I was all for the slothful Sunday morning - after all, it's not often that I get to spend Sunday morning puttering around with Marlene. Fortunately for me, though, she was in a more adventurous mood. She decided on an excursion to Mackenzie Falls, which are on Mackenzie Creek, which drains into Lake Superior east of Thunder Bay.

Marlene, Tom and I left town in dreary, cloudy conditions. By the time we got to our destination, it was a bright, sunny day. The Falls were stunning, since the water was rushing over a thick base of ice that had built up over the winter.

Despite all the rushing water, the ice on the river was strong enough below the falls to cross to the island in the middle of the channel, and from there to the far side. We know it was strong enough because we made Tom, who weighs the most, go first. He didn't fall through, thus it was safe for us!

What fun! It was only supposed to be a short little jaunt, but we ended up exploring what seemed like every chunk of ice near the falls. There was a lot of ice. It was very warm. We had a great time.

Northern Ontario is just riddled with scenic waterfalls - this one wasn't even marked as anything spectacular on the topos we looked at, there was nothing more than a series of hatches indicating rapids. This of course makes me think that there are many, many more waterfalls to be discovered around Thunder Bay!

Though I don't know if all waterfalls come with a complimentary bottle of beer (and I doubt that all sisters would taste test it, but mine cracked it open, it was fine, and we drank it!).

Waterfalls aren't the only attraction near Thunder Bay, though. For starters, there's my sister, a great attraction no matter how you look at it. And then there's Lake Superior, which I've obsessed about for ages. We went to look at it. We saw ice fishermen out on it. We decided that they probably weighed more than we did, too.

So, in a turn of events that should surprise no-one, Marlene and I of course scampered out to chat with the fishermen on Amethyst Bay, and to look a their newly drilled holes and the three feet of ice still covering Superior, and then we wandered out to the Buck Islands.

Walking on Superior was a first for me. After the initial disconcerted feeling of wading through puddles more than 500m from land, we had a lot of fun exploring and looking at the ice. Tom, meanwhile, basked in the sun safely on shore - clearly, he would not have rescued us had the ice been unsafe and we had done something stupid (after all, he didn't come out to see the hole so he didn't know there were three feet of ice still!).

I have the best sister in the world. There is nobody else who could motivate me out of Sunday morning sloth so effectively, and of course we had yet another fabulous day. Life really is better with my sister!

I wish Marlene was part of all of these adventures...