Red Deer Log Cabins

Wow!  What a great weekend.  I think it was the best weather weekend of the entire season!  Sunny, hot, calm (canoeing was fantastic; also almost no motor boats in the river, so safe) and the colours of the landscape were phenomenal.
There were more people turned away who tried to book in at the last moment than any other weekend this season.  Unfortunately, they lost out to people who made a plan in advance, inconsequent of weather.  Camping was completely possible, and all I had to offer.
There are cabins available for this upcoming weekend, also for Thanksgiving.  Some last minute planners may be able to get a spot.

Some of these places may be going a bit overboard, by asking clients to take a vow of silence, or not speak during certain times (people used to go to ashrams or cloisters for that).  My movement toward quiet was provoked by clients appreciating being able to get away from dueling stereos, revving ATVs, and drunken revelers partying all night.  There are lots of other places to do those things. 

This is not a library; happy sounds of children playing, people enjoying a good laugh around the campfire, etc are good things!  ATVs are not turned away, but they are not allowed to run through the grounds for fun.  People can play amplified music, but it must be turned off at 11 pm.  The suggestion is that your music should not infringe on anyone else's enjoyment of their spot here.
Make noise during the day, when the world is awake.  Let everyone sleep at night.

Slowly over the years, guests have been playing amplified music less and less during their stays, even during the day.  This has nothing to do with my client guidelines and personal preferences.  I love music!  I don't like to be forced to listen to someone else's, particularly rap and country, for extended periods of time though.

Once again, my format is ahead of the curve.  You can have the luxury of quiet here, especially if you vacation off peak times.  As I cannot control the public waterway, or the highway, these background sounds are likely during the daytime, especially during long holiday weekends and late July/early August.  When the sun goes down though, likely you can hear the waterfall, a km away.   I have been asked by some what highway is so busy at night; it is the only sound in their auditory library that relates to the white noise they hear from the falls.

The luxury of quiet without the luxury pricetag.  Good deal?

Not only is bottled water unregulated (my tap water is by law, so that you can drink it), the container itself poses a hazard.  I've wondered about this for a while, but now it is official.
The consumer has no idea how long the water has been in the bottle, and what temperatures have been involved in transportation and storage.  Now that everyone 'believes' that bottled water is safer than other types, be it rural or urban water systems, I hope this doesn't come as too much of a shock...
Bottled water has always tasted like plastic, to me.  Then again, I have clean well water to drink, so I can tell the difference.  Anyone who is accustomed to drinking chlorinated water may not be able taste other pollutants.

I already knew that Google was messing with search results, based on what has been previously searched.  Because I don't Facebook, it was news to me that FB is hiding certain of friends' posts, as heard on CBC today.  It's all based on your thumbs up, thumbs down.

This is sick and sad.  What about free choice?  Why should I let a company choose what I can see?  Why should they be able to mess with my social connections?  It's called "algorithm moderation".  It's skewed toward paid advertising.  Want to know what your friends are up to?  They'll have to mention a 'brand' name for you to see their posts, in the extreme circumstance.

The Google issue is far more insidious.

Social media?  Or new advertising paradigm?
Looks to me like people are having their lives hijacked by big business.

Just got back from Barry's Bay (supply trip), and though it is a dull day, I saw some flaming maples along the way.  However, the volume of colour is not as I had expected.  My guess is it is going to be about 50% by this weekend.  Earlier in the month I noted that there were yellow trees and dropping leaves 'ahead of schedule'.  Now it looks like peak will be next weekend, Oct 3/4, if not later.

So now the Hilton is trying to encroach on my market niche.
Note the price starts at $125 AM (that's for ONE person) (tax on top too), room service extra, and no waterfront.  Also just a hotplate and a bar fridge, I guess that's the tradeoff for having a "flushable" toilet in the room (full kitchen here).
I'm sure the parking lot is a lovely place to have a campfire.  Also notice how close these are to each other.  Unlimited S'mores makes it all ok, what a bonus!

Oh, and they claim to be the first!  We all know better though.

A recent arrival tells me that, on the way here, he was lost because...his GPS changed the coordinates he entered before the trip started.  Getting lost drew it to his attention.  He had to re-enter coordinates multiple times on the way here.  Finally, he gave up, and used a Google map.

Now, if we could only get Google to give the best routes, a paper map would not be required.  Unfortunately, when I have tried to map Google routes for clients, using shortcuts and backroads I know, Google won't let me at them!

Bad data abounds. 

I can give alternate routes to get here, but I have to define it by highway/sideroad number and compass bearing, the archaic verbal referring to map type of "wayfinding".  Easier if you bring a real MTO roadmap, and I can highlight the alternate route for the way home.

Well, the aurora was a no show.  Not just here, but I saw nothing on the internet the day after.  People are pretty quick to post viddy and pics, so it seems no one saw any.

On the other hand, this is a happening place.  Return dirt bikers, new mushroom pickers (multi-generational), return fisherpeople, and a couple from France who are focused on Algonquin Park.  Oh, and some who are just here to sleep and eat, because they work too hard in the Big Smoke and needed fresh air and to be by the water, surrounded by greenery.  Happy campers/cabiners, currently attending campfires and cooking the evening meal.

It's all good.

Another light show possible tonight.
Need a fur coat though.  Brrrrrrrrr!

I went to an industry workshop in April, where we were actually helping the workshop leaders build a packaging workshop.  As participants we were expected to form affiliations with other businesses, to build packages for tourism.  Interesting, however, the other businesses are all from a tight geographic location, far from here.  Due to the nature of tourism organizations, there is nothing local representing this armpit of Algonquin Park directly.

In a roleplaying exercise, I was handed $600 hypothetical $$s, then subjected to a list of requirements that cannot be fulfilled in this area.  The workshop leader was stunned when I turned the money back, and suggested that he approach a much more expensive business with more resources in a more populated area.

Some people will promise anything to get as much of your money as possible.  At Red Deer in Madawaska, there is little to spend money on besides the roof over your head (or a place to pitch your tent). 

One of the reasons a lot of other campgrounds are crowded and suburbanized is for capitalization, i.e. so that every square foot of the place has been monetized (otherwise known as dedicated to the God of Currency).

I leave room to breathe.  Of course, I'm not getting rich this way, but my clients' experiences have great quality.

Why would you leave the city to be crammed in next to your neighbours?
I go to the city if I want to be in a crowd.  It's expensive there.

If you want to give your wallet a rest, this place is a good choice.  However, if your identity is tied to swiping plastic during your leisure hours, I don't have a lot to offer.
The closest WalMart is over an hour away...

Just drove to Barry's Bay and back, and it's getting colourful out there.  Driving west was more colourful than driving east, as usual.
Cherry trees are red, some maples are bursts of colour, and oaks are starting to go orange.  Some poplar and birch are showing a fair amount of yellow.  My guess is we'll be seeing 25% by this weekend.

So glad I don't Facebook.  There has been such a push to use it in marketing campaigns, but I have continued to resist.  I signed up years ago, and got a Facebook phishing email the same day, so I deleted the account immediately.  Sure, I can't find out what my friends are up to without communicating with them directly; I prefer that interaction paradigm anyway.
Now, the Facebook community is dealing with THIS!

An outhouse is NOT a garbage bin.
An outhouse is NOT a garbage bin.
An outhouse is NOT a garbage bin.

I KNOW who put those beer cans down the men's outhouse pit at the far end of the campground.  Of course, he thinks I don't know it was him, but that is just dumb.  He obviously won't be back (having shown disrespect for the resources here, the attitude is clear).  My regular clientele are smart enough to put garbage in the garbage cans and beer cans in the return for deposit crates near the garbage cans.
Why do I have to keep explaining to ADULTS the difference between a toilet and a garbage can?

Stop the insanity!

Anyone who can get away from city lights tonight is likely to see aurora.  It's looking like a go.
Nothing visible here last night because of the heavy cloud cover.

A massive solar flare is heralding a good possibility of seeing Aurora over the next couple of nights.  Might be tricky, because the moon is just past full, so the effect could be washed out.  Moon rise is about an hour and a half after sunset right now.

Timmy's is coming to Barry's Bay.!  Building has begun.
It's almost like Barry's Bay is joining the rest of the world.  This summer we have 2 new gas stations (an Ultramar and a Shell) which has been great for us, because we now have the lowest prices for gas in the area.  THAT is a treat.  The gasoline alley has moved to Barry's Bay, Bancroft's loss.  There has been a lot of real estate turnover, so likely there will be new enterprises next summer.
Maybe they'll get a Burger King too?

Update:  Timmy's is supposed to open October 5, staff have been hired, uniformed, and sent for training in Bancroft.  It's going to be a 24 hour location.

This is a great time of year for people with preschool age children to vacation.  No bugs, fine weather, swimming/playing in the water is still viable.  Blackberries for the picking too.  Generally there is no competition for the time off, unlike the summer months.

After my post yesterday, we did have another wave of storms move through.  Bancroft got smacked heavily, by the looks of things, to the south.  Rain here was light, but the thunder and lightning show was spectacular.  Serious compression thunder, such that you can feel the air pressure from the clap INSIDE a building!
Spectacular
!

Right here!

It's storming all over Ontario.  There was a student killed by lightning strike in Waterloo this morning.  Barrie has reported hail and things that threaten tornado.  Ottawa is flooded and has power outages.

Here?  Stormy skies, a little wind, some thunder and spit spit spit.  That's it.

Weather Network called rain for 1:30.  Environment Canada has big scary banners all over the page for Madawaska.  Too bad weather forecasting has so little to do with the great outdoors.  I could have told them we weren't getting rain; the grass was wet this morning.  There is no dew when there is rain coming, a much more specific to location forecast.

The other problem is that the insurance companies have caused the weather forecasters to broadcast on the fear channel.

On the other hand, if people actually understood forecasts...

The cooler air mass is here already, so the threat of conflagration has passed with a spit.

With no new reviews (you might have noticed I do nothing to solicit them, faulty internet ranking paradigm) TripAdvisor has informed me that I can have a BRAVO badge, free!
Whoopee!

These guys are adding widgets and new designations every couple of months.  As far as I can tell, paying their ransom money resulted in my site sending them business, when I compare their stats to other site measurement devices.
They don't realize they have reader fatigue.
Not a single person has tried to redeem a special offer with the code from TripAdvisor.

They have also tried to collect and reconfigure data for property personality and greenness.

I was supposed to be taking a day off today, but early on got mixed up in the mess on Google, trying to get the place marker fixed again.  Now it is wrong on 2 pages, because of the way the template accepts information.  Anyway, I spent some extra time working on the Google+ page for RDLC.  I have managed to maintain a high integrity of information, with only one file shot (theirs.  They won't let me change the theme photo to one of mine).
The page now has a custom URL.  Have a look!  Let me know what you think!  Considering it is Google, it is going to be forever a work in progress.  Every time I try to get at my stats they have changed something again, so I wind up playing in their sandbox instead of dispensing the task efficiently and getting back to my own list of 'to-dos'.
Seeing as I'm not a fan of Facebook, this is a nice happy medium.  If anyone wants to post photos from their vacations, here's a place that works the same way.  I love seeing pics of people's vacations at Red Deer Log Cabins.  Everyone makes the space look like a different place when they fill it, it's so fluid.  They also look at the space differently, and compose the photograph differently.  The only way to see that is if people share.

Due to someone getting lost here on the way using GPS recently again, I have had the coordinates reviewed here by multiple machines.  My coordinates are right to within a second for latitude (difference between units while standing on the same spot) and 2 seconds for longtitude.  The coordinates cannot be measured more exactly.

Some people using my coordinates have found themselves in Maple Leaf.  Some have found themselves in Lake St Peter.
The last person to get lost had a new GPS out of the box and had not checked for software updates before hitting the road.  That's the only reason I can think of for the discrepancy.  I don't use GPS; I like maps.  Beyond providing coordinates, I can't do much to troubleshoot anyone's device.  That requires a call to the manufacturer.  Maybe they can answer why there is a (large) variance.

I have no control over where any individual finds their GPS data, which machine with which software they buy, whether it is programmed correctly etc.  I continue to scan the internet for incorrect information, but understand, this means I work for Big Machines on my own time, just so I can get people to stop bugging me about incorrect GPS results.  It's like other information that is out there on the internet about this place.  If it is incorrect, it is not an indication that I have lost my mind, don't care, or intentionally mislead people.  It is often out of my control entirely.  I cannot correct everyone's mistakes.

I use maps!  Paper maps, not the Google crap maps that will NOT give you the best route outside of urban areas. 
I have provided every smidgen of information I can think of so that you will arrive safely.

GPS.  Definitely not my department.  Why does it keep landing on my desk?

And the location is still 2 km s of hwy 60 on hwy 523!  Has been for a long time no matter what new manner of wayfinding confuses the matter.

After everyone being afraid of rain this weekend, and camping numbers suffering consequently, you will all be happy to know that it is now pouring buckets (3:30 pm).  Everyone is gone except a couple of regular campers who headed out in a boat 5 minutes before the heavens opened.
The forecast today said no rain. 
Hahahahahahaha