High Summer Blues — Jon's Photoblog

I’ve been calling myself an “empty-nester” lately. It’s kind of bullshit: my ex has done most of the heavy lifting when it comes to providing “the nest”. And it’s not like my kids haven’t been on their own for a long time now, and taking good care of themselves in the process. But except for a couple of years with my son training in the Air Force, they’ve at least been around. That is no longer the case: my son is off in Asia, and my daughter recently moved to Montreal. It definitely feels different now.

I did have the pleasure of taking the road trip with my daughter, renting a U-Haul to move to Montreal and towing my car so I could drive back. It was a great trip and we had a great time. Between the music and giddy humour, just spotting all the other U-Hauls on the road became an amusing game. It was September long weekend, and it felt like every 20th vehicle on the road was somebody moving across the country.

Here was our rig:

There is so much to see on the way, it’s worth taking a week or two. We took the northern route (Highway 11) and I quickly lost track of all the beautiful sights. I’m of the mind that since you can’t see everything, you might as well see a few things well, so on the way back I bee-lined for Thunder Bay with the thought of spending a full day there hiking the numerous trails. Unfortunately it poured rain that day, but I think I still managed to get some reasonable shots.

On to the photography and what I did manage this month. I started out revisiting the Shoal Lakes, which are vast but shallow bodies of water rife with waterfowl and other creatures. I spotted a mink, but it vanished before I could get a shot. Instead a pair of Lesser Yellowlegs swooped in and posed for me:

The lakes rise and fall, slowly breathing in a decades-long cycle. Early homesteaders have been flooded out, leaving fragile ruins from which birds survey the landscape. The wood is almost leached of colour, and the sky was flat, so B&W felt more suitable:

A frog misjudged my tripod movements, and ended up leaping into the trail, where he tried to hide under a twig:

After that it was time to head out on the road trip. I don’t have any good pics from the way out, unfortunately, as we wanted to make good time, and it’s a loooong drive. From Winnipeg to Montreal is ~25 hours. On the way back I stopped in North Bay, found a park and headed to the shores of Lake Nipissing as the sun began to set.

The next day was a long one back to Thunder Bay. On the way, I had to stop a few times to take in the views, but the only shot I managed that I’m okay with are these:

I really want to drive that stretch again at a more leisurely pace some day. But until then… I spent the next day in Thunder Bay, and it really poured. Still, I got out and between sky bursts:

The mountain ash were in fully berry. Further along the trail they practically glowed in the mist. I don’t think I managed to capture it, but here are the attempts:

I then went out to Ouimet Canyon, which is a very short hike, but very impressive, even in the gloom:

The trail leads over a bridge, I’m not sure why I was attracted to the threaded bolt, but I guess I liked the pattern and the contrast with the wood:

The road home to Winnipeg from Thunder Bay proved to be a hilarious adventure. About an hour out I picked up a hitchhiker. Too late I noticed the sign he was holding…heading to BC! “Oh crap,” I thought, “Now I’m stuck with this guy for the next 6 hours. I hope we get along.” Well, we did. Complete differences in education, economic circumstance, background, and all the rest of it, but for the next few hours we kept telling life stories and cracking each other up.

Probably the weirdest part was one of those “six degrees of separation” things that we discovered. Earlier this spring I had made a road trip to BC for a photography workshop, and ended up at Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Turns out Ray (the hitchhiker) had lived there for years, working as a logger. So he starts telling me about all the places I should have gone in the area, scenic things I missed, roads I should travel on, and something rang a bell and I said:

“Oh, I know that road, had to travel it a couple of times for the workshop.”

“Ah, so you know the ‘shoe tree’?”

“Yeah! Some people in the workshop took a photo!” (here’s a link to the shoe tree: https://images.app.goo.gl/Pq4rZ9HYfqyS7DYaA )

“Well, I got a pair of shoes on there.”

What a weird world. I mean, what are the odds I’d run into somebody with a direct connection to a place I’d just been? He could have been going anywhere…

Anyway, made the trip fly by. I hope Ray got where he was going.

After that it was back to the world of prairie photography and big blue skies. Hence the blues. Just kidding, the season is shifting, the foliage is beginning to turn, the last moths are sipping from the last goldenrod:

It all feels too familiar after a trip, but you gotta work with what you have and make the most of it. The latest outing was back to Pinawa Dam. The pleasant weather didn’t provide much drama, but these are great locations for future adventures: