The Great Toilet Paper Caper

The next morning was sleep-in morning. We had decided that the night before.  Julie was the first awake and was already outside enjoying the beautiful sunny morning with the lakeside view.

I noticed a little Sandpiper walking back and forth on the beach. 

It was in search of its breakfast. At first it was pecking at the plants and grasses along the shore. Then it found a butterfly and knocked it into the water. 

It stayed for quite some time before finally taking off to another part of the lake. 

Down in the water also looking for food were a couple of Great Pond Snails. These snails were pretty big snails. They had been eating well without getting eaten themselves. 

After breakfast Penny and I went for a canoe ride.  It was very calm and relaxing and we were able to see schools and schools of minnows everywhere. There were so many minnows! No wonder the loons like it here!

The day turned out to be a very hot one. We spent a good portion of the day inside the cabin and we even took a nice long nap. 

Once the sun was a little lower and the heat not so intense, we decided to venture out of the cabin for a bit. 
Anika had noticed that the park staff had come to clean the bathrooms earlier in the day but they had not brought us any toilet paper and we were almost out of toilet paper. So we decided to drive down to the park office and ask for toilet paper as well as garbage bags and to buy  some ice cream while we were there. 

At the park office we got our ice cream and I started out by asking if there were any garbage bags available. The girl at the desk was rather dismissive with me. She quickly said "No, we don't have any available here" and then brushed me off as she turned to talk to another employee.  I was just about to ask about the toilet paper when a  new customer came in the door and was headed towards the other employee and the one I was trying to talk to said to her co-worker. "I have him over here" and proceeded to call him over to her and cut me off. So I left the office a little dismayed and without any toilet paper. 

Needless to say, we were not impressed and we decided to take the matter into our own hands. We got back into the car and we started to drive around to every bathroom in the park. Where ever we found a bathroom that had extra toilet paper (some had 4 rolls of toilet paper in one stall when there were only 2 paper holders in each stall), we would take a roll of toilet paper from it and bring it with us. 

Soon we had 3 rolls of toilet paper and we brought it back to the cabin instead. It kind of felt like stealing but really it wasn't. We were just re-distributing the rolls to different places. If they had done their job properly, these rolls would have been in the cabin bathroom already in the first place. 

When we got back to the cabin we were a bit taken aback to find that there was a boat with a tow motor and what looked to be a father and son fishing. We were surprised because the cabin was advertised as being on "our own private lake" on the website.  So all of a sudden it didn't seem so private anymore.  I mean, there are 22 lakes in the park, and they had to choose this one?  Actually, because it was such a small lake, it made it feel awkward to take the canoe out which would bring us into close proximity of each other. The fishing duo stayed for hours and we didn't get to get in another canoe ride that we had planned to do.  We were also a bit confused as to how they had got there.  There was a cabin down at the the other end of the lake with a dock but we thought that was for park staff only. Were these two part of the staff? How did they get their boat in? Had they come in our driveway while we were gone? It was a bit of a mystery. 

But since they weren't using a powerful motor (only a tow motor) and they weren't disturbing the loons, and weren't really disturbing us much, we didn't worry too much about it.  We were actually wondering if there were any big fish in the lake since we had only seen minnows the whole time we were there. But then we saw from a distance that the son had caught a nice sized fish. So now we knew that there were some fish to be caught in this lake after all. 

We had a nice BBQ for supper and then after supper, I drove down to the office to buy some ice. The office was empty at first but then after a moment a man came out from the back and told me that one of the girls would be out in a minute.  Clearly he didn't work the desk or the cash register.  While we waited I started to ask him about the lake. I asked him who stayed at the cabin at the other end and he told me that it was the Superintendent of the park, Kayla. (So that meant the that fishermen did not come from that cabin). Then I said "oh I was just wondering because there are a couple of guys fishing on the lake". I think he misunderstood me and thought I was asking if we were allowed to fish there because he said "Oh yes, fishing is allowed on that lake. I think there are pickerel in there".  I gave up trying to point out that our private lake was not really private at the moment and instead just opted to reply with information I had learned at the Visitor Centre and said "Actually there are trout in that lake".  At about that time the dismissive girl came to the desk and I got my ice and left. 

On the way back I noticed there was a truck parked along the road and a tiny path through the trees that led to the lake. So that was how they had gotten onto the lake!  It is my guess that this was not the first time they had been fishing here. 

After dinner I went for a walk. I noticed what looked to be moose prints in the dirt not too far from the cabin. It was great to know that a moose had been that close. 

The rest of the evening was spent playing board games and laughing and having a good time. We had to leave in the morning so we didn't stay up as late as the night before. Despite the little unexpected issues that we had, it was still a great trip. We really like this little cabin getaway and we will most likely be back again next year for another little retreat.