King Tom of the Mountain

Last week, the Civee and I were on vacation in Canada.

We spent a week at Lake Duborne, outside of the town of Blind River, Ontario, a 10-plus hour drive from Columbus. The place was remote, and the vacation was fun.

We arrived at the lake sometime after 3:00 a.m., and while I was dead tired from the drive, I had to take a few minutes to look at the stars. It was a clear night when we got in, and it was easily the best view of the night sky I ever had. You could easily see with the naked eye the haze of the Milky Way. Not to mention all the constellations, like Jerry the Cowboy, and Alan, the Cowboy.

We spent our time there doing a variety of outdoors activities, like boating, fishing, swimming and hiking. We went into the town a few times and I was amazed at the popularity of the local Tim Horton’s. We went in for some after dinner donuts, and I counted about 40 people just hanging out. And every time we drove past following that, the place was packed. There were a few other places in town to eat, but in Blind River, Tim Horton’s is the place to go.

The best part of the trip was the hike up to ‘Fire Tower,’ a mountain whose peak used to be home to a fire lookout tower, that, about 30 years ago, burned down. We docked near the shore at the bottom of the mountain and took an hour and a half to hike straight up the peak (a week later, and I’m still sore from the hike!). The view was pretty damn good, and you could even see Lake Huron, which is a few miles away. Here’s a fake-panoramic shot from the peak:

Atop Fire Tower

To give you an idea of where this is topographically;

View Larger Map

Because we were among the mountains and tall trees, I decided for the week, to not shave and let my beard grow for once. It’s much less pathetic than I thought it’d be and it actually looks right now like I have a beard. I’m going to keep it and see what happens.

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