Hump Day

Wednesday brings about the middle of the week, and the middle of our adventure. We are both feeling tired and stiff from spending 7-10 hours a day in the car. Charlie, on the other hand, seems to enjoy the trip down to the car, and jumping into the cooler for another car ride.

Day three had us travelling from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay. We had a quiet morning, up early, down for a quick bite to eat, and we were on the road by 8:00am. Our path took us around the northern “coast” of Lake Superior. We were lucky to have some cloud cover over the road during the drive to keep some sun off of us and the humidity that we had been dealing with was basically gone.

Looking out over the lake, the sky opened up and was an incredible blue colour. The combination of the cleanliness of the water and the incredible sun provided water that looked like something from a pamphlet for a resort in the Dominican Republic.

In an unfortunate turn, our camera’s rechargeable battery died after only a few shots. (It’s been recharged and ready for tomorrow, though.)

Here’s a shot of the incredible sky:

The route climbs and falls frequently, twisting and turning along the edge of the lake. Our impression was that the current highway is likely a descendant of a much older road that had originally been used simply because it was the path of least resistance (whereas today, highways are much more direct or “straight”). The result was that in many instances, we’d be heading south, or even east, when our overall path was northwest. This next photo is an example of the height and the turns. As you can see, the road disappears around a bend to the right. (Please excuse the bug remains on the windshield. We found a car wash this evening in Thunder Bay. We estimate it was built around 1982; so it was older than a few of the people reading this. The bugs, however, are mostly gone.)

 

Another fascinating experience on this road was driving through clouds. The clouds we spoke of earlier were hanging fairly low, and with the height of some of the peaks, we actually ended up driving through those clouds. You can see the clouds hanging in the trees here:

This is what it looked like on the top of the hill:

As we moved along the road, we eventually entered the provincial park. Once we realized that the camera was dying, we pulled over at a “Scenic View” stop (Ontario has these all over the province; they’re little elevated stops off the side of the road where you can pull over and snap photos out of harms’ way) to take a few last photos of the lake. Here are the two we liked:

 

At that point, our camera battery was toast. The rest of the drive remained as picturesque. There were at least half a dozen construction related stops that probably pushed us back about an hour in total. We arrived in Thunder Bay around 4:30pm almost completely exhausted.

We leave tomorrow bright and early for Winnipeg. After three days, we’ll finally be out of Ontario.

Finally, a few housekeeping items to mention.

Thanks to everyone for your comments. It’s great that people are reading what we’re writing. We miss you all and wish you were here with us (then maybe someone else could do some driving…)

To anyone that we didn’t see or speak to before we left, we’re extremely sorry. We didn’t end up with much time to coordinate the move, and by the time everything was prepared and organized, we realized we had to leave. We’re going to try to touch base with everyone over the phone over the next few months.

Lastly, yesterday was Dad’s (Dennis’) birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad! We love you, and hope that Mom made you do the dishes to celebrate!

Love,

k&m