Lovely beach area on Lake Erie

A friend offered us the use of a cottage inside Rondeau Provincial Park in South Eastern Ontario on Lake Erie. It was about a three hour drive down the 401 - it was fairly uneventful. The secondary roads around that lead to the park were a bit more interesting. There is a fantastic store just outside the park gate with an impressive selection of local beers, bakery, grocery items and typical things you may require. It was also open until nine! I think it one of the few Provincial Parks with full time cottages within the park. The beaches along the Lake Erie side are pretty nice for the region. A combination of little pebbles and sand. I was immediately stuck by how loud the crashing surf from the lake is. You can hardly hear someone standing right beside you. Great lake indeed. There was very little activity on the lake where we are. The cottage is a bit of a jog away from the main camping area so we hardly saw anyone once at the cottage. So we greedily enjoyed the profound silence and lake air immensely. Other than an older suntanning neighbour we saw only a handful of people on the beach the entire time. I thought it was a bit strange given how great a location it was. *shrug*

Rondeau greeted us with we a storm and tornado watch - fortunately we just caught the edge of it... It was windy and poured hard at times but we clearly missed the brunt of the storm. The cottage is really a small little house. I was expecting something more rustic. The insides...um, what can I say, the owner was clearly a collector of things. Nearly every flat surface is covered with trinkets and bobbles. It is a bit overwhelming. Everywhere there is seating, there is a pillow. So many pillows. I don't understand why. I think of as being akin to the first steps toward being a hoarder. The cottage is tidy but incredibly cluttered. We have taken to sitting in the attached sunroom as it provides the most open air and view toward the Lake. The lake is actually a bit of a walk away and over a berm - the water just peeks out along the horizon along the path.

Glorious sunroom

The dog loves it here. She always wants to run around and explore but she can't. There are no fences and some of the area is actually protected environment. She does enjoy the beach area too but Lake Erie's waves are justifiably a bit intimidating for our dog. She still got a work out from stalking the ridiculous number of stupid rabbits in the area. On the beach the killdeer teased her unrelentingly. Try as she might she never came close to catching one of the buggers. We met our friend who let us use the cottage on the first day. Her dog and Snoogu enjoyed racing around the shoreline.

Beach fun

We wanted to use our kayaks but Lake Erie is unpredictable and wavy. The water on the Bay side was calmer but kinda gross. And really there isn't much to see on the Bay side... especially when you are used to kayaking in northern Ontario with the many little islands and rocky shores...The real choice would have been to bring our bikes. There are a lot of trails and traffic moves around slowly so...next time if we return.

In the evening we moved all the pillows off the couch so it could be used, you know, as a couch. We burned through the first season of The Righteous Gemstones in three nights. I was a bit skeptical at first but wow... it had some crazy plot twists and even crazier characters. It was quirky and outrageous and lampooned the religious money making industry pretty hard. The stereotypes and tropes of so-called Christians... We both enjoyed it. We were a little surprised to hear there are two more seasons. It seemed to have been nicely wrapped up... Hmmm.

Overall it was some welcome downtime with no distractions. The welcome quiet and lovely scenery made for a few great days.

We joined the ranks of those with a home robot. Taking advantage of Amazon days we picked up a robot vacuum. We decided on a Shark self-emptying model. We named him Vlad the Inhaler. *snort* I'm impressed with how well it vacuums - it picks up so much dust and hair. Bleck. My only complaint would be the battery run time for secondary rooms... the shark can map one floor (and connected rooms) recharge and continue but obviously can't with another floor... so it can only clean until the battery runs out. I think it finished 80% of our great room before it died.

Relaxed and watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3... The mish-mash group of guardians is back. This time on a mission to save one of their own. Lots of action, some laughs and some truly heartfelt moments. Pretty solid entry into the Guardians catalogue.