtle Has Returned!

From the pristine wilds of Killarney Provincial Park the turtle has emerged, tanned, relaxed and ready for a new semester of medicine and biotechnology. I had a great time but I actually missed blogging which is weird since I never expected to like it to start with. I realized it’s because I have a ton of great commenters, so thank you folks. I’ll start today’s entry by giving a run down of the interesting stuff (and not so interesting) that happened day to day. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures yet so where I write (photo) there will be, yes you guessed it a picture. Our first day of the expedition consisted of Nikki, Ruben and I getting up at 6:00 and packing the car full of stuff we’d need. Once packed we drove an hour and a half to the cottage strapped on the canoe and drove another 3 or 4 hours to get to the wilds of Killarney. On the way we passed through some major construction which involved blasting through huge sections of the Canadian Shield and moving tons and tons of rock. It’s really amazing to think that we have the capability to totally modify our landscape to such an extent. It’s pretty much like saying hey there’s a mountain here, lets get rid of it.

Once we made it to our site, 63 woodchuck avenue for those of you that are looking for an awesome site. We started out with car camping but I have to say that the site itself was pretty nifty. There was a cliff behind us that people seemed to enjoy jumping off of, it would probably be about 25 feet above the water . We had an uneventful night except for the fact that while eating smores the fattest raccoon ever snagged a garbage bag and ran off into the forest. I also came across the raccoon underground railway. This happened to be a sewer pipe that they used to sneak into a French Canadian couple’s site and terrorize them. Mon Dieu!!

I woke up fairly early and managed to snag a picture of the misty lake which I found to be quite nice while Ruben and Nikki slept. Nice enough to wake up before the other musketters, well that’s debatable. It also meant that I prepared the gruel for breakfast, also known as Quaker oatmeal maple and brown sugar. I also happened to be the cook for most the trip, Jin you’d be proud. I’ve hot mad skillz as they say here in the hood. Later in the day we went on the crannyberry bog trail in hopes of seeing some wildlife, but alas it was not meant to be. We did however see a tipped over tree with a massive root system (photo). The bog was also really nice and was the site of many a photo. Unfortunately the rocks were fairly slippery from the rain the night before so there was much slipping and sliding. After returning from the trail we packed up and loaded our canoe on George Lake. We had the illusion in our mind that we could make it in one trip so loaded the canoe to the brim with Nikki stuffed in the middle. Unfortunately the canoe had other ideas and slowly started to sink like the titanic. So we unloaded it and made two trips, amounting to a 35 minute canoe trip each way. Strangely Ruben and I were much faster and better canoes this year because a trip like that would have taken us an hour last year. I have a feeling it had to do with the inspiring words of little Nikki. She shouted out commands such as mush mush! And sang old Guess Who songs “No Sugar tonight in my coffee, No sugar to night in my tea BAH BAH BAH” (actual rendition). In between trips we went to the town of Killarney to pick up some worms and koolaid (7 dollar koolaid). On the way we saw two moose crossing the way. To me it was really neat because I’ve never seen a moose before and they were totally not what I was expecting. It was pretty funny because one was standing on the other side of the road. It looked both ways and then crossed the street. We stopped were it went in and contrary to my belief they were not quite or graceful at all. They made more noise than bulldozers going through the forest.

Once getting to our site which was a really beautiful peninsula we found out that it was home to literally hundreds of frogs of varying sizes and colours (photo). It was also home to nikki’s dismay to many different snakes. I’m not sure what these ones are but one had an orange belly while another that we found was spotted. I also think I encountered a Massassuga rattler which made me jump ten feet back since it almost stepped on it. We had a nice campfire and howled along with the wolves (nikki will deny it but I’m sure I heard her cute little howl as well).

The next day we slept in spent most of the day fishing and napping. I caught a big bass, the biggest one of the trip in fact (nikki may or may not dispute this but I have photo evidence (photo, photo). We also were lucky enough to see a big mother deer and her faun come for a drink across from us while we were fishing. One thing I learned from this trip is that Nikki is the bass master. She was able to catch tons of little fish with a big hook. Although I think it was my hooking of the worms that was the key touch. That evening we had a fire and a beautiful sun set (photo). We also saw the ghost of Christmas Ruben coming after us through the fire (photo). That evening we also had a beaver visitor who was pretty interesting. He was picking his teeth with a stick and eating for about an hour.

The next day was pretty uneventful, we woke up late canoed around for a while. We went to two and bought some fish and chips out of a converted school bus. The fish and chips were pretty good considering it was from the inside of a school bus. Ruben swam across the lake, nikki and I fished and we had smores which is always a treat. The next day we took off for home. Things of note include that I took a pair of Rubens pants instead of my own before we packed up the car and realized they were not mine when I realize the waste was like 3x mine. Since the car was packed up I had to hold them closed until we made it back to the cottage. The other interesting incident was when Ruben was able to scarf down some wendies meal then put away another three burgers after that. Way to go Ruben! This trip also made me realize that I’ll always be a big kid. I may be a science nerd and that means I have a good idea of how the things around me work but that doesn’t take away my wide eyed wonder. I look around and see these great rock formations and massive trees and it still takes my breath away and makes me think how lucky I am. I also estimate the iron content and count the tree rings don’t get me wrong but I still think the world is truly an amazing an wonderful place. There’s a lot more to write about and I have a couple more days off but I think that’s enough for one massive entry. Anyone else doing anything fun with their summer?