1 sleeping giant, 1 guardian giant, 2 hostels, and 2 nights in a van

We are almost home.  Tonight we are in a hostel in Ottawa, just a few hours drive north of the NY border.  We are spending tomorrow going to some museums and then heading home the next day.  The last few days traveling through Ontario have been nice.  In fact, we have even had a day or two without rain, which is the first time sense we first got to Saskatchewan almost three weeks ago.  We've gone to a couple different nature parks, but spent most of our time in the van.  This includes sleeping in it the last couple nights.  The first night in the van we slept beside a lake at a marina.  Despite a few electric street lights and a bright moon, we could see the stars much better than in Syracuse.  We used Emily's bird telescope to take a look at the moon, the pleiadies, Jupiter, Uranus, and the Andromeda galaxy.  The moon was a few days past full and really looked fantastic.  Unfortunately it was so bright that we could just make out the Andromeda galaxy which was hiding nearby.  Clear or not, it was still awesome to see our galactic neighbor and know we were looking at light that had been traveling for 2.5 million light years.

Can you find the Big Dipper?  How about Arcturus?

This natural formation is called "The Sleeping Giant."  Can you see him?  The Sleeping Giant park is near Thunder Bay on Lake Superior.

In Ouimet Canyon there is an impressive natural stone sculpture that looks like a face with a neck and part of a body.  In the Native American lore this face is that of the giant Omett, who stands guard over the grave of his lover.  Wikipedia tells the story like this: "A long time ago, there was a giant Omett. He helped Nanabijou make mountains and lakes. Omett fell in love with Nanabijou's daughter Naiomi. One day, Omett was moving a mountain when part of it fell off and killed Naiomi. Omett quickly hid Naiomi. Nanabijou desperately looked for his daughter. When he sensed something underground, he sent a thunderbolt to split open the ground which created a canyon and he discovered his daughter at its bottom. He buried her there and to punish Omett he turned him into stone and put him on the canyon walls to watch Naiomi's grave forever."

  

When Emily and I stopped to see a movie in one of the city's we passed there were some great clouds.  These are classified as mammatus clouds.  It isn't the first time I've seen them, but it is the fist time I've gotten a good photo.  

We stopped on the side of the road because there were some great clouds overhead.  I really like this one.

View from the road.

Red Squirrel

Emily's van.  We had stopped to take some pictures of the lake.