The Thousand Island Spring Arts Show and Sale was held in Rockport Victoria Day Weekend. We decided the weather was nice enough to finally get out to do some geocaching, so we headed in that direction, armed with a GPS full of coordinates.
Rockport is always a busy place, but it was over run with people on Saturday. We found an area designated as event parking and set off to see what we could see around the village. I found John Shea, whose art I've admired for the past couple of years. His paintings are uncomplicated, and striking because of it. Nearby was another artist whose work taught me much about the use of colour. Tricia Wilmot Savoi has mastered the art of getting my attention, and that of many others. What more could an artist ask for? I'm ready to abandon watercolour for a while, and see if I can apply what I learned just from looking at her paintings. Somehow, I doubt be able to duplicate the effect, but I'm stirred up and willing to try.
We would have stayed in the village longer, and even done some geocaching there, but the people were so desperate for parking spots, they didn't care if they blocked each other in or not. We decided to make our escape while we still could.
We crossed the 1000 Islands Parkway and explored a few other artists, including a photographer, a glass artist, and a guy who made concrete plaques and mushrooms. He reported that sales were going very well for him.
We hunted down our first geocache nearby, near, but not in a cemetery. It was just a micro though, and so, after signing and replacing the log, we journeyed onward. We found two other caches on this day, but found more interesting things where we didn't actually find the caches. As I've said before, it's not the treasure, but the hunt that makes it all so much fun.
We made a rest stop at the Jones Creek property of the 1000 Islands National Park. It's too early in the season for the main building to be open, but signs directed us to a compostable toilet along the nearby trail. I think this site was worth the stop. I know of a two story outhouse at a nearby museum. This one in the woods is not a two story one, but rather just a second story one. I've certainly never seen that before. I might add that it's a great idea though as it's a very clean place, unsmelly place..
View from the top. Notice the trail well below.
Traveling back along the 1000 Island Parkway, we saw a couple of families of geese, as well as some interesting islands. Some of them were not far from the mainland.
While looking for geocaches, we found this old drain. It is inscribed "The Kings Highway 1938". It's big enough I suspect the area wild life use it go get to the other side of the road during certain seasons.
One of the great things about geocaching is you often learn something you didn't know before. We found out that the 1000 Island Parkway was originally built to be Hwy 401. After the eastbound lane
was completed they abandoned the project and completed it further north,
leaving us with the beautiful scenic roadway we have today. There is a
bike path on the north side of the road, which would have been the westbound lane and
runs between Gananoque and Long Beach. The path was laid by Bell
Canada and covers a Fibre-Optic line that runs through the area.
There is a place where it is very obvious that the bike path was supposed to have been a roadway as both bridges were built before they the people in charge of this project changed their mind.
The parkway is on the right, and the bike path is on the left. Enlarge the picture by clicking on it for a better view.
From the right hand side of this bridge, there is a view of where an older one once stood.
We finished off our day at Tim Hortons. So did everyone else, from the look of things.
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