The kids and I woke up at about 9:30 in the morning. I was surprised that they slept in that long, but I was not surprised that I did. 
   I got them fed and into their bathing suits and took them down to the dog park beach so that everyone else could continue sleeping. 
   As I watched the kids swim I noticed ​the Ruby Meadowhawk dragonflies clinging to the reeds in the lake. 

   There were so many dragonflies all over the place. I have recently learned from my sister that a group of dragonflies is called a "charm of dragonflies". I think that is very lovely. Just as lovely as the one that landed on me. 

This Canada Darner was not concerned about me at all. I was able to transfer it from my pant leg to my finger very easily. It stayed perched on my finger for probably a good ten minutes or so. The kids were able to get a good look at it and were impressed that it stayed for so long. 

As the kids were swimming, they had to get out of the way for a mother mallard duck and her ducklings as they crossed over from open water into the reeds. They swam quite close to the kids and I was surprised by this. The kids hadn't even noticed them right away and I had to shout and say "Hey! Watch out for the baby ducks!"

Another type of dragonfly we saw at the beach was the Chalk-fronted Corporal. 

The dog park beach was much quieter at this time of the morning. Aside from a few canoes out in the water, it was just me and the kids. We stayed for about 2 hours or so before heading back to see if anyone else was awake yet. 

We got back to camp to find that everyone was up and coffee was on. The kids went to play in the woods and created a little caterpillar house for a gypsy moth caterpillar that they found. It had all the things a caterpillar could want. there was a moss floor, some leaves to eat, a stone wall to keep it safe, and a section of tree bark to give it some shade. The kids put a lot of thought and effort into making their new caterpillar friend happy. 

   In the afternoon, Meema and Great Grandpa showed up for a short visit. Meema took the kids to the beach again. (I wasn't kidding when I said that the kids liked to swim).
   After Meema and Great Grandpa left we all headed down to the dog park to do some fishing. Well, they did some fishing. I went in swimming. The water was so warm. It was perfect!
We spent a few hours there and headed back when we got hungry for supper. When I got back I found another Chalk-fronted Corporal dragonfly hanging out on my car. 
   After supper, the kids said good bye to their parents because they had stuff to do early the next day and couldn't stay. Tonight it would be just me and the kids. 

   The kids spent most of the evening playing in the woods with the friends they had made a couple of campsites over. They had a great time playing frisbee and and exploring the woods. 
    When it became dusk, we took a short walk to the beach and saw the mother duck with her babies huddled up together on a rock beside a sea gull. They were settling in for the night, but the kids and I were just beginning to have fun.

When it got dark enough we brought out some sparklers and lit them up. We made designs and letters in the air, 
Then I got out a bunch of glo-sticks and the kids had fun dressing up in them. They would make bracelets and anklets and even mustaches with them.

Then they discovered that they could twirl them and swing them around to make circles and shaped of colours. I would take pictures and show them and they thought it was fabulous. 

   They wanted to go frog hunting again and since I hadn't gone the night before, I thought this was a great idea. I told them that they would have to show me how it's done. So dressed in our glo-stick finest, with nets in hand, we went down to the beach to look for frogs. 
   It was not difficult to find them. And the bull frogs were very big! The kids would take turns holding the flashlight while one of the other ones would net the frog. They would hod the frog for a moment before letting it go and then we would walk a little farther down the beach and they would switch places and catch the next frog. I was impressed with how they didn't fight with each other and how gentle they were with the frogs. We got about 5 frogs and 2 toads (that we weren't expecting). 

Eventually we made our way back to camp where the kids washed up and brushed their teeth. They took their glo-sticks into the tent and crawled into their sleeping bags. I had to clean up a few things outside to make sure that no raccoons got into anything. I was only gone a few minutes but when I got back to the tent the kids were all sound asleep. Once again they had tired themselves out with all the fun they had that day. It had been a great trip. It was too bad we had to pack up in the morning to go home. But I am sure we will all go camping together again sometime soon. 

It was a wonderful feeling to wake up to the sounds of the birds calling and the woodpeckers knocking on the trees. The campground was so peaceful. But I was about to change all that. In about an hour I would be on my way in to town to pick up 3 kids all under the age of seven. My campsite was about to get a whole lot noisier. (sorry neighbours!)

The chipmunk from yesterday was there to greet me when I got out of my tent. I had a quick breakfast and then headed off to go pick up the kids. 

I arrived back at the camp with kids in tow just in time for lunch. So we had a quick bite to eat. After lunch I asked them what they wanted to do first. They said "Too bad the sky looks like rain, so we can't go swimming". I replied "Who says we can't? We can go swimming in the rain if we want to". They all cheered and rushed to get their bathing suits on. I decided not to go in and instead I grabbed myself a folding chair and an umbrella just in case it did decide to rain. When they were ready we all walked down to the smallest beach in the park. It was the closest. 
  We were there for about 2 hours and it never did rain. At one point Mila came out of the water and asked if she could play with the umbrella in the water. It was an old umbrella that was on the verge of breaking anyways, so I said "sure!". She gleefully took it into the lake and had a grand ole time playing with it. 

​The smallest beach had more people on it today than yesterday. The kids managed to find and make friends with a girl named Anna and her brothers who were camping only a few sites away from us.They all played together in the water until they eventually got too cold and wanted to go back. 

When we got back we had a snack and the kids played in the sand for a bit. Naturally, they did not want to sit still for long so I suggested that we take a walk to go check out the dog beach that was not too far away. They loved that idea, so we put on some shoes and away we went. 

To the left of the dog beach is a dock and boat launch. The kids made a bee line for the dock to see if they could see any fish or frogs in the water. 

And they weren't disappointed. There were bunches and bunches of minnows swimming around by the dock. We had some buckets with us so the kids tried their hand at trying to catch some. But the minnows were too fast so they didn't catch any. 

It wasn't long before they were bored of not catching any fish and were looking for something else to do. The thing about young kids is that they love to swim. Although we had just come from the beach not that long ago, they wanted to go swimming again. The lack of buoy lines at this beach really appealed to them. ​There were plenty of other kids and adults swimming here so I figured there was no problem.

​Of course I hadn't expected them to go swimming here so they didn't have their swim suits with them. Did that stop us? Not at all. I told them they could go in their clothes on. They said "Really?!?" in excitement. And I said "Sure, why not?" 

The kids loved it and had a great time. They thought it was the best thing to be swimming in their clothes and come out dripping wet. After about an hour they were ready to go back to camp and have a snack. But they wanted to come back to the dog park with their bathing suits on later. All that I could think of was that little ditty from the Finding Nemo movie "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming."  It was definitely turning into a "just keep swimming" kind of day. 

After a snack, they got their swim suits on again. But instead of going back to the dog park I convinced them to try out the big (main) beach instead. I told them that we should check out all the beaches so that we can decide which one we liked the best. So, off we went for a swim for the third time that day. 

I really didn't mind in the least. I enjoyed sitting in my chair by the beach watching the kids and watching the seagulls and dragonflies. It was so nice to be able to just relax for the first time this year. 

When we took a vote on which beach is the best to swim at, the dog park beach won hands down. The big beach is just too shallow for their liking and the kids kept pushing the buoy lines out farther so that they could go deeper. Kids aren't that tall so it is not surprising that adults were crossing over the buoy lines all together. I heard one adult say that it does get deep very quickly on the other side though. 

It was getting close to supper time and I knew that their parents would be arriving soon, so we headed back. Sure enough, we met their parents on the road as they were driving to the campsite.

​The kids played in the woods while their parents set up their tent and got dinner ready. 

We got a campfire going and sat around enjoying the flickering of the flames for awhile. When it got dark enough, Dylan (the girl's dad) brought out some nets and flashlights and took the kids down to the first (smaller) beach to hunt for frogs. I stayed behind to sit and watch the fire. 

When they got back, they regaled me with stories of how big the frogs were and how much fun they had. They would catch a frog in a net and each would hold it for a minute before letting it go again. Then they would go off and find the next frog. 

As Dylan got the kids ready for bed, I saw a huge bug flying around the lantern. I recognized this bug from a previous camping trip to Arrowhead Park in 2018 with my brother and my sister-in-law. It was a Summer Fish Fly. This was only the second one I had seen in my life. 

Once the kids were in their pajamas, we gave them glo-sticks and filled the kids up with hot chocolate and marshmallows.  Then we threw packets of colour changing chemicals (3 packets work best) onto the fire and watched as a rainbow of colours emerged. 
After brushing their teeth, they went off to sleep in the tent. They fell asleep quickly because they were exhausted from all the swimming and fun they had that day. The adults sat around and talked until the fire burnt down.

​ It was a lovely ending to a lovely day. 

With the craziness in the world that has been caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, I am grateful to God to still have the opportunity to go camping this year. For a few months I was worried that the parks would remain closed and that I wouldn't be able to go at all. Needless to say, things are slightly different this year in order to make that happen. One of my personal decisions on the matter was to choose to do my camping fairly close to home and not drive clear across the province. Luckily, there are still a number of parks near me that I had not camped at before. Restoule Park is only an hour away from where I live so I wonder why I had never camped there before. Oh well, there is no time like the present. 

**Disclaimer...I did not feed that piece of bread to the chipmunk in the picture. He got that from another campsite.**

I was really looking forward to this trip. Work had been pretty stressful and I was much in need of some relaxation. My original plan was to take my nephews two girls camping with me; just the 3 of us. However, my nephew loves camping too so I invited him, and his girlfriend, and her son to come along too. I went up a day ahead of everyone to get the campsite all set up. Since my nephew had to work the next day, I will go pick up the kids in the morning and he and his girlfriend will join us around supper time. 

First stop was the park office. The first noticeable change was that only 2 people were allowed in the office at a time. While  you waited you stood in line outside, 6 feet away from the next person in line. There were only about 2 people ahead of me so I did not have to wait in line long. 

Next stop was the wood house where I picked up a bag of wood. As in previous years, the wood was somewhat damp and does not burn very well. It needed to sit for another year before being sold. But it was the only wood there was so we had to make do. There is no park store here so if you wanted anything you had to drive 20 minutes outside the park to the nearest convenience store. But I was able to purchase the patch and sticker for my Provincial Parks Passport book.
​

I drove to my site (number 262) and took a look around. It was not the site I had expected to be on. Before I reserved it online, my sister had told me about the site that they had one year and how it was a very short walk  to the boat launch. She couldn't remember the site number though but she thought it was this one. Unfortunately it was not the right one. The boat launch was a full section over from this site. 

No matter though, this site was pretty big and had a nice layout. It was a corner lot so the only neighbours I had were across the road from me. Those neighbours were quiet and polite and were gone for large chunks of the day. The boat launch might not be steps away from the campsite, but the smaller beach was a short walk from this site. 

​ I could have done with out the horse flies though. They were plentiful at this time of year. But I find that as long as I am wearing a hat, I am not really bothered by them too much. So I made sure to put my hat on. 

The other feature of this campsite is that it is right next to the bathroom. However, this is a double edged sword. Although the park gets points for putting in a composting toilet, the smell from this one was very strong. So strong that every once in awhile I could smell it from my campsite it the wind blew just right. This composting toilet was not the same as the one at the  Kiosk campground in Algonquin. That one was made by a different company and was much easier on the nose. This one was very clean though. Another noticeable change was that there was a hand sanitizer station just by the door of the bathroom. The hand sanitizer smelled like lemons and, as far as hand sanitizers go, I liked it. 

I got my site set up within an hour and sat down at the picnic table for some supper. As I ate, a crow strutted his stuff around my site checking me out. 

Actually, there are all kinds of birds here. So many different songs were being sung in the tree tops. It was early evening so the sun wasn't as high in the sky but I could make out a couple of blue jays in the trees. I also saw robins and sparrows.

After supper I decided to do some exploring. I started off by going for a walk down to the beach that was closest to my site. It is the smaller beach and it was pretty empty at this time of day.. 

But it wasn't the swimming area of the beach that caught my attention. I was more interested in the marshy area off to the side of the beach. 

The marshy area was filled with leafy green water plants and marsh grasses as well as vivid purple flowers of the Pickerelweed plant. 

Running along the shoreline, among these plants and flowers were a couple of Spotted Sandpipers. I was thrilled to see them because last summer I had gone looking for some at Esker Lakes Park and hadn't found any there. They aren't a rare bird by any means but they are also not a bird that you see every day like a robin or a sparrow. Here, there were two of them not more than a few feet away from me.

I followed the shoreline going further and further away from my site. It was so peaceful with no one around. It was just what I needed. 

Different types of yellow flowers were growing along the shore line. There were Earth Loosestrife just beginning to open. 

And there were Birdfoot Trefoil in full bloom.

Since I was picking my way slowly along the shoreline through marsh grass, I was not really disturbing much of the wildlife. This afforded me a rare opportunity. I came across an area where there were about 20 or 30 Tule Bluet damselflies all clinging to the tall grasses. As I slowly walked by one or two of them would leisurely fly up off the grass and then back down again. They moved so slowly that it looked like they were floating in the air, not flying. They seemed quite unconcerned that I was there except for a fleeting moment. They allowed me to get so close to them that I could almost touch them. It was an amazing sight. 

The shoreline led me to the boat launch dock. There were some people fishing there. 

The canoes that are available for rent were located near this dock. 

I continued to walk the shore line until I reached the second beach. The second beach was much larger than the first one was. There were more people at this beach too, but still not a lot. I imagine that was because it was getting to be too late in the evening for most swimmers. 

People left their boats and paddle boards lying around, unattended, on the beach. I guess there is a feeling of trust here. No one seemed afraid of things getting stolen. It was a good feeling. 

Rather than taking the shoreline back, I found a path near the beach which led to the road. The path had some benches along it so that you could sit and rest and enjoy the view of the lake. 

A red squirrel watched me from a nearby tree as I walked by. 

The walk back to the campsite brought me close to the comfort station.

It too showed signs of Covid-19....well, signs about it anyways. The rules are that now there are only 2 people allowed inside at a time. ​Another thing to note is that all the showers in all the provincial parks of Ontario are not in service due to the Covid-19 virus. 

Outside the comfort station there is a bulletin board. Posted on it was information about the different types of turtles that could potentially be encountered while in the park. 

I was also impressed by the poster they had explaining what to do if you were to accidentally catch a turtle while fishing. 

As I walked by an empty neighbouring campsite, I noticed that they had left behind a partial bag of wood. So, I grabbed it up and brought it back to camp with me, I decided not to bother with a campfire tonight, but tomorrow night I will have the kids and we will definitely make a fire then. 

As it got dark the mosquitoes started coming out in full force. I had brought with me an old bottleof Skin So Soft body lotion that I had found around the house. People used to say that Skin So Soft was the best mosquito repellent ever made. But then they stopped making it. I figured I would test this theory out. I put some on and waited for a mosquito to land (which was a mere couple of seconds). One landed on my hand and I watched to see what it would do. It started smelling around looking for a good place to bite. Just before it went in to take a bite, I squashed it. So, I figure that either the Skin So Soft doesn't work, or it's too old, or it was the wrong stuff. I only had the body lotion, not the liquid kind that most people used to be familiar with. 

As the evening draws to a close, I sit and listen to the sounds of the campground. Families are chatting, dogs are barking, fires are crackling, and, over the top of it all, is the sound of frogs calling out to one another. All of these sounds made me happy and relaxed. It is so great to be away from the busy hustle and bustle of the city. It's just the slow restful pace of Restoule Provincial Park.