Hiking: Thousand Islands National Park #Canada150 #DiscoveryPass #hiking

I realized that we’ve been having a ton of movie reviews lately. So, for my sake and anyone else who drops by here not for reviews, we’re having a review-free day! During my vacation, we headed off to Thousand Islands National Park to take advantage of the Canada 150 Discovery Pass to do some hiking.

Thousand Islands is wildly known for its cruise around the beautiful Thousand Islands area to see all the lovely residences on the different islands scattered about and eventually for the longer cruises and those with passports can head on to see the castle. We’ve never been to the castle but its on our bucket list however, Thousand Islands National Park was somewhere that popped up on our radar to check out. We ended up heading into the park and while one of the three locations to go hiking were closed, we ended up going to check out the other two trails locations.

The Visitor’s Centre is located at the Mallorytown Landing Trail area which is kind of like walking around in someone’s backyard as a good bit of the beginning and end rounds around some houses in proximity. However, the trail is pretty nice and easy. Its mostly flat and goes up a small hill in the back roads.

Thousand Islands National Park

It turns out I did take some pictures but nothing was quite as memorable as finally seeing the toilets here which were in little cabins like this and had this Phoenix composting system or something. It said to close the lids on the toilets when people were done but of course, no one does so as I was in there, I kept imagining that the whole Snakes in the Plane scenario would happen or some frog would hop out at me. Stupid since its crazy deep but hey, overactive imagination can be a curse sometimes.

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Here are two shots that I liked of the Mallorytown Landing trail.

Just down the road for about a five minute drive was our next location with a network of over 2 hours worth of trails if you really wanted to do it and it was the Jones Creek Trail. We headed over there and figured out a way to at least reach the other side of their boardwalk and the lookout spot and then head back. The trails have all these animal names and it was pretty cool. For those looking for those trails, you can find the map HERE. we started on the eel and kept going right to follow Turtle which keeping right lead to Heron which leads to the Boardwalk and we did a part of Snipe to the lookout point and headed back. The trails are marked pretty well with the colors of the trails on the map so its easy to just spot where the trail is by looking for those little tags hung on the trees. The trails were relatively easy and its mostly lookout points at marshlands.

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

As much as it was a flat course, it was still really comfortable to walk in. The trails were nice and it still had the nature trail that the trails weren’t always really defined so the hunt for those colored signs happened at times. Some of the lookouts aren’t exactly great but its still a milder walk which turned out for the better since we don’t get the chance to hike as much as we’d like.

Thousand Islands National Park is a decent spot. There are some nice scenery around. Although, you should definitely go for the cruise if you are in the area. As for us, we’ll probably see if the leaves are still around and hunt down another location to hike up in the mountains to catch some leaves before the weather gets cooler and we only go hiking in the spring after the snow has melted and/or when the parks open up again.

My Weekly Adventures #40

The incredibly work-related April is upon us! April always is the month that murders us at my work, so if it gets a little sporadic in the next few weeks, I apologize in advance. However, it has been a whirlwind of busy for the first quarter of 2017. However, everything’s been going pretty great. I love being a workaholic especially if it means working with a ton of great people and getting to do all the things I love. The last two weeks of March has been pretty awesome. I did manage to just get in those new segments despite being a little backtracked by the trip I took to Toronto. In fact this is where I’ll start this Weekly Adventures segment!

Toronto ComiCon (with Drew’s Movie Reviews)

Toronto

For the second year in a row, I went down to Toronto and met up with Drew, my fantastic blogathon co-host for the Toronto ComiCon weekend. We jam-packed our schedule with tons of panels and went to a party and even found time to eat some good food and visit a beautiful touristic attraction, Casa Loma. You can find the recap for ComiCon here, Casa Loma here and the Toronto haul here.

On that note, one of my prints are already framed! I’ll be framing the other two in the few weeks. Our office is going to look awesome! 🙂

2017 Parks Canada Discovery Pass

More geared towards my fellow Canadian readers, to celebrate 150th birthday of Canada, Parks Canada has offered up the Discovery pass which allows free access to National Parks along with some other centers and whatnot. You can find all the info on the Parks Canada site. I ordered this pass a few weeks ago and got it in the mail some time before or after the Toronto trip and we’re super excited to plan out some more hiking day trips this summer especially since we managed to pick up another set of hiking poles for myself also. We will eventually have to change the hiking boots soon but we’re still looking for a good pair. On that note, if any of you in Ontario or fellow Quebec residing bloggers or have visited and hiked, do tell us where you suggest.

Course Update: Guitar & Photography

Both the courses ended this week! At this point, I’m done with the Guitar course final assignment (yay! and why this is going up later) and preparing for the final assignment for Photography, continuing after this goes up. I did have to work overtime to play catch up. One of the few things I’ve realized happen when I lose a weekend to going away. I think it also is because I don’t own a laptop anymore and when I’m away, I don’t feel like working on my phone as much so its really just watching TV and relaxing, which is a good thing. Actually, it was very refreshing to recharge even if it took a while to recuperate. Does that make sense? I was tired but more motivated to write. Anyways, point is, courses are over and hopefully these great time management skills I’ve used this past month (for the most part) will stick around.

One New Segment FINALLY Live!

Battle of Ingredients

In case you missed it, my team-up with Phoebe of Starry Traveler’s Road for this new segment, Battle of Ingredients is finally live! If you missed it, you can find it HERE! We started simple but we’re going to be doing a hopefully monthly deal with this. Planning time to meet up and gathering up friends and then coming up with recipes all take time between our own work, blogging duties for myself and parental duties for Phoebe makes it all so hard to make this more frequent. However, I am quite pleased with how the post turned out. Hopefully you all are and will enjoy it.

Learning a New Tools: Canva

Would you look at the image for Battle of Ingredients? I actually learned about Canva a little while ago but I’m truly enjoying working with it to build simple images and giving the blog a more professional header image for various segments. I have one for Music Obsessions coming up tomorrow and working on one for the new segment. Also, I’m trying to get something together for the actual blog header.

Birthday Month

March is THE birthday month of our family. My in-laws and my husband and even myself has birthdays in the second half of March. My birthday was yesterday and I turned 31. It was a pretty calm day which is always great. There were a few a little things that bothered me for a short while but overall, it was pretty relaxing and efficient, which is great. My husband and I will celebrate this weekend by going to a movie, Ghost in the Shell, which I’ll probably have the review ready for Monday.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

  • New Youtube project 
  • Ghost in the Shell review & more

What have you been up to? Anything new?