Algonquin park camping day 3
June 2, 2025
I had a wonderful sleep again. I woke up sometime before seven and went to the washroom. I went back to bed and felt so cosy again in my wool blankets with sheets between me and them and over top.
I was most concerned when I was sleeping that I didn’t breathe into my covers and create dampness for myself. I really like sleeping with the covers over my head. But I do have to leave my nose out a little bit or have a hole for the air to come in and out.
I lay in bed and read my scriptures and also the New York Times article I had downloaded yesterday at the store.
At nine I started to hear people, Ben had been up since seven he said
We got up and sat for a little while to take down our tents.
Ben has a real process set up. They’ve been honing their camping equipment for quite a few years now, and I’ve gotten it down to a real art.
I made eggs for breakfast with onions and garlic and red and yellow and orange peppers. I cooked it over the fire. It was really nice to cook over the fire. I put dish soap on the bottom of my frying pan.
Daughter-in-law brought lots of food, so I didn’t have to do much of anything. And I’ve been quite full ever since we came.
I did have lettuce for the wrap she made. They were really good. They had all the things that you get at Mucho burrito.
The black flies were bad. They were much worse than they’ve been.
GS and I played with incense and dipped it into the candle wax and made ‘candles’. The incense went out when it got down to the wax, though. Oh well.
A boy from a few sites away, Abid, a Syrian from Dubai came over and played a lot. Last night at the campfire, he was lighting a stick and waving it around and making me quite concerned.
I had tossed the paper towel onto the grill by mistake, instead of it going into the fire and being consumed, it floated right up into the tree and was lit up there for a few seconds. At least 10. It was quite a worry.
The incense sticks work so well. I put them in the ground around our chairs and we didn’t have any trouble with bugs last night
This morning, however, it was more buggy. There are dozens in my car, even.
We packed up and went to the beach, where they put their lifejacket and paddles under the canoe and then took a photo of it to send to the company.
Ben pulled the kayak to my car. I wanted to know if I could still put it on my car, so I worked at it and sure enough I was able to! That was great.
2 PM.
Out of the campsite.
I sat beside the water at the corner campsite and wrote in my journal on my phone for a few minutes. A dragonfly with yellow green stripes, and a forked tail sat on my forearm. I was so smart to put on all of the citronella bug repellent.
Now that I have found out by the x-rays that I have a lot of arthritis in my wrist, I’m realizing how my inability to do things with them is related to that. There’s no way I could hold a cast iron frying pan anymore.
I’m not sure how much to carry.
A lot of Muslim men come camp together here. Male bonding time I guess. There’s a bunch of seiks here with their turbans on. Not everybody’s got on turban, but a few of them do.
It’s been very nice camping here.
Camping is so short. You barely get here and set up and you spend a whole day and then go home. I sure like being in my camping bed.
I think I’m going to put one of these sleeping bags on the couch in the screen tent on the shady deck and sleep in there sometimes. That would make going to bed more interesting.
At home I don’t like The evening because I’m in the house pretty much alone while people are doing their computer stuff. But I don’t have enough energy to do something else. So perhaps laying on the couch in the evening would be a good idea. And if I’m in a mummy bag, then the temperature shouldn’t bother me, or even the dampness.
3:47 pm
I’ve been sitting by the rock lake campground office since two, checking messages and figuring out my plans. I’ve been reading the booklet that they give you. There are so many lakes here like 230.
I think on the way back home there is a park visitor centre with a book on lichen. I would like to get that book. Also, there is a bog with a boardwalk through it that I would like to walk on. And there is a logging museum.
So we’ll see if I feel like doing any of those things when I get there. You never know!
I considered going from here to Mary Jane’s, but she’s pretty busy with her bus driving and taking care of her husband, so I think I’ll just head back and do these things.
I phoned Willem. He was really glad I’d had a good time. I said if I wasn’t home by dark I would send him a postcard to which he responded, “OK.”
He knows me so well. The bugs are so horrible here that I’m sitting in the car with the windows closed. I’m glad it’s not blackfly season down our way anymore, just deer flies and mosquitoes.
OK, I’m gonna head out now.
5 pm
I went to the visitors center. They had some good books on mosses and lichens.
I bought a mug with black spruce trees on it.
They had a wonderful museum. I loved seeing what’s under the water, diving animals like kingfishers, fish, otters, beavers.
They had a great beaver dam and lodge display.
Algonquin has been inhabited and logged for many years. Only now it’s so wild.
6pm
I stopped at the bog boardwalk and walked the 1.5km trail. I was alone in the parking lot and on the trail. I filmed it. It took me 30 minutes.
The mosses were incredible under all the black spruce trees. Spruces grow best in peat, pines in sand and maples in regular soil. I learned that, which makes complete sense!
I left the park. It was so wild and remote and uninhabited.
All the way home it was too, with a few small villages and endless forests.
my map took me down a dirt road, not maintained in winter. I prayed a lot.
When I got home I realized just how remote a place we live in as well.
Abe greeted me. Dan and Enna were going in from the garden. Willem was glad to see me and we hung out and shared our stories.
It was a great trip. I’m so glad not to be driving anymore.
I had a wonderful sleep again. I woke up sometime before seven and went to the washroom. I went back to bed and felt so cosy again in my wool blankets with sheets between me and them and over top.
I was most concerned when I was sleeping that I didn’t breathe into my covers and create dampness for myself. I really like sleeping with the covers over my head. But I do have to leave my nose out a little bit or have a hole for the air to come in and out.
I lay in bed and read my scriptures and also the New York Times article I had downloaded yesterday at the store.
At nine I started to hear people, Ben had been up since seven he said
We got up and sat for a little while to take down our tents.
Ben has a real process set up. They’ve been honing their camping equipment for quite a few years now, and I’ve gotten it down to a real art.
I made eggs for breakfast with onions and garlic and red and yellow and orange peppers. I cooked it over the fire. It was really nice to cook over the fire. I put dish soap on the bottom of my frying pan.
Daughter-in-law brought lots of food, so I didn’t have to do much of anything. And I’ve been quite full ever since we came.
I did have lettuce for the wrap she made. They were really good. They had all the things that you get at Mucho burrito.
The black flies were bad. They were much worse than they’ve been.
GS and I played with incense and dipped it into the candle wax and made ‘candles’. The incense went out when it got down to the wax, though. Oh well.
A boy from a few sites away, Abid, a Syrian from Dubai came over and played a lot. Last night at the campfire, he was lighting a stick and waving it around and making me quite concerned.
I had tossed the paper towel onto the grill by mistake, instead of it going into the fire and being consumed, it floated right up into the tree and was lit up there for a few seconds. At least 10. It was quite a worry.
The incense sticks work so well. I put them in the ground around our chairs and we didn’t have any trouble with bugs last night
This morning, however, it was more buggy. There are dozens in my car, even.
We packed up and went to the beach, where they put their lifejacket and paddles under the canoe and then took a photo of it to send to the company.
Ben pulled the kayak to my car. I wanted to know if I could still put it on my car, so I worked at it and sure enough I was able to! That was great.
2 PM.
Out of the campsite.
I sat beside the water at the corner campsite and wrote in my journal on my phone for a few minutes. A dragonfly with yellow green stripes, and a forked tail sat on my forearm. I was so smart to put on all of the citronella bug repellent.
Now that I have found out by the x-rays that I have a lot of arthritis in my wrist, I’m realizing how my inability to do things with them is related to that. There’s no way I could hold a cast iron frying pan anymore.
I’m not sure how much to carry.
A lot of Muslim men come camp together here. Male bonding time I guess. There’s a bunch of seiks here with their turbans on. Not everybody’s got on turban, but a few of them do.
It’s been very nice camping here.
Camping is so short. You barely get here and set up and you spend a whole day and then go home. I sure like being in my camping bed.
I think I’m going to put one of these sleeping bags on the couch in the screen tent on the shady deck and sleep in there sometimes. That would make going to bed more interesting.
At home I don’t like The evening because I’m in the house pretty much alone while people are doing their computer stuff. But I don’t have enough energy to do something else. So perhaps laying on the couch in the evening would be a good idea. And if I’m in a mummy bag, then the temperature shouldn’t bother me, or even the dampness.
3:47 pm
I’ve been sitting by the rock lake campground office since two, checking messages and figuring out my plans. I’ve been reading the booklet that they give you. There are so many lakes here like 230.
I think on the way back home there is a park visitor centre with a book on lichen. I would like to get that book. Also, there is a bog with a boardwalk through it that I would like to walk on. And there is a logging museum.
So we’ll see if I feel like doing any of those things when I get there. You never know!
I considered going from here to Mary Jane’s, but she’s pretty busy with her bus driving and taking care of her husband, so I think I’ll just head back and do these things.
I phoned Willem. He was really glad I’d had a good time. I said if I wasn’t home by dark I would send him a postcard to which he responded, “OK.”
He knows me so well. The bugs are so horrible here that I’m sitting in the car with the windows closed. I’m glad it’s not blackfly season down our way anymore, just deer flies and mosquitoes.
OK, I’m gonna head out now.
5 pm
I went to the visitors center. They had some good books on mosses and lichens.
I bought a mug with black spruce trees on it.
They had a wonderful museum. I loved seeing what’s under the water, diving animals like kingfishers, fish, otters, beavers.
They had a great beaver dam and lodge display.
Algonquin has been inhabited and logged for many years. Only now it’s so wild.
6pm
I stopped at the bog boardwalk and walked the 1.5km trail. I was alone in the parking lot and on the trail. I filmed it. It took me 30 minutes.
The mosses were incredible under all the black spruce trees. Spruces grow best in peat, pines in sand and maples in regular soil. I learned that, which makes complete sense!
I left the park. It was so wild and remote and uninhabited.
All the way home it was too, with a few small villages and endless forests.
my map took me down a dirt road, not maintained in winter. I prayed a lot.
When I got home I realized just how remote a place we live in as well.
Abe greeted me. Dan and Enna were going in from the garden. Willem was glad to see me and we hung out and shared our stories.
It was a great trip. I’m so glad not to be driving anymore.