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!

Well that's a little corny!

Corny? Just a little! Corn, corn and more corn. That, dairy farms and trees. Lots of trees! That was our trip across Wisconsin today.

We left Lebanon Hills Park Campground by 9:30 this morning. Not a bad start, considering Google said we had about a 7 hour drive today. We stopped just across the Wisconsin border for gas and coffee, and continued on our way. Wisconsin is beautiful country. Green, rolling hills, lots of trees... But it seems like just about all they grow is corn! I'm sure some of it is feed for all those dairy cattle they have, but I bet a good bit of it is also because of the ethanol subsidies. Whatever the reason, there sure is a lot of it!

I also saw the Mississippi River for the first time in my life. At least that's what the big sign said just as we got to the bridge that crossed it. I was a little underwhelmed, but remembering how far north we are, I didn't think too much of it, and took some pictures anyways (today's photos are posted on Flickr). A little while later we came across a HUGE river that looked to me like the Mississippi should look. So I quickly dug out my trusty Good Sam RV Road Atlas, and from there I deduced that the BIG river was actually the St. Croix River which meets up with the Mississippi not too far south of where we crossed it on I-94.

Other than a lot of green, and a lot of road, today's trip was very unremarkable. Until I saw Lake Michigan. Other than Lake Ontario (from a distance), this is the closest I've been to one of the Great Lakes. I'm impressed. Anytime I can't see land on the other side, I'm impressed. I'm a prairie girl...what do you expect?

Anyways, we're spending the night in Park Place of the North campground, about 15 miles south of Escanaba, MI. It's a nice little spot right on M-35, with a walking path that goes out to the lake. Unfortunately, the boardwalk that goes right to the lake is broken, and the ground rather wet, so we didn't get that far. But it was neat to see. We got here early enough that we were able to barbecue steak and potatoes, and enjoy a nice dinner outside. This is what holidays in an RV are all about!

Tomorrow, it's to Sault Ste. Marie and back into Canada...and unless someone is generous enough to share their wifi (as happened tonight), we'll catch you all when we get to Lindsay on Friday!

The Mall of America

Had to happen sooner or later -- one of us got sick. That would be me. I have no idea if it was something I ate, or a bug, but I felt like death warmed over for several hours last night. Mother Nature didn't feel much better. Around 10 o'clock, the owner of the campground was going around to all the sites saying that the sheriff had just stopped in to let him know that trucks were being blown off the interstate near Fargo because of a nasty thunderstorm. If we wanted, we could go take refuge in the (cinderblock) washroom building until the storm passed. I really didn't feel like leaving the bed, so we stayed behind. There was some wind, and a good bit of rain, but the worst of it apparently passed us by. The storm was still going on in my innards, and that kept me up until after 1 a.m! By morning however, all was well again, both with me and the weather!

I woke up about 8 or so -- sleeping in for me these days! -- and made a pot of coffee. Since we only had about a 3 hour journey today, I decided to let Ger sleep for a bit. When he finally rolled out, we took our time packing up and left the campground around 11:30 a.m. Late start for us! I hadn't eaten anything and my belly was reminding me of that fact, so we stopped for fuel about halfway through the trip, and I got some salt and grease into my system, courtesy of McDonalds. Gotta love salty fries on a tender tummy!

We pulled into the Lebanon Hills Park Campground around 3:00 p.m., got set up and then headed out for the Mall of America. The guy working in the campground office told me it's smaller than West Ed -- and he's been to both. He's right, it's smaller, but it's still impressive in its own right! The amusement park in the middle of the mall is quite amazing. My son would love the roller coaster that pivots in all directions as it goes around the track. My tum was getting queasy again just watching! Then there was the Lego store, with the huge Lego sculptures on the roof.

Just outside the store, there was a play area with several tables of blocks for kids of all ages to (re)discover their inner child. We could just imagine our son-in-law there, playing with his daughter! I apologize for the quality of the photos -- someone (who shall remain nameless) forgot to check the battery in the camera and couldn't even take one photo with it! All the pics we have are off my Blackberry. Oops.

I did have to chuckle when we realized the Microsoft store is right across from the Apple store. People walking from one store to the other; both stores seemed to be quite busy. We checked out some prices, and the actual numbers are the same here as what they are at home. Which means it's *gasp* cheaper at home, because the tax here is 6.25%, where at home, we just have the 5% GST. I did have to check out Nordstroms, Nordstrom Rack, and Coldwater Creek, just because those stores haven't yet made it to Canada. Soon, though, from what I hear!

We stopped for dinner at the mall in a restaurant called Cadillac Ranch. The food was good; typical burger/steak/salad type stuff -- rather hard to screw up. We did amuse ourselves watching a couple women try to ride the mechanical bull. Ger tried to talk me into trying. I think the boy has been driving to much -- his brain has gone mushy!

Now we're back at our motorhome, and Ger has a buddy visiting him. Looks like we might be in for some more thunderbumpers tonight. It will be an early night though because tomorrow looks to be about 7 hours of driving as we head east and north to Escanaba, MI, on the shores of Lake Michigan. Three more sleeps until we're at Lindsay!