Ontario and Blue Lake!

July 28, 2019

It looks like a good day to travel, – blue skies, light winds. After showers and a good breakfast, we headed out.  I had dismantled most of the camp the night before so it did not take us long to hit the road.  We said goodbye to Winnipeg as we circumvented the city on the perimeter road.  

Our destination was Sandbar Provincial Park.  We had not reserved a site there, but we felt that there would be a site available on a Sunday afternoon.  

The terrain changed several times as we headed east.  Farmlands changed to forest and then as we approached Kenora, the lakes appeared. Kenora and the Lake of the Woods looked interesting and we took our time going through Kenora, and stopped in at the visitor center to make sure that we were not going to miss anything.  

We fueled the truck and continued on.  As we wound our way through the miles of forests, lakes and rocky hills, it became apparent to us that we needed to find a campsite before Sandbar Provincial Park.  We had promised each other that we would not drive for too long or drive in the dark. Debbie searched the maps and found Blue Lake Provincial Park, just ahead of us so we thought we would try to find a site there.  Sandbar Provincial Park would have been another hour away.   Luck was with us, and we secured a great site near the lake!! 

It was still early afternoon, so we set up and planned either to go swimming in the lake or go kayaking.  We always toast a new province with a bottle of Proseco, but for some strange reason we had forgotten to stop at a liquor store!  I inquired at the gatehouse and learned that there was a liquor outlet just 8 kms from the campground.  We also liked the campground and I was able to secure our site for another day.  I quickly jumped into the truck and made it to the store minutes before their closing time.  

As I was returning to the campground, I saw it again!  The black cloud was looking for us!!  Sure enough, within a hour, thunder and lightning began and the winds picked up.  So much for our swimming or kayaking plans.  We still carried out our tradition and toasted our new province, Ontario. We went inside, I worked on more blog notes, and we talked on the phone to our daughter Rina and then went to bed listening to the rain tapping on our roof.