Thank God - No Rain
Woke up and made some decisions this morning. Tonight is our last night at Quetico. I’d planned to stay another night but when I switched sites my current spot was only available for 3 nights instead of 4 and thus I’d have to move AGAIN. For one more night it didn’t make much sense. I looked at the destination - Sleeping Giant - to see if my site there was available for one extra night on the front end but alas no and I didn’t want to be moving all over the place again. So I made a big decision and booked a hotel room in T-Bay for a night. Feels a little silly considering Quetico is only three hours from Sleeping Giant but a real bed, clean shower (the shared showers in the parks are what I absolutely hate the most), and proper food sound pretty good.
Speaking of the showers, there is a podcast that I absolutely love listening to - “Ologies”. Each episode is on a study/science of something with an expert - the latest was Fromology (the science of cheese) and some of my favourites were Coffeeology (if there isn’t actually a scientific name they just add ology to the end), Misophonology (I definitely have that) and Ambystomology (axolotls). Anyway, there’s a really fun one called Disgustology which discusses various things that people find (or don’t find) disgusting. Park showers are definitely on my list of disgustology.
It’s grey today but with 0% chance of rain (supposedly) so I planned to tire out Jubs and then go for an afternoon paddle around French Lake. With any luck, I’ll be able to get in one last paddle tomorrow before heading to T-Bay.
Saw a painted turtle today while I was sitting on my coffeee rock. And also saw a grouse. Oh ya saw a kingfisher when I did the big paddle a couple days ago.
It’s only 15 degrees today so I bought some wood from the park store to have a fire later and splurged on a sticker and cap and then took Jubs to the dog beach. Each park varies in its facilities for dogs from none to really excellent. Quetico is definitely up there with a great off leash beach and off leash trail. Ivanhoe PP, where I stopped last year, had an excellent off leash beach and also a toy and stick lending library which was super cute. These are the only times you’re allowed to have your dog off leash, even on your own site, so when a park has no facilities it can be challenging to manage a crazy dog like Juno who really needs to move for a good hour plus every day. I don’t know if there’s a rule for the backcountry but I just never leash her up out there - mostly because there’s no one else about.
We then got in the canoe and paddled around for a couple hours. Battled some gusts and did lots of drifting. It was super.
Got back and did some hammock time but Jubs couldn’t settle. She just wanted to murder chipmunks. The chipmunks basically just taunted her and laughed, knowing she didn’t have a chance.
Got cold and made fire, that was nice. Jubs still wouldn’t settle down. She’s like a damn toddler and will only sleep when she’s in her bed surrounded by walls so there’s nothing she can see to tempt her. And she won’t go in there by herself. But hell, especially after being stuck in there all day yesterday I was not going into the tent today. So I ignored her and puttered around trying to organize the chaos of gear.
Took Jubs for a pee break and walked by a site where a woman was setting up her X-Dome 1 (the amazing tent I have except mine is the 2 person version - cause dog or so I thought) and she had two dogs (both border collies). So I stopped and chatted with her and she showed me how everyone fits into the one. Impressive! She told me she was setting off tomorrow for the Big Loop which is about 16 days and she’s doing it on her own - so cool!
Ate some popcorn for dinner. Don’t judge.
Are you a friend or a family? Want to know exactly where I am? Use this link: share.garmin.com/andthisjusthappened
