For those that are interested (because I know Gilles is), here is the final tally of what the adventure cost.
Camping and sleeping at Mom's house definitely helped with the SLEEP catagory.
Extras include things like parking costs, alcohol and souvenirs. The bulk of the expense total is souvenirs. I'd like to make a future post of the embroidered patches we collected and the pins from City Halls across the country.
Dear Gilles,
We're here. DONE.
I've enjoyed the discipline required for this BLOG. I'm going to find a way to re-invent it for the future.
Stay tuned for everyone else reading this.
Cheers!
Dear Gilles,
500 km closer today.
Photos can not portray the sheer awesomeness of our drive along the Icefields Parkway.
Rocky Mountain House has a Historic site. We drove 70km from Red Deer to find it as it opened.
We'll see you soon!
Dear Gilles,
We took the side roads to Red Deer today. 500 km day instead of 600+ km we've been doing. We filled up with gas at the first place we saw - which was a good thing because stations were non-existent on the roads we took.
We're listening to Eragon which is 16 hours long. We should be able to finish it before we get home. We're all really enjoying it - the narrator is doing a good job with keeping an anxious suspense through the book.
We saw a buffalo farm today. We took our time. It was a much nicer drive.
The weather threatened thunderstorm and potential tornado, so we're 'camped' in a hotel tonight. There's a swimming pool - so the boys are there and I'm in the room - enjoying some space.
I am confident that we will have a dry tent for tomorrow night at Mount Robson. Then HOME! Soo soon. We're 1000 km away tonight. Possibly do-able in one day. But, let's do it in two. We're going to take our time up the Icefields parkway via Rocky Mountain House.
Dear Gilles,
I'm in an AirBnB tonight. The tent is SOAKED.
My body is vibrating. It was a LONG drive today. I can't keep pushing 600-800 km a day as a single driver. I have to slow the rest of the trip down. My body is burnt.
I spread the tent out on the front lawn of the AirBnB. It was 29C and still lots of sunshine out so it didn't take long to dry. Luckily, I got it mostly away before the sprinkler timer came on and reversed all my work.
Luc made the supper tonight - tortellini.
Nothing too incredible about today. Just drive and drive and drive.
Dear Gilles,
I'm putting in long days. Just to get out of Ontario.
We're west of Winnipeg tonight at a KOA. We needed some sunshine weather to dry out our tent of breathing condensation at Kakabeka. It was a dry night, but the tent parts are still moist.
This morning we took a walk to see the falls before getting in the truck for the long drive.
Luckily, when we got to Winnipeg - we dried out, set up and loaded the tent with sleeping pads, bags, pillows and clothes before the thunder and lightning. It was NOT supposed to rain on us this hard. It was supposed to be a light drizzle.
We spent 2 hours in the truck waiting out the thunder storm. Ugh. No real exercise today.
The campsite itself is all crushed rock. I'm glad we have the skookum pegs to use.
Dear Gilles,
We're headed back to Thunder Bay.
Along the way is Nipigon.
When we were here in March - the park was deep with snow that the snowplows had piled up.
Now it's summer.
I AM IMPRESSED!
Nipigon has done a FANTASTIC JOB with incorporating the Paddle to the Sea book into a playground and walk for the town. It's a definite hidden jem.
We could only spend moments at the park - enough for me to take photos and really be in awe - when we hit the road for Thunder Bay. I wanted to make sure we had enough time to spend at Fort William.
But, we took a pee break at the Terry Fox memorial - and were reminded that we were in the land of Persians. So we made the detour to Nucci's deli on Red River to pick up 6 donuts before going out to the Fort.
Again, I am impressed again with Fort William. Provincially run historic site. There has been a lot of extras added to the facility since we lived here.
Luc loved it.
He loves turn of the century 1800 settlement and living basics. Rather than early 1700 pure survival mode. We've learned to ask questions, discuss, find out more and compare to other settlements and time periods. We only had 2 hours at Fort William, but Luc wants to come back again. (Summer job perhaps?)
While we were there, we visited the apothecary, the canoe building, the gun smith, the indian store and got involved with singing songs and doing dances.
Dear Gilles,
I'm going to play catch-up on this blog - since tonight we're "camping" in a hotel room.
Day 114 from Sturgeon Falls to west of Hearst via Hwy 11.
I chose Hwy 11 because checking ahead, there were no campsites available along Lake Superior Provincial Parks - and thanks to Mark Carney there is absolutely no availability in the National Parks.
We paused at the Cochrane Polar Bear habitat, heritage village and snow-mobile museum.
We had a pizza lunch in the village. Even though it was a Saturday, they seemed to have a low selection, like they didn't expect to sell as much that day.
We did not see any polar bears. There are currently two in residence. It was +29, so they were probably hiding.
We spent the night at Fushimi Provincial Park. We were lucky to get a lakeside site. But the boys didn't want to go swimming because there were too many mayfly skeletons in the water. So they had showers instead. We also had to wear our mosquito net head gear to be comfortable. Dinner was Mr. Noodles and green salad. It hit the spot after the long driving day.
BIG THINGS ALONG THE WAY
Cow in Dymond - I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of this one because there is none on the internet.
