2022 Big Trip - Chutes Provincial Park
/Night 2 - Ontario
July 31 - August 1
We left Samuel du Champlain just before checkout time and by then it was pretty hot out (29 degrees C), so the AC in the car felt great. We drove via the bypass instead of travelling through Sudbury as we normally do - the road past Sudbury was newly paved and so smooth. Getting into Mennonite country, we saw a horse and buggy and then another Airstream (our first) being towed by a white BMW, just before we passed Espanola. We had a beautiful afternoon for driving.
We arrived at Chutes Provincial Park right around dinner time, checked in (I finally bought one of the Ontario parks puzzles), dumped our tanks and made our way to site 78. It’s smaller than where we stayed on site 75 in 2020, but still cute. It’s also right beside a path (which is why it’s listed as not private) but that was ok with us. Our only issue is that Daisy barks at people who pass by sometimes. We’ve been tiring her out, so she didn’t bark at everyone, which was good as it’s a well used pathway.
We set up quickly and took a walk to the dog beach for Daisy. She loved it! It’s one of our favourite dog beaches and Daisy had such a great time running around, in and out of the water. The sun was starting to go down and the lighting was beautiful. A great way to wrap up a hot day sunny and bright day.
This was an electric site so we plugged in and took the opportunity to use our air conditioning. We find it’s always much hotter when we don’t have a site by the water. We didn’t run it for long, just enough to cool us down for the night.
Supper was skewers (thank you Farm Boy!), potatoes and salad. We ate outside despite the mosquitos being out in force. We used our thermacell and it was helpful, but not 100%. We didn’t linger at the picnic table.
Daisy and I went for a walk around the campground after supper. We really like the loop we’re in best – it’s close to both the dog beach and regular beach and it’s got a great vibe. There are fewer large trailers and it seems less busy, even though nearly every site is taken. Any empty ones say they are reserved - when we checked in, the sign at the entrance said the park was full.
It was still warm when we went to bed, so we slept with the fan on all night. We woke up to cloudy weather and it started raining soon after. We had breakfast (eggs with mushrooms, onion, bacon, and toast, since we were plugged in) and started packing up. The rain came and went, so we decided to go for a walk to the falls even if there was a bit of rain. As it turned out, we got to the falls, the sun made an appearance and we took Daisy for one last play at the dog beach.
We pulled out of Chutes just after noon and thought we might get some baked treats at the bakery in Massey, but it was closed. Darn. We went to the little grocery shop on the main strip and bought some trail mix instead.
It started raining again, quite hard, at the beginning of our drive and then rained off and on for the whole drive. There were also areas that were quite foggy. We saw 4 airstreams (one older smaller one, 2 double axels and a single axel that was maybe 22 ft). Except for the Avion we saw at Samuel de Champlain, we haven’t camped with any others yet.
Next up… Pancake Bay Provincial Park
Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park - Chutes Provincial Park
Towing: 272 km
Driving: 0 km
Water Tank: We filled up when we arrived at Chutes, but didn’t use much, since we were only there for one night.
Black Tank: We dumped as we came into Chutes, so no need to dump again on the way out after just one night!
Battery: We plugged into electricity at Chutes, so didn’t need to worry about the battery.
We never unhitched as it was an overnight, so it was easy to pull out – just reattach the electrical, lift the back stabilizers and put on the sway bar.
