Bubba Bird in Bancroft

Towards the end of last week, I started to feel human again. I was getting a sinus infection, dealing with a sinus infection or recovering from one. But it was one of those weeks where I felt like I was just going into work to keep a seat warm. I felt pretty useless truth be told. So I decided to take Friday off, just to see if I could catch my breath.

Friday arrived and after a good sleep in, I asked the Marine if he felt like a drive. He was off work that day and was all for it.

There's something particular decadent about a road trip on a weekday. You geniunely feel like you're sciving off work - which is precisely the point I suppose. We elected to check out Silent Lake, which is a Provincial park north of Peterborough that we're interested in camping at later this year.

Needless to say, driving in the Berrymobile is sheer bliss, particularly as a passenger. The seats are so comfortable and the ride is very smooth. Still, if I may digress for a moment Dear Reader, I find myself wishing for Little Thunder, my Nissan Sentra. She's been sitting in the driveway since November. Our plan was to save money and get her repaired. But I looked at her last weekend and thought, wow. She just looks tired out. And honestly, do you really need to replace a transmission twice? So plan now is just to sell what parts we can and have the Marine find something to tide him over until he gets a truck.

Still, I'll miss those road trips with her. Sure, Berry has a lot more power and A/C which is very nice when needed. But I don't know if I'll be as attached to Berry. Maybe I just haven't had enough chance to drive it yet.
But there was just a boxiness to Thunder that I liked. Berry is really an SUV, and I wonder if I did the right thing in getting it. It feels big and isn't any better on gas than Thunder was. Of course, I know I need just one bad winter with Berry's all wheel drive and I'll wonder what the hell I was babbling about here.

As I'm sure you are too.

Ahem.

So, back to Silent Lake. We arrived mid-afternoon and had a quick drive around. We checked out the lake itself, but briefly as the mosquitoes were eating us alive. I have a hiliarious pic on my camera of the Marine dashing for safety. It was brutal.

I then took a notion to go north to Bancroft, so off we went. It's a remarkably beautiful drive. There's a lot of Canadian Shield, which explains why the early settlers found farming such hard graft. Bancroft itself is surrounded by high ridges of stone. It feels like you're in a valley, even though you're not.

We stopped at a store because I had seen the magic word: FUDGE. It ended up being one of those granny stores with all sorts of country schtick. But I had my first instance of complete impulse shopping in about 4 years. I saw the Bubba Bird.

At least that's what I call it. It's a pale yellow chickadee, but it has a very round body. I just fell in love with this thing. Don't ask me why. I decided to get it, along with a hedgehog made out of twigs for Rosy. I also got a pound of fudge, which was way too much. The amount I had in my head was really half a pound but I didn't realize until I opened up the box.

I also made the fatal mistake of getting vanilla fudge. I thought it would be like British tablet. NOT.

----- Well isn't that great. I was in the middle of typing this, and Cookie ran outside on the Marine. Now he's taken off. He won't come near us AT ALL. I let him out for a bit in the garden tonight because he seemed interested, and given that he hasn't been out for nearly two years, I figured he'd enjoy it. He came back in with me no problem. I really hope he doesn't get disoriented. I just wasn't counting on it because usually cats that have been strays don't, well, stray again. I hope he comes back ok. It's night now and he's a black cat, so needless to say it was a little difficult trying to locate him and he just kept taking off. Hopefully he'll be back in a while.