I couldn't sleep and was up early taking care of stuff. Today, "stuff" included sorting receipts, maps, and travel literature that have accumulated very quickly, and working on my travel journal which is separate from this blog. The Captain slept late, getting in a few extra hours. I cleaned out my email inbox and started deleting hundreds of bad photos I have taken along the way. I was very happy to see several emails from Rob Liss with photos of us passing through the Peterborough Lift Lock yesterday. Thanks, Rob, for capturing this moment for us!
Early morning fog gave way to mid-morning showers and then to sunshine and blue sky. By noon we were ready to walk into town. Our first stop was lunch at the Thirsty Loon. We were introduced to a local item on the menu, "peameal," and quickly turned to Google to enlighten us to the fact that peameal was origniated in Toronto and is a type of back bacon made from lean boneless pork loin, trimmed fine, wet cured, and rolled in cornmeal -- not smoked. Interesting, but we declined. The food was excellent, especially the seafood chowder, but the visit took a lot longer than we were anticipating. The afternoon was getting away from us.
We walked the town loop, with the home stretch being the Lakefield Trail, adjacent to the Otonabee River. Along the Trail we encountered signs identifying a Waterfowl Barrier. It was a long section of yellow rope running about five inches off the ground. A simple concept, indeed, but it seemed to work as there were no Canada geese in sight. We marveled at how crystal clear the water is and from the shoreline it can definitely be seen how rocky and steep the banks are.
The town is much like any small town in the States with groceries, hardware stores, banks, barbers, a post office and both chain and independent restaurants. On our list of destinations on this warm, summer day were NAPA (to get some oil for the bowthruster) and the LCBO (for a restocking of the wine locker). Just when I think I could be back in Virginia, we see the building for the Lakefield Curling Club. Oh, yes, we are in Canada. We did not make it over to see the Speed Skating Oval. Signs announced that the Fair started this afternoon and we were excited to go take in some more local flavors. We went back and dropped our purchases off at Crossroads. In the time it took Barry to greet the new boats on our dock, I had ventured to Fiberglass Beach for some reading, boat watching (huge houseboats, complete with slide and every water toy available), and a nap. When we were finally ready to leave, the dark clouds moved in and it began to rain. The Fair, with midway and a tractor pull on today's schedule, was not meant to be.
We made a late evening trip back into town to drop items in the Post Box. Its always good to stretch my legs as much as possible. As darkness settled in, Barry conferred with the other captains and is developing a strategy for leaving tomorrow morning that keeps us from being bunched up with seven other boats at the next lock, only five miles away. There is no point rushing a departure if it only means we'll be waiting for an hour or more upstream. We'll see how far we get.
I think we could convince our grandchildren to go “boating” if we had that house boat with a slide.
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