I broke a spoke on the rear wheel of my Trek FX-3 hybrid bike, so I decided to switch back to my 28 year old Raleigh Tarantula mountain bike I’ve owned since 1996 for my commute to work today.

Sally has the same model in the same colour in her size so we would have matching bikes. This is the bike I left locked up at Union Station when I worked downtown Toronto in 2012, and it would be faithfully waiting for me every morning I stepped off the train. It’s the bike I used to tow my son in a bicycle trailer when he was little. It’s also been on many camping adventures with us, including riding the famous Track and Tower at Algonquin Park. There’s a lot of history in this mountain bike, and that is the reason why I maintain it. That, and it’s a great steel frame mountain bike from the 90’s with classic powerful cantilever brakes that you just don’t see on bicycles anymore.

Today, my wife and I joined our son and his girlfriend at Palmer Park in Port Perry, Ontario to enjoy the waterfront and the downtown area of this charming town on the southwestern shore of Lake Scugog.

I noticed there was a bicycle repair station next to the bicycle lockup next to the waterfront. Now if only there were decent dedicated bicycle trails between Oshawa and Port Perry.

This morning, we set out to conquer the entire Track and Tower hiking trail. This marked a special occasion for us, as this is the second time in our lives to have completed this difficult trail. On this adventure, I brought my Pentax KP with my “Nifty Fifty,” which was the only lens I used for all of these shots with a polarizing filter. We started out by signing the Visitor’s Register at the trail head.

This morning we decided it was time to explore the island and the rest of Canisbay Lake.

Finding a place to land was easy. We tied up our canoe and set out to explore the island.

On the island, we found some wild raspberries…

…and some wild blueberries. They were tiny but delicious snacks.

After that, it was time to explore more of this beautiful lake.

Today was a day of reflection, as we explored the tent-only sections of Canisbay Provincial park. We started out our camping adventures together in a tent, but for the past six years have been camping in our tent trailer.

The main idea of the tent trailer was to keep all of our camping gear in the trailer, so all we would need to do was to pack clothes and food, hitch up the trailer and head out. We enjoyed the fact that everything was up off the ground, we always slept on a level foam matress, and that a fridge, stove, lights, and furnace were all readily available. However, the trailer did come with certain disadvantages. Paying for storage as well as insurance was one of them; Another is the time and money required for the on-going maintenance. In addition, it still takes time to set it up and take it back down similar to a tent. On their own, these advantages of owning a tent trailer canceled out these disadvantages; storage and insurance were easily affordable, the maintenance was well within my means and abilities, and the time it took to set up and take down was not a great hardship.