A cold front has hit us since yesterday. Last night it dropped down to
2° C.
Jeremy, Kristin and Natasha are going for a walk. She is all bundled up.
Michele and I did some more packing in the MH.
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
The big day!
We are all kind of sad this morning.
Our two beautiful girls.
Ahhhh!
We will miss them!
Goodbye!
Almost ready to leave.
One last thing to do, hook up the car to the MH. Off we go!
We have two stops to make in Moose Jaw.
The first is to fill up with propane. With the cooler weather, we use
more propane.
The next stop is at Fontaine Tire. They have to re-torque the two front
wheels.
We have good service, James remembers the tip I gave him...
Within the hour, we were back on the road going east.
We take the "Regina Bypass."
This bypass adds only 1.5 km to our trip, but we probably saved 20 to
30 minutes in time by not going into the city.
Manitoba, Here we come!
We stopped at a gas station for lunch.
We lucked-in, we have a southwest wind, it means almost in our back.
Good driving and save a little on gas.
Our first of two-time change. We are spending the night at the Elkhorn
Campground.
We like this campground. It is far enough, but not too far for the
first day of driving.
Now those people do social distancing...
Surprise! the valve I changed last week on the gray water tank is
leaking!!!
I take it apart to have a look. Without getting into the small stuff,
we dropped something in the bathroom sink. The little piece ended up
being stuck in the valve. It is fixed now, for sure.
So, be careful what you drop in the sinks...
This evening, we skyped with Benoit.
A short day of about 341 km. Not too bad for the first day.
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
We are back on the road by nine-thirty. The wind is much stronger than
yesterday. It is coming from the south, not good. Also, it is coming
sideways to us. It makes driving more tiring.
Funny train!
Manitoba is finally fixing its roads. Particularly the Trans-Canada
highway.
It was the worst stretch of the Trans-Canada highway in Canada.
Our stop for the night is at the Rock Garden campground near Richer,
just east of Winnipeg. We will be here for two nights.
This is what we covered today.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
It is a day of rest for us. I treat myself to a breakfast at the small
restaurant on the campground. I was the only client.
Here I am reading a real book and not an e-book. The campground had
some really nice new books for loners. I got the newest "Jack Reacher"
book. I love this series of books about him.
Michele spying on me!
Almost every day, we received some photos and videos from Kristin and
Jeremy. Here is our Natasha!
We like to take a break from driving every few days. We will be back on
the road tomorrow.
Friday, September 11, 2020
I was just about to go out when I looked out the front windshield.
A bear is just wandering about the campground. It is bout 7:30 in the
morning. I just step outside and clap my hands. He runs away. He was
very skittish. He is very afraid of humans. A good thing.
We stop for gas about one kilometre outside the campground.
This is probably the last time we only pay $ 0.969 per litre for a
while. In Fort Frances, our next destination, the gas is $ 1.109 $ per
litre. When you take in 250 litres or more, it makes a difference.
We cross into Ontario right after that.
Northern Ontario stills has some bridge left to be repaired.
In Northwest Ontario, around Kenora, it is cottage country.
The road is really nice.
Shortly after Kenora, we turned on Highway 71 south towards Fort
Frances.
We are still in lakes and cottages country.
We made a stop in a "Pulp Load Check area" for lunch. These rollers
are used by truck carrying trees loaded sideways. When the truck drives
between the rollers, if some logs are sticking out, the rollers push
them back in.
We made it to Fort Frances!
After 380 km of driving, we arrived in Fort Frances around 2 pm.
Fort Frances has a lot of history. The Rainy River and Rainy Lake
separates Canada from the United-States.
This monument is in honour of the Calder Clan, who came here many years
ago. They were metis.
Sieur de La Vérendrye was a significant player in our history. He has
lived in the general area of Fort Frances for many years.
Another significant person, Robert J.N. Pither, lived here too.
I received this photo from Jeremy. He caught this pike with a fly rod.
We will be spending two nights here.
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Fort Frances is a small city with a little over 7,000 soles.
The weather is not great. We decided to go for a drive in town to check
it out.
Now the train you see in the photo is close by our MH. A train goes by
every hour with over 50 cars. The other side of the bridge in the U.S.
It is a very narrow part of the Rainy River, about 150 meters wide.
Even then, the train did not bother us much last night.
We saw some deers in the park.
This part of Northwest Ontario has many aviation outfitters to serve
the fisherman and hunters.
This old one has a mouth!
We saw this big bird in the distance. It is a bald eagle.
This building is very big. It houses the reserve's administration and
other services. It is beautiful.
Rainy
Lake. This lake was an essential stop for the "coureur des bois"
and the fur traders. So was the Rainy River.
The main street in Fort Frances was nothing special.
Sunday, September 13, 2020
We are going to Nipigon today. We should stay there for two nights and
go pick some blueberries.
Highway 11 crosses Rainy Lake. We are going east.
It is a beautiful road with hardly any traffic.
A few more bridges being repaired.
Right outside of Thunder Bay, you have the memorial for Terry Fox and
the Marathon of Hope.
If you look at the island, you can see a face. It is the Provincial
Park Sleeping Giant.
One more stop for gas and lunch.
Surprise! The campground in Nipigon is full! What? In September and on
a Monday? Where are those campers coming from?
So we keep going east.
The scenery is beautiful.
600 kilometres later, we found a site at Neys campground.
They used to be a member of Passport America. We would only pay $25 per
night.
Not anymore, now we pay $50 for the night for only 15 amps service,
water and sewer. A little expensive for what it is. The site is small.
Lucky us that we use extra filters before we use the water. In less
than 30 seconds, the first filter looks like this. It did its job,
stopping sediment going in the MH. I do not think we will be back here
again, if possible.
