On the Road - Finally
It was a saga trying to get going in the trip! My car broke about two weeks ago and it’s taken that long to get fixed. Long story short, my car wasn’t finished until mid-afternoon of my planned departure day and so I didn’t feel comfortable hitting the road so late in the day with a long drive ahead to Chutes PP. It was my hope to have two nights there because my next drive is the longest of the trip - a whopping seven hours. Chutes is a really nice little park right off Highway 17 about an hour west of Sudbury. The sites are nice and it really makes a great stopping point. I’ve stayed here a few times before and I always like it.
Anyway, I packed up what I thought was most of my stuff into the car Friday night but when I got up in the morning to do the rest, the pile seamed to double over night. So it took me a while to get going. I couldn’t find my cooler bag anywhere and it’s a nice luxury to have so I thought I’d hit up my storage locker before I got on the road. No luck sadly and I didn’t want to dawdle any longer. By the time I actually got on the road it was 10:30. It took me ages to get past Barrie because it appeared everyone was headed north. The traffic started to thin out once I got on the 400 but it was still busy until I reached Oastler Lake PP, a planned stop so Jubs could stretch her legs. There’s a little off leash beach there so she did swimmies and played with a couple kids.
After about 45 minutes we got back in the car to tackle the second leg. I don’t love arriving late to set up camp and was starting to fret a little. So I pumped up the music and mentally prepared to just go. Once past Parry Sound the traffic died and it was smooth sailing.
About half an hour from Parry Sound, Jubs started to act funny. She was panting super hard and couldn’t settle - so of course I panicked and all the worst scenarios went through my head - was it bloat? was it water poisoning because she ingested too much? was it blue algae? I was convinced that we wouldn’t even make it to a vet in Sudbury. She seemed in real distress. We stopped a couple of times and I let her out of the car and she was fine (?!?!?!) then she got back in the car and started to pant hard again all while pacing. The car was ice cold so it couldn’t be the heat. On my last stop I checked her stomach to see if it was soft and it was. She decided to chase a butterfly and did her rollies so I decided to just get going. By that time it was way past plan so I figured I’d make a snap decision while passing through Sudbury. Man this damn dog seriously keeps me on my toes. I very often wish I had an easier dog but always in the same breath could never imagine having a different one. At that point she seemed more comfortable so I just decided to press on. Finally arrived at Chutes at 5pm and she was totally fine. Not sure what happened but crisis averted.
Upon checking in, I talked to the girls at the gatehouse about finding an off leash beach and a spot to grab some dinner. They gave me a local tip to visit a little beach on the Spanish River on the other side of town. Wow, what a spot! I’d definitely go back if I were staying longer. We did some gentle swimmies so as to not have a repeat of before. They also told me about a food truck on the reserve close by so I decided to hit that up for dinner. Holy smokes it was good and they were doing swift business. Definitely off the beaten path and well worth the detour.
It was so bloody hot that just putting up camp was enough to zap all my energy. I was just trying to stop sweating and was already dreading packing up the car in the morning. The weather called for rain over night and into Sunday. Sunday was an epic drive so it didn’t matter. No photos from the day. Too hot and too busy.
Are you a friend or a family? Want to know exactly where I am? Use this link: share.garmin.com/andthisjusthappened
