Aug 18, day 4, at Brent camp

Our camp at Brent was vary isolated, except for the parking lot next to us. But we had the beach right outside our door, and Erde took advantage of that.

I took longer than the usual 3 hours to break camp because I wanted to see how long certain tasks would take. We took a hike through the forest next to us, but turned back after I realized it would be too much for Leben. Instead, I loaded him into his stroller (canine all terrain vehicle, or CATV, and took a mile hike to our campsite from the last two years. I wanted to check up on the big LEBEN & ERDE I carved in the picnic table, but the occupants of the site were still asleep and I didn't want to disturb them. Then we retreated back to site 17, our site, and I gave LEBEN his first shower of the trip with the Big Kahuna portable shower I bought for the trip. It work extremely well, using power from my portable battery jumper. The shower doubles as the container for the dogs grooming stuff when not in use. Unfortunately, I had to give Leben a shower because his skin allergy is still with him.

It is quite peaceful here at Champlain PP tonight because it is Sunday. Not only is it tough to gt a campsite in the provincial parks on weekends in the summer, but the noise level with the kids especially is high. But that's only until 8 pm when the kids retreat to their tents. Then as happened last night at Brent a camp, the irresponsible young adults start in and go or hours, despite the 11 pm quiet rule. I tried playing Taps as loud as I could on my ipad to send them the obvious message, but that did't help. Because I have to get a decent night's sleep, I took an Ambien my doctor prescribed and fell asleep despite the raucous. But I got my revenge at 6am when I pulled out the Ipad, turned the volume up high, and played Reveille.

Disaster struck the On The Road kitchen today. Before I left for the trip I purchased 12 individual serving containers of instant rice. But to save space in my kitchen container, I emptied the contents of each one into zip lock bags. This was two weeks ago. When I went to enjoy some rice with my vegetable soup tonight, the rice had molded. So much for saving space.

Speaking of saving space, I am making a valuable contribution myself. Just in preparing for the trip, I lost 10 pounds. But I am eating only half the contents of my daily food rations, and they were already short hundreds of calories compared to my daily requirements. I am sure I have already lost another five pounds with all the work during the setting up and breaking camps. On the last two trips, I lost 20 pounds each trip, and they were shorter and fr less strenuous. When I return, I will weigh what I weighed in 7th grade.

I am sitting outside in this splendid park in this magnificent weather. The sun has just set and I have on 30 more minutes of usable daylight, not to mention 47% of usable battery on my ipad. I will wake the dogs from their deep sleep (Erde sleeps with one eye open so as not to miss an opportunity, but she misses plenty), head into the tent, and maybe read for the first time on this trip.

Ed from Champlain PP, near North Bay, Ontario.