New Car

Congratulations to Tod, Cathy and Dylan for getting a new car that, as Tod says, "goes faster uphill than it does downhill".

Mattawa River trip

Last Saturday, July 15th, we were to start our river trip from Trout Lake, down the Mattawa River to the town of Mattawa. We were to take our time and spend 5 to 7 days on the water. One canoe and one kayak.

The first day there we ran into some issues and had to change our plan slightly. So we camped at Samuel De Champlain for the night and started the river on Sunday around noon. Everything went good for about a day and a half. Then mother nature decided to have some fun! Turned on the radio and they said that a Tornado was in our area, three minutes later we saw the storm coming across the lake. We ended up having to leave on the second day as we tried to make it through the tornado warnings. We lost our tent to blown over trees landing on it and after hanging on to something so that we, ourselves, would not blow away, we decided that we probably could not finish 4 more days without or tent. After assessing the damage and starting to freeze from the rain and cold wind, we called for a ride out.


View camping pictures here...


We appreciate Dad and Dale making the four hour drive to come and get us out of the woods. But then we had other problems to deal with. We found out that most of northern Ontario was without power. No power, no gas stations. So we drove down to Marci and Brians (thanks for the use of your cottage!)near Orillia, arrived about 3:30 am and fell asleep and prepared to gather up our thoughts for picking up our cars.

Gassed up and haveing a couple hours of sleep we headed out for the long drive. It was amazing seeing the damage done all the way up Hwy 11 and back down Hwy 17.

We were all safe but lost Len's great tent, his glasses and one cobra. Oh, and Len's camping pillow, where his head would have been laying!!!

For more detailed info on our trip click here...

Read more about the storm here....