This year was our first time camping on Wellesley Island. The park is located on a large island in the St. Lawrence Seaway just off the Hill Island border crossing - conveniently located between Ottawa and our friends in Bowmanville.
We arrived to find our site located in a grass field well away from the river but also far enough away from the monster sized motorhomes with their patio lanterns and noisy air condition units. While a nice open field is great for soccer and frisbee it is not the best for setting up rain tarps. Luckily the McMullans were only a day behind us with their large dining tent but in hindsight we had nothing but sunshine for our entire stay.
We swam, we paddled (while the McMullans motored in their new "canoe"), we fished, we bbq'd, and we kept ourselves hydrated. We faired well with only one incident where Steve managed to hook his thumb after releasing a wee rock bass. Unfortunately the hook was buried deep and they opted to call the day short so they could boat back to the park and cross back over into Canada to go to the hospital. The fear of racking up a US medical bill is enough for any Canadian to make the slightly less-feared US-CAN (and then CAN-US) border crossing. Some hours, some freezing, and some stitches later, Steve and Rhonda rejoined our group for the late night fire.
Here are some pics of our week's adventures... oh, and as for the pic at the top? Well that has gone viral on Tumblr - no idea how it made it to Tumblr in the first place but such is this crazy Internet thing. For those of you interested, here is the background on the photo. We had just headed out for the day when we stopped to check out a view of the St. Lawrence. The spot also seemed to be a good time for a group photo for the annual McMullan-vanTol calendar so I set up my camera on the hood of the Jeep. I took a moment to level it out and after a couple of test shots I hit the timer and ran back to the group. As per usual there is always one in the group (or all) that opt to make a funny face or close their eyes so I quickly reviewed the shot only to find that somebody had lifted their leg and and and well the rest is history now. And no, for the record Rhonda had no clue what her husband Steve was doing when she kicked up her leg. That's what makes it priceless. Cheers folks.
