A Lake Within A Lake

 Day Twenty One 

Yesterday, we met a retired couple from Quebec on their way to explore the East Kootenays in British Columbia. This couple had spent years of their retirement exploring eastern Canada and US. When we informed them of our plans, the husband wrote down two pages of must see places in Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, including several spots down the east coast of the US. As we were saying good night, he advised me to  be careful on my drive tomorrow, explaining that the wind is supposed to pick up going east on the highway. 

We returned to our RV and Lori looked into the weather forecast for the next day. Confirming his warning, wind gusts were expected by mid afternoon….. eeeeks! Our drive was expected to be about four hours, five hours the way I drive. I decided to pack up the RV a little earlier tomorrow and see if we could get to our next stop, Manitoulin Island before the wind picked up. 

The morning was calm, making me hopeful that the weather may have changed as I set out to pack up the RV. In my paragliding, I was taught to develop a pre launch procedure that I run through religiously every time as my life depends on it. I decided to use the same approach to packing up the RV and developed a shut down sequence to ensure nothing is forgotten. The shut down went smoothly and I had my last piece of security to review as I sat down in the drivers seat, my dummy bands. I still insist on using the bands as it provides that final bit of comfort that everything is good to go… Again.. Sorry Peter. 

The drive was beautiful and the weather was sunny with blue skies. Driving did get little hectic at times when the highway had the perfect opening for the wind to get across, nowhere as bad as we experienced crossing the prairies, so I took it in stride. We turned off the main highway towards the island around noon. 

Manitoulin island is believed to be the worlds largest freshwater island. More than one hundred lakes speckle the interior, including Lake Manitou - known to be the worlds largest lake within a lake. For the next ten days we are camped on the shores of Lake Mindemoya located at Stanley Park Campground. 

They won’t share the chair.