Month: July 2018

Off we go on the Trent River north into Canada, on our way to Washington D.C.   But first, we had to kill another day in Trenton because of wind.  This was quite disappointing for Jim Blomo, who arrived on Sunday anticipating a week of non-stop cruising action.  He doesn’t seem to get the whole slow-down-and-enjoy-life thing.  But then—at least according to criminal defendants in his courtroom—he didn’t really get the whole judge thing either.

Canadian Forces Base Trenton is a significant military base and home to Canada’s CC-177 Globemaster IIIs, which we understand are the largest planes in the Royal Canadian Air Force.  A dude on the dock next to us sent his buddy—who was piloting one of those Globemaster’s for the afternoon—a pin drop to mark his boat location.  The pilot then circled over the dock multiple times.  The video might suck but the private show was pretty neat.

The concert along the river featured three old guys who probably were something back in ‘60 but a bit past their prime in ‘18.  The drummer had a walker for goodness sakes, bless his heart.  We stayed for the first set and then moved on.

After finally tiring of harping on our wimpiness, Blomo went with Doug over to the National Air Force Museum, where they admired the impressive history of Canadian military aviation.  The crown jewel was this Halifax bomber—one of only three remaining in the world—which was pulled from the 750-foot depths of a Norwegian lake where it dropped after being shot down in WWII.  The restoration project was dang impressive.

The morning cruise saw us pass the first 6 TSW locks before docking up along a lock wall that lined a neighborhood of backyards.

We probably could’ve walked to Frankford faster, but we got there.

The boys enjoyed the picnic with Blomo and Second Wave, and we enjoyed the company.  We also enjoyed the sunset from Misty Pearl’s foredeck.

Another glorious day to be on a boat rather than in an office.  The TSW narrowed, shallowed, and weeded as we left the Frankford wall.  Blomo proved to be quite usable in the locks, although these locks were so easy he almost went to sleep.

The only lock of real consequence was the double at 11 and 12.   We were dismayed to learn that the DJI Phantom buzzing us was being operated by Parcs Canada, so as to not be evidence that droning over the locks in fact is legal.  We had to settle for some iPhone photos from the top instead.

Coming from Tennessee and Texas, we’ve seen our share of bizzarre hillbilly.  On this trip we’ve determined that the same things can be found everywhere.  For example, some people want to be comfortable when they fish or watch the kids swim.  If you have an extra Laz-Y-Boy sitting around, why not make it useful?  This one looks quite comfy.  Nice.

Campbellford is deep in the heart of river country, according to the sign.

Plus the stars at night, are big and bright.  The town park also almost certainly sports the largest replica of a Canadian $2 coin—aka a Toonie—in the world.

We finally hit the right timing, as the Campbellford concert in the park featured an oldies country band.  It almost sort-of was passable, although Canada does country redneck better than country accents. “Here’s some Johnny Cash, eh.”

Campbellford also has a famous cheese shop, recommended by several lockmasters along the route.  One of us really wanted to go, mostly to drop the classic line on the clerk: “I thought to myself a little fermented curd will do the trick, so I curtailed my Walpoling activities, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the conveyance of some cheesy comestibles.”  The other one of us doesn’t think Monty Python sketches are funny, however, and saw no reason to take a 3-mile taxi ride.  Opportunity lost, but at least we found some of the local product at the grocery store.

The first lock today was Lock 14.  The college girl working there said the cheese place was her favorite thing about Campbellford.  Except of course she really said it was her “favourite” thing, because up here they spell those kinds of words that way.  Either way, as previously noted, we missed it.  We did get some delicious doughnuts, however, before shoving off.

Since (1) we couldn’t drone over the last double lock and (2) we didn’t have the camera ready in time when we went through it, the second double lock gave us a chance for minor redemption in the form of another time-lapse video.

We know, we know, the video is too jerky.  This was an experiment with 10-second intervals, done as a test before the super-awesome-we-can’t-wait Peterborough Lift Lock.  That spectacle comes in a few days since we are staying in Peterborough until Monday morning.

Our buddy Blomo left this afternoon.  We probably enjoyed his company more than he enjoyed the slow pace of the Looper lifestyle, but we think he at least understands why we find it so awesome.  We hope he returns with his wife.

We’ve learned and observed a few things about Canada during the short time we’ve been here.  For example, daylight on summer days last about 18 hours.  No joke.  There are morning rays at 4 a.m. and it’s light enough to walk around at 10 p.m.  This apparently makes it easy to grow flowers.

Also, they tell us summer only lasts about four days.  Which means everybody wants flowers whenever possible.  The Parks Canada folks tend flowers at the locks, usually in boats.  Clever, eh?

Even when nobody is looking, flowers pop up.  This one was growing out of a concrete lock wall.  Poor little thing likely is unaware that its struggles to bloom will be for nothing when the ice and snow arrive next week.

Of course, there’s often a thorn amidst beauty.  We wonder if the dude who thought this sign was funny is related to the guy who put his leather recliner on a float in the river.

Dana wanted to drop an anchor and wait awhile, but we needed to get to Hastings so Blomo could catch his evening shuttle to Toronto.  We docked at Hastings Village Marina and promptly did what we always do—look for lunch. For some reason there’s a statue of a big fish and a little fish just past the marina, perhaps to show fishermen what size fish they can catch and what size fish they can claim they caught.

When Shannon was a Blackhawk, she played with a girl named Anna Hess.  Anna’s double was a singer at karaoke night.

Turns out the biggest thing all week in Hastings—population 1,200—is karaoke night at McGillicafey’s Pub.  According to the bartendress, the locals practice all week.  It was way cool.  One of us was tempted to sing Rocky Top, but they probably didn’t have it on the machine.  We’re glad we went.  They’re glad Doug didn’t sing.

In small part because we’ve been getting late starts on short travel days and in large part because up here the sun seemingly comes up in the morning only minutes after it sets the evening before, we haven’t seen many sunrises recently.  This morning, however, we wanted to get across Rice Lake before the wind and the crazy weekenders arrived so we caught a good one.

Rice Lake—supposedly named such because it was a rice paddy until someone who valued water travel more than food installed the Hastings Dam and flooded the railroad—was the end of the Trent River for us, although the river actually starts there.  The lake is dotted with islands that have a couple of houses but no roads.  Margaret Island is a good example.

Margaret Islanders presumably have no need to worry about crime or having fun.  During our crossing we encountered dudes out fishing but no railroad tracks.

Just past Rice Lake we turned north on the Otonabee River, which is unlike anything we’ve seen so far.

The swamps and the buildings along the shoreline reminded us both of Louisiana, but without alligators.

And without voodoo queens.  And—fortunately for all of the wonderful citizens of Canada—without Ed Orgeron.  (To celebrate the northern bayou, we later had dinner with Brent and Karen at a Cajun restaurant called Hot Belly Mama’s.)

Along the way, Dana photographed a mother loon with her cubs or puppies or whatever baby loons are called.

The Canadian dollar sports a loon and thus is called—rather logically—a loonie.  That’s what they also should call the babies but probably don’t.   She later spotted a Belted Kingfisher.  Basically she is trying for a Big Year, made semi-famous in the grossly-underrated movie of the same name starring Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and Jack Black.  You can’t go wrong with a movie starring Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and Jack Black so we can’t figure out why it wasn’t a hit.

When we reached Peterborough we docked up next to a boat that takes tourists up and down the lift lock, which is TSW Lock 21.

Before we get there on Monday, we have the city to explore.  Tomorrow promises a visit to RibFest, which is the reason we were waitlisted for dock space.  The Peterborougheans have access to a Costco, two Walmarts, and similar places typical of an advanced civilization, so some provisioning also is in order.

A bunch of boats left the marina and crossed the river to hear the blues band, which is playing long past our bedtime.  Despite strict open container laws, these folks will not be in any condition to get back safely, particularly in the dark.  Hopefully anyone coming near us has plenty of liability insurance.

As noted yesterday, we were docked right next to Island Princess III, which ferries tourists up and down the Peterborough lift lock.  And by “right next to” we really mean right next to.  Maybe twenty feet away at the most.  By the end of the weekend’s 200 boatloads of entertained tourists, we knew by rote the first ten-minute script of the jokes used by Jody—who assured each group that “Jody is a boy’s name”—to entertain the passengers.  The passengers dutifully laughed.  We dutifully cringed.

But nothing can be more cringe-worthy than “new wave” synth-pop.  Like the patrons at Bob’s Country Bunker, we enjoy both kinds of music: country AND western.  And ABBA.  So obviously we’re pretty open-minded.   Yet we’d never heard of synth-pop.   Good thing, because synth-pop doesn’t count as music.  In fact, we figure that the sounds emanating from the Howard Jones concert at the marina Saturday night are to blame for global warming, political unrest, and the fly plague we encountered in the middle of Lake Ontario.  Despite thunderstorms during the day, however, several thousand people sat in the wet field to see this dude.

These are the real Canadian looneys, although we allow for the possibility that they were there as part of some kind of diversion program to avoid hard jail time.  We’d have done the time.  At least the prisoners at Folsom and San Quentin got Johnny Cash.

Looping mostly is a quiet sport, best done alone or in small groups.  The places we stop generally have been on the smallish side, with few people to molest us.  Not so in Peterborough.  In addition to the mess that is Howard Jones, RibFest drew folks from all over the region.  Just on our dock alone, eleven boats full of merry-makers from Stoney Lake pulled in and partied until literally 3:30 am.  This is a photo of the calm before the pot-smoking crowd-storm that hit as sundown arrived.

Everyone surprisingly survived the night, however, and they all took off en masse Sunday morning for their trip home.

About a kilometer—since we’re in a metric country after all—from the dock was a Zagster Bike Share rack.  For the quite-reasonable price of $2—Canadian—per hour, the Misty Pearl and Second Wave crews rode over to check out the lift lock.  It’s just as cool as we imagined.

Note the same tour boat in the descending pan.  The lock attendants know Jody’s 15-minute script for the lift ride so between us we pieced the whole thing together without needing to pay.  Whoopeee!

Turns out, this is the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world, people!

In fact, that’s exactly what the lock attendant suggested should be used as the argument to be an “up-downer”—a boat that loops the lock rather than just passing one way—if one spouse is reluctant.  The one of us who wants to go through it three times instead of just once has been using that line with some regularity in preparation for tomorrow.  The other one of us has used her perfected eye roll just as many times.  If all works out, however, we’ll have some video along with some other interesting tidbits.

After the lock visit, we took off on the bikes with far too little thought about the heat and humidity.  Things started wonderfully on a reasonably cool tree-lined path.  

By the time we reached Trent University, however, old age had set in.  We made it back to the boats but just barely.

The plan had been to go bowling at the joint across the street.  Brent took a bowling class in college so had an obvious advantage, but we were confident that we could win the more important Big Lebowski-quote competition even without any contribution by Dana.  Alas, the lanes were closed despite the sign clearly stating that we could roll “year round.”  It looked a bit sketchy when we got over there anyway so maybe it’s for the best.

Dinner with Second Wave on the boat, with a solid plan for tomorrow.  We’ll drone over to check out the blue line at lock 20.  If it’s clear, we’ll head out.  If it’s jammed up, maybe we can go back to bed.  Either way, we’re up-downers all the way.