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| Nails ready, courtesy of a dollarstore. |
I decided that we would check out the 555 Brewing Company in Picton for lunch as they have wood fired pizza, AND they are a brewing company after all. They also have a nice outdoor patio with a 2×4 jenga set.
As you notice, there is always silly faces…. always….
Our next stop was to tour around downtown and check out all the outdoor activities. The local tattoo shop was offering “tattoos” for kids (stick ons) and real $50 Canadian ones for adults. Hard to tell, but I don’t know if he was impressed by getting the fake one applied LOL. At the local park there was lots of bouncy castles. I am not a huge fan since we are the ones waiting in line and not getting to participate. 😕
After waiting in the hot sun, we got some yummy lemon-aid, accompanied by a silly dance.
All the bouncy castle time, getting snacks, etc was also passing time for when I would head back to the tattoo shop, Artistic Inklings, to get a REAL tattoo meant for adults. I have been here a couple of times before in the fall, and Jamie does some real awesome work. So it was finally my turn and here is the result (sorry mom, I know what you are going to say).
Sunday, July 2nd, 2017
So I did mention the hidden agenda…ever since the #150for150 event last weekend in Algonquin, my push to get our own canoe has been hitting me really hard. We have borrowed and rented canoes multiple times in the past, and I was super tired of carrying a heavy 80 pound canoe. I know I push my students to carry these canoes, but we are getting older (cough cough) and I am looking to get my own lighter canoe. It was time. So on Friday I had mentioned going out to Algonquin Outfitters and the Swift Canoe & Kayak place on Oxtongue Lake. I think Dan knew this was going to happen as he just smiled at me.
He ended up waking me up just before 8 am Sunday saying…. “are we going or what? cause if we are, you need to get up and get ready. We should have been out of here hours ago.” I know, I know… I was not up and ready, but I tell you, it didn’t take me long! We were out of the house before 9 and started our drive North. We would end up going through Algonquin Park, major deja vu as we just camped here last weekend.
Once at the Swift store, we headed straight for all the displays, trying to find the canoe we had last weekend, and looking for what the third seat would be like. Brian came over and we started with all the questions. He was awesome to talk to, and even had us try out a couple of 18.6 canoes. They were a little big for us, and it helped us identify that we were going to settle on getting a 17ft canoe. We figure for the next, hopefully, 5 years or more Hayden would be joining us on our canoe trips. It is important that he have a better place to sit, rather than on our gear or in the bottom of a wet canoe.
I had to laugh when Brian suggested that we go think about our possible purchase, hinting that maybe Dan was the one pushing to buy. Nope.. totally me… I’m the spender and he’s the conservative one. We mulled around the Algonquin Outfitters store (third one this year, and within a week of the last two!), and I had made up my mind. We were not leaving without buying the canoe. I beeline it back to Brian, set up what we wanted, and BAM! Canoe will be ours in about a month. (Insert buyers remorse for Dan LOL) Obviously there will be a blog with her maiden voyage. Now I have to think of a name for our lovely canoe that’s coming.
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| Purchase complete, now the long wait! Thanks Brian at Swift! |
Since we were driving through Algonquin Park, again, we stopped at the west gate for a photo op. Plus Hayden is collecting patches from park and we checked out to see what was in the store on this end. He has another patch to add to his collection 😄
Most times through the park, we do not see any big wildlife. We got lucky last weekend to see a black bear, and this time we were able to see a moose and her calf. I must say that people were really good in pulling off the road, and you know there is wildlife when you see this many cars. Dan did say that someone was not as smart and double parked until everyone yelled at him to move his car. There’s always one in the crowd.
The last stop was at the Logging Museum and Exhibition hike. We have never actually stopped here, but took advantage this time as it was a nice short hike around the outdoor exhibits. Hayden was having fun going in and out of all the displays, and climbing on things when he could. So crazy to believe that these loggers actually could cut square logs this big with just their axes!
Overall I would say that our weekend was pretty memorable! I have a few more memorable weekends in the future and I hope you are enjoying reading about what we do as a family.