Traffic? What traffic?

The past two days have certainly been about traffic -- and driving in said traffic. For a couple of people whose greatest traffic challenge is usually Calgary's Deerfoot Trail on a Friday evening rush hour, yesterday and today were interesting.

Just about anyone who lives in Canada has heard horror stories of driving on Ontario's Hwy 401, most notably through the metro Toronto area. A bazillion lanes of traffic in each direction, express lanes, collector lanes, construction...any one of these would be enough to freeze the knuckles of Alberta drivers, but put them altogether in one trip, and look out! The navigator (that would be yours truly) decided it would be best to stay in the center lane on the express side because that way, it was more likely the 'fat dots' (yes, that's what my brother called the wider line markings on the roadway that indicated the lane was going to end) would be on our right side, and that we wouldn't run out of roadway. Maneuvering 38 feet of motorhome that's also towing a little car on a dolly can be trying at the best of times, but in heavy traffic, it's definitely a challenge. There was certainly no down time as we trundled our way from east to west, certainly not enough for me to even jump over to the couch to snap some pics of downtown TO off in the distance! Still not sure what this is all about...don't push him out of the ditch?

After we got through the Toronto area, the rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. The picture out my window from the bridge at Sarnia looking towards Lake Huron was absolutely breathtaking though!

The colours in the water were so blue...I was just in awe. We had about a 20-minute wait at the border, which wasn't too bad, and I only lost a tomato from Mexico. The border guy didn't ask about alcohol, meat, or anything else, but boy, better not have any Mexican veggies! What's really stupid is that I bought it in Walmart in Great Falls, MT. Yeah, I know....

We stayed that night at the Holiday Shores RV Resort in Durand, MI. This place is beautiful! There are over 500 sites in this resort, and a 9-hole golf course. Most of the sites were long term guests; whether owners or renters, I don't know. Many of these retired people were cruising the resort on their golf carts like we used to cruise downtown on a Saturday night! Everyone was really friendly, and it was just a really pleasant place to stay.

We got on the road early Friday morning, heading for Chicago. On paper, the trip shouldn't have taken more than 5 hours. On paper wasn't accounting for construction season in the Chicago area, nor was it accounting for two nitwits who made silly choices in how to get around tolls and the like. We found way more construction that we likely would have come across had we just paid the toll and stayed on I-80. But then again, there was one point after our little detour where it took us over half an hour to go seven miles! Of course that little delay allowed me to take this neat photo of the Des Plaines River in Joliet...

The metro Chicago region is HUGE! We drove and drove, and we drove some more! But we finally made it to our destination. We're in the Sycamore RV Resort in Sycamore, IL. It's a nice little RV park with small lakes, walking trails, a very small beach, and nice calm, quiet environment. We have enough room for the motorhome, the car, and a cement pad for the patio chairs. We spent last evening sitting on our 'deck,' enjoying nice wine, uploading photos, and working on the blog. Watching the fireflies was kinda cool too!

On our travels yesterday, we did find a couple Costco stores where we plan to pick up some tri-tip roasts -- absolutely to-die-for cuts of beef! And of course, I've already scoped out the location of the Premium Outlet Mall. Tonight, we're having dinner with a long-time (I was going to say 'old' but he's bigger than me, and there's no snow around here for a face-down snow angel!), dear friend. Tomorrow we'll be meeting up with a number of Ger's buddies who are getting together. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll have time to get into Chicago proper and see what there is to see there. Someday, we'll be back, and some tall friend of mine will have to give us the grand tour!

As usual, pictures are on Flickr.

The long and winding road...

See this sign? This was the story of our journey from Whitefish, MT to Grangeville, ID today.

Up bright and early, we thought we had it made as we pulled out of Whitefish sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. The trip south around Flathead Lake was uneventful -- except for Gerry deciding that area would be a great place to HAVE A BOAT! Yes, Gerry wants a boat. However, in order to bring the boat with us, we'd need to leave the Civic behind. If we hauled a boat behind the motorhome, we'd have no way of getting it to the boat launches. For that matter, other than packing up every time we wanted to go somewhere outside the campground, we'd have no way of getting anywhere!

Okay, enough about the boat and how much fun it would be on Flathead Lake. Did I mention how gorgeous it it? And how big it is? Alright, enough about the boat!!!!!

We ran into some construction between Polson and Missoula that slowed us up a bit. There was a good 30 miles or so of road rebuilding happening, and a max speed of about 35 mph (maybe 55 km/h?). The sign at the end of the project said federal funding was over $28 million, and state funding was $0.4 million. If I'm not mistaken, we witnessed federal stimulus money at work -- and there were sure a lot of people working!

We got into Missoula, the biggest town or city we've seen since we left Calgary, around 2'ish. After filling up the motorhome, we found a Walmart on the south end of the city, on the 'right' side of the road, so we pulled in and picked up a few things for the motorhome -- storage bins, a new waterhose -- stuff like that. We got out of Missoula about 2:30, somewhat later than we'd originally thought. Ger had figured the entire trip would be about 5 1/2 hours. See that sign up above? Yeah...

It was an absolutely stunning drive (and when I'm on a better 'net connection, I'll get my pics uploaded to Flickr for all to see) -- streams that eventually turned into small, clear, rushing rivers, complete with rapids. A raft and someone to pick us up at the end would have been absolutely heavenly today, as the temps got into the high 20's (celsius). The skinny two-lane highway (MT/ID Hwy 13) wound alongside the stream/river along the base of the mountains. While not mountains in the sense of the Rockies that we're use to seeing in Banff, they were mountains nonetheless, and the road didn't go through them or over them; it went around them -- all.

When we got to Kooskia, ID, we thought we were out of the worst of it. Yeah, right! About 15 minutes south of Kooskia, we jogged right...and up. And up some more. Ger said he felt like Icarus flying to the sun. We just never quit going up! And the the neverending winding road!

We did eventually get to the top of the hill, and then went back down the other side. The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain... Some more winding road, some more up the hill, and we came out on what appears to be some sort of a plateau where the town of Grangeville sits. The Bear Den RV Park is just south of the town, just off Hwy 95. That's good, as tomorrow we head for Caldwell, ID, just west of Boise for the next two nights. And that's south of here.

The clock read 7:30 when we pulled in. The barbecue is on and the hotdogs are ready to be grilled. It's now 8:30 p.m. and we're both tired and hungry. The AC is on, the sun is shining, and we'll be up bright and early again to be on our way.