June 6th

THE DETAILS:

WEATHER: We woke up to sunshine!! Still only 51 degrees but the sun through the wet forest is beautiful. The high today was 68, partly cloudy and absolutely beautiful!


DISTANCE: We left Thunder Bay at 10:30 this morning and headed once again west & north on the Canadian Highway. Arrived Kenora, ON at 5 pm (CT). That is 6 ½ hours and 285 miles. Gary has found that driving at 50 mph rather than 55 he has increased the gas miles from 7 to 8.4 mpg!!! Don’t you wish you had a vehicle like this!!


So we have traveled Rte. 17 for hundreds of miles now and for much of it we keep seeing a pile of rocks placed in a certain order any where the road cuts through rock. We thought maybe there were a lot of Buddhists or some other kind of religious rite, but last night we learned what it’s all about. It’s actually an Indian tradition to place these stones in a formation that resembles the form of a man and it is to wish travelers a safe journey. We took a picture and if I can figure out how to post a picture You’ll get to see one! Thanks Dan for the “on-line tutorial”!!

It wasn’t too far after leaving Thunder Bay that we came across a sign that informed us that we were now crossing into the Central Time Zone!! We are now one hour different than home. I can’t believe how light it stays here. The sun does not go down until around 10 to 10:30 pm! It doesn’t prevent us from getting a good night sleep though, the bed is inviting after a full day of driving no matter how bright it is outside. I wonder if that will be the case when we get to Alaska where there is no “night”!

That same sign also informed us that from this point on all the rivers flow North to the Arctic Ocean verses south to the Atlantic. We are making progress! BTW we have been over some rough roads in the past 2 days due to construction and Bert’s welding job has held up well!! PTL! Blueberry bushes are prevalent around here and should attract bear but we haven’t seen one yet…. BUT! We saw our first sign of wildlife… a deer. A young one that didn’t know enough to stay in the woods at noon time.

Sue, in honor of you, when we pulled into Dryden and came across the first store… Tim Horton’s, we stopped and I got a medium coffee & Gary got a frozen cappachino and we toasted to you. Hey! They have great donuts too (just like Krispy Kreme)… yes, we splurged & it was delicious.

So we reached Kenora, ON… it’s 6:00 pm central time, Gary just finished cooking a steak that’s been marinating for 2 days over an open campfire. There’s 2 glasses of a good Shiraz sitting on the picnic table and….. Why am I on this computer??? Good night! Tim & Sue, we're missing you!


PS: Thanks for the advice David (W), after Gary skunked me on the first game I was getting ready to toss him out of the RV until the second game I was able to skunk him!! All is now peaceful in the Bishop RV ….. For now. We’ve been getting to the campsites too late to play another game since then. Of course, using your advice, maybe we should keep it that way!