This year there is no exotic overseas travel for us, we thought we’d take a holiday from all the planning!! Instead we are driving out west in the US to visit some of the sights we missed when we were last out that way due to having the trailer tagging along behind us.
We figured we were traveling business class again as our seats are fully adjustable, we have good leg room and there are inferior seats behind us!
We set out yesterday morning, during which there were a few OMG moments, the first before we even left the house. Our final check before leaving is ensure we have passports, anything else we have forgotten can be bought en-route. As Lyn did the mandatory check a look of panic spread over her face, there was only one passport and it wasn’t mine!! The passports had somehow got separated and they finished up in different bags. OK, time to leave. We made a quick breakfast stop and then started out westbound. About 20 minutes later Lyn had another OMG moment when she feared she may have left the overnight bag at home. A quick pull off the highway and the bag was located in the trunk.
The first part of the journey was to Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan, a stones throw away from Sault Sainte Marie Ontario. Same name, more or less the same location but two different countries. It was as we approached the border that Lyn had her third and final OMG moment of the day when I asked her for the passports. They weren’t to be found. Evidently there are enough hiding places in a woman’s handbag that even a pair of passports can hide undetected for a number of minutes! We made it through immigration in under a minute, which I think was a record.
Now it was my turn for an OMG (or more like a WTF) moment as I plugged the next leg of the route into the GPS. It came back with a trip time of 17+ hours, which couldn’t possibly be correct, what was wrong with the stupid machine. After careful investigation the machine was cleared of all blame as I realised that I may have possible made an error in my planning. I had booked the first two nights hotel about 10 days after I had done the initial planning, unfortunately with my great memory I managed to forget the second stop and book the first two nights hotels for what in reality should have been the first and third nights stops.
After a 9 hour driving day I wasn’t in the best of moods after discovering that. Anyway, bookings and re-bookings were made, and all was finally sorted.
Typical of the Scenery in N. Ontario
We had a good sleep and woke up relaxed for day 2 of the trip. We had a little business to attend to before getting on the road proper. We had ordered a few things on line and had them delivered to storage address in the US, just down the road from the hotel. For then non-Canadians reading this, stuff that can be ordered from the US can sometimes be cheaper than the same items in Canada BUT shipping to Canada is prohibitively expensive in most cases. The cost of shipping can easily outweigh the savings, in fact if the parcels are sent UPS or FedEx you can often find yourself with a $40 broker bill just for getting the goods through customs. We ordered essentials, US National Parks Pass, SIM cards for the phones in the US, a LARGE roll of quilt batting (30 yards x 8ft) and some spares for the MGB. After breakfast we headed down to the store to pick them up, they had 3 out of 4 in their computer, but no SIM cards. I had a horrible feeling today was going to start as yesterday finished, however a very helpful clerk said hat sometimes envelopes slip through the system and he would try to track it down amazingly he found it in about 30 seconds, a good omen!
Once on the road we made slow progress to start as there was thick fog, probably around 50 yards visibility. Luckily this all burnt off after a few miles and the sun came out. This was good news as we had 850Kms (530 miles)to go today compared with a paltry 800Kms (500 miles) yesterday. Again the scenery was mostly wooded, although we spent a good deal of time very close to the shore of Lake Superior. Many of the trees were beginning to change colour and a few were already bright red.
Red LeavesWe drove out of Michigan, through Wisconsin and into Minnesota. In Minnesotoa the sun disappeared and was replaced by rain, heavy at times. For the first time in my life I experienced aquaplaning while driving a car, it sure is a good way to catch your attention. It is just like driving on ice, you are completely helpless. Luckily in the three time it happened it was very brief and we stayed on the road. My mind went back to Air Traffic college days where we learned that aquaplaning was function of tyre pressure and speed (for the nerds among us cars are prone to aquaplane at 10.4 x the square root of the tyre pressure) so by slowing down by a few MPH the issue went away.
Rain!The only other issue we had was that the final stretch of road, about 10 miles from our hotel had been closed and a 10 mile detour was required. It appears that in Minnesota they don’t just close one lane for resurfacing they close the whole road.
These two days and tomorrow are just travel days, the touring starts after tomorrow. After a couple of long days driving I don’t have the inclination to proof read this so there are bound to be mistakes.
Have to go now, as much to our dietary disgust we found out that Monday night is
free pie night at Perkins Restaurant where we had dinner. They wouldn’t let us leave without a slice each!