Another Great Winter Weekend

Ken and I spent another winter weekend at a cottage. This one was very different but just as fantastic.

Stephanie and Andre invited us up to her family's cottage so we were all headed out of town around the same time, supposed to meet up in North Bay that night. It's about a 4 hour drive north west of Ottawa. We meant to leave right from work on Friday but there was a flash freeze warning and no one wanted to risk the drive. Well, it turns out that was a good decision because as we stopped to fill the tank part of the way there, Ken noticed a big hernia in one of the front tires. Everyone we talked to (the army dude pumping gas next to us, Ken's dad in Florida, Steph in the minivan passing through Deep River, Cheri in Powassan waiting for us to show up) agreed that the tire could blow and we shouldn't drive on it any more than we needed to. We lucked out with quick service at the Canadian Tire in that town, and then headed the rest of the way to meet up with Steph, Andre, Cheri and Troy.


Steph and Cheri have know each other since they were young, and I've had the great fortune to get to know Cheri and her husband Troy. In fact, Stephanie and Andre have been so generous with their family and friends, I really feel like I have a second family in North Bay. And while I don't get there as often as it seems I used to, I think about them often and I miss them.


So the 6 of us met up and headed across the lake to Steph's cottage. We snowshoed while Troy ferried our things across for us, making it a nicer walk than if we were loaded down with beer in our arms.


We spent Saturday evening having a nice dinner, playing Scruples (Troy kicked our butts), and chatting. Sunday was a beautiful day. The morning was perfect and sunny and we spent a couple of hours snowshoeing around the marshes out back, tracking a big scary animal. Of course, 6 sets of snowshoes sound like godzilla coming so that animal probably fled if it heard us coming. Andre was amazing, he somehow led us all through the marshes and woods and neatly back to the cottage without getting lost once. No, we didn't double-back. Most of us had no clue where we were but he was on top of it, sans compass, the whole time.


Above are some pictures from the trip but if you want to see an external link to all the photos from the weekend, you can click here.