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2017-09-04 Westbound; Stranded in Thunder Bay, Day 4…

Stranded, Day 4:

2017-09-01 GMC 03

Happy Labrador Day!

2017-09-04 Happy Labrador Day

Yes, it is Labor Day.  Everything is closed.  Grocery Stores, Gas Stations, Craft Breweries, Car Dealers… We did find a pharmacy open to buy ice, then we headed out to see the Kakabeka Falls.

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 14

Kakabeka Falls is a waterfall on the Kaministiquia River, located beside the village of Kakabeka Falls in the municipality of Oliver Paipoonge, Ontario, 19 miles west of the city of Thunder Bay.

The falls have a drop of 130 ft, cascading into a gorge carved out by ancient glaciers. Because of its size and ease of access, it has been nicknamed “the Niagara of the North”, although people who compare these falls to Niagara have obviously never seen Niagara Falls…

The rock face of the falls and the gorge are composed primarily of unstable shale, and are continually eroding.  These rocks host sensitive flora, and contain some of the oldest fossils in existence, some 1.6 billion years of age.  It is astounding how plants, from grasses to giant trees, grow right out of the rock!

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2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 07

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 03

The name “Kakabeka” comes from the Ojibwe word gakaabikaa, meaning “water falling over a cliff”.  Duh!

The falls are beautiful, and the layers of rock are amazing.  I love how the ledges and slabs of slate and shale animate these falls.  There are many areas from which to photograph the falls, from many angles, allowing many contrasting images…

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 13

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 10

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 09

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls 11

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After viewing the falls, this being Labor Day and all, we needed to have hamburgers for lunch.  Luckily, CJ Restaurant was open:

2017-09-04 Kakabeka Falls Lunch

After lunch we decided to try another recommendation from the staff at Bistro One: Boulevard Lake.  This is a man-made lake just north of downtown Thunder Bay.  It is surrounded by a 650 acre park, with a walking path 5.31 km long.  (I have no idea how long that is in real dimensions; they said there would be no math in retirement…).

2017-09-04 Boulevard Lake 04

The lake is fed by the North Current River.  A fish ladder was added to the dam in 1991 to allow fish (mostly Salmon) to swim up-stream to spawn.  Apparently there is a power generation station downstream from here and its operators are not happy with the fish ladder and how it affects the flow of water into the generator; they have sued the City of Thunder Bay for breach of contract…

2017-09-04 Boulevard Lake 03

2017-09-04 Boulevard Lake 01

No matter; the weather was nice and we had a lovely walk;

2017-09-04 Boulevard Lake 02

Happy Hours ensued.  Just because we are stranded doesn’t mean we don’t need happy hours…

A not-too-awful time was had by all…

 

 

 

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2017-09-03 Westbound; Stranded in Thunder Bay, Day 3…

It is Sunday… Guess what Thunder Bay has that most other cities in North America do not?

2017-09-03 Thunder Bay CRC 02

Yes! A Christian Reformed Church!

2017-09-03 Thunder Bay CRC 01

Lynda and I were raised in the Christian Reformed Church. We went to a CRC High School and we were married in a CRC church, and our children were baptized in a CRC church.  (There is no CRC church in Irvine, so we are now Presbyterians…)

So it was fun to attend a CRC church while on our trip.  This church is tiny.  Maybe 35 people in attendance.  They did have a good piano player, but the power-point operator could not find the file for today’s service, which, of course, contained the words to all the songs we were to sing.  So we had a good old-fashioned “hymn-sing”.  We pulled out the gray 1987 Psalter Hymnal (which we all hated when it replaced the “old” blue Psalter Hymnal, which we all hated when it replaced the old red Psalter Hymnal…) and people called out the number of their favorite hymn.  Some of these songs we haven’t sung in years, and most churches we have attended over the past 25 years have not used the Hymnals, projecting the lyrics onto a screen instead…

Also, this church has no pastor.  So the sermon was a video pre-recorded, maybe by the pastor from the other CRC here in Thunder Bay…

Anyway, it was a good service.  We had coffee in the fellowship hall after and met a few locals.  Then it was time to go.

We took the advice of the staff at Bistro One and drove over to the marina. Thunder Bay is remaking their formerly industrial waterfront into a very pleasant people-friendly place.  There is a pedestrian bridge spanning the railroad tracks, connecting the waterfront to the historic downtown; there are two new apartment/condo towers, a hotel and retail center is under construction, a new restaurant is open, the marina is bustling, and there is a very large park with walking trails along the water.  We had a pleasant walk, enjoying the clear skies and sunny weather.

2017-09-03 Marina 01

2017-09-03 Marina 04

We had lunch at Bight, a very nice contemporary restaurant, again, recommended by the staff at Bistro One.  Steak Tatare!  Need I say more?

2017-09-03 Bight 02

We also had another view of the Sleeping Giant:

2017-09-03 Marina 05

We returned to the Villa and had a quiet afternoon.  The weather was nice. We walked around the dealership, but after 1 1/2 laps it started to sprinkle and the wind started to blow; we made it back to the Villa just as the thunderstorm hit, dumping huge amounts of rain amid much thunder and lightning.  It lasted about 45 minutes…

The weather was nice. We walked around the dealership, but after 1 1/2 laps it started to sprinkle and the wind started to blow; we made it back to the Villa just as the thunderstorm hit, dumping huge amounts of rain amid much thunder and lightning.  It lasted about 45 minutes…

No, I didn’t type this paragraph twice by mistake – it really did happen twice, just like this… They didn’t name this place Thunder Bay by accident.

Happy Hours ensued.  Just because we are stranded doesn’t mean we don’t need happy hours…

A not-too-awful time was had by all…

 

 

 

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2017-09-02 Westbound; Stranded in Thunder Bay, Day 2…

It rained all night.  Sometime in the early morning I awoke and noticed that the power had gone out.  (Most things in the Villa run on batteries, but we still need shore power if we are staying for an extended period of time…)

I dressed and went out in the rain. I found that the outlet we were plugged into is a GFI, which is extremely sensitive to water. Obviously the outlet had gotten wet, and had shut itself off.  I detached everything and decided to wait until morning to see if this could be resolved.  I went back to bed…

In the morning I surveyed the situation again. I dried off everything, reset the GFI, and plugged in again. All good. Then I arranged a plastic bag over the outlet to keep rain off. I added a little Gorilla tape to keep it all from blowing away, and we were good.

We did a little shopping:  we need ice (remember our dead refrigerator?), and we always need milk and cream.  We needed to do some computer work, but internet in the Villa is weak; we went to Starbucks and spent a few hours catching up…

Today is Saturday.  It is the first Saturday of the College football season.  But, because the Villa is located directly next to the tall GMC building, we get no satellite TV service.  We tried Sling Box, but, as I said, our internet service in the Villa is weak.  What to do?  We headed out to a sports bar, Kelsey’s.  We enjoyed a light dinner and watched a few games.

We returned to the Villa.  I was able to get the UCLA-Texas A&M game on my iPhone via Sling Box, but it is not much fun to watch football on an iPhone, especially considering how horribly UCLA was playing.  UCLA was a lost cause, so I turned off the game shortly after half-time and went to bed…

A not-too-awful time was had by all…

 

PS:

Since we have no pictures, I will post pictures of my grandkids at the beach in Malibu:

2017-09-02 McAnoy 02 Malibu

2017-09-02 McAnoy 01 Malibu

THEY look like they are all having an enjoyable time…

 

 

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2017-09-01 Westbound; Heading back to the USA…

We again had a leisurely morning; at about 11:00 am we checked out of the Thunder Bay KOA and headed to Minnesota.

We never made it.

2017-09-01 GMC 02

We had just entered the freeway heading south when it became clear that the truck was not running properly.  It was running rough, and losing power.

We limped into the Chevy dealer in Thunder Bay. The service manager was obviously NOT having an enjoyable time, and she told us that there was no way they could see us today.  Did I mention that it is Friday afternoon on Labor Day Weekend?

However, she was nice enough to make a call to the nearby GMC dealer, and they agreed to see us.  We found it easily, and we were greeted warmly.

We dropped the Villa on their parking lot, and they pulled the truck into the service bay. The news is not good; something to do with pistons, cylinders, and things like that.  And there is no time yet today to get to the bottom of it, to see how bad it is, and to see how long it will take to get parts, once we know what is needed.

The good news:  EVERYONE here has been extremely nice!  They assured us that whatever the issue is it will be covered under warranty; they obtained for us a rental car (part of warranty), and they showed us where we can park and stay in the Villa, and where we can hook up to power.

 

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2017-09-01 GMC 03

Since we are stuck here for the weekend we might as well make the best of it… We set up the Villa, pushed out the slide-out, and settled in for the time being.  Tonight we went to a VERY nice restaurant: Bistro One.  The food and service was top-notch, and it made our evening very pleasant. The staff at Bistro One even compiled a list of things we can see and do while we are here in Thunder Bay…

We returned to the Villa just as it started to rain.  We love the sound of rain on the aluminum roof… Not too bad of a time was had by all…

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2017-08-31 Westbound; A day in and around Thunder Bay…

We slept late, took long, hot showers, and acted as if we were on vacation.  Then we set out to see what we could see of Thunder Bay…

We drove to town, but were not impressed… So we headed out to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.  However, the best view of the Sleeping Giant is right here in Thunder Bay:

2017-08-31 Sleeping Giant PP

There he is, flat on his back, frozen in time, because of some dastardly deed he committed…

It was a long slow drive to the tip of the peninsula, but when we arrived we found that the best thing wasn’t in the park at all:

2017-08-31 Silver Islet 06

Silver Islet is a hamlet at the tip of this peninsula; Silver Islet is also a tiny islet in the lake, which contained Canada’s largest silver mine.  Today, just this cluster of vacation houses remain. There is a tiny marina and a general store, but the store closed for the season last week…

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2017-08-31 Silver Islet 07

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Not all the houses are in great shape:

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It was a lovely walk, and we did see a bald eagle flying overhead…

Back at the RV Park, they are getting prepared for Halloween!

2017-08-31 Thunder Bay KOA Haloween

Another interesting note:  As we drove here from Wawa, we passed several mines just outside of Thunder Bay.  It turns out that these are Amethyst mines.  The RV Park had a few odd rocks laying about in the yard:

2017-08-31 Thunder Bay 02 Amethyst

2017-08-31 Thunder Bay 01 Amethyst

The entire surface of these giant boulders is covered in Amethyst…!  Amazing!

We adjourned for Happy Hours; we return to the USA via Duluth tomorrow!

 

 

 

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2017-08-30 Westbound; From Wawa to Thunder Bay…

A long drive again today, but we are not in a hurry. The roads are smooth (when we are not in a construction zone…)***  Weather was good, with a little rain sometimes, but nothing out of the ordinary; the truck performed flawlessly – with cruise control, exhaust brake, and automatic down shifting we go up and down hills effortlessly and very quietly.  There is no better truck in the world!

***We are ALWAYS in a construction zone…

After driving for about an hour we started to look for a place to stop and stretch our legs. Areas for stopping are few and far between (or is it far and few between???). We finally found just what I was looking for:

2017-08-30 A and W

I think the last time I had an A&W Root Beer Float was in Canada at Niagara Falls in 1961. I even bought the “frosty mug”!  Today, however, they serve it in a plastic cup…

Driving further, we stopped at the town of Marathon; we parked at Canadian Tire (which, by the way, sells WAY more than tires…), and walked about one mile to the Pebble Beach:

2017-08-30 Marathon Pebble Beach 07

 

2017-08-30 Marathon Pebble Beach 06

2017-08-30 Marathon Pebble Beach 03

2017-08-30 Marathon Pebble Beach 02

2017-08-30 Marathon Pebble Beach 01

Walking back, we noticed that all the houses we very similar: very boxy, almost cubes. We saw street after street of them…

2017-08-30 Marathon Houses

Our drive the rest of the day consisted of very nice roads, cutting through shear cliffs of granite; trees and grass growing right out of the top of the granite:

2017-08-30 Granite

We arrived at Thunder Bay KOA and settled into our first full-hook-up site in many days! Happy Hours were many, and an enjoyable time was had by all…

 

 

 

 

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2017-08-29 Westbound; Lunch in the Soo, Lake Superior, Marathon, Katherines’s Cove, and Wawa…

This morning, before we left the campground, we once again walked to the Serpent River:

2017-08-29 Spragge 03

2017-08-29 Spragge 02

Amazing how quiet it is in the early morning…

But we must press on; we pull out of the RV park and continue traveling west, along the northern shore of Lake Huron…

After checking our maps we see that we might stop in Sault Ste. Marie for lunch.  Sault Ste. Marie is at the junction of Lakes Huron and Superior, and the locks between the two lakes are here. There are actually two cities named Sault Ste. Marie – one in Michegan and one in Ontario…

The bridge and one of the locks:

2017-08-29 Sault Ste Marie 04 Locks

We had parked in the lot at a shopping mall right in downtown Sault Ste. Marie:

2017-08-29 Sault Ste Marie 03

We walked along the waterfront and enjoyed the sights.  Eventually we found ourselves at Solo Trattoria, a nice Italian restaurant; it appears to be a favorite of “Ladies who Lunch”…

And, like the ladies, we lunched:

2017-08-29 Sault Ste Marie 02 Lunch

 

2017-08-29 Sault Ste Marie 01 Lunch

The mussels were delicious!

Back on the road we came to Katherine’s Cove – recommended by our waitress at Solo. We pulled off the highway, then realized there was no turn-around; however, being adept at 3-5-7-9 point turns with the Villa, I soon had us parked neatly in a “No Parking” zone, and we headed for the beach.  This is Lake Superior, or Lake Gitche Gumee, according to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Hiawatha; Gordon Lightfoot also sang about it… the Edmund Fitzgerald sank not far from here in 1975….

(An aside here:  a few years ago TCA (my former architecture firm) did an apartment project for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company; they were the owners of the Edmund Fitzgerald; in fact, it was named after the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company… It was their flagship freighter, and it was a huge hit to company morale for many years, so I’ve been told…)

Anyway, Katherine’s Cove is a lovely beach…

2017-08-29 Katherines Cove 06

2017-08-29 Katherines Cove 07

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2017-08-29 Katherines Cove 01

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After enjoying Katherine’s Cove as long as we could we headed to our final stop of the day: Wawa RV Park:

2017-08-29 Wawa 2

It has a river, too:

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We readied Happy Hours and an enjoyable time was had by all…

2017-08-29 Wawa 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2017-08-28 Westbound; The Ferry to Spragge

As we warned you, we were up and out of the RV park at 5:30, arriving at the ferry landing at 5:45.  We learned something:  We could have parked the Villa HERE last night (after 8:00 pm) and slept in the Villa; there were 5-6 RVs doing just that!  We would have had an extra 1 1/2 hour of sleep and we would have saved C$62.00 for the RV site…!

Anyway, we were all checked in and all we had to do now was wait. We look a few laps around the landing…

2017-08-28 Tobermory 1

Soon we were ready to board… It was a tight fit!

2017-08-28 Tobermory 2 Ferry

2017-08-28 Tobermory 3 Ferry

2017-08-28 Tobermory 4 Ferry

2017-08-28 Tobermory 5 Ferry

We had a lovely ride, enjoying breakfast in the cafeteria and walking around the various decks of the ferry.  We are crossing Lake Huron, heading to Manitoulin Island.  Lake Huron is filled with islands, but Manitoulin is the largest island in a fresh water lake in the world!  It fact, Manitoulin  it so large that it has a lake on it that is so large that there is an island in it that is so large that there is an lake in it!  With an island!

2017-08-28 Tobermory 6 Ferry

The crossing was uneventful; Manitoulin  Island is very remote and rural – farms and grazing land, and just a lot of empty land. Along the way we stopped to see the White Fish River and its falls:

2017-08-28 White Fish Falls 3

Apparently there used to be a mill here:

2017-08-28 White Fish Falls 6

2017-08-28 White Fish Falls 2

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Down stream, the river is quite calm:

2017-08-28 White Fish Falls 4

Soon we were at our camping spot for the night: Serpent River RV Park.

2017-08-28 Spragge 1

There is a Serpent River:

2017-08-28 River

We prepared for Happy Hours and an enjoyable time was had by all…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2017-08-27 Westbound; It’s a long way to Tobermory…

As I said last time, we left Amherstburg before dawn:

2017-08-27 Amherstburg

We had a quiet, smooth, easy drive in the dark.  We were back on the freeway, heading east for awhile; we exited the freeway at the junction with our north-bound route and spotted a coffee shop that was open. We stopped in, picked up some coffee, and headed north.

Lynda was able to take a few pictures of the sunrise out of the truck window:

2017-08-27 Sunrise 1

2017-08-27 Sunrise 3

2017-08-27 Sunrise 5

2017-08-27 Sunrise 2

Soon we were in the hamlet of Grand Bend.  We pulled into the parking lot at The Beer Store:

2017-08-27 Grand Bend

We figured they would be closed at 8:00 on a Sunday morning… We had a lovely breakfast in the historic Colonial Hotel.  It was the first real breakfast we have eaten on the road this entire trip!

Moving on, we pulled out of the beer store lot and headed north again, about 2 miles, and we stopped for fuel… I found that the credit card that I carry in the truck to use for fuel was nowhere to be found.  We paid using a different card, and beaded back to the The Beer Store.  Sure enough, there it was, on the ground. I think I drove over it twice, and probably a few other people did as well…

So we head north once again.

We like to stop every hour or so top stretch our legs, so when we saw a sign for a light house we turned left and drove to the end of the road. Sure enough, there was a light house and, better yet, a large lot for us to use to turn around. We walked on the beach (this is Lake Huron…), talked to the local folks (prices for beach-front houses have skyrocketed lately – houses on the beach go for as much as $400,000 – $500,000…!), and we had a restful stop.

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2017-08-27 Point Clark 4

2017-08-27 Point Clark 2 Lighthouse

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2017-08-27 Point Clark 3 Lighthouse

Our final destination for today is Land’s End RV Park, located in Tobermory, which is a tiny town located on the northernmost tip of a 250 mile long peninsula sticking into the middle of Lake Huron, the second largest of all the great lakes… We are here to take a ferry tomorrow to continue our trip north. I’m sure Tobermory is a busy little town during the summer, but it must be very quiet in the winter when the ferries do not operate…

Across from the RV Park was a beach on a river; beautiful spot!

2017-08-27 Lands End 04

2017-08-27 Lands End 05

2017-08-27 Lands End 03

2017-08-27 Lands End 02

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We had a nice happy hour and turned in early; we have to be at the ferry landing before 6:00 am tomorrow…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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