September 8th: Putting Guppy away for the winter

Our scheduled date for pulling Guppy out for the winter was Monday, Sept 9th at Birch Point Marina.  The marina is between Bobcaygeon and Fenelon Falls, two of our favorite towns and both have shore power. We had been at Bobcaygeon for two nights and needed to move on.

What a change of weather since the holiday weekend. The temperatures have been consistently in the sixties during the day and low fifties at night. When the sun was out it was quite pleasant, but otherwise too chilly for we Floridians. Consequently, looking for shore power,  we decided to go back to Fenelon Falls for two nights, then back to Bobcaygeon for two nights. That put us close to Birch Point Marina Sunday night.

We headed to Fenelon Falls Thursday, September 5th and the weather was beautiful. No problem getting a shore power spot during the week as it is getting late in the boating season and Fenelon Falls has a lot of dock space.

Fenelon Falls Lock Wall

The time at Fenelon Falls was enjoyable. We of course went to our favorite Chinese restaurant again and mostly relaxed with Randy and Cindy. Even got a euchre game in. The cards were pretty even which makes it more fun. We had a beautiful sunset that we observed from inside the boat because the temperatures were quite chilly!

Chilly night at Bobcaygeon

Saturday we had to leave Fenelon Falls so it was back to Bobcaygeon. We were grateful for the shore power this last week. As you can see, during our farewell "Docktail" night was chilly. Cricket is covered up in her dog bed and not about to come out into the cold for a picture.






The logistics for transitioning from the boat to land is always a challenge. Our marina was too far for Enterprise to pick us up and cabs are a challenge and expensive. Fortunately, Randy and Cindy left their car at Birch Point marina because they also were storing their boat there. It worked out great. Monday morning, Cindy rode with us in Guppy to Birch Point, and she drove us to Lindsay to pick up our rental car. Great to have friends in Canada!

Guppy at Birch Point, Winter home

We left Guppy at the dock and headed to our motel in Lindsay for the night.

Lindsay Park Boat Docks

Lindsay is a nice town with boat docks and a nice park. We've gone there a number of times in the past but it is kind of a long slow ride up a shallow river so we haven't done it in a while. While we were at our motel I took a walk down a river walkway that goes past the park we used to dock at. It was fun to see the park is still very nice. As you can see from the picture with the boats, the trees are starting to change colors.



In the past we rented a car from Enterprise in Lindsay and dropped it in Buffalo at the airport. It was expensive but it worked. This year, for whatever reason, none of the local car rental agencies would let us drop a car across the border. Linda did a great job planning an alternative. We took a bus from Lindsay to Union Station in Toronto, where we boarded a Megabus to get to Buffalo. The Toronto traffic was brutal as usual and I was happy to not have to do the driving. It was a long trip but worked out quite well and was significantly less expensive. We'll probably use this plan again next year.

Niagara River from the Mega Bus

U.S. Canada border on the Peace Bridge

 On the Megabus we got a good view as we crossed the Niagara River. I was even able to get a picture of the flags that fly at the border line.





We made it to the Buffalo airport at 7:30 pm. The plan from Buffalo was to fly to Florida for a quick doctor appointment and then fly to California to spend 6 weeks with Matt, Wendy, Rebecca, London and Trevi. We're looking forward to Linda's brother Tom joining us for a few days. Linda had scheduled everything well in advance and we thought we were all set. She got a call the Friday before we left that told her the doctor's appointment had to be changed. Noooooo! (Not our choice but the doctor wasn't going to be there that day.) Fortunately, Linda went to work and was able to reschedule  the doctor for Wednesday, which would still allow us to make our California flights on Thursday. We needed to get to Florida earlier, so she got us on a 6:00 am flight. Up at 3:30 am Wed. to catch our flight to Florida, but it worked. We're at the Ft. Lauderdale airport now waiting for our flight to California. Can't wait to get there and see the kids and dogs!

While in Lindsay we received a message and picture from Cindy. Here's Guppy all nicely covered and ready for winter. Thanks Cindy, nice to know Guppy is all set.










 Last blog's wildflower: Queen Anne's Lace or Wild Carrot

 D. carota was introduced and naturalized in North America, where it is often known as Queen Anne's lace. Both Anne, Queen of Great Britain, and her great grandmother, Anne of Denmark, are taken to be the Queen Anne for which the plant is named.^[17] It is so called because the flower resembles lace, prominent in fine clothing of the day; the red flower in the center is thought to represent a blood droplet where Queen Anne pricked herself with a needle when she was making the lace.

This ends the Canada Wildflower portion of the blog.