Lake Superior, Ontario

For the past few days we have been exploring the northern side of Lake Superior in Ontario. I am happy to say that we have now spent time at all 5 Great Lakes! Lake Superior is amazing - it holds 10% of the world's surface freshwater. It takes 200 years for water to circulate out of the Lake Superior compared to a 3 year circulation time for Lake Erie and 6 years for Lake Ontario. Needless to say, the lake is vast, and the wilderness that surround it's north shore is comparable. The northern edge of the lake is full of islands, and the mainland is full of smaller lakes. Interesting opposite landforms! Several great adventures here.


We visited Pukaskwa National Park, which seemed to be completely run by Natives - all of whom were incredibly friendly. We rented a canoe for the morning and explored a cove of Lake Superior. We followed a creek upstream and portaged over several beaver dams (one of which held back about 4 vertical feet of water) and found a huge beaver lodge. During this adventure I also found a leach attached to my foot - YUK!

We hiked through "the bush" of this National Park to reach beautiful vistas from rocky points and sandy beaches full of bleached driftwood (great firewood). The forest that we walked through was covered in dense moss. All surfaces, even the nearly vertical rock faces, were covered in deep layers of moss. We plunged our fingers into the moss, and all but our palms were lost. Every step we took was springy underfoot. Adalaya stated that this was her favorite place so far on our trip, and George enjoyed the insulated silence of this forest.


This area is so beautiful that many Provincial Parks abound. We stopped at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park for the afternoon. There is an inland lake here which drains into Lake Superior by way of Rainbow Falls - a beautiful series of cascades over pink granite which is spotted with green and gray lichen. After our hike we went for a swim in the Park's lake. This was my first lake swim on this trip and it felt great! Soothing to the soul!

Niagra or Bust!

We were feeling the need to get some miles behind us (after all we were still in Virginia), so after getting provisions in Front Royal, VA we zoomed north. Well, maybe we didn't zoom, but we went as fast as a big metal box on wheels can go on mountainous back roads, which is to say about 45 mph or less. So we meandered through West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania where we stopped for a few hours of fitful sleep beside a cemetery (not going to do that again). By sunrise we were in New York State. We figured we were in need of a good cultural experience, so we went into downtown Buffalo for some NY style pizza for lunch. Yum! And it just so happened that today’s special was cheese and broccoli pizza, Adalaya’s favorite!

After lunch we crossed over the Peace Bridge into Canada where our customs lady was very chatty and told us how to get to “the best hot springs ever” in Calgary. No wonder our customs line took forever to get through! We then took yet another beautifully scenic parkway, Niagra Parkway, which took us north from Lake Erie to Niagra Falls along the Niagra River. It is an amazingly beautiful and uncrowded drive, and there’s a bike path along the river as well. When we started to see a plume of mist in the air we knew we were getting close, so we parked the van and rode our bikes to the Falls. What an amazing place! I was expecting a dirty brown river and tourist traps everywhere, but the river is an amazing emerald color and the whole area is clean and beautiful and full of people from all over their world. And the Falls themselves are indescribable. A full rainbow with a faint double rainbow above it graced the falls in its plumes of spray.

Black Bears and Rattle Snakes!

After spending a sweltering two and a half weeks on the coast, we headed back to the hills to Shenandoah National Park in VA. Ahhh, it feels like home! Skyline Drive, the northern extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway, runs the length of the park, as does the Appalachian Trail. We drove, camped and hiked in this beautiful Appalachian Mountain chain for 3 days. It feels like such a sanctuary compared to the madness that abounds between here and the coast! A great place to celebrate the summer solstice.

Definitely the highlight of Shenandoah for us was one particular hike to a waterfall. On the way to the overlook, just as it was starting to sprinkle rain, we heard some crashing noises in the woods and saw a black bear! We were able to watch if for several minutes before it ambled away out of view. The rain had stopped by the time we got to the overlook, and George bounded atop of the rock wall built on the ledge. He heard the startling sound of a rattle, and there was a fat timber-rattler 3 feet from him. Luckily for George the snake slithered off in the opposite direction under the rock ledge. Since I had not thought to get my camera out for the earlier black bear sighting, we really wanted to get a photo of the rattlesnake. So George approached the ledge and held the camera out over the ledge (hoping to get the whole snake in view). Meanwhile, I was watching George and could see the head of the snake he was hoping to photograph. Then I saw another similarly shaped head peer out from another rocky ledge to the side of George. I alerted him that there seemed to be a whole family of timber-rattlers, and he felt sufficient in his photography. Here's the picture he risked his life for.