Found Another Island Campground on the St Lawrence Seaway - Canadian Side

We have really been enjoying our stay on the St Lawrence Seaway. We spent the last 4 days 3 nights on an island in the New York State Park system.

Now Steve found three more provincial parks on the same stretch of islands that are accessed from the Canadian side. 

Oh.... In my last blog post I promised a video of the lock, bridge, and tunnel as we were leaving Robert Moses State Park.

Before we crossed over the border, we made sure to top off our propane tank on the US side. $2.99 per liquid gallon.

This is the first time we've ever encountered a rule that says no pets or people can be within the RV or vehicle while it is being filled. Not sure if that was a state rule or a policy of the Circle K franchise chain. 

We also topped off our diesel tank at US prices, $4.29 gal. 

We had used up all of our fresh fruit and vegetables and any fresh meats (including deli meat) before we crossed over. Just in case.

The border guard asked us a few basic questions of where we were going and for how long. When he asked about alcohol Steve said he had a little bit of whiskey in one bottle. He laughed and said Steve better refill it while he's visiting! LOL

So here was our big crossover at Cornell, Canada, travelling a grand total of 46 miles. The toll shown in the picture was $3.38. but for an RV it was actually $7.50

We got ourselves on to the Long Sault Parkway Drive over the chain of islands, all connected by long bridges.

We tried the first Provincial Park called Riverside but the sites that they only had available were pretty unlevel and pretty close together. We opted to drive on further down a few more Islands until we hit Woodlands campground.  

The great folks at the registration kiosk told us to drive through the mostly empty park and pick whatever site we wanted and choose a second or a third just in case. Then come back and make sure it wasn't reserved. We drove on through every loop and we found number 161 which was under three huge beautiful shade trees right next to the water.

We drove back to the kiosk and registered for the site for the night. The price was $61.21 Canadian but then after the exchange rate it brings it down to only $45. Still more than we really want to pay, but it still was a very nice site for the night with electric and water at the site.

Incidentally, this coming weekend there's going to be a huge major dog show at this park! Many many dog handlers will be arriving with their large rigs and trailers setting up x pens and dog crates. They had already roped off some areas for the dog show rings itself. The park is going to be teeming with dogs by the weekend. As it was, a few of them had arrived early with multiple dogs on their sites. Some gorgeous dogs went prancing on by, all beautiful show quality. We saw an amazing blue merle collie go by that was just gorgeous!

But for now, our area of the park was peaceful and quiet. We set up our chairs and kicked back to relax, looking out through the trees at the water of the St Lawrence Seaway. 

Just a few steps down the little path and this was our view, right to a little beach all of our own. 

It was a little bit of sand and some rocks. Perfect for just dipping in the toes. Some weeds nearby had frogs and turtles moving around among the vegetation. 

It was starting to cloud up a bit and some of it is from the wildfires to the west. But the winds were supposed to change overnight and be better the next day. 

While standing at the little private beach, I could see Steve setting up the rest of the RV on our campsite.

Most provincial parks have laundry facilities in their shower buildings. It was time to gather up our hamper and grab a handful of "Loonies and Toonies".   Loonies are the $1 coins with loons on them, and Toonis are a $2 coin made of two types of metal. We had done a cash exchange at the border to get coins. Even their 5 and 10 dollar bills are very pretty. They're made out of a plastic like substance similar to mylar or tyvek with iridescent security sections. 

The shower house was just located up this section of road that was uphill each time we went to the laundry area. 

We had a full hamper that we carried up with each of us grabbing one handle, Jack and Jill style. I recently bought this tall hamper to stand upright in our shower stall. It works really well and can easily hold a week's worth of laundry plus a set of sheets. 

We ended up splitting it into two loads so it was five trips back and forth. We got our steps in. We set our timer on our cell phone so we never make anybody else wait if they want to use the washer or the dryer. As it was, we had to wait for somebody to get there done clothes out of the dryer by about half an hour. On our next trip up we planned that were going to remove their clothes and set them on the folding table if they hadn't already removed them. But when we got up there, thankfully, they had finally removed their clothing from the dryer. Being only one washer and one dryer, you need to be courteous and get your stuff out! Loads were $2 to wash and $2 to dry. Each dryer cycle adequately dried all of the clothing, so we did not have to add more coins. 

While we were going back and forth to do our laundry, this cheerful little groundhog was keeping us company at our campsite!! 

He was gobbling down the fresh clover, and didn't really even seem to notice Binney sitting carefully and quietly underneath our chair. Binney didn't see him either. 

He wandered around our campsite looking for the best clumps of clover. Here he is on the other side of our campfire pit and kind of looks just like one of the rocks!

We caught up all of our laundry and settled in for the night. 

Clean jammies AND clean sheets! Ahhhhhh

This campground was very very quiet during the week. But I can imagine by this weekend it's going to be very full of barking barking barking!!!! 

46 miles traveled today 

1,899 mi traveled total