Saturday August 11: Parry Sound in the Rain

The anchorage Wednesday night was quite pleasant - after the wakeboarders quit! It was fun watching them - one of the guys was quite good and could land a backward somersault! Very impressive indeed. Funny how we don't see very many people skiing anymore. It's all wakeboards although we actually did see a boat pulling two single ski skiiers. Just another reminder that we must be getting old :-)

Yep - believe it or not, Steve really used to ski! It's been a number of years simply because it's not terribly cost effective to ski with a 32' Trojan with twin 305 Chrylsers :-) Wonder if he could still get up? Wonder if this boat would pull him up? Wonder if the trawler would do it?

Anchoring out has its nice features but one of them is not our ability to make ice cubes when there is no store around. However, Steve found out that he could put a baggie full of water in the little tiny freezer in the small fridge we have and it would actually freeze - into one solid piece of ice. 

So while I like ice in my manhattan, having an ice berg in it is not necessarily a desirable thing. The price we pay for getting away from it all :-)

By the time we arrived at Parry Sound on Wednesday, it was overcast and threatening rain - which is why our plan was to find someplace and stay put for a couple of days.

The weather has finally caught up - and the well-needed rain can stop any day now! Most of yesterday and again more today (Saturday). Storms are still rolling around everywhere. Not many boats moving in or out of the marina here.

It was dry long enough to bike into town for breakfast at Orr's. Bobby Orr (if you are into hockey) was raised here in Parry Sound and the restaurant is owned by his cousin. I've done quite a bit of reading about him - interesting reading and he set quite a few hockey records. This was back in the 70's. What a 'sport' though. His knees were so messed up by the time he was 30 years old, his career was over.

This picture is apparently one of the most memorable in hockey (I had never seen it but then I'm not a hockey fan AT ALL). In 1970, Orr had just scored the winning goal in overtime to win the Boston Bruins the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1931. Maybe you've seen this picture??

Anyway, it was interesting that he grew up here. The Bobby Orr Hall of Fame Museum is located right near the marina. Maybe a visit will be in order.

In the meantime, we found a very nice walking/biking trail that followed along the sound. Lots of the granite rock that makes up so much of this area. Reminds me very much of Stoney Lake.

There are two "rubber dogs" on one of the boats here. I saw them yesterday dressed with little raincoats! Admittedly I didn't realize they were American Hairless Terriers when I first saw them and thought it was kind of silly! Ryan and Cathy Pendleton have a dog like this since Cathy is allergic to dogs. They honestly feel like rubber! (This is description conferred by the neighborhood kids.) Because they have no hair to keep them warm, these breed of dogs need to wear clothes as they are very sensitive to cold - and rain - and sun. Interesting ...

The rain picked up again. Sounds like it will be moving on tomorrow and Monday finally will be back to sunny - or at least not rainy :-). We'll head back to the Trent.

Saw two movies while we have been in town: the new Batman movie (it was pretty good!) and Ice Age 4 (slow but in the end was good - Wanda Sykes as the grandmother was really great). Nice to have a movie theater in town - and $5 matinee prices.

Ok rain - enough is enough!