Okay, so let’s see if I can get this to work… I FINALLY managed to get my camera working and pried off the photos from this summer… I know, it’s a bit late, but better late than never – that’s my motto (probably because I’m perpetually late for everything)… let’s see how this works:
Obviously, that’s me, on the front of the boat. We were approaching one of the many locks on the Trent System – I hadn’t been through a lock in about 14 years!
This is a little island in (I think) Sparrow Lake – Mom took a photo because we both pointed at it and said, “It looks like a Group of Seven painting!” Personally, I think Mom should take up photography – it’s a photo I plan on framing. 
This is the Marine Railway – it’s quite the experience! You drive your boat into these slings, and it sort of half hangs-half sits on the keel, on this giant platform. The platform moves forward on the rails, gradually coming out of the water, going over a road, and down this hill, into the water again. It’s super cool and just a tiny bit disconcerting (I don’t like heights, so to be sitting on the front of the boat when it crests the hill sort of sent my heart into my throat a little). Beside the railway, to the right of the photo, there used to be these AMAZING waterfalls and pools of water, made out of these giant slabs of rock, mounding out of the earth, but they’re apparently gone now – the region has diverted the water to a power dam. Damn.
This is a bridge somewhere along the Trent. Just in case I haven’t explained this properly – the Trent is a waterway system that leads north from Lake Simcoe (where my parents live) to Lake Superior. You go through the odd small lake after Lake Simcoe, but most of it looks a lot like this – although there are bits that have been sold off for cottages, and can I tell you? Those cottages must cost MILLIONS! They’re STUNNING!
Ah, O’Hara’s. You may remember me mentioning, in a previous post, the bathroom at O’Hara’s. Well, THIS is what it looked like. On the left, you can see the two shower curtains, covering the front of one of the toilet stalls. Obviously, the sink is in the centre, and the mirror is the little black thing on the cross-beam above the sink. On the right is the door. Tiny, whitewashed, not well decorated, but clean. O’Hara’s is just not the same as it used to be.
The boat!! Not really looking it’s best, since it’s draped with towels and whatnot, but I didn’t have a photo of it, so I thought I’d take one, so everyone can see how wonderful it is! That big, white thing in the rear? Ya, that’s a cooler. Filled to the brim with ice and BOOZE!
Other boats out at Chief Island, in Lake Couchiching. There’s a little gulf in the island, where the water’s shallow and warm, and the bottoms are all sandy. Very popular with the people in my age group, who can miraculously afford boats – they come out with their giant sound systems and blast everyone deaf. Usually they’re drunk and being idiots, as well. I generally sit on the boat and read, or lie on the front of the boat and read (and burn the backs of my knees). And drink. And wander around in the water. And drink. And get burnt. And drink. And complain about the stupid frat boys and their music. And drink. It’s awesome!
So, that’s about it for the photos of my boat trips this summer. My Mom has a bunch more, but she hasn’t been able to figure out how to work her new camera software well enough to send me a managably sized e-mail yet. I’ll update them when I get them. Till then, peace out, homies.
