Rock Point Provincial Park on the shores of Lake Erie

I am trying to catch up on my blog posts here. We finally have a day to set in one spot and rest. I am finding that instead of working on them every day like I planned, there is way too much to see and do along the way!

I thought that maybe I could dictate my blog posts as we traveled along and save my words into a word document and then copy and paste it over into blogger. But with erratic cell coverage as we pass from region to region, I end up losing some of it before it saves. 

I am finding it easier to just work on the blogs once I am settled in somewhere with a steady signal.

This blog is about Wednesday's travel to a Provincial Park on the shores of Lake Erie. We wanted something as close as possible to Niagara Falls for Thursday. We went online and there were only two sites left. We reserved the better of the two quickly online with our credit card. At least we know we had a site to get to because it was going to be some pretty awful weather coming along overnight. 

While traveling through the beautiful Ontario country side, 

I have become obsessed with spotting gorgeous Gothic Revival farm houses!

It's hard to get photos of them, because they are so old that tall mature trees surround the farmhouses.  But the time you catch a glimpse of the intricate architecture, it's too late to snap a pic. Then we are past and moving on to spot another one down the road. 

We like to avoid the interstates, or in this case in Canada the Queens Highways. Al suggested we take route 3 across the lower portion of Ontario to reach our next provincial park.  We wound our way along through gorgeous countryside, and soon arrived at the park. It was becoming exceedingly windy and we were glad to get off the road. As we backed into our campsite, the roaring surf in the background was a constant rumbling.

It sounded like a deep throbbing thunder that just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. I don't think I could be an ocean person, living alongside the sea. I don't think I would like that sound all of the time in my ears. As it was, this was only Lake Erie. But the wind was blowing in strongly from the south and the waves were crashing on the shore just on the other side of the trees behind our camper. 

We walked on down towards the beach on the path near our campsite. The sandy beach was along a ledge of shoreline running the entire length of the park. 

Luckily, there were a few areas with metal stairs to go down to the beach level safely.

The sun was starting to go down, and the winds were blowing in storm clouds from the West and the South. 

We walked back up the path towards our campsite. With a little giggle, I took this photo of our selves in shadow format. I remember taking a similar photo of ourselves when we were at Crazy Horse in South Dakota many years ago. 

I stopped to snap a few beautiful wildflowers along the path. Everything is in full bloom right now. 

The area was teeming with bumblebees hopping from flower to flower. I just love this delicate Queen Anne's lace. See the totally white spider on the bottom left corner?? 

We walked back to the shower building and decided to throw in a load of clothes. It was time to catch up on laundry. Canadian Provincial Parks have laundry facilities in their shower buildings at almost every park we've ever been to over the years. At the last Provincial Park wash loads were $4 and dryer loads were also $4. 

But this park happened to only be $1.50 to wash and only a dollar to dry!  What??? Those were 1999 prices. Lol

After 8 days on the road, we had enough to make a full load along with our bath towels and washcloths. We set our alarm for 25 minutes to walk back and check the washing machine. Yes. It had JUST finished.  

We tossed the full load into the dryer and put in one "Looney" coin. It is a $1 coin with a loon on it. We really didn't expect the entire load to get done for $1. But we set our alarm for 25 minutes and went back to the beach. 

I had to take a picture of my feet in the water of Lake Erie! Every time I go to a big beach I take a picture like this and send it to my little brother. 

The winds were really blasting as you can tell by the surf behind us. We did our tourist thing and took a selfie picture as best we could in the waning light of sunset. 

And here come those danged storm clouds billowing in as the sun is going down. We knew by checking the local weather reports, that we were in for a windy storm and a lot of rain overnight. 

As the sun went down, we returned to the shower building because the alarm went off on our cell phone. Can you imagine that load of laundry was completely dry? That had three large heavy full size bath towels and piles of other things. All for $1.00!!!  

Replenishing our closet and drawers with clean undies and socks and jammies really felt good. 

We hunkered down in bed as the rain was pouring down on the roof all night long. It was kind of pleasant to sleep to and we were cozy and warm and safe. The trees and heavy brush around us protected us from the wind. By morning we were surrounded by an awful lot of standing water!!! 

175 miles traveled today

810 miles total