I’m back. Sorry for not posting for the last week or so. Victoria managed to get a virus on my computer, so I had to take a bit of an unexpected hiatus. Now that the lappy is up and running again, hopefully I’ll be good to go for the rest of the summer. It’s not 100% fixed yet though. I have to see if I can get the wifi extender working again. We had to put Windows 7 on the laptop and the newest drivers that exist for the extender are for Vista. Not sure if that will do the trick or not. I’m posting from town until we see if we can get the extender working again. *grumble*
Anyway, I had to leave the island for a bit last week to go to Albany, New York for the annual classic hearse/ambulance/limo meet. It was lots of fun. It was good to see all of my car friends and see some neat cars that I haven’t seen before. Now that the meet in Albany is over, the focus is on Ohio. We’re hosting next year’s meet, so once the summer is over, our planning will be going into full gear.
Below are some of my favorite pics, along with the video from our sound and light show at the end of the meet.
I kayaked out to Gull Rock the other day. It was an unscheduled visit. I was planning on just going around the bay a bit, but the Island Queen and I seemed to be playing chicken with each other, so being that she is way bigger than my kayak, I changed my course and headed out to Gull Rock. Gull Rock is just a giant rock. It’s a bit too small to be an inhabited island, so it’s just for the birds.
See? It really is just a giant rock.
You can see some of the birds sitting on it. I wonder how many live here.
Sorry about the video stopping abruptly. My camera’s memory card ran out of room.
I’ve been wanting to shoot a video going through Hole in the Wall by kayak for a long while now. Almost a week of crummy weather slowed that idea down, but a few days ago, I went for a long 7+ kayak trip and I made this video. The internet has been not completely reliable as of late, but I finally got it uploaded yesterday. So here is Hole in the Wall by kayak. Enjoy!
After thunderstorms happening all day, the rain finally stopped just a little while ago. The water came up, we had a lot of waves and the wind was pretty strong at times. I had to take down the home office because I didn’t want any of it to float or blow away.
With the weather like that, I had to spend the day inside. To entertain myself, I spent a big chunk of the day listening to various radio stations and critiquing them. That’s the problem with having worked in radio for years. Even once you’re away from it, any time you turn on the radio, you automatically start critiquing their programming, on air talent and evaluating their format. Or at least that’s how I am with it. After critiquing them all, the local MooseFM came out the winner in terms of format and programming. It hasn’t been the same since Jeff Osborne left the station many years ago, but it’s still decent.
Here’s a video I took this afternoon of the normal home office location.
This boat wasn’t in the water, so I thought the plastic blue tablecloth was a nice touch. It gave the watery effect and hid the trailer.
I don’t even want to know how many layers of varnish are on this boat:
My favorite wooden one of the meet. It’s for sale. You can buy it for me if you want. lol
What a classy way to go around the bay:
My other favorite was this one. Back in the day, when our island still had its boathouse with the apartment on top, a 36 foot launch similar to this one was docked inside. All that’s left of it are the seats.
Here’s a video of one of the vintage racers speeding around the wharf:
Saturday night I headed back to the mainland for my favorite part of the annual sportbike rally – the Thunder Run. During the Thunder Run, a lot of the attendees parade through town on their sportbikes. The town closes the roads that are along their route and observers line the streets along the way to watch. I’m not sure how many sportbikers participated in the Thunder Run this year, but it seemed a lot smaller than last year’s, which seemed smaller than the years before. Victoria spoke to one of the OPP officers about it and he said that ever since the town started saying that the bikers aren’t allowed to do stunts during the parade, a fair amount of bikers have opted not to do the Thunder Run even though they are in town for rally weekend. How many bikes do you see?
This past weekend was full of fun activities. Though I usually would much rather stay on the island on most days, I did head to the mainland for a few cool events this weekend. On Saturday, I attended the annual Sportbike Rally weekend. This is a huge annual event that attracts hundreds of sportbikes from Ontario and parts of the U.S. Friends of mine have traveled all the was from Minnesota for it before. I went over to Kinsmen Park for the expo and the stunt show. The Starboyz from Akron even performed at the show. Below are some pics and a video from the stunt show.
A couple of days ago, we went for a long boat ride through Hole in the Wall and out into some of the big water. Hole in the Wall is a rugged channel between Huckleberry and Wall Islands. It have steep cliffs and it is quite narrow at some points. The big local tour boats only have a few feet clearance on each side at its narrowest point.
Though it was a hot day, Mr. Pants came along for the ride and tried to keep cool under his towel.
Approaching Hole in the Wall:
It’s quite scenic there. The steep drop of the rocks always amazes me:
Some of the locals jump off of the cliffs into the water. Here’s Victoria and her husband jumping:
Victoria and her husband came up to the island for the long Canada Day / 4th of July weekend. Unfortunately, Victoria missed the Canada fireworks at the Parry Sound town dock, so we decided to have a special surprise for her on the 4th. The day of the 4th, I hung an American flag for her that I found in the cottage. She thought that was quite thoughtful.
Then after dinner, we had quite a surprise for her. We were able to tell her husband about our plan, so he was able to help us out a bit. After dinner, we convinced her to go for a sunset kayak ride with her husband. To slow her kayak ride down, I stalled them on the other side of the island by taking pictures.
While I was slowing them down by taking pictures, dad and husband man set up a firework display on our beach. By the time Victoria returned from her kayak ride, we were ready to go.
The box of fireworks must have been made with our cottage in mind – it even had an outhouse.
Victoria and her husband looking happy about the surprise when they came back from their kayaking:
And there were fireworks that were hard to catch on camera:
and we lit the burning outhouse for the grand finale:
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