We arrived at the park around 9:30 and were on the water soon after. The weather was nice and sunny, and it looked like it was going to be a fantastic trip. Although the forecast predicted lots of sun, my dad somehow forgot to pack the sun-block, although we managed to grab four bottles of bug spray! Not the end of the world, but I'm often the one to forget to pack things, and lived up to my standards on this trip--my rain gear was left behind in the car.
Anyway, it was great to get out into the fresh air, and I can highly recommend camping as a way to get rid of jet-lag. We spent four nights in the park, each on a different lake. The sunset below was taken from our second campsite. The lake was rather small, and only had two sites on it. At our campsite we had a small school of inquisitive sun fish swimming around in the shallows. If you stood in the water long enough, they would come up and nibble on your toes and ankles. I wonder if this is where the inspiration for those fish foot spas comes from?
As beautiful as this sunset was, the actual trek to the campsite was not. This lake, Deacon, was connected to a large lake by a shallow swamp. The water was only a couple of inches deep, but
the bottom was a mixture of rotting lilies, reeds, and sticks covered in mud that sometimes provided support for your foot, and other times did not. We had to wedge our paddles in the mud and push along like punters, lurching forward at a really slow pace. Every time a paddle went down into the mud, bubbles of methane and sulfurous gasses emerged to the surface--lovely.
On this trip I brought Pilgrim's Progress to read, and this swamp reminded of the Slough of Despond. It was amazing we made it through, and disappointing that our route took us back through it again the next day!
The last two nights we had amazing campsites. One was on an island and had nice sloping rocks. Unfortunately, we didn't get to enjoy it much as the weather turned for the worse and we s
pent most of our time huddled under a tarp. We counted ourselves lucky to have made it to our campsite before the rain, as we saw several canoes passing by us when the rain was at its worst.
Our last campsite was one to put in my top ten. Huge sloping rocks that caught the afternoon
sun. The water was very clear, and the rocks dropped of quite suddenly, making it perfect for jumping and diving. The rocks went up behind us and we had a small cliff that we climbed that afternoon. It was a bit of a scramble up the cliff, but the view from the top was fabulous!
Silver Peak from the cliffs behind our campsite.
Looking down on our campsite from the cliff.
A cracking good time!
The trip ended with some rather cold weather, but we were back in the warmth of the car and out of the park within an hour of leaving our campsite. Back to the big city!
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