Gone, Gone, Gone, She Been Gone So Long...

(Finally, I get to use a Chilliwack reference in a title.)

So I've been taking some time off lately. I have been having some difficulty with finding things to write about, or if I write something I don't like it at all. I've been a touch too maudlin and introspective lately and no one wants to read that stuff, myself included.

So I thought I'd take some time off and rest up a bit. I even took a little vacation. Would you like to hear about it? Well, you're going to anyway.

A couple of months ago my boyfriend and I suddenly realized that we had never argued with each other outdoors, so we naturally decided to take a camping trip together. We had planned to take it the week of Labour Day for a number of reasons. 1. I was going to be off work from my temporary job by then. 2. Who takes a vacation after Labour Day? Kids have to be back at school, it should be less crowded. 3. Since we've had a shit summer, we're supposed to have a nice September, the weather should be fine.

Well, of course it turned out that my last day of work was extended until October sometime, it seems everyone had the same great Labour Day week idea, and the tail end of hurricane Frances made it's merry way up to our neck of the woods (ha, ha) while we were there.

We had a good time, though, don't get me wrong. This isn't going to be one of those whiny posts. We chose a provincial park called Bon Echo as our destination, and it is in the middle of exactly nowhere. Our cozy little campsite (see Illustration 1.) was on Mazinaw lake, where the famous Mazinaw Rock can be found (see Illustration 2.)

Illustration 1. The homestead.


Illustration 2. Tha rrrawk!!


Why's it famous? Well, it's a big rock coming out of the water on one of the deepest lakes in Canada (see Illustration 3.)

Illustration 3. Ah, geez, that's some drop, eh?


Plus, there are native pictographs somewhere on it that you can take a cruise over to see. Only, you have to be up there before the Labour Day weekend, because after that, you're s.o.l., baby. Like we were. So we just took pictures of it. A whooole lot of pictures of the same damn rock. (See illustrations 4. and 5.)

Illustration 4. What's behind those trees? Oh, it's a rock.


Illustration 5. Tha rrraw--damn, I already did my Sean Connery.


Actually, the weather was pretty good for the first couple of days. It rained a tiny bit on the Tuesday, but we had our picnic table set up so we could play cribbage in relative comfort and dryness (see Illustration 6.)

Illustration 6. Tarpsody in orange and green.


We ate lots of delicious food, drank beer, listened to music, played games and did a lot of nothing for four days. It was fun. I suppose we should have taken more walks and stuff, but we took pictures of trees (see Illustrations 7 & 8.) Isn't that enough?

Illustration 7. Looking for Hobbits.


Illustration 8. Spot the Redneck Juice


We had fun setting up our little house in the outdoors. I have no idea why people find camping so relaxing, it's a lot of hard work just to relax. We probably spent two days out of the four just packing, unpacking, setting up, and taking down. Just so's we could have us some steak while sitting at a picnic table. Heh.

My cute boyfriend had a lot of fun, though. He loves to build things and set stuff up and use rope to rig up various whatnots, etc. He was in his element (see Illustrations 9. & 10.) And thank god I've gotten over that whole "I am an independent woman who doesn't need a man to do things for her" foolishness. It's enough for me to know that in a pinch I could chop wood and climb a tree to put up a tarp, I don't have to go splitting my fingers open and scraping up my legs proving it any more.

Illustration 9. God Himself shines down on The Axeman.


Illustration 10. He wasn't even a boyscout.


As the week wore on we heard tell of a storm a-brewin'. The bf spent most of Wednesday battening down the hatches and making sure all of our meagre possessions would be protected from the wet stuff coming down in buckets, as we were warned about the tail end of a hurricane making it's way north.

We went to bed Wednesday night secure in the knowledge that a little bit of rain never hurt rugged outdoorsy folk like us. When I got up at about 7:30 in the morning to commune a bit with nature I noticed that there was a puddle under our little picnic table. I thought not much of it and went back to bed. A couple of hours later it was still pouring down and the little puddle became a huge puddle and one that was expected to get larger, considering they were calling for it to rain all day.

We stood in the rain watching as our cozy little rain-proof tarp-nest was infiltrated from below by that bastard Mother Nature. The puddle creeped nearer and nearer to our tent as we had to weigh the pros and cons of sitting in a sopping wet tent all day. We decided to fuck this and go get ourselves a nice, dry hotel room (see Illustrations 11 & 12) that had cable and a nice, hot shower. I mean, why live like animals?

Illustration 11. Yay! The red cross!


Illustration 12. Our room was on the second floor.


It wasn't easy finding a hotel room in the middle of frickin' nowhere, but we did it. I mean, it was so much in the middle of nowhere that we couldn't even get a newspaper because they don't deliver them up north anymore after Labour Day. When we checked in we were told about their cute little restaurant that we planned to visit later on (since all of our food was probably floating half-way to Ottawa by that time).

The lady who checked us in asked us "would you like to make a reservation?" We looked at each other wondering if this was a joke. I mean, was Sasquatch having a birthday party there tonight or something? The lady sensed our incredulity and told us that there was a construction crew up there that they were expecting. Later, at the stoplight, we saw evidence that indeed there was some construction going on. Man, you can never get away from that stuff, can you?

We had a really nice day in our hotel room and had a nice dinner in the restaurant. The next day we went back to our campsite to find that things were pretty okay. We spent a few hours cleaning up and packing up and were on our merry way. All in all it was a fun little trip and my cute boyfriend and I didn't even call it the whole thing off afterwards. Yay!

Well, I feel better for having finally gotten these damn pictures up. I'm hoping to update on a more regular basis, too. I leave you now with more pictures of...tha rrrawk!

Illustration 13. A little more sky for you cloud lovers.



Illustration 14. Hey, how'd people get in there?!