Maritimes - Day 16

Today I discovered that all four of my kids love watching fish jump out of water.  This was mostly a travel day, as we left Deer Lake and traveled the TCH (as it is labelled on all the road signs in Newfoundland) to Grand Falls - Windsor, where we stopped for lunch.  Or where we initially tried to stop for lunch, but got turned around a bit due to bad navigation skills.  There was a Salmonid Interpretive Centre that I figured would have a picnic spot, so that's where I thought we should stop for lunch.  I didn't expect that it was on the other side of the river, across two bridges only wide enough for one car, and through a bunch of twisty and windy roads.

We eventually arrived, and it did have some picnic spots, so we stopped for lunch before heading down to the main area.  I had no idea what it was, but it was something to do for an hour or so to get everyone out of the car.  It ended up probably being the highlight of this part of the trip for most of the kids.

Essentially, Grand Falls is a huge waterfall that the salmon cannot jump up.  However, the river system behind the falls is huge and could support lots and lots of salmon, if they could get there.  So they built a way for the salmon to get there.  It is essentially a man-made stepped waterfall that goes up 20m in steps the fish can jump and allows the fish to get further upstream to lay their eggs, as salmon always return to the exact tributary they were born in to lay eggs.  They had to kick start the process by raising a bunch of baby salmon and introducing them into all the upstream areas, but it seems to have worked very well, as they count the fish as they go by.  It was an interesting view of how we can affect the environment for good.

But enough about that.  The interpretive centre had a downstairs area where you could look into the stream system the salmon swim up and watch all the salmon swim by.  There is also a viewing area where you can watch them jump up the waterfalls, and the kids stood there watching and exclaiming until we drug them away so that we could get back on the road.  Definitely something my kids enjoyed.

We then drove to the tiny little town of Port Union, where we are spending the night in three rooms in a small inn.  Tomorrow we go see the puffins, which is on Bradley's to do list.  At the start of the pandemic, when the schools shut down, Sandra made each of they boys research an Atlantic province, as even then, she was thinking of this trip.  Bradley picked Newfoundland and fell in love with the puffins when he saw what they looked like.  There is an observation spot near here, but it is almost 300km from St. John's, so we didn't really want to stay in the city and drive out.  Therefore we are out here and will view the puffins before heading down to the city.

P.S. It's weird that all the TV shows end on the half-hour out here...

Maritimes - Day 15

Newfoundland doesn't look exactly like any of the other provinces in Canada.  Super steep large rock hills, kind of like the mountains but without the mountains, but unlike the Rockies, every inch of everything is covered in trees.  It is quite beautiful.

We spent the night on the ferry, which was OK.  Not a great night's sleep, but we all got some sleep.  Upon arrival in Newfoundland, we were one of the first cars off the ship, but it was quite foggy, and we ended up stopping at a nearby Tim Horton's.  Of course we were just the first of many cars stopping at this particular Tim Horton's, but we had time to get out, buy breakfast and sit down for a bit.  Then it was off to the tourist information center, where I picked up a bunch of brochures while we waited for the fog to lift.  However, at the information center I was told that the fog only lasted for about 10 minutes of the drive, so we took off to Cornerbook, our first stop.  The fog did disappear quickly, and for the most part we were alone on a fairly empty highway surrounded by big hills covered in trees.

At Cornerbook, we stopped at a small railway museum (just to annoy my children), which had all the engines and passenger cars from the Newfoundland Railway that ran from St. John's to Port aux Basques on narrow gauge tracks.  Then it was off to the Captain Cook historic site, where we stopped for lunch and checked out the views.  Cornerbook is built on the side of a rock, and the roads can be insanely steep.  Finally we went to a grocery store before heading to Deer Lake, where we are spending the night in a massive (and expensive) Airbnb home.

Before checking in, one of the tourist brochures had told us about a small provincial park near Deer Lake, where in July and August you could watch the salmon jumping up the waterfall, so we headed that way.  The road was fairly rural and ended up as gravel before we finally arrived at the park.  A daily pass was $10, just like home, but the guy running the booth told me to just park by the entrance and walk in, as it was a fairly short walk, so we did that.  The park was absolutely full of frogs - we saw a couple on the road that had been run over and once you got in the forest, there always seemed to be one jumping off the path in front of you.  At the falls, we quickly noticed a salmon trying to jump up the falls, and then a bunch more.  We spent about 20 minutes or so watching, and all the kids were pretty excited about it.  We took a couple of videos so that we could get pictures of the salmon jumping.

Can you find the salmon?

Then it was to the house and supper and relaxing.  Tomorrow is another big travel day, as Newfoundland isn't a small island and we need to get to the other side.

Maritimes - Day 14

Off to Newfoundland we go!

As our ferry wasn't until 11:15pm, we spent the day out at the Fortress of Louisbourg, which Sandra and I had visited almost 20 years ago, but when we were out here, it was May and all you could do was walk around part of the fortress.  During the busy season, the fortress is full of employees dressed up in period specific clothes and acting the part of people living and working in the fortress.

There isn't a ton to see in the fortress, but they do have a number of live action displays during the day.  Those occur at specific times and locations and we wanted to see some of them, so we kind of split up our route through the fortress.  We went through a number of rooms before heading to the governor's area where they fired off two cannons.  It was pretty exciting and loud.  Then it was some more exploring before deciding what to do for lunch, where we ended up heading back to our van for sandwiches.

We then finished off what was left in the fortress before watching a parade drill by all the actors dressed as soldiers.  It was interesting that most of the buildings in the fortress were storehouses, since they had to store all the cod they caught before it was sent back to France and store all the supplies the fortress needed for the winter.

After we left the fortress, we drove out to the location of the first lighthouse in Canada, which is in Louisbourg.  It was quite the tight and twisty road and when we arrived it started raining, so only Sandra and I got out to look around.  Then it was back to Sydney, where we tried to get supper but ended up at multiple fast food restaurants.  Finally we drove to the ferry to Newfoundland, where they only asked for my ID and no one else's.  I quickly told her we only had the health cards for the youngest two, but she said that was perfectly fine as they were 12 and under.  So, despite being worried about getting on the ship, it looks like it will be no problem.

I am currently typing this in the terminal as we wait to board the ship, so I won't add pictures until later.  The ferry runs overnight and we arrive in Newfoundland at 7:00am tomorrow morning (or whatever 1/2 hour time Newfoundland is on).

Maritimes - Day 13

This was a much longer driving day than I was expecting, but I guess the drive from Fredericton to Moncton that we did yesterday really isn't that long, and while the drive from Moncton to Sydney is 450km, it isn't all nice highways, especially once you are on Cape Breton.

The first part of the drive was easy and the Nova Scotia sign at the border is pretty and big and has a road to it so you can stop for a picture without risking your life.  We met a nice family from Massachusetts at the sign and swapped turns taking each pictures.  Once in Nova Scotia, we were able to stop for lunch at a small provincial park that just had picnic tables and outhouses, but it was a nice location for a bit of a break.  We've seen a lot of trees and rocks since we got out of Manitoba, but I think Nova Scotia looks the nicest.

The next part of the drive was difficult, as I was tired, there wasn't really a lot of great places to stop and the drive seemed to be taking much longer than it should have.  Part of that was that I took the highway to North Sydney rather than Sydney when we crossed onto Cape Breton Island, and there is a difference of 50km between the two routes.  We eventually made it to the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, where we stopped in order to do something today and to get some rest from sitting in the van.  Bradley wasn't too impressed, but Jonathan, Alex and Evan enjoyed looking at the inventions that were in exhibition.

Then it was on to our hotel in Sydney and a grocery store for supper.  On the way out of the hotel, we encountered a couple looking at our license plate and talking about how long a drive we were on (5600km so far).  They were from Edmonton, but had flown in and rented a car.

This hotel has a giant two story waterslide, so I took the kids to it for almost two hours.  Tomorrow we are going out to the Fortress of Louisbourg before taking the ferry to Newfoundland.  I'm not certain if I will be able to post tomorrow night, as we get on the ferry in the evening for an 11:15pm departure, but if I have time, I will try to get something up.  (Or if they don't let us on the ship, I will definitely post something after we've found a hotel room.) 

Maritimes - Day 12

As our possible ferry ride was pushed back a day and a half, we have found ourselves with a bunch of extra time, so there was no need to push all the way to Sydney, Nova Scotia today.  Instead we took a leisurely drive to Moncton and spent the day at Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy.

I was expecting a much bigger road down to Hopewell Rocks, as it is a decently well-visited tourist destination, but it is a very small and windy road with houses and farms on both sides of it.  Once at the rocks, we spent some time viewing everything as it appeared at high tide (which was 12:10pm today) before grabbing our food from the van and eating lunch at a picnic table.  The park area is quite big, and while it has a restaurant, it also has a lot of picnic tables.  To ensure you can see high and low tide, once you've paid to enter, you can enter and exist for two days, so we took the time after lunch to leave and explore some of the small places outside the park along the road.  As we were leaving, I noticed that lots of people showed up for high tide and then found a place to sit and wait for low tide without ever leaving.

Our first stop after exiting was a odd craft store called the Pink Church that we saw on the way in, but unfortunately, it was closed during the week and only open on weekends, so we headed a bit further back to a railroad museum.  I love trains enough that I even love obscure little railway museums in small towns and this one was all of that.  They had a barn full of bits and pieces, an engine shed with a few engines and a couple of passenger cars and for some reason a CF-101 on the grass beside the parking lot.

After exploring the trains, we went to a small market in the same town - four or five tiny sheds, each of which operated as a different shop.  There was an ice cream/slushy shop, a small local farm market, a bookstore (which was unfortunately closed) and a sewing/quilting shop, where we met the very friendly proprietor and Sandra purchased some nautical fabric to use in a future project.  We finally stopped at another museum, but just to see the guns out front - two German WWI artillery guns that had been captured at Vimy Ridge and were now on display here in New Brunswick.

Then it was back to Hopewell Rocks for low tide (with occurred around 6:30pm).  The stairs down to the shore are open at around the midway point (so 3:00pm) as the tide drops extremely quickly.  We walked out onto the rocks, took some pictures and got muddy.  Then it was a fairly long walk along the shore, all of which had been deep underwater a few hours ago.  The speed of the tide was really amazing when we took the time to stop and watch in one place.  Sandra and Bradley walked a little further while the rest of us looked at the water.  We quickly found some snails and in the five minutes we spent looking down, the water had moved back by a huge amount.  I can only imagine how scary it is to be down there while the tide is coming in.

Tomorrow we are off to Sydney with no real plans on what to do along the way.

Maritimes - Day 11

We have made it to the Maritimes!  We left Sherbrooke early in the morning and drove back to the Trans Canada and headed towards Quebec City.  The road was busy around Quebec City, but as we kept going, the traffic lessened.  Along the route out of Quebec, all the traffic was semi-trailers or campers, and there were fairly regular rest stops, and we stopped at one for lunch.

We also stopped at Saint Louis du Ha! Ha!, a small town right before you leave Quebec.  Jonathan had learned about the town in school, as it has a very unique name, so we stopped to take his picture at the town sign.  Then it was into New Brunswick, where there is an unofficial pull off area by the sign and Bradley and Sandra had their picture taken.

Then it was a very calm drive to Fredericton.  No traffic, four lanes, but lots of hills and huge signs warning us of moose.  We arrived in Fredericton, Alex and I took a quick trip to the local gaming store, as it had Flames of War models, and then we had supper and relaxed.  Tomorrow we will finish the day in Moncton and plan on going down to Hopewell Rocks twice to see the high and low tide.

Since today was a fairly boring day, here are some interesting observations I've found during our trip.

1. All the speed limits in Ontario are around 20 km/h less than similar roads in Saskatchewan.  Four lane or more highways are 100 km/h, the Trans Canada in northern Ontario is 90 km/h, while regular highways are 80 km/h.

2. Everyone in Ontario drives 20 km/h faster than the speed limit, so I guess the difference is moot.

3. Bradley is busy picking up a rock from every province.  However, he is often just grabbing stuff out of parking lots rather than anything special, and once I had to get him to put down a piece of concrete.

4. It is noticeably darker earlier in southern Ontario than home - you are quite a bit farther south.

5. After leaving Niagara Falls, it took until today before I saw another license plate from western Canada.  We saw a handful of Alberta plates and one BC plate on the drive today.

6. On the Thursday we drove to London, there was a massive Hell's Angel gathering in Toronto.  We passed a large group of them on bikes on the way into Sault Ste. Marie, and they ended up staying at the same hotel.  Nice bikes.  Big, scary looking guys.

7.  Google Maps is fairly useless in Quebec, as it pronounces all the French road names and signs as they would be said in English.  By the time you figure out what the voice actual said and match it to the sign, you are already past the road.  Also, it put a long pause after each exclamation mark in Saint Louis du Ha! Ha!, which was quite funny.

8. Also, Google Maps is dumb in that if it finds a faster route, you have to open your phone and click "No Thanks" or it changes your route.  Finding a faster route is nice, but if I don't want to go through Maine, I shouldn't have to look at my phone while driving.

9. All I hear the entire time on the road is "Duck Duck Car/Truck", which Bradley says every time he sees a yellow vehicle.  You are supposed to duck or get punched.  Kids.

Maritimes - Day 10

Not long after I posted yesterday, we discovered our first fairly decent disaster on this trip.  It turns out you need to book the ferry crossing from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland two weeks in advance, not three days.  As we wanted to be on the ferry on Thursday, that is very problematic.  The earliest ferry crossing available was August 2nd, which is when we had already booked a place to stay in Halifax.  We could move our trip around, but it would end up costing us quite a bit more and we weren't even sure where we would stay.  As it was the end of a long day, we decided not to make any decisions and went to bed.

As we had the stress of this change happening, and the kids were exhausted from travelling, we just let everyone sleep as much as they wanted and did nothing in the morning.  Sandra looked through some accommodation options, while I phoned the ferry company to see if they had a waitlist.  They did not, but they had some cancellations, so July 31st was a possibility, and in fact, she said that there had been an opening on July 28th earlier in the morning, but it was already gone.  Intrigued, I spent the rest of the morning trying to book a ferry crossing every 20 minutes or so, and you could see openings appear and disappear, but never for the 28th.  Around 11:00am, there was an opening on the night of the 29th, which I booked, as it is close enough.  We wanted one crossing in the day, both for my ability to drive and so the kids could watch the ocean, but at this point, if we want to go to Newfoundland, we get what we get.

However, after receiving my itinerary, a new problem emerged, and now we aren't 100% sure we are going to be able to go to Newfoundland.  We need photo ID for all six of us (or two pieces of non-photo ID) and all we brought along for the youngest two kids are their health cards.  I phoned the ferry company a second time, and the person there was sure it would be OK, especially when I said we could get pictures of their birth certificates sent to us, so here's hoping the people working the dock/ship feel the same way.  We've already informed the kids that there is a chance they won't let us onboard.  This does mean that we don't have to be in North Sydney in two days anymore, which means less driving, though we are still going to push through to Fredericton tomorrow.

After lunch, we drug the kids outside to do something.  Sherbrooke has a mural walk around town and it starts at the tourist office, which provides free three hour parking.  Even better was that the tank we wanted to see was just a short walk from the parking.  We found our way there and then walked over to where the tank is.  However, the Sherbrooke Armoury is under construction or somehow restricted, as the entire area is surrounded by fencing and there is no access.  Luckily, you can see the tank over the fence, so we got a few long distance pictures in.

We then ended up doing most of the mural walk, though it was up and down hills (since nowhere outside of Saskatchewan is flat) and the kids were only a little bit interested.  We did stop for some ice cream at a small shop that the tourist office told us served the best ice cream in Quebec.  Sandra and I had some gelato, and it was quite good.  Then it was back to our apartment for a bit more rest before heading out for supper.  Because we are so great at planning, we were unable to get crepes for Evan, as all the creperies are only open for breakfast and lunch.  I did find a nearby local restaurant that served burgers, smoked meat sandwiches and poutine, which was good food for most of us (Sandra prefers more than burgers), though ordering was a bit painful as my French is awful and the cashier switched to her limited English.

Tomorrow is an almost 8 hour driving day; hopefully I'll feel up to posting once we are settled in our hotel in New Brunswick.

Maritimes - Day 9

This was Sandra's Radiator Springs morning, where we spent the morning seeing what there was to see in Brockville.  In essence, getting off the freeway and seeing what was there.  We started by driving down to a park near the harbour, where we lucked out and arrived right as two freighters were passing by on their way up and down the St. Lawrence Seaway.  We then walked around for a bit and headed for the oldest train tunnel in Canada, which is now a walking path where you can explore the tunnel.

It was nice and cool, though with a lot of ground water dripping on you as you walked.  After leaving, we walked through a caboose and then went to a nearby mansion that gave tours.  The house was built by a local pharmacist that invented a pink pill in the early 1900s that contained iron for anemic people.  The pill became popular due to good marketing and the belief that it could cure any number of things, making the man a millionaire.  It was a very impressive house, and it was a nice tour.

 

We then found a park to eat lunch in before getting on the road to head to Quebec.  We couldn't stop at the sign, as there is no stopping on the 401/A-20 and Sandra missed taking a picture of it.  There is a rest stop as soon as you get into Quebec, but no sign there.  :(

Then it was a drive around Montreal and into Sherbrooke.  The road out of Sherbrooke was extremely busy, but the road in was light, so it wasn't a horrible drive.  We found our apartment and our very friendly host, bought groceries, made supper and called it a day.

Tomorrow is a bit of a rest day for me from driving, as we will explore around Sherbrooke, as our next two driving days are extremely long.

Maritimes - Day 8

Today started off slowly, as we weren't in any rush to leave Hamilton.  We were headed to the Ontario Regiment Museum in Oshawa, but it didn't open until noon and it was only an hour and a half drive.  We did have to leave the house by 10:00am, so we were on the road by 9:30am.  We stopped at a nearby donut shop to pick up donuts for lunch and then drove through Toronto to Oshawa.  I chose the toll highway, even though it would cost us, just to avoid the traffic on the QEW and whatever highway goes into Toronto from Burlington, because the QEW was insane.  Frankly, the toll highway was pretty busy, and it was five lanes wide as it went through Toronto.

We arrived at the museum just after 11:00am, ate our lunch and sat for a bit before entering the museum.  It has a small regular museum section, with a good collection of historical weapons, and some interesting information regarding the real guns that were used as the starting point for famous Star Wars weapons.

After that, you head into the garage area where they keep and work on all of their tanks.  This museum is home to the largest collection of runnable tanks in the world, and they run them on a regular basis - just not today, unfortunately.  For display, they are parked side by side in the garage, so you can't get around and see some of the tanks very well, but it was still cool to see what you could.  Alex really enjoyed the museum, especially as this was one of the things that he wanted to do on the trip.

They also had a few tanks out in the lot beside the garage, and you could go out and see them if you had one of the museum volunteers as a guide, so Alex, Jonathan and I went out and learned a bit about the tanks that were out there, before returning and looking at a few more things in the museum.

Once done, we were back on the road and headed down the 401 towards Quebec.  We made it as far as Brockville, ON, which is fine, as we have a place to stay for the next couple of nights in Sherbrooke, QC and that is only about 3.5 hours from here.

I wish we had spent a little more time researching what there was to do around here before we left, as Brockville has a dirt racetrack and they were running races tonight.  It would have been awesome to take Evan to, but we didn't find out about it until it was too late.  Instead, I took the kids to the pool and then we retired for the night.  À demain.

Maritimes - Day 7

This was a fun day for Bradley, who does not remember our last trip to Niagara Falls.  It was not a fun day for Alex, as the heat and parents who make him walk long distances combined to bring him down during the day.

We got out to Niagara Falls fairly early, though the QEW was scarily busy and parked near the falls so that it was easy to get in and out.  We then took a short walk down to look at the falls.  Bradley was quite excited and very happy to finally see them.  Then it was off to buy tickets for the Journey Behind the Falls and the White Water Walk beside the rapids.  Going behind the falls was the same as last time, and we got some nice pictures of Bradley in front of the water.

We then decided to walk 4km to the rapids, which was probably a mistake, but the way parking works, it was either pay extra to park or pay a lot extra to take the bus (as you have to buy a day pass for each person).  Sandra and I wanted to return to the diner we ate at the last time we were here, so we took off down the road in the blazing heat, complaining kids in tow.

By the time we arrived, we were very hot and sweaty and Alex had decided that he wasn't feeling very well.  We got everyone some water and some food, which was still quite good diner food, though Alex didn't have any appetite.

Walking over to the rapids, we went down to the bottom and Bradley quickly decided that watching the rapids was worth the walk.  We left Alex sitting on a bench while the rest of us walked the length of the path.  Then it was time to walk all the way back.  A breeze was blowing at this point, and we bribed Alex with an iced lemonade and then bought everyone ice cream when we got back to the main part of the falls.

After a bit of shopping, we drove back to Hamilton and had a small supper before taking in a quiet evening in the house.  Alex is slowly feeling better and Bradley is much happier than he was earlier in the trip.  Tomorrow we head out to get as far as we can towards Quebec, though we will be stopping for a few hours at the Ontario Regiment Museum to look at the tanks there, which Alex is quite excited about.

Maritimes - Day 6

Today we visited a tank. But first, we had to get there.  The preferred route to London is to take the 400 into Toronto, then the 401 out to London, but I had no desire to do that.  There are secondary highways all throughout this area of Ontario, but they all radiate out from the GTA area towards the coast, so none of them go southwest.

Google offers a route bypassing the big highways, but we quickly discovered that there is a problem with Google maps and rural Ontario.  All the roads are paved, two lane highways that have an 80 km/h speed limit, so there is no reason for Google to favor any one over another.  However, the roads include actual highways, smaller roads and even access roads to farms, and Google took us over all of them.  Early on, I gave up on using Google as it was taking us on tiny roads, turning every 6km, but we quickly missed the turn off we were supposed to take and ended up going the wrong direction, so back to the weird route it was.

We did see a lot of rural Ontario.  Lots of corn crops, some wheat crops (which is almost ready to harvest at the end of July!), and the odd tractor or two.  We finally arrived in London after 1pm and headed to the 1st Hussars museum.  However, the main road towards the park the museum was in was closed by construction, and Google was unaware of that.  We ended up finding our own way into the park and parking in a pay parking lot.  After lunch in the park, we explored the museum, which is tiny, but I've wanted to go to it for some time - the 1st Hussars were the armored regiment that landed on the D-Day beaches with the Regina Rifles (and Royal Winnipeg Rifles).  There were some nice displays and a very helpful worker, whom we probably should have asked more questions of, since it was obvious that he knew a lot and that no one came to the museum.

After leaving the museum, we then took a very long and hot walk to Victoria Park to see the tank - Holy Roller.  Holy Roller is one of the few tanks that landed on the D-Day beaches and survived until the end of the war.  (We will actually get to see a second one - Bomb - later on in the trip.)  All the pictures I had seen online of the tank were of it in pretty rough condition, but apparently the City of London restored it last year, so it was sitting in the park, fully painted.  We explored around the tank for awhile and then walked back to the car.  Leaving London required us to get on the 401, which was much like the freeways in Florida.  Full of cars driving way too fast.  Luckily, we were going to Hamilton, so we got to break off onto the 403, which is a smaller and less busy highway.

We soon arrived at Brantford so that we could stop at Wayne Gretzky's childhood home for Sandra.  I think it is now owned by someone else, as there was a car in the driveway, but we stopped out front and Sandra darted across the street for a picture.  Our final destination of the day was Hamilton, where we are staying in a small house for the next couple of days, primarily so that we can take Bradley to Niagara Falls, as that is one the places he wanted to go on this trip.  So, that is our destination tomorrow.

Maritimes - Day 5

The rain washed away this blog post.  I did not get to it in the evening, as this was the second long driving day in a row and I was exhausted.

We started the day by leaving Sault Ste. Marie, though we stopped at a grocery store for supplies on the way out of town and visited with an old man who was curious about why we were so far from home.  The drive was more of the same until we got close to Sudbury, where a thunderstorm started and the rain came down extremely heavy.  I could barely see the car in front of us.  Sandra had planned to stop at the giant nickel for lunch and a picture, so we limped our way there on roads full of water and very limited visibility.  We ate in the van and checked the weather radar to see that the thunderstorm was a line and was moving east, so when it stopped raining, we got our picture and then got back on the road.

However, it wasn't long out of Sudbury to the south before we hit another thunderstorm, and again I was unable to even make out the vehicle in front of us.  Luckily there was a picnic table area / rest stop near that we were able to pull into and wait out the storm.  Once it ended, it was a fairly easy drive into Midland, where we stopped for the night in a hotel that is much too large for the area and the number of people staying in it.

I basically collapsed in the hotel, as I was very tired.  Tomorrow we head to London for a visit to the 1st Hussars museum and then we end up in Hamilton.

Maritimes - Day 4

It started raining overnight, and there was a fairly steady amount falling as we loaded the van.  Despite the heat, I'm glad we had the sun yesterday, as exploring the fort in the rain would not have been very fun.  Our first stop outside of Thunder Bay was the Terry Fox Memorial, where we joined everyone travelling from western Canada in viewing the memorial.  (Seriously, it was only Alberta and BC plates in the parking lot, plus one truck all the way from the NWT.)

Then it was back on the road, since we are going to have a few big travel days in order to get farther into Ontario.  Canada is pretty big.  We eventually outraced the storm and travelled on in relative comfort.  The road on this side of Thunder Bay has far more hills and twisty corners, but nothing too horrible.

The only other big thing for the day was our arrival at White River, where there is a Winnie the Pooh statue.  It turns out White River is where the soldier/veterinarian from Winnipeg purchased a black bear cub whom he named Winnie.  He took the cub with him to London (as it was 1914 and he was on his way to the war), where it stayed in the London zoo.  It was there that A.A. Milne and his son Christopher visited and saw Winnie the black bear, thus leading to the stories of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.

We arrived in Sault Ste. Marie just after 5:00pm, found our hotel and got some food.  Tomorrow we are off to Midland - it seems like an odd spot, but we want to get down to London and avoid the big highways, so we figured it was a good jumping off spot.

 

Maritimes - Day 3

This evening, Bradley told me that he wanted to write the blog post for today.  So, here it is:

"Everything sucked.  Then I went to the pool and it was awesome."

He really didn't have fun today, since spending the day outside in the heat touring an old trading fort isn't what he looks forward to.  As you may have guessed, the hotel pool, even a small, cold hotel pool, is what he loves.

The rest of us had a good time today, as we spent the day at Fort William, which is a historical trading fort and park.  The fort was full of actors playing the part of period specific jobs and they would tell you what took place in each part of the fort.

Unfortunately, the warm weather arrived today, as it was no longer cool.  The forecast was for 25C and thunderstorms, but it hit 30C before lunch and there were hardly any clouds in the sky, so it was pretty hot when you were outside walking around the fort.  That made it rough on Bradley, and I dressed in pants, based on the cool wind yesterday and the forecast, so I was pretty hot by the time we left in the mid-afternoon.

Anyway, I liked the fort and actually learned a lot of the fur trade history that differs quite a bit from what happened out in Saskatchewan.  The fort and trade here was run by a different company - the North West Company out of Scotland, and they competed with the Hudson's Bay Company up until their skirmishes frustrated the British, who forced them to to get along and they formed one company under the Hudson's Bay name.  Of course, it was a bit one-sided, but the North West Company felt strongly that their way of trade and relationships with the indigenous people was superior.  In fact, one of the actors spit after saying Hudson's Bay Company, much like Corner Gas.

There were a number of demonstrations of things during the day, some of which we missed, as the park was really not busy, so there wasn't a crowd of people to follow to the demonstration.  We did get to do some axe throwing, which was pretty fun, even if only Jonathan managed to get one of the axes to stick into the log.  (Also, Bradley was too young to participate in that, despite wanting to, which contributed to his unhappiness.)  After that, one of the actors asked Evan if he wanted to do a job for him and took him around the corner of a building - he was playing the role of the blacksmith and he had some metal trinkets that he wanted delivered to a girl working in the farm.  We found her and Evan delivered the small metal objects, which were sown into a necklace or anklet to make a noise as you moved and scare off bears.  I figure Evan should have kept them so we could make him a necklace that scares off bears!

After we left the park, we drove down to a park near the harbour and walked around and looked out over the lake.  Everyone was fairly hot and exhausted this point, but it was nice to see Lake Superior for the first time.  Then we headed back to the hotel to rest and cool off.  After supper, Bradley, Evan and I went to the pool, where Bradley spent the time doing polar dips by sitting in the hot tub for a few minutes and then jumping into the cold pool.  Obviously he had a lot of fun.

Tomorrow is another long driving day, as we loop around Lake Superior to Sault Ste. Marie. 

Maritimes - Day 2

Today was a VERY long travel day, but through some beautiful areas of Canada.  Our plan was to leave Winnipeg early and drive to Kenora for a 10:30am church service, which given our slight delays yesterday, I wasn't 100% certain we were going to make.  However, the kids did a great job of getting out of bed, getting dressed and eating breakfast, so that we were packed up and out of the hotel room just before 8:00am.  Then it was an hour and a half of driving on an empty highway until we arrived at the Ontario border.  We stopped for a quick picture and then drove into the Canadian Shield and arrived in Kenora (where there were roundabouts!) right in time for church.

After the service, we drove on to Dryden, stopped for lunch and then drove all the way down to Kakabeka Falls, where we stopped to look at the waterfall.  It was very beautiful and I think all the kids enjoyed it.  Then it was time to push on into Thunder Bay, where our 700km day finally ended.  It was 32C for most of the trip and when we were at the falls, but after driving the final 40km into Thunder Bay, it was 20C with a cold wind blowing in off the lake.

I enjoyed the drive, but my back and neck muscles were starting to hurt for the last few hours.  The road through Ontario is only two lanes, due to all the rocks, and traffic was fairly steady to busy, depending on where you were or what slow traffic you were stuck behind.

We checked into our hotel, got supper at Superstore and then I basically collapsed while the kids played in the hotel room.  Tomorrow we're exploring a few things in the Thunder Bay area, as we aren't leaving here until Tuesday.

Maritimes - Day 1

Our first travel day ended with a few hiccups, but nothing too bad happening, and found us relaxing in Winnipeg, after spending the evening with the kids in the hotel pool.

We got out of the house a bit later than we wanted to, but only by 10 minutes, and the drive to Brandon was fairly easy, with just a quick stop at the Manitoba border for a picture by the sign.  At Brandon, we filled the van with gas and ate a quick lunch out of the food in the cooler, at which point I realized we were late for our tour appointment at the Royal Canadian Mint, as I had been roughly calculating our time to get to Winnipeg, and the Mint is on the east side of the city.

I drove a bit faster for that last two hours to Winnipeg, but arriving on time was not meant to be.  Bradley got sick just before Portage, as he had been trying to play video games in the car, and he gets motion sick.  Looks like his video game playing will have to happen in the hotel when he's not moving as much.  Then, of course, there was a bit of construction.  And finally, we were probably going to be about 15 minutes late, but I managed to miss the exit to the road we needed to take, and it took a bit of time to turn around and find our way back to the correct road. 

We ended up missing our tour, so we just walked around the gift shop and looked at all the flags before heading to Superstore to pick up a few food items for supper and for the trip tomorrow.

Then it was over to the hotel, where we slowly got everything moved from the van into the hotel room, ate supper and then Sandra and I took the younger three kids to the pool and waterslide while Alex watched a soccer game in the room.  The kids loved the pool, and we had to drag them out at 8:30 in order to get everyone back to the room and ready for bed.

Tomorrow we pack up super early and head to Thunder Bay.  I'm actually a bit excited about this part of the drive, as I have never driven east of Winnipeg.  All of my road trips have either ended here or turned south to head into the US.

Maritimes - Day 0

Well, it has been a long and crazy 2.5 years since we flew home from Florida.  Tons of missed school, missed family events and kids who are suddenly getting very old.  Alex is 16 and going into Grade 12 in the fall, and after that, who knows how long we'll have all six of us together for family trips?  Sandra figured we should do something big as a last possible trip, and has been thinking of a long driving trip out to the Maritimes for quite some time.

Of course, it never is that easy, as COVID rules mean that we aren't going to leave Canada, since it is just too much of a pain, and the massive gas price increases of the past few months may leave us eating dry bread as a meal (that's a joke, but we are planning far fewer restaurant meals than in other trips).  On the bonus side, my work has demanded that I use all of my banked holidays before the end of the year, so we have five full weeks to drive out to the Maritimes, explore and then return.

The plan is to drive fairly directly out to the Maritimes, but with a few detours as we explore some things we want to see on the way.  We are planning on avoiding all the big cities (Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Quebec City) since we've already explored all of those with the kids.  However, we can't completely skip Toronto, at least as far as driving is concerned, since some of my kids want to go back to Niagara Falls, and I want to run by London to visit a small museum there.

Tomorrow we leave as early as we can and head to Winnipeg for the first day of driving.  Hopefully we all have a great and fun time.