THIS IS NOT A WELCOME BACK THREAD! IT'S JUST ME RECOUNTING MY TRIP! PLEASE DON'T SHUT IT DOWN! PLEASE!
Woooow....altogether 8 days in the tuck, and Glenn and I didn't kill each other! I am pretty proud of us. For the trip there, we went through Canada (Mainly because Glenn forgot his birht certificate), stopped in Brandon the first night. We stopped at this place, what it was called, I can't remember for the life of me. This gal that was running it, was this ancient looking Chinese lady, who spoke about 5 words of English. Really, she communicated to us by pointing to documents. She also seemed a little leery of the fact that the Glenn and I wanted a single room one bed. Then we saw the crucifix. But at that point in time we were too tired to care. The second day we made a big mistake. Rather than following Highway #1 through to Thunder Bay, we ducked near the border through -brace yourself for this- Emo. Yes, there's a town called Emo. Stopped in Atikoken, which is, as we found out, probably last years Winner of Hockeyville, and asked if there are any more gas stations further up the road, and the damned kid made it sound like a gas oasis up the road. The little smurfer lied. Nothing until Shebandewan (At which point we were sucking fumes), and some litle old lady shook us down for about $1.25/L (Officially the most expensive gas in Canada that we found). But we made it safely to Thunder Bay for our second rest stop. But not before finding out that the Ferry route I found to cun down time (Basically going through Georgian Bay as opposed to around it....look at a map, and see why the following made me so nervous) may or may not be running. Eeep! So the third day, we were stressing all the way to Espanola, where we finally found two things.
1.) No one down there has a CLUE about the damned ferry, and
2.) It was in fact running.
So we were shooting for South Baymouth, but at this point Glenn's contacts were pretty much putsched, so we stopped in Little Current.
Day 4 was was the last day on the road. We went to a little Cafe in South Baymouth, and met up with a few people who were also apparently taking the ferry (Not teribly surprising, really, but I digress). So we boarded the ferry, and as soon as we got on, Glenn and I went into explore mode. Wandering around the ferry, top to bottom. As we reached the upper deck, just outside of the seating area (Which was pretty much pure glass walls) the horn sounded. Glenn just about hit the deack, I jumped big time, and we looked back to see the guys we met in the Cafe. Later on we spoke with them to find out that they too were heading to Windsor, and when we got off the ferry, they'll show us a shortcut. Sure enough, as we got off, we lost track of them, so we went off on our merry little way...soon to see this car and trailer SCREAMING up the road bobbing in and out of traffic, and sure enough this truck slows down beside us (bearing in mind this WASN'T two lane traffic!) blasts the horn, and roars onwards. At this point we noticed a decal naming our "guides." Captain Ron. It was tough keeping up with him (Well them...he had a frind. I'm not entirely sure if they were gay, or just good friends, but whatever...) Thanks to them though, we made it to home base in record time. Glenn's brother was putting us up Great place, and I told them many times that they'll have to come back to Calagary, and we'll put them up in return.) The next few days were dedicated to helping out Glann's folks. Glenn's mom, whom was not doing so well, showed marked improvement with Glenn's presence, and loved how I decoreated her walker. Long story short (And I could go on for days about our time in Windsor, and the farm near Strathroy), Glenn's family was great, astoundingly hospiable, and I didn't want to leave. But leave we did, and we headed to Niagara Falls to go play tourist. And that place is a tourist trap. The street leading to the falls was SO cheesy! But the falls were amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed them, especially since we went to the lower observation deck. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to see Toronto, but there's always next time, but we did get to meet a friend of Glenns that he hadn't seen for many many years. That was a great deal of fun, and their kids were adorable.. By the end of that night, we ended up in Tobermory to catch the ferry back across. After an uneventful ferry ride, we decided to skim through the States, though Sault Ste. Marie. Oooooh boy. It really is a whole different world down there. We stopped at Marquette to inquire about the exchange rate. The DESK MANAGER there called 2 people and still got the wrong answer (She quoted it around %48....I saw the exchange rate in Niagara at $1.08. Sorry babe.). In the meantime, this Wal-Mart dingbat standing beside us piped up an said "Oh, I been to Canada once!" Verbatum, for the record. I shuddered, and ventured "Oh, where?" "Oh, I dunno, I just picked someone up at the border...I didn't pay attention to where I was." Glenn and I just looked at each other in stunned silence. Thanks for playing. The next day was relatively uneventful, save for the fact that we ducked back to the north, into Brandon again. As we crossed the border, I found that the guy there seemed really leery of me. First he took an easy minute or two (A LONG TIME WHEM HE'S LEERING AT YOU, TRUST ME!), and then going through the questions, he got to "Bring any fireworks back with you?" he glared straight at me. Good thing I thought better of buying some at the last gas station. Coming home from Brandon, we were both very restless. We just wanted to be home. Again, we just speed bumped Saskatechewan, got home only to find out that Mouse ate a needle apparently. So we're kind of on a vigil on that one...he went to the emergency vet, they took x-rays, and couldn't find the needle. At any rate, we're home, and GOD how I missed it!
To give this a topic, please share memorable trips, or ones you're looking forward to.
