Chris, one of these years the wife and I will have to get passports and visit you at the lake cottage!! I'm about 6 1/2 hours from Thornhill. Where's the cottage?
We're about 2 1/2 to 3 hours north of Toronto. Thornhill is basically right above Toronto on the north side. Thornhill used to be a little town on to itself at one time, but Toronto has continued to sprawl so Thornhill is a little area within the city at this point.
My Grandparents starting cottaging on our lake back in the early 1950's. They bought a piece raw water-access land and camped on it for about 15 years before they built a cottage. So I cottaged with them up until the mid to late 80's when they sold. I bought a back lot in 1989 and starting building a house in the sticks. Then in the late 90's I sold the house and bought some acreage on the lake that was near my Grandparent's old cottage. The property I bought, belonged to cottage friends that I used to hang with. They sold the property off which had a nice older cottage and guest cabin back in the mid 80's. The subsequent owners let the cottage and guest cabin get pretty run down and one of the owners tore the main cottage down back in the mid 90's.
So when we bought the cottage, it was more or less raw land with the guest cabin which was in a more or less condemned state. So we've more or less fixed up the guest cabin and we stay in that. We've got big dreams of rebuilding a main cottage at some point down the road, but we haven't rounded up the funds as of yet.
So we more or less have our little antiquated cabin on a beautiful lot, with a woodstove, no running water and very basic hydro service.
So when I build the monster cottage, you'll get your invitation!
Until then though, I doubt your wife would have much fun.