Kingston, Ontario

(Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada) Hi 75 Lo 50 – Perfect day to go sightseeing. Gordon and Sandra picked us up at 10:00 to take us to Kingston, a city of around 120,000 on the shore of Lake Ontario. It's about an hour and a half from Smiths Falls, and on the way we passed many old barns, and I took a lot of pictures to add to my "old barn" photo collection. We also stopped along the way to see more locks along the Rideau Canal. They're just fascinating to see, and they're always in use as there's a lot of boat traffic on the canal.

The big gates of the locks take two people to hand-crank open and shut.


These little puppies looked cute in their little life jackets.

Gordon, Sandra, and Dee taking a break

As we were leaving one of the locks this little fawn was standing in the middle of the road. Gordon stopped so we could take pictures. He didn't run off right away, so his mommie must not have taught him to be afraid yet.


When we got to Kingston we were ready for some lunch. We went to a Canadian chain restaurant called Swiss Chalet. It has excellent food, specializing in roast chicken. There's a Swiss Chalet in Smiths Falls, so we’ll be going back.


It’s on my bucket list to see all five of the great lakes, and it looks like I might get to do that this summer. Today I marked Lake Ontario off the list. The first letter of each lake spells HOMES. (I wonder if they still teach that in school?) I now have seen OME. Traffic was horrible and there was no parking available downtown so we didn't stop, except for me to run to get a couple of pictures of the lake.

We passed this beautiful church. It reminded us of Duke Chapel in Durham, NC.


After driving around town for a while we returned to Smiths Falls. We stopped by Gordon and Sandra's place to pick up a wi-fi antenna booster that Gordon agreed to loan us. Our site is just a little too far from the park office to reliably stay connected. We then returned to the RV and tried it out. It seems to be working pretty well, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

We have a black squirrel that hangs around the park. I’ve seen it several times since we’ve been here.   I finally got a picture of him.


We’ve noticed it doesn’t get fully dark till after 9:30.  Sunrise is around 5:30 in the morning, so we’re enjoying the long days up here.

To see even more coverage on what we do, check out  Sandra's blog. 

Before closing I want to mention some RV friends of ours, Ed and Marilyn Dray. We heard this afternoon that their fifth wheel and all their belongings were destroyed by a fire today. They're ok physically, thank goodness, and they managed to un-hitch and save their truck, but everything else was lost. It was caused by an over-heated brake, and by the time they discovered they had a problem there were flames around the wheel well. They just couldn't get it out with the small fire extinguisher they had available. Fire is the primary fear of all full-time RV'ers, and our hearts ache for them. Our prayers go out to them, and we ask you to keep them in your thoughts and prayers.