Well, it’s about 12:30 AM on Monday, July 6th, 2009, and I guess I should get started on what I’ve been doing on my vacation so far. Not a great deal to tell, but experience has taught me that if I don’t put the stuff down – minutiae as well as anything of import – I’ll forget it all before I get the chance to sit down and write about it.
Early on Friday morning (the 3rd), I got myself and all of my necessary belongings packed into the Audi and hit the road – exactly at 5AM, which – oddly enough – had been my plan. I had a pleasant drive of a bit over ten hours and checked into my hotel in Maumee, OH (just outside of Toledo) at somewhere between 3 and 3:30 on Friday. On Friday night, I made good on a promise I’d made to myself about 10 years ago and had dinner at Tony Packo’s Famous Hot Dogs in Toledo proper. Dinner consisted of a plate of Tony’s chili cheese mac, about which I had heard very good things, along with one of the aforementioned famous hot dogs.
Tony’s was founded in the 1920s by a Hungarian who apparently thought his version of the all-American dog was the best in the world. Apparently, Toledoans liked the things enough to allow Mr. Packo to stay in business until the 1970’s, when an actor from Toledo named Jamie Farr ad libbed a few lines in an episode of a little known situation comedy called “M*A*S*H and said something about how the best hot dogs in Toledo came from a place called Tony Packo’s. The writers of M*A*S*H liked the reference so much that Packo’s was written into about 4 more episodes (in one, the sausage casings from TP’s are shipped to Korea to be used in a heart/lung machine or something); and, virtually overnight, Tony Packo’s 
morphed from a local spot where Toledoans in search of a dog went into eat to a full-blown tourist attraction where rich and famous people go to eat hot dogs and (I’m not making this up) autograph hot dog buns – hundreds of which are prominently displayed on the walls of the two or three Tony Packo’s restaurants now in business in the Toledo area. Being a purist, I went to the ORIGINAL Tony Packo’s, of course.
The highly-touted chili cheese mac was…well…it was okay. I think it might have been better had I doused it liberally with hot sauce, but it wasn’t bad. Sort of bland, if I’m to be totally honest, but not disgusting or anything. And the world-famous dog? I’d give it a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. For starters, it wasn’t a hot dog. It was more like a kielbasa. And it was cut in half. Rather tough, somewhat pungent. I opted to have it covered in the (world famous, naturally) Tony Packo’s hot dog chili, which helped it tremendously; but, like I said, I’m a purist. I wanted a hot dog, not a kielbasa covered in chili.
The PICKLES, however, were extraordinary. Thick-cut dills which had been marinating with peppers and had a fantastic zing to them. I bought a jar of them before leaving the place and had some on my sandwiches at Ahmic this afternoon.
After dinner, it was back to the hotel by way of a meandering route (I was lost), which took me past First Third Field, home of the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team. I must say that it’s a lovely little park nestled smack in the middle of downtown Toledo. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, actually. The field is surrounded by the city on all four sides from what I could tell, and it’s not so much in a stadium as in a sunken city block. Should one want to watch the Mud Hens play, one could literally do so by standing on the sidewalk (yes, seats are available – it looked like it could hold about 5000 paid spectators).
Back at the hotel, I played on the computer a bit and then crashed. Got up at around 10:00 Saturday morning (Independence Day), with a vague idea of checking out the Toledo Zoo, but I was sort of stoked about getting to Canada and opted to hit the road by about 11:30.
The drive from Toledo to Magnetawan was relatively uneventful. Customs was a breeze (“Where are you from? Where are you going? 
How long are you staying? Okay, have a nice day”), and the 401, 407 and 400 highways were all pretty traffic- and construction-free, which was nice. I did get stopped in a DUI checkpoint just outside of Parry Sound, but the OPP guy who talked to me was really more interested in my car than in anything else (“Nice wheels! You lease or buy? Drive good? You like it? Okay, have a nice day”). In spite of that short slow-down, I made it to Ulvik at shortly after 7:00 Saturday night and was greeted with hugs from Cy and “T”, Karl and Diane Neuse, and Don and Julie Peddie; all of whom I’ve spent time with previously. Dinner on Saturday, prepared by Dr. and Mrs. Peddie, was lamb, potato salad and corn on the cob.
A peahen (female peacock for the cretins among you) apparently 
took up residence at the camp a day or two after Cy and “T” got here last week, and she’s fairly tame. Diane has been feeding her cheerios, which the bird seems to enjoy, and putting water out for her – which she also appreciates. We were also treated to the arrival of a mother raccoon and 5 little balls of fur known as “baby raccoons” during dinner. I attempted to get some pictures of the babies – they were beyond cute – but didn’t do the best job of it. After dinner, the older crowd stayed up to play dominos, while I opted to take a quick jump in the lake and go to bed. I’m staying in the boathouse this year.
Woke up at around 8 this morning and had another lake-bath (complete with Dr. Bronner’s Magical Peppermint Soap), then walked up to see what was going on in the main cabin. Not much, as it turned out. The old folks were eating sticky buns and drinking coffee (I partook of the latter, turned my nose up at the former). After breakfast, Karl, Diane, Julie and Don took off to play golf, leaving Cy and “T” and I to listen to the Wimbledon finals (Federer beat Roddick in a fantastic match) and work on a devilishly difficult jigsaw puzzle that Diane apparently started a few days ago. I took a couple of photography walks later in the morning and spotted at least one fox (have not seen one of those here before) along with the aforementioned peahen, some deer tracks, about a jillion wildflowers, birds and the like.
The golfing foursome got back just in time for lunch, for which I had a couple of cheese sandwiches stuffed with, as previously mentioned, Tony Packo’s peppered pickes. Spent some time on the internet this afternoon chatting with a cute lady from back home and then took another walk (didn’t see anything more interesting than a couple of joggers who I didn’t recognize). Came back from the walk to find Karl, Cy and “T” batting balls around on the tennis court and opted to photograph them rather than participate.
Dinner, prepared by Diane and Cy, was comprised of a fantastic beet salad with feta cheese; a mixture beet greens and grilled chick peas; and fried turkey kielbasa with barbecue sauce – amazingly good.
Dr. Peddie retired shortly after dessert (strawberries, cherry pie and ice cream) and the remaining 6 of us played 10 games of Oh Hell. I was destroyed, naturally. Karl won. Also naturally.
That pretty much wrapped up the evening, and we all totterred off to our beds at around 10:30. I’ve spent the last 2 hours (before starting this) trying various ways to get network access in the boathouse (no luck there) and messing around with low-light and lunar photography (am making HUGE strides in those areas, I’m happy to say).
By the way, the weather today was phenomenal. I’d guess that the temperature hovered around 72, thanks in part to a wonderful western breeze coming off of the lake. Tomorrow (today) is still somewhat of a question mark as far as the weather goes; but if it looks like rain, we’re probably going to head into Parry Sound. All of us need some Canadian cash (I’m currently walking around with five American $100 bills, which I’m certainly not going to spend up here), and the Sound is always a nice place to grab a good lunch, browse in the used book store, pick up any necessary supplies, and buy touristy stuff. From what I understand, the rest of the week is supposed to be as gorgeous as it was today – no surprise there. It’s always beautiful at Ahmic, in my experience.
Guess I should try to grab some sleep now, since it’s 1:15. Will update this blog some more tomorrow night.
TWD