As I write this, it is actually Day 8 but I am running behind on my tale. I may have to finish when I am back home.
July 19
It was still sprinkling when I woke up but I hadn't brought much into the camper cabin, so I backed the car up to the porch and threw everything in. I had the electric teapot with me so I boiled water for tea and oatmeal for breakfast before I set off.
I decided against using the shower room, a mistake as it turned out. I wouldn't have a chance for a couple of days. I also should have filled my water jug.
I drove west on the Trans Canada Highway. With all the rain, I decided not to go see that tall ships near the locks in Sault Ste Marie.
My first stop was at Chippewa Fall. There I met a fellow whose wife was climbing the side of the falls. He said they camped every year in a nearby campground but now their gear was waterlogged so they were heading home. He had never seen the falls so full or the water so high. Still, he wasn't worried about his wife climbing on the slippery walks. Wouldn't do any good, he said, she would do it anyhow.
A woman walking her dog stopped to talk. It is so easy to talk to people with dogs. "What breed?" and the conversation is off and running. In this case it was a Heinz 57 dog. The heat was Rottweiler, we agreed on that. But the feet and gait were basset. Then there was the thick fur and curling tail. Where did those come from.
At the Chippewa Falls visitor center, a couple pulled out a map to show me what was a head of me. They said that Chippewa Falls is the midway point on the Trans Canada Highway. Though there was an restaurant across the highway, they said to go to the Voyageurs at Batchawanna Bay. As for them, they were heading back to Sudbury.
Just about every camper I met was pulling up stakes and heading east, which is where the rain had gone. I was satisfied to head west, toward the sun.
At the Voyageur's restaurant, I couldn't see a place to sit, the place was so busy. An old woman (79 she said, only ten years older than me) invited me to join her. It turned out that her family owned the lodge, restaurant, gas station and gift shop -- the whole complex. Irene was from a village inland. She and I shared experiences of going to a one room school with eight grades. She wound up with a college education and taught at primary grades in a not much bigger school. She had four grades in one room at Batchawanna Bay, but that was years ago.
Irene was all dressed up, on her way to Sault Ste Marie to see the tall ships. She said they had been delayed by the storm, so even if had stayed longer, I wouldn't have seen them. Her son, the manager of the complex, was a voyageur enacter. All the decor in the restaurant dealt with that period of history. There were Hudson Bay blankets and bales that would hold beaver pelts (but didn't, she reassured me). Her son was supposed to be on a big canoe that was to join the tall ships but the power was out from Heyden to Montreal River Harbor. They were the running the complex with generators. There was a big mess to clean up behind the lodge and restaurant so he had to cancel the voyageur canoe trip.
As I left the restaurant, I met a family of campers who were heading east, too. A grandmother had her two grandsons who had never been west of Sudbury. They told me about all the moose they had seen. I am so jealous. This is my seventh trip to Canada and I've yet to see a moose. If I hadn't seen one in a zoo I would think they were making the creatures up. Anything that goofy looking has to be the figment of somebody's imagination.
More about Day 7 tomorrow.
July 19
It was still sprinkling when I woke up but I hadn't brought much into the camper cabin, so I backed the car up to the porch and threw everything in. I had the electric teapot with me so I boiled water for tea and oatmeal for breakfast before I set off.
I decided against using the shower room, a mistake as it turned out. I wouldn't have a chance for a couple of days. I also should have filled my water jug.
I drove west on the Trans Canada Highway. With all the rain, I decided not to go see that tall ships near the locks in Sault Ste Marie.
My first stop was at Chippewa Fall. There I met a fellow whose wife was climbing the side of the falls. He said they camped every year in a nearby campground but now their gear was waterlogged so they were heading home. He had never seen the falls so full or the water so high. Still, he wasn't worried about his wife climbing on the slippery walks. Wouldn't do any good, he said, she would do it anyhow.
At the Chippewa Falls visitor center, a couple pulled out a map to show me what was a head of me. They said that Chippewa Falls is the midway point on the Trans Canada Highway. Though there was an restaurant across the highway, they said to go to the Voyageurs at Batchawanna Bay. As for them, they were heading back to Sudbury.
Just about every camper I met was pulling up stakes and heading east, which is where the rain had gone. I was satisfied to head west, toward the sun.
At the Voyageur's restaurant, I couldn't see a place to sit, the place was so busy. An old woman (79 she said, only ten years older than me) invited me to join her. It turned out that her family owned the lodge, restaurant, gas station and gift shop -- the whole complex. Irene was from a village inland. She and I shared experiences of going to a one room school with eight grades. She wound up with a college education and taught at primary grades in a not much bigger school. She had four grades in one room at Batchawanna Bay, but that was years ago.
Irene was all dressed up, on her way to Sault Ste Marie to see the tall ships. She said they had been delayed by the storm, so even if had stayed longer, I wouldn't have seen them. Her son, the manager of the complex, was a voyageur enacter. All the decor in the restaurant dealt with that period of history. There were Hudson Bay blankets and bales that would hold beaver pelts (but didn't, she reassured me). Her son was supposed to be on a big canoe that was to join the tall ships but the power was out from Heyden to Montreal River Harbor. They were the running the complex with generators. There was a big mess to clean up behind the lodge and restaurant so he had to cancel the voyageur canoe trip.
As I left the restaurant, I met a family of campers who were heading east, too. A grandmother had her two grandsons who had never been west of Sudbury. They told me about all the moose they had seen. I am so jealous. This is my seventh trip to Canada and I've yet to see a moose. If I hadn't seen one in a zoo I would think they were making the creatures up. Anything that goofy looking has to be the figment of somebody's imagination.
More about Day 7 tomorrow.
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