Cottage Weekend

This weekend past Bob and I took the only weekend we had free this summer and headed out to my brother's new cottage buy in the Land O' Lakes area north of Belleville, Ontario.  This was actually a trip down memory lane for me since we used to cottage at Lake Kashawakamak every summer in the same area as kids.  What fun we had those days!  Seeing such names as Fernleigh, Myer's Cave and Plevna brought it all back in a flood of happy memories.  Have I really gotten so old so fast??

Read on for more cottage adventures...

Regardless we met my brother Rene, at the little marina in Ompah and motored over to his island.  The day was beautiful and we soon were enjoying doing nothing in the stunning vista of Ontario lakes and fresh air. We slept in our little bunkie up high on a granite boulder - only a glacier from the Ice Age could deposit that!  The breeze floated through the plentiful windows filling the air with the smell of pine and summers long ago.  Robert and I slept like babies.

My brother and his wife enjoy a good cup of coffee just as much as we do so we did nothing more on Saturday morning than fire up several pots of Bridgehead and relish the early morning air with my mom there too.  The day was filled with promise as the sun bore down.  It was heaven.  But Rene and I decided to engage in the Polar Bear swim before breakfast.  That was a swim to one of the little islands and back. Annika, his 12 year old daughter and my niece, accompanied us on her paddle board for safety.  We made good time covering the 1500 meters in about 25 minutes.  I repeated that distance later in the day as Rene's wife Jody paddled alongside me.  Only I forgot to practice sighting as I swam and ended up swimming quite a lot longer.  I thought the distance seemed longer!  It was wonderful exercise though.  Then I also tried stand-up paddle boarding - all the rage right now. What a serious ab workout that was! As you can tell, I have a really hard time sitting down even when I'm supposed to be relaxing.

The day passed brilliantly knocking us out with incredible scenery, food and family time.  I needed that.

Sunday brought about another kind of scenery altogether.  Hurricane Irene delivered her nasty blow with gale force winds that pulled the floating dock from its moorings.  There would be no swimming today.  We bundled up and drank our coffee witnessing the power of nature at work.

It wasn't long before our weekend paradise came to an end.  We had to head back as we are now packing like mad fiends to help Chelsea get ready for university.  Stay tuned for notes from our road trip to Halifax!!