I know a number of you have emailed me that you would like to trade places for a day but today would probably not be the best choice. We’ve had steady rain since 4am and although it brought a welcome 64 degrees this morning, there are 25 knot winds out on Lake Simcoe, our destination for today. We decided to wait until 10 am and then slop along in the rain through 5 locks (#37-41). This canal section carves right through farmland and the cows had more sense today and remained in the barn. Luckily, the lake calmed down by noon and we had a good crossing over to Orillia.
Port of Orillia Marina offers great service at an excellent price ($1.40 per foot and 3rd day is free.) It is a chance to power up, take a really looooooong shower and explore a neat town. The town is decorated with artistic guitars to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their folk festival and also their hometown troubadour, Gordon Lightfoot. Any Lake Superior boater knows all the words to his song, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and we try not to focus too much on “the lake, it is said, never gives up her dead….”
Orillia has another famous denizen, Brian Orser, the Olympic skater from the 1980s who landed the first triple axle in the Olympics. My daughter Kate was a figure skater then and we watched him with awe. His legacy lives on here at the Brian Orser Skating Arena and he trained the 2010 Olympic gold medalist, Kim Yu-Na, close by in Toronto.
We will probably be leaving here tomorrow to get ahead of some more bad weather headed our way. We did enjoy the street fair but I am not really sure where Bob is---sometimes it’s like trying to Find Waldo.
Port of Orillia Marina offers great service at an excellent price ($1.40 per foot and 3rd day is free.) It is a chance to power up, take a really looooooong shower and explore a neat town. The town is decorated with artistic guitars to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their folk festival and also their hometown troubadour, Gordon Lightfoot. Any Lake Superior boater knows all the words to his song, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and we try not to focus too much on “the lake, it is said, never gives up her dead….”
Orillia has another famous denizen, Brian Orser, the Olympic skater from the 1980s who landed the first triple axle in the Olympics. My daughter Kate was a figure skater then and we watched him with awe. His legacy lives on here at the Brian Orser Skating Arena and he trained the 2010 Olympic gold medalist, Kim Yu-Na, close by in Toronto.
We will probably be leaving here tomorrow to get ahead of some more bad weather headed our way. We did enjoy the street fair but I am not really sure where Bob is---sometimes it’s like trying to Find Waldo.
PS--It's good to have a plan but stay flexible. I woke up at 6am on Saturday, 7/24 and it was a stiffling 85% humidity with absolutely no air flow. New plan is to stay here at Orillia and wait for the weather to get ahead of us. We had a great day here starting with breakfast at Zats, a long walk to the Stephen Leacock Museum and then another long walk on the Lightfoot trail. Stephen Leacock is the Mark Twain of Canada and the used book store had a copy of his famous book, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. It really makes small town Canada come alive with colorful characters and anecdotes.
The next 2 days we will be making our way towards famous lock #44, the Chute. You do not want to miss this one--we will be traveling by railroad track laid in the water, then over land and downhill like a roller coaster with a splashdown on the other side.
