After leaving Inventor John we continued through Ontario towards Quebec. Ontario is a beautiful Province, full of trees and many, many lakes, rivers and rocky cliffs. The scenery was breath taking at times and reminded us a little of home in Alberta. Although it doesn't have the mountains, the lakes and rivers rival those found in Banff and the Kananaskis. We took 5 days to cross through Ontario, taking in the sights and contemplating if this could be where we might want to stay.
Penn Lake CampgroundOur second stop in Ontario was at a small campground on Penn Lake in Marathon. This spot was a hidden gem and we wished we had known more about it as we would have liked to have stayed more than one night. The campground was clean and quite surrounding a quaint little lake. We made a note to revisit it when we had more time. After a night there we moved on to Serpent River for a one night stop over.
It seems that often when we pull into campgrounds we attract a lot of attention. Whether it's the size of the rig, the number of dogs or the fact that two women climb out of that big truck (or all of the above combined), people seem intrigued. As we pulled into our site at the Serpent River Campground and wiggled ourselves into position there, such intrigue captured a group of campers there. They were a group of four older couples camping together. As we were setting up one of the gentlemen came over and asked the size of the rig. Apparently they had a bet going between the men and the women as to the length of our trailer. He told us he figured we were around 38' long and the women disagreed and said we were longer than that. I told him that he owed the women a beer (or a round of their choosing) as we were actually 42' long! He chuckled and went back to his site. I heard him say to the others "she said I owe you a beer". Shortly after that we caught their attention again as we started unloading dogs . . .one . . .two . . .three . . .another . . . another . . . and another. One by one we plopped them into their run and then followed along behind with the pooper-scooper. This was enough for one of the women to come over and chat. She was amazed by how organized we were and at how well behaved all the dogs were. We chatted for a while about retirement and full-time living in our trailer and then offered for her to have a look inside the trailer. This prompted a shout to the others of "come on! Do you want to see their trailer?". Suddenly we had four total strangers wandering through the trailer marveling at the set up we had for the dogs and the fact that we lived in there. They thanked us for our time, wished us well on our travels and returned to their site.
A little later on in the evening one of the women seemed a little frantic, pacing back and forth beside our site and looking at her phone. I went out to see what was going on and she informed me that one of the guys had gone fishing and had a fish hook stuck in his hand! She was wondering if we had ever dealt with something like that and what they should do. I asked the obvious question of "is it one barb, or two?" because, obviously that would matter. She said "I think it's two" which ruled out the option of just pushing it through, cutting off the barb and yanking it out (at least that's what they would have done on "Survivor"). I told her the only fish hooks I had ever removed was from dogs and we typically sedated them, put in a little freezing, cut it out, threw a stitch in there, sent them home with antibiotics and called it a day. I then asked her how tough she thought he was. She wasn't sure. I said "give him a big glass of whiskey, put some ice on it then you all pin him down and pull it out". She chuckled and said "maybe we should go to the hospital". Hmmm...that sounded like a pretty good alternative to me. So now, not only are we an obvious traveling puppy-mill but we are also a mobile M.A.S.H. unit!
We didn't hear the end result of the fishing mishap and the following morning we moved on to Renfrew, Ontario to the KOA for a site with hook-ups to do laundry and dump our tanks. We had a nice site in the KOA with a patio, which we were able to incorporate into part of the run for the dogs. It was a good spot to rest and recharge for a couple of days. Once again, we attracted a little attention when we pulled in and a fellow traveler came to chat. She asked "did you pull this thing all the way from Alberta??" She seemed shocked when the answer was yes and then said "and my friends thought I was crazy with my little truck and camper!" . . . everyone's comfort levels are different.
With our tanks emptied, laundry clean and our fresh water full we left Renfrew and headed into Quebec to spend a few days with an old school friend of Julie's, Lynda. Lynda lives in Roxton Falls with her amazing superdog, Poupoune. Lynda and Poupoune live on a 60 acre property covered in Maple trees, walking paths and overwhelming serenity. We were welcomed with open arms (litterally) and Reba had a new friend to play with, although they really didn't play much but rather tolerated each other. It was here that we experienced our first emergency trip to the vet . . .
Unfortunately the dogs no longer have a large back yard to run in and are limited in space, especially when there are six of them. Reba tends to get the zoomies and it is hard to stop her. During one of these episodes she collided with Bandicoot, the old 16 year old girl. They hit each other so hard that the impact caused Bandicoot's eye to be popped out of the socket. The only emergency vet was over an hour away in Brossard. So Lynda and Julie rushed her off to the vet. The blow had torn the muscles in her eye and stretched the optic nerve. There was also a large amount of hemorrhaging behind the eye. The muscles would heal but there was only about a 10% chance that the nerve would heal, meaning she would lose the use of that eye. The only option at the time was to put the eye back in place, suture the lid closed and hope for the best. In two weeks they will take out the sutures and assess the function of the nerve. Depending on the results we may have to have the eye removed. Poor little girl. . . like my brother put it, "poor little Toot had no clue she was on the train tracks when the express came through".
Despite the unfortunate events, we were able to have a nice visit with Lynda and took the dogs for a couple of walks through the property and the forest of Maple trees. I took Bandicoot along with the use of Lynda's golf cart. It was hard to leave there, but we will be seeing Lynda again. One last time (for a while, anyway) we hooked Toothless up to our home, pulled out of Lynda's driveway and with a wave and a toot from the airhorn we left for our temporary home for the next three months in Sherbrooke, Quebec. I will definitely have to learn some French . . . .
