Celebrating Myself, Triumphantly: Canada Part Deux

Ok, I'm back with the second part of Canadian travels. I figured I ought to go ahead and finish off Canada because I leave for London in 2 DAYS!

Where to start? I will never know ... For those of you paying attention, that's Wilno! The 1st Polish settlement in Canada ... a pretty adorable town, I'm not going to lie. We went to the Wilno tavern one of our first nights in the Valley and it was DELICIOUS. I know your first thought toward Polish food is probably sauerkraut and sausage, which is appropriate, but if you weren't including cabbage rolls or pierogis, you're missing out. The tavern was adorable and the food was outstanding, but the real treat was the live music! Especially the really impressive girl on the accordion ...

Not to sound like all I did on my trip was eat, but another fantastic meal in Canada were the chips. Due to their European influence, fries are commonly called chips (see? I'm so ready for London) and we would visit the "chip trucks" for lunch! These fries aren't even in the same zip code as McDonalds ... brown, fresh-cut, steamy, and covered in vinegar and seasoning salt. Sooooo goood.

Told you so.

We also participated in a lot of water sports at the cottage ... aka Kristi trying to water ski. Tyler didn't really have an issue getting up and staying up his first, second, or eighteenth try. Neither did Victoria, which was just plain annoying. Eventually, although I do not have photographic proof, due to my lightning fast ski reflexes, I did get up for 3 or 4 seconds. Holla!

Yah yah yah, whatever.

Vic, also being successful.

One of my many graceful failed attempts.

I took pride in that at least I looked really good whilst crashing and burning.

One of the other fun things we got to do was the Poker Derby. Since we were on the edge of Golden Lake, all of the people who own cottages along the water participate in various events and contests sponsored by various organizations and we just happened to be there for this one! The game went like this: you take your boat from dock to dock, labeled with different numbers, and picked up a playing card at each one. At the end of your boating, whoever ended up with the best poker hand wins! Well, I didn't feel that I was doing really fantastic, I had a loooot of 7's, 8's, and 9's. I don't know much about poker, but I don't feel like that's that impressive.

However, at the last dock, I pick up my 4th 9 ... leaving me with 4-of-a-kind in 9's! That's legit, huh? Long story short, I won 5th place and got my picture in the paper and everything. I won a gift certificate and took the family out for brunch the following Sunday. It was a success!

Strategizing our route

Me with all the winners! Yay!

One of my favorite things about Canada was watching the sun go down every night and enjoying the nighttime show. I couldn't stop taking sunset pictures. I was addicted!

More water sports news ... tubing was fun! But hurt. I don't know if it was the combination of the boat jolting the tube around behind, or the speed at which the tube was traveling that caused the constant and very painful bumping and slapping your hindquarters against the very thin fabric between you and the water ... but it was an experience.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Happy to be safely floating about again.

SMORES! How could I leave out smores ... we made a big bonfire one night and roasted smores, watched the fireworks (they like fireworks in Canada, and not just on July 4), and enjoyed ourselves. I also took one of my favorite photos of the trip:

Vic likes smores.

So do I!

Another exciting thing we got to do was visit Algonquin Park and see it from 2 angles! We took a trail to look over the cliffs of the canal and see it from up high ... and also, canoe it from down below!

That was the view from up high ... and now, the canoe view!

It was an amazing trip, and the 8 miles of canoeing plus portaging were definitely worth it!

Well, that's about the highlights of my trip, obviously there were various other exciting things that happened, but that would be a long ass blog entry ... ergo, I will say g'bye and leave you with some parting photos. Cheers!