Since we love to hike in conservation areas and discover birds and animals as well as plants and flowers, we chose a 2 day trip up north for our small, simple get away after our last weekend's marriage on Aug. 9th. Well, I joked after finding out that my mother and my dad had gone to North Bay on their honeymoon, and we all know in my family what effect She had on everything and everyone, and my husband's parents had a terrible experience stopping over there on the way back from Alberta in the late 70s, that our trip was now Jinxed lol!
Well, it did end up being jinxed in a way, by Mother Nature. She played havoc that week, the dates we chose :-( Pouring rain, freezing, windy - no hikes for us lol! The resort we chose, Sunset Inn Resort on Lakeshore Rd. was really quite nice, I was impressed. Very hospitable, great little location on Lake Nippissing, lovely staff, informed us of all the areas around we could walk, etc., you are able to just come into the office and borrow DVDs to watch in your room and they had a large selection of main stream movies to choose from, coffee available all day, gorgeous view and nice little sit out beach where you could wade out in if you were so inclined.
However, though we liked our room, we liked the place, and we had a nice dinner at the Raven & Republic, we decided Fri morning to check out a day early and go home. I felt that it was not worth wasting the money on the room when we could not do the things we had hoped like sit out and watch the sunset, hike and take photos, possibly see birds and animals on hikes, enjoy the grounds of the lovely resort, etc.
One fun thing we will have as memories is that the Thursday we drove up, due to it being rainy, we ducked into the local Value Village there to kill some time as we were too early to check in. I said, "if I find some interesting bird item, I'll get it". Low and behold, I looked on a trinket shelf, saw nothing, about 15 mins later, I spotted 2 little ceramic birds. They were adorable and looked to be nice quality, little made in Japan stickers on them still. Well, turns out they are Otagiri Japanese Fine Porcelain from probably the 1970s or so. We both love birds so it was a nice little memento :-) Not to mention I got 4 awesome tops!!! Who'd 'av thunk in the North Bay VV! Before we left the resort, we stepped out in a small reprieve from the constant rain, walked down the dock off the beach, took a couple shot sof the resort and we were treated to an Osprey flying across above us, hovering for a moment before flying off.
On the way home, having really planned on the Sat to stop at Algonquin for the day, I decided last minute on the Fri drive home we were making instead, to stop at Weber Burgers near Orillia. I have not been there since a teen when my kids' grandparents told me about the place and how their grandmother had grown up summers with the owner's kids. They sure do make awesome burgers!
Of course, as we neared Barrie back down to TO on our drive, wasn't the sun shining! On a whim, we decided to go to High Park, a place we have wanted to go to for ages. The Wood Ducks are less chicken there and we'd get to see them better. They are such beautiful little ducks. Well, we saw them, lots! We also were treated to American Gold Finches feasting on the sunflowers that had gone to seed in a garden there. We saw gorgeous flowers, both growing wild and in gardens. A cool wrinkly face in a tree was good for a laugh. We saw 2 Red Tailed Hawks, one flying pretty close and visible over our heads. Tons of butterflies and dragonflies. We spotted part of a garter snake that was wound in a hedge and since he couldn't see me I patted him quickly which got him moving and going totally inside the depths of the hedge. There is even a little zoo and there were baby animals. I even got an Emu feather from the edge of the Emu enclosure.
So, in the end, our trip wasn't so jinxed after all as we'd never get to see all those amazing creatures and have so much fun and see the beauty that is High Park if it weren't for Mother Nature causing us to head home a day early. Or .... I could take that back if I wanted to be negative about the yellow jacket stings I received
at High Park and a huge resulting itchy swollen red spot on my left arm that I still have as I type ...... nah, that wasn't enough to rejinx it lol!
Well, it did end up being jinxed in a way, by Mother Nature. She played havoc that week, the dates we chose :-( Pouring rain, freezing, windy - no hikes for us lol! The resort we chose, Sunset Inn Resort on Lakeshore Rd. was really quite nice, I was impressed. Very hospitable, great little location on Lake Nippissing, lovely staff, informed us of all the areas around we could walk, etc., you are able to just come into the office and borrow DVDs to watch in your room and they had a large selection of main stream movies to choose from, coffee available all day, gorgeous view and nice little sit out beach where you could wade out in if you were so inclined.
However, though we liked our room, we liked the place, and we had a nice dinner at the Raven & Republic, we decided Fri morning to check out a day early and go home. I felt that it was not worth wasting the money on the room when we could not do the things we had hoped like sit out and watch the sunset, hike and take photos, possibly see birds and animals on hikes, enjoy the grounds of the lovely resort, etc.One fun thing we will have as memories is that the Thursday we drove up, due to it being rainy, we ducked into the local Value Village there to kill some time as we were too early to check in. I said, "if I find some interesting bird item, I'll get it". Low and behold, I looked on a trinket shelf, saw nothing, about 15 mins later, I spotted 2 little ceramic birds. They were adorable and looked to be nice quality, little made in Japan stickers on them still. Well, turns out they are Otagiri Japanese Fine Porcelain from probably the 1970s or so. We both love birds so it was a nice little memento :-) Not to mention I got 4 awesome tops!!! Who'd 'av thunk in the North Bay VV! Before we left the resort, we stepped out in a small reprieve from the constant rain, walked down the dock off the beach, took a couple shot sof the resort and we were treated to an Osprey flying across above us, hovering for a moment before flying off.
On the way home, having really planned on the Sat to stop at Algonquin for the day, I decided last minute on the Fri drive home we were making instead, to stop at Weber Burgers near Orillia. I have not been there since a teen when my kids' grandparents told me about the place and how their grandmother had grown up summers with the owner's kids. They sure do make awesome burgers!
Of course, as we neared Barrie back down to TO on our drive, wasn't the sun shining! On a whim, we decided to go to High Park, a place we have wanted to go to for ages. The Wood Ducks are less chicken there and we'd get to see them better. They are such beautiful little ducks. Well, we saw them, lots! We also were treated to American Gold Finches feasting on the sunflowers that had gone to seed in a garden there. We saw gorgeous flowers, both growing wild and in gardens. A cool wrinkly face in a tree was good for a laugh. We saw 2 Red Tailed Hawks, one flying pretty close and visible over our heads. Tons of butterflies and dragonflies. We spotted part of a garter snake that was wound in a hedge and since he couldn't see me I patted him quickly which got him moving and going totally inside the depths of the hedge. There is even a little zoo and there were baby animals. I even got an Emu feather from the edge of the Emu enclosure.
So, in the end, our trip wasn't so jinxed after all as we'd never get to see all those amazing creatures and have so much fun and see the beauty that is High Park if it weren't for Mother Nature causing us to head home a day early. Or .... I could take that back if I wanted to be negative about the yellow jacket stings I received
at High Park and a huge resulting itchy swollen red spot on my left arm that I still have as I type ...... nah, that wasn't enough to rejinx it lol!
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