SUMMER '06: Day 2-Part 4: Providence Bay Evening

After an enjoyable afternoon in Kagawong, we decided to head back to the campsite. We still needed to organize the site a bit for the evening, and get prepared for dinner, our campfire, and the evening's sunset. Providence Bay always has amazing sunsets. We were excited!

We stopped in the town of Mindemoya
for some groceries at the Island FoodMart and then continued on to Providence Bay. Along the way we stopped at a place that I had stopped at the year before. On the corner of 540 and 542, on the road to Providence Bay is an uniquely-orange house, with a french fry stand next to it. The orange house is called the "Hawberry House" with "Bud the Spud" being the fry stand. Perhaps we should have stopped at The Spud for our burgers-just to say we did?

The "Hawberry House" is a truly unique shopping experience as outlined on their website, which you can view by clicking here. When you walk in the place, you would not expect to see hundreds of Handmade Dolls, all lined up on the walls, the ceiling and the floor. Everywhere..it is full of dolls. I neglected to go in again this year, as I had gone in the year before. The following photographs show the Hawberry House, Bud the Spud, some of the rustic antiques that sit outside, and a photo of the dolls as I had captured at my 2005 visit. April decided to go in, while I decided to take photos of the perimeter. Too many dolls for my own taste!



Another neat landmark on the way into Providence Bay were these two Hay figures propped up in one of the many farming fields that line most of the island's landscape.

The hay figures were an advertisement for the Providence Bay Fair, which was held this year on Aug 18, 19, and 20. We were scheduled to be along the north shore of Lake Superior-somewhere near Thunder Bay at that time. We were too early for the fair, but just in time to catch the funny sight of the hay figures!
We headed back to the campsite, vowing to return one day to catch in the fair.

It was nearly 7pm by the time we arrived back at the site. At 7pm, it would be time to go and trade in our $5 ticket we had bought upon registering the campsite, in order to buy our firewood for the evening fire. Claiming our firewood was fun, as there were wheelbarrels, in which were filled up by the worker claiming your ticket. We then had to wheel the barrel back to our closely-parked vehicle. April and I both enjoyed a barrel-wheeling. Mind the absence of photographs.

Firewood meant fire. Fire meant food! We prepared our dinner of sausauges that we bought in Mindemoya, and learned later that despite how wonderful our first meal over our first fire tasted at the time, that it would be best not to buy those types of sausages again. No mention of course of how they tasted later on in the evening.

Our evening consisted of two fires, one to cook our haunting and memorable meal, and the other to enjoy after a wonderful sunset that we took in down at the beach directly across the road from the campsites. It was only a short walk through the camping park to the road, which bordered the beach along Providence Bay. The boardwalk along Providence Bay ends approximately where the entrance to the the tent and trailer park. Where the path from our section of the park to where the beach is, was approximately a km down the road. We decided to just sit around the old lake bed rock that juts out of the rocky beach along the bay. Tiny shrubs were growing out of the ice-aged formed bedrock, as the cool waters of northern Lake Huron were splashing calmly across it's edges.
There it was, the Providence Bay sunset we had been looking forward to. The sun dropped down below the edges of the bay and beyond the small islands to the north west. Amazing.

What was almost more amazing, was how the temperature dropped suddenly as soon as the sun dipped down. It felt like how a late fall evening would feel, this was only the second week of August! Cold front on the way? Bad weather? The weather network stated for the whole week prior to us leaving that it would rain on the Monday, and we were going into Sunday. Perhaps it came early? No ominous clouds in the sky, good sign of a good night. These thoughts had crossed my mind as we headed back to our campsite to keep our evening campfire going for warmth.

And later that evening, knowing that this would be our best evening to view the Perseids. The meteor-showers that happen every August. We grabbed ourselves as many warm clothes as possible and drove down to the front gate, where we had to park as security locks the gate until 6am. We then walked down to the boardwalk to enjoy a late evening meteor shower. All photographs from this shoot unfortunately did not work out, as somehow the card was myseriously formatted. Perhaps the drastic change in weather was the cause.

Was a great metor shower despite the chilly temperatures. We counted 18 meteors within 30 minutes. It truly was an awesome feeling standing on that beach boardwalk and viewing the meteor shower.

Clouds were moving in a bit from the north, and the temperatures were dropping even more , so we decided to head back to the campsite to go to bed. We had an early rise plan to be up at 6am.

Here is a map of Manitoulin Island. You will see that I have circled the stops and places on the island that we explored on this trip. This map will also show you directions on how to get to Kagawong, and anywhere else you wish to go on Manitoulin Island! A vast island with many neat and wonderful places to explore.

Up Next: Day 3 - Sault Ste. Marie stop, Highway 17 views, Lake Superior!!!