And my back, shoulders and belly are all sunburned. I can never figure out why my belly gets more sun than my chest. But anyhow, just returned from an awesome week in Eastern Ontario, near Plevna. I stayed at a cottage we rented on a beautiful property in this rugged area of the province. As well, I had an opportunity to drive through the heart of Lanark County, see many “Government Back Off” signs, and had a short but good telephone conversation with Randy Hillier, President of the Lanark Landowner’s Association.
A few other neat things:
Nearly hit a quite large black bear as I turned a corner on Hwy. 509 – there he was stationary in the middle of the road, on all fours as we came around the curve. Tires squealed, coffee went flying, and I went, “Holy crap! We’re gonna hit a bear!” But the bear ran off to the side of the road, and in what seemed like a superman maneuvre, scaled a small cliff in seconds. This was no cub. He/she had an enormously wide back end and climbing or hopping or whatever it did up a cliff was a breeze.
Humming birds. Dozens of them. Every so often, we’d hear this odd noise and look up to see a humming bird hovering over a flower, darting forward and backward. I’ve seen humming birds before, but not dozens at a time.
Bats. Hundreds of them. A couple of evenings, I sat on the deck, and watched bats coming within a foot of me before some what seemed impossible aeronautic gymnastics, turning at right angles before hitting me and then dive bombing the surface of the lake.
Shooting stars. I think the earth was passing through a meteor belt.. is it the Perseids in August? I haven’t checked yet, but a couple of nights, we saw lots of “shooting stars,” – several per minute.
Mushrooms. I’ve done quite a bit of hiking and camping, and have come across mushrooms, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen orange mushrooms before. I left my flora and fauna guide books at home but I’ll be doing some research on those.
Ah, a week without a computer, a television, the Internet, newspapers, television… it was awesome! But I really am way behind on the news, as well as about 3,000 emails to go through.
Personally, it was a fantastic memorable time, spent with three of my sons and … ummm.. my ex-wife, believe it or not. More on all this later, maybe, if I have time and perhaps a picture or two as well. I also have to catch up on all my favorite blogs as well! Sheesh.. coming back from a vacation is tiring!