General – Page 2 – The Destinators

What on Earth happened?

It used to be that in the spring we’d restart our blog with a recap of the previous year’s trip. That tradition was suspended in 2020 because of COVID and has remained so until now for that and a couple of other, unrelated reasons.

Home

We’re home after a quick (hey, it’s all relative…) month-long trip to visit my mom in Florida. Although it’s not our preferred pace, we took just 3 hops to get back to Vermont from there. The timing for the whole trip allowed us to see friends on the way down, visit 2 National Parks we’d never seen, and spend a week with my mom. However, the timing of events and appointments between Florida and back home required a northbound skedaddle. Fortunately, on a previous trip we’d scouted out the best/shortest/most direct route should we ever need to get to my mom’s in a hurry, and we used that route in reverse to get back north.

On the road again, again

Time to visit my mom in Florida! Driving to Florida in the RV, as opposed to flying there in an airplane, gives us opportunities to spend more time with my mom, bring instruments along for jams, and see friends along the way, so we’re out again for about a month. Plans include exploring a couple of east coast national parks we’ve not yet visited (aka going places that we’ve never been) and, yes, making music with our friends.

Hey mom, see you soon!

Happy homeowner projects

It’s been 20 years since we bought our home and did a thorough round of remodeling and renovation projects. That means… it’s time to do them again!

Brampton, ON

Sue, Iris, Doug

Our last stop before we arrive in Toronto was Brampton, ON where we enjoyed getting together with our musician friend, Iris. Of course, it was an opportunity to jam!

Manitoulin Island

Lake Manitou from the Cup & Saucer cliffs

Look at any map of Ontario, and there’s a curious island at the north end of Lake Huron. It’s Manitoulin Island and we’d never heard of it. And it has a dotted line attached to its southern shore. Ferry! This needed some research.

It turns out Manitoulin Island is the largest island in a freshwater lake in the world. Interestingly, Manitou Lake (in the photo above) is the largest freshwater lake on an island in the world. The population (13,000) is a healthy mix of people of indigenous and European descent. Politically and culturally, the island is in North Ontario. Geologically – the Niagara Escarpment runs through it – it’s an extension of South Ontario. There are only 2 ways on or off the island – a swing bridge from Little Current to the mainland, and a ferry to and from the Bruce Peninsula that runs only in the summer. It sounded to us like a unique place worthy of exploration…

SW Ontario, part 2 – Owen Sound

There’s a strategy for travelers facing busy, tourist-filled areas during peak season. It’s called: Zig where others zag. We employ this strategy often, and it’s been quite effective!

SW Ontario, part 1 – South and West

We spent some quality time exploring Ontario in 2018. We headed east through North Ontario in May, and returned via South Ontario in October. The difference between the two is striking. North Ontario is nearly 1 million square kilometers of arboreal forest and many, many lakes on the rocky Canadian Shield. With <1 person per square kilometer, there are more moose than people. South Ontario is just under 100,000 square kilometers of farms, wineries and orchards with 5 big lakes, 3 of them great – Erie, Ontario and Huron. Canada’s largest city, Toronto, and the capital of Canada, Ottawa (on the northern edge of South Ontario), drive the population density to 120 people per square kilometer. The dividing line is the nearly 10,000 square kilometer Algonquin Provincial Park, home to 12 million* beavers.

There was one area of Ontario we had yet to visit – Southwest Ontario. This is an area within South Ontario that touches Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Half of this area is north of our 44° home latitude, half is south.

Family & friends

We’re heading to a music event in Toronto. That’s an 11-hour drive from home, but think of everything we’d miss if we drove directly to Toronto and back! So in our usual never-take-the-direct-route way of getting anywhere, we found we can visits friends and family, explore a few corners of Ontario we’ve not yet been to, and attend our event all in 3 weeks!

Greetings from the Fourth of July Capital of the Universe!

Honest. Our tiny town of Warren, Vermont (pop 2,000) bills itself as ‘The Fourth of July Capital of the Universe.’ The entire celebration revolves around the Warren Parade – a unique, quirky, often political and always hilarious event that typically draws a crowd of 10,000 from New England and beyond, in the absence of a pandemic. After slightly smaller crowds over the past 2 years, the Warren Parade was back with a vengeance…