The Great Lakes

I've never seen this part of the world before, so everything was new, especially the Lakes. SOOOO big! And so many trees! Yes, there are a lot of trees in the foothills and the mountains of Alberta, but those are mostly spruce. These ones are deciduous trees, and I imagine the colours in the fall are just spectacular! (As usual, photos are all uploaded to Flickr -- today's batch are under Day 5 and Day 6).

While I love my motorhome and wouldn't give it up, sometimes it's a little inconvenient. Like when we were coming through Sault Ste. Marie to come back into Canada. A sign showed that the Soo Locks were off to the right somewhere, but getting this big rig into those kinds of places, especially with the Civic on the back end, is not a fun task. So I end up taking a lot of pictures from afar, like this one of the locks as we went across the International Bridge.

We made it through customs with no problems, but then we didn't do any shopping on our whirlwind ride through the US, so we didn't expect any. The nice woman working the booth said we could follow the truckers -- just follow the signs and that would get us out on the TransCanada the easy way. It worked as she said, and within a short time we were on our way east towards Sudbury.

We stopped at the Serpent River Campground at Spragge, ON. It was right off the TransCanada, but the traffic noise wasn't horrible, and we were able to get a decent night's sleep. We were up and gone the next morning by about 10:00, finally on the last leg of the journey to Little Britain.

Driving across the Shield was what I expected and wasn't. It's rather like driving through the mountains in some ways, except there are no piles of rock that rise thousands of meters (feet) into the air. Trees, trees, and more trees. And after we passed Sudbury? INUKSHUKS!!!!

Enterprising (agile?) people had built inukshuks all along the highway from Sudbury right up until we turned off Highway 69/400 towards Lindsday. I was despairing of ever getting a decent shot of one because by the time we'd get close enough for me to focus with my dinky little camera, we flashed by and all I got was a blur. I finally got this one on a 'stand' of rock in between the north and southbound lanes out the front window. I just thought they were so neat!

We cruised down the side of Georgian Bay, past Parry Sound, and saw signs for Don Cherry's Restaurant, and the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame (I think that's what it was called). We didn't see the bay though, because the highway was a few kilometres inland, and maneuvering that big rig in and out of small towns was just too much of a chore. Besides, the final destination was only a couple hours away!

We pulled into the Riverwood Park campground around 4:30 Friday afternoon. We have a nice site, although getting it level was a bit of a challenge. But it's large, lots of room to sit and sprawl. My brother and his wife came out from Little Britain, about 15 minutes away, and we spent the entire evening enjoying each other's company. Seeing family is a good thing.

There will be more posts about family later as we met up with more of mine yesterday and will see even more later today! Pictures to follow!