It's a vacation. Just not from ourselves.

I just realized that we don't change when we go on vacation. We change our location, but we stay exactly the same. Duh, right? Lucas didn't suddenly stop worrying about all the things, Marcus didn't aburptly stop pouting, and I certainly didn't stop being grouchy when I'm hungry, tired, or can't eat something. Thankfully Jason didn't stop cooking delicious meals, or wanting to go on hikes, or reminding me that everything is fine. And now that I've come to grips with what vacation is and isn't, I'm having a lot more fun. Not that I didn't have fun before, but now I'm not worrying about everyone else's happiness. I can only control my own happiness. You would think, at my age, after discovering this truth many times, that this would be no surprise. But it is every time. 

Enough of that. 

Overall, Canada has been lovely. 

Lucas seems to be happy throwing himself into books. He's on his sixth. 

Samus enjoys Canada because it's cool and he's being allowed to chop fire wood like a fiend. 

Jason is fiercely protecting his beef jerky stash and only allows others to eat it during hikes. He feels a piece of jerky is a sufficient bribe to get us to go on a hike and that we'd be crazy to pass up such a delicious morsel of cured meat. 

Marcus, of course, found friends when we pulled in and is keeping himself occupied by jumping around on rocks. 

Speaking of pulling in. What a debacle. Our site is on the inside of a tight little circle and would have been extremely difficult to back into. The neighbor (Marc's friend's grandpa) suggested we come in backwards. That seemed easy enough. Except we had to find a place to turn around. Apparently our camper is quite large by Canadian standards particularly as most people simply tent. We drove around the campground and came back into our circle the wrong way. Immediately we were met with a car. Jason backed the camper up and pulled out of the car's way. We then drove down and got right to where we needed to start backing and met another car. I'm telling you this circle is small. I don't know where all of these cars were coming from. I ran up to them and explained that we would just be a minute, that it was easier to get into our site this way. Everyone was very friendly, but I imagine quiet grumbling about idiot Americans once they were around us. I feel like that most of the places we go, though many of the Canadians sound just like us so I don't know how they would know we're Americans. Just in case though, I'm doing my best to assimilate my voice. Jason does not find this amusing. I think I might be leaning a bit Scottish as Jason and I have been listening to Craig Ferguson's autobiography. 

The bugs here are really not a problem. Particularly as we were prepared to dip ourselves in deet every hour. The wildlife is supposed to be rich and diverse including beaver, rattlesnakes, turtles, deer, and bear. Per the usual we have not seen any bears or wildlife of any kind except for a deer (exciting) and a bunch of greedy little chipmunks. 

Yesterday we went to a beach with jumping rocks. Samus stayed on the beach while Jason, Marcus, Lucas and I went rock jumping. Everyone already up there kept saying they'd jumped dozens of times and had never touched bottom. Nobody had ever touched bottom. Jason jumped twice and touched the granite bottom both times. Marcus and I jumped off a small rock and then went to a medium rock. He started to jump then got cold feet. Luckily I grabbed him by his life jacket before he tumbled down the side of the granite into the water below. Even though he didn't jump, I went for it anyway. For some ridiculous reason I kept my arms out to the side like the letter t. Essentially my arms belly flopped on the water. They instantly turned red and stung the rest of the day. Despite my injury, I steeled myself to jump off the largest jumping rock. It took me a while of watching others jump before I finally summoned the courage to go for it. This time I was sure to keep my arms crossed when I jumped. But managed to land mostly on my right leg jamming my swim bottoms right up my butt. Needless to say I was done jumping and leisurely swam back to the beach. Once we got back home, Jason made potato soup and we ate by the fire. As we were finishing up it started raining and we retreated to the camper for the night. 

Today we went on a hike and were rewarded with a piece of beef jerky and then stopped by the nature store for souvenirs. Then we headed into town to a fantastic used book store called "Bearly Used Books." It was the most spectacular book store I've ever been in. There were tightly packed aisles and niches crammed ceiling to floor with every kind of book imaginable. It was a teachers dream! You could have built your entire library in one stop. Had I not been near starvation, I could have spent hours in that little shop. If you ever find yourself in Parry Sound, Ontario, I highly recommend you stop. Thanks to the aforementioned starvation, we stumbled upon a lovely water front Cafe that was totally scrumptious! 

Since Samus didn't jump yesterday, we again stopped at the jumping rocks on our way home. I declared my spectator status and we headed up. Unfortunately when we reached the top, the waves were slamming into the rock faces and we deemed it too dangerous to jump. At the bottom we noticed two girls about Sam and Luke's ages getting ready to jump. The mother in me freaked out. I watched for several tense minutes as they each jumped and struggled to swim and climb in the waves. Once they made it to safety Jason made me leave. 

Although it was too wavy to jump, back in our little cove, it was calm. The water is so clear and so cold. Jason and Marcus went snorkeling and found a tire. I bobbed around in my life vest and Samus and Lucas shivered on the shore. Swimming here is not for the faint of heart. It was just 70 degrees and the water couldn't have been quite that warm. 

One more thing before I sign off. It seems as though tarping at your campsite is a sport of sorts in Canada. People have their entire campsites under blue tarp canopies. And the rigging involved is spectacular. Some of these tarps are bigger than I could have imagined and definitely than I've seen. I would love to get pictures but feel weird snapping photos of other people's sites. Perhaps on the way out tomorrow. 

I will surely be sad to leave this spot tomorrow but am excited to see where we land next. Back to the States in the morning. 

Goodnight from the Munsch bunch. 

Marcus sitting around the fire with swim googles on. 

Samus chopping wood with unrated safety googles. 

Hiking. 

Ring pop. Also note that NY hat. Jason dickered like he was at a rummage for it  in Niagara Falls with a street vendor. 

Me and Sam man with the hooligans in the background. 

Lookout point. 

The boys. 

A ferocious bear pawing at the ground. 

Reading in his swimming gear. 

Jason scratching his poison ivy. Talk about a hot mess. 

Samus sharpening his axe. 

Reading by the fire.