Day Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight - Great White North

It should come as a shock to precisely no one that I am not really an outdoors kinda gal. Remember, I'm a bad Canadian and therefore I do not enjoy the wilderness. Since birth I have not really enjoyed being outside and I have especially disliked the notion of going outside as part of a holiday. Thankfully, my family was on board with this [my mum said that camping was more work than staying home] so I enjoyed a productive childhood of driving across the continent and staying in a variety of motels and hotels [some of them were scarier than the outdoors and had more wildlife, too - I'm looking @ you Bowling Green, Kentucky]. I was a Girl Guide and while I was very successful @ being a Girl Guide [I earned the All-Round Cord, which is the highest honour], my camping adventures were extremely lackluster. And sometimes just laughably bad - like the weekend camping trip where the following thing happened: a wayward cow broke into my tent while I was sleeping in it, I burned up a baseball infield with my tin can cooker thing and I was attacked by an aroused owl while attempting to lead my young Guide charges on an Owl Hoot. Fun times. Then there was the time with the multiple funnel clouds and big assed junebugs in my sleeping bag and etc. etc. etc. See - I don't like the wilderness and it's pretty clear that it doesn't like me either - it's a solid agreement we've got going.

However, as mentioned before - with Joseph's parents I step out of my comfort zone a bit. Hence, the lengthy introduction to this thing - it was a pretty big deal to me. This afternoon I canoed! Originally I was only going to sit in the canoe and be canoed around [okay, originally I was going to sit @ home and catch up on DOOL, but I digress], but then the moment took me and I really did canoe. Using the canoe stick and everything [yes, I really did call it a canoe stick]. Here's an excellent action shot.


On Rory's suggestion we went to Earl Rowe Provincial Park, which is near Barrie and just over an hour out of the city. Adventurous. As much as I loathe the steaming, festering, vermin-infested hellhole that is Toronto when Joseph's parents asked what we would like to do with a rented car outside of the city we could think of nothing. I may not like the city, but everything I do like is in it [most of it is already in my house to be honest]. The canoeing was quite fun though - the "lake" [it was manmade so I'm not sure it qualifies] was excessively calm and we got to see lots of cormerants, a heron and a turtle and some other insects and things. I liked that part. Joseph taught me a special canoeing trick so that if he keeled over I would be able to canoe to safety alone without going in circles. I reckon I'm pretty good with a canoe stick. I mean, I still prefer the outdoors if I'm doing something more adventurous [white water rafting, hiking through rainforest, exploring ruins], but being in a canoe was pretty okay.