HollyDays in Northern ON: Part 1
/Grundy Lake Provincial Park
Ready to go!
August 1 - 2, 2020
We had hoped to start early for our long drive to Grundy Lake Provincial Park, so we actually set an alarm for 7 am (we usually only set an alarm if we need to catch a flight somewhere early in the morning!!). We were aiming to leave home between 9:00 am and 9:30 am, so I was pretty happy that we were hitched and ready to leave at 10 am. But there’s always those few extra little things that need to done, so we didn’t actually pull out of the driveway until 10:20 am. Josh had to leave for work at 10:30 and he was betting that he would leave before us. We just barely beat him out the door!
We stropped at Bridgehead to pick up coffee for the road (we had just run out at home!) and then filled up with gas. We were on the highway for barely a few minutes, when our driver’s side mirror flew off! Yikes! We got off the highway and sorted out what to do. We were lucky to find that Camp Mart in the west end, right off the highway had a mirror in stock – it was their last one, though! Phew. We also called the city to let them know what had happened.
It was noon when we FINALLY really left Ottawa for the long drive. We had a bit of traffic where the 417 goes from 4 lanes to 2 lanes, but otherwise the traffic was reasonable most of the way.
A few years ago, when we started driving Josh to and from University in Sudbury, we discovered the little town of Deep River. The waterfront is so beautiful and we always look to stop there. It’s a great place to stop - by the time we’re there, we’ve been driving for a bit and usually I need to use the bathroom! So, of course we stopped in Deep River, where we made sandwiches in the trailer and ate them by the water on a rock. Daisy got a good walk and enjoyed playing in the water. It was hot and sunny all day long!
We pulled into Grundy Lake Provincial Park just past 6:30 pm, where we stayed in the Balsam Campground at site 847. It was a big site (at least for our little trailer), easy to back in to and didn’t require any levelling, so we put the stabilizers down, unplugged our electrical from the car and made a beeline for the nearby dog area. What a great place for dogs! I think they call them pet exercise areas and this one had a little beach area for Daisy to play in and a large area to run around off leash (I think?). Daisy couldn’t get enough of us throwing sticks in the water for her to chase and was soaking wet when we finally convinced her to go back to our campsite.
While out walking we found that our little loop at Grundy Lake PP was pretty busy, with lots of people out camping for the long weekend. There’s lots of room, so we never felt like anyone was invading our personal space, but many of the site were busy with families. We were surprised to see that lots of the sites also had not one, but two or three cars on them and I think that’s what made it feel busy. I would have loved to have explored a little bit of the rest of the campground (it’s huge!), but since we didn’t unhitch, it was too far to just walk there (and we didn’t have enough time for a really long walk while we were there).
The Balsam campground is located away from the rest of the park and on it’s own little lake. We only saw the dog beach area and not any other beach area. We noticed that our campground was right across the lake from the highway, which we could hear from the dog beach, but not from our campsite (we don’t hear much once we’re inside Holly anyways, since she’s very soundproof!).
Supper consisted of left overs that we had brought with us from home – BBQ salmon on a salad, and we shared a White Claw (it’s what all the young adults are drinking these days! The mango one is SO delicious!).
Just as we were finishing up supper, another camper was passing by and stopped to chat about our Airstream. He was camping with his young family in a Boler and would love to one day get an Airstream. He had done lots of travelling up north for his job and gave us a few great places that we should check out. Some were on our list already. We love meeting new people like this and hearing about their experiences. It’s one of our favourite parts of owning an Airstream!
The view across from our site
Since we were only staying for one night and we planned to dump our tanks before our next stay, we both took the opportunity to have a shower (we usually rely on campground showers to preserve space in our black/grey tank, but none of the parks have opened their showers this season due to covid-19). Chris also washed his hair.
Our site, with a tEENY view of the water! Huge site with lots of pretty trees.
Daisy and I went out one last time before bed. We left the fan on 2 and it was not too bad but I woke up feeling warm with the duvet a few times. It started out cool in the morning, but warmed up quickly.
The early morning wake up call from Daisy happened at 6:30 am. Ugh. She’s like an excited kid – a new place with lots of smells and sticks to chase into the water! So, Chris took her for a walk while I made the coffee and packed us up to move on. We were off of our site by 8:15 am (maybe a record for us!) and stopped to dump our tank. In hindsight, we realized that we should have left our tank and dumped upon arrival at our new campground, since it was only 50% full and it’s easier to use on the road without having to refill it before using it.
Next stop: Day 2 at Pancake Bay Provincial Park!
Ottawa - Grundy Lake Provincial Park
Towing: 486 km
Driving: 0 km (we never unhitched)
Batteries: 12.4
Fresh Water Tank: 40% Used
Combined Grey/Black Water Tank: 44% Full
