Day 2 of Trent-Severn Waterway- Percy Reach to Hastings, Ontario

Crazy storm early this morning- very close lightning and loud thunder, but no rain and we could see blue skies. From my bed, I thought the boat had been struck, but Ben said it was just close. Another flash of lightning and I started counting to see how close it was. I got to, "One-one thou," and the whole boat rumbled with thunder. Apparently super close. It rained after the thunder and lightning, but wasn't happening at the time. It was so odd. It woke everyone up (6:30ish) except for Moose! 

Today was the last day of off-season hours for the locks. Got up and started to workout, but streaming has been difficult and splotchy, so Bear and I did different segments before and in between locks today. We did 2 locks (solo-boat) between sets in our workout. It was kinda clever to break it up that way. 

We started our first lock at 10. They said aiming for Hastings may be pushing it for off-peak hours but we will try! At lock #10 (2nd of the day) they warned us about the next lock station because it is a "flight lock", meaning 2 back-to-back. We told them we did the Rideau last week, so we weren't concerned about it. They giggled. We had to wait at the flight lock for a while and hoped it didn't cut into our plan to get to Hastings tonight.

At #14 Crowe Bay, the lockmaster told us about her camping road trip to Argentina! Wow! That's impressive. She gave each of the kids a dark blue TSW dogtag and activity book. (They got one from the Rideau at Smiths Falls and I didn't realize it was a thing here too. It reminded us of the Junior Ranger program in our national parks.

Hot, hot, hot again today. Ben asked how we did the Bahamas all summer if it was the same. I said it's different when you live in bathing suits all day, every day- with swimming abilities- versus real clothes. 87°F was the high. Lockmaster, Karen, said it is typical August weather, not June. She also gave each of the kids purple dogtags and said they come in a bunch of colors so they should try to collect them all. Roo immediately stated that she wanted every color to make a rainbow. The dogtags are leftover from an old promotion 3 years ago. 

We tied up at Hastings before the lock, as we arrived too late and they were already closed. It was stormy for a short period, but cooled off, so we were able to tolerate the walk into Hastings for dinner, replace a few wrenches that attempted to swim,  stop at a grocery store where we added to our boat DVD collection, and eat ice cream before heading back to the boat for the evening.

9 locks today and 3 dogtags each- dark blue, purple, red  (#9- Meyers, 10- Hagues Reach, 11/12 flight lock- Ranney Falls, 13- Cambellford, 14- Crowe Bay, 15- Healey Falls, 16/17 flight lock- Healey Falls). Trip total: 88 locks. (No, that wasn't intentional.)