Holiday Inn Bracebridge - Lake Muskoka

... we’ve gotten f*r in our destin*tion but the first turn from J*ck’s cott*ge seems to h*ve been the wrong one. Good st*rt. Rob’s t*king the first driving shift *nd the go*l for tod*y is * few hours p*st S*ult Ste. M*rie. Tomorrow is going to one of our biggest d*ys bec*use from S*ult we’re going to push it str*ight through to Kenor*.. Which is only * mere 16 or so hours. Let the driving begin…

... to go biking, but we thought that 15$ an hour is a totally CRAZY rate. Then we had dinner at the Eclipse, and again, we found everything quite unimpressive. Breakfast buffet the next day was good though, but then at 18$ per head, it better be.

I dont want to sound like everything is about cost here. Cost and Worth are two very different things. I guess i found that staying in Deerhurst will not give you the greatest value for your money, in these terms ...

... and 2 beautiful children. Nicole and her husband Brandon used to be my workmates and next door neighbours. We all worked at Living Springs (another big camp, like Pioneer, and part of the CC network).
Nicole can very much take credit for being the most incredible member of my support crew when mum was sick,( and subsequently when she passed away). She spent a lot of time listening to me cry and praying for me and encouraging me and just being there - in general being a ...

... wonderful friend that used to live across the road and work at Living Springs too all those years ago) had arranged for Marcel and Virginia to bring me along for the ride when they headed out to Pioneer Camp (http://www.pioneercamp.ca/) that afternoon for Jake’s 4th birthday (Jake being Nicole and Brandon’s amazingly lovely little boy).

So long story short today there were reunion hugs, reunion chats, and reunion good feelings. There ...

... given me some hours earlier without mentioning the obvious. The road was named after the man I had called Uncle Charlie. We drove the road and although it is a paved road now it looked familiar as we climbed the hill towards the lake. And there it was. Charlie and Dorothy's cabin the barns and our little place sitting there looking exactly the same as it had when I lived there 51 years ago.The new road goes closer to our little house ...

Counting the days until our departure, getting the house ready for the renters, nursing sore upper arms from countless inoculations, accumulating stuff that will never fit in the backpacks .... must be getting close now! As requested numerous times by Dallas, here is a rough plan for our trip, which has changed several times and will probably change again the second we touch down. Fly into ...

We arrived at Toronto Airport, flying from London, to be met by my cousin Mick. We drove north for about 3 hours to "Lake of Bays" near Huntsville in the Muskoka district. On the way we stopped in at timmy's (well Tim Hourtons a brewed coffee and donuts chain that is all over Canada, the locals call it timmy's).

... plenty of time - but we had to scramble into the long line without stopping for a bit to eat and we barely got a seat together. I'm surprised there is no reserved seating for such a long trip. The breakfast car did not open this morning, I guess everyone else had time to eat except us! We'll just have to work on our bag of snacks until lunch time.

... was all collected in buckets and boiled down in cast iron kettles. This system was later upgraded to a large open pan supported on the chassis of a 1920 Cadillac. Today all the 1,300 taps are connected to blue transparent plastic tubing which feed into an extensive network of feeder and main lines carefully arranged on a 2 to 5% slope down to the sap house. At strategic spots where the terrain heads up instead of down Ken has set up "sap ladders" which can suck the ...

... and challenges in the lives of today's farmers, and Carl capturing the essence in images (www.agventurecanada.ca). Carl already has four books to his credit and is in big demand as a motivational speaker. Despite being confined to a wheelchair after a hang-gliding accident in 1981, Carl defied all odds to become the first person to fly across Canada in an ultra-light. The photos in his first book "Gift of Wings" are absolutely stunning, and his ...