Michèle et Denis

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Wednesday, April 27 to Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Our trip back to Belleville, Ontario.
After we got (almost) everything done in Cold Lake, we hit the road back to Belleville but at a slower pace this time.

Nothing very special about this trip. Here is a medley of photos and small stories about our "trip back".

Leaving Cold Lake, we have this nice fog (rare in Cold Lake) to start our trip back.
It does not last long, an hour later it is gone!

With all the flooding happening in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, we are pretty lucky to have only this little stretch of "wet" road from flooding.

In our fulltiming life, one of the little things we miss is a bath, before you say anything, we do use the shower in the motorhome. We loved to take a bath with a good book and read for a few ... hours while soaking in the bath! Let me tell you that we will/did get rooms with "jacuzzi's".

Where ever you see a big Canadian flag, chances are it is a truck stop.
I like it!

In Northern Ontario, most of the lakes are still frozen solid.

Why should we talk about Wawa in particular?
There is a little bit of a story here. Here it goes.
Once and only once, I call ahead to make a reservation for a room in a hotel during the whole trip.
The web site showed some very nice photos... I booked a room for the following night in Wawa.

As we arrived in Wawa, a road check by the OPP is in progress. The officer asks a few questions, when he finds out we are moving from Alberta to Ontario he says " Why? There is no work here in Ontario!". Here we go explaining our "situation"...

Once downtown Wawa, I could not remember the name of the hotel I made a reservation last night! Thankfully the cellphone has the number in its little brain. I call back the hotel and they confirm the name. Lakeview Hotel!
The outside is a little "rundown", we have doubts.

What a surprise! The lobby is just like the web page, very nice!

And the room, WOW! And cheap!

We have seen very few wild animals so far.
I believe this is a wolf!

Our only moose.

I always find it impressive where some of our roads have to go through.
After the "flatness" of the prairies, I love the "Rocks" of Northern Ontario.

Cool tenants!

Our last night on the road is in Parry Sound, close to our friends we made while in Florida.
Michele and Keith, sorry Isabelle but we have no photos of you :-(
A heartfelt thank you to both of you, Keith and Isabelle for the great meal and evening together, I felt like we just left yesterday!

Ah! Traffic on the 400/401!

When we got to Frankford, close to Belleville, our motorhome was waiting for us...

Got everything going, Propane, water, etc.
Everything works!
So nice to get back home!

How about a small conclusion/comment about the whole trip out west and back?
Here it is...

From Belleville to Cold Lake, via the US.
After calculating everything, the only advantage to go by the US is time-saving. With a speed of over 120 Km/H, you can save a lot of time over 2000 km. Even with the price of gas being $0.30 cheaper in the US, I only save a little over $25.00 but drove an extra 165 km to get to Cold Lake. The roads and interstates are just plain beautiful, we could learn something from the Americans...

Our time in Cold Lake.
I already talked about the friends we met so I will skip that part.
When we arrived in Cold Lake, I did not get that feeling of "I'm coming home". Don't get me wrong, we loved Cold Lake the time we were there, but this is not the place we want to be other than visiting. Only our opinion!

Travelling back to Belleville, via Canada.
Shorter in kilometre than the US. Our roads are mostly OK. Some people may say this is because freeze and thaw effect on our roads, well so does the roads in North Dakota, Idaho, etc. Ontario is very slow to cross with a speed of 90 Km/H for hundreds of kilometre with nothing but trees!

Now the reverse side of the coin!
The Prairies with this BIG blue sky all around you, then a valley opens up in front of you and you cross this big river, WOW! Remembering the importance of the rivers for the "coureurs des bois" and the development of Western Canada!
Ontario, with its beautiful vistas, driving highways 11 and 17 where you come around a turn and see beautifully lake Superior or when you see the engineering marvel of cutting a mountain to make way for the highway. The colour of the rockface as you drive by, just plain beautiful.
I prefer to go through Canada!

Only my opinion!

Wednesday, May 4 to Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Home! Finally.
With all the appointments and documents we have to change to become Ontario residents, we rented a site for a month at Iroquois Trails campground where we were before we left for Cold Lake. Iroquois Trails was not our first choice for a campground, because it is a little ways from Belleville. The campground closer to Belleville we wanted is almost flooded and just doing a U-turn with the car, we got stuck on the grass, not fun!

Here is our first site at Iroquois Trails. We have a great view of the Trent river, but most sites are no very level. This is why our front wheels are off the ground!

Just relaxing and working on the web page.

This is a week of government paperwork so we can become residents of Ontario. Let me tell you, there is a lot of paperwork to be done.
From the driver's license office who do not recognize our air brake qualification. Now we have to re-write our exam in a year, not now but only in a year? We do not understand this one! Why is the one from Alberta not good? So many barriers between provinces, unreal.
Next came the out of province inspection for the car and the motorhome. After all it was said and done, $1500.00 later and everything is good to go. It would have cost us the same in any other provinces anyway.
On to our health care card for Ontario, we needed to present 3 documents to prove who we are and live here in Ontario. Now two of those documents could be your passport and your birth certificate. I don't get it, don't you need your birth certificate to get your passport? But the government works in dark and mysterious ways. We will get our card in July...
Getting your licences plates for your car in Ontario is just as complicated. I want my plates to be veteran's plates, no problem there right? I have the paper from the Canadians Legion in Alberta proving that I can have the veteran's plates. Well, Ontario wants the paper to come from the Canadian Legion of Ontario! This is like we live in a big country with 10 little countries inside the big one and no one talks to the other! Just imagine if all the provinces were to work together. Oh the saving for all of us!
Let's carry on with the rest of the "Plates" story. What a shock to learn that just for the car, the insurance will cost us $1400.00, WOW! Lucky me, because we are amember of the FSNA we can save $400.00, but this is still $300.00 more than Alberta! Hey, we made the choice to live here, so we pay.
We must be the first people to cancel insurance in Alberta because it was a long process and they were not sure what we needed to do! Ontario insurance is no better, they do not ask all the documents at the same time, only one at the time, just to make sure you get frustrated I guess!

Regardless of all those little problems, we had a nice relaxing week as you will see with the photos coming up.

We just loved this garage with all the colourful birdhouses.

On our way to get the out-of-province inspection done...

I would not say this is a bad place to get your inspection done, but I would try somewhere else first.
Not a very good experience for us!

Got to keep the laptops up to date, some maintenance being done here...

With the weather warming up, we had a few campfires this week.

It still turns out to be a good week.

Thursday, May 12 to Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A lazy week doing nothing!
Of course, the paperwork continues this week, this time to get the windshield changed on the motorhome. And it is not over yet!
We also took the time to visit the village of Frankford and the area.

Like in any area of Canada, the railroad tracks were removed many years ago. Many communities along the railroad decided to convert the old rail bed to multi-use trails.
We went with our bicycles on the Frankford part of the trail.

You never know what you are going to see when you take a new trail.
A railroad around a flowerbed! Kind of neat and of course a fallen tree, the results of the big wind we got a few weeks ago.

A part not done yet!

With all the rain we got in the past month, the water level is not too high like in other parts of Canada.

Odette, Onyx and Alix came over for a nice meal, a raclette!
We had a good time!

Later in the week, we decided to take a walk in Frankford just to see what kind of stores are in here.
A small river going into the Trent River.

Our finding, Frankford is more like a place for people who work outside the village.
As far as stores go, just the bare minimum, but with nice people.

Until next time.

Life is good...