The Drive to Lake Superior

Monday, June 25th – Vermillion Bay to Thunder Bay, Ontario - Day 164

Gen woke up around 6:30am unable to sleep anymore with the traffic on the TransCanada nearby. She started to cook farmers sausage and egg for breakfast. The farmers sausage was delicious. We packed up the trailer and went back to Vermillion Bay to see the town. The town was small, but we went to the public dock and enjoyed a boardwalk along the lake. It was nice enough that we decided to go for a swim in the Lake of the Woods. Very refreshing before a long drive.

Our goal was to camp near Thunder Bay, a four hour drive. The first town we reached was Dryden, home to a huge pulp and paper mill. We stopped at a little park to walk a short trail to a suspension bridge. There was a beautiful, tiled mosaic in the park that we stopped to appreciate. The suspension bridge had a great view of the water used to power the paper mill. Before we drove through downtown Dryden, we stopped for gas, a car wash, Canadian Tire to refill propane and have a picnic, and then Max the Moose. Downtown Dryden was quaint but had a slight odour.

Moving onwards, we had two hours to drive to get to Thunder Bay. The drive was forest with views of the Canadian shield. Jo-Ce wanted to stop at Kakabeka Falls and was willing to pay the $5 admission to do so. I’m happy she did. The falls were stunning. You could see the layers of slate-like rock making up the falls. At the bottom was a flat, solid sheet of slate that the water ran over. We saw the falls from one side and decided to visit the viewpoint and visitor centre on the other side. A small hike and a t-shirt purchase, and we were back on the road.

Thunder Bay was thirty minutes away and we checked out one dispersed camping spot. The parking lot was full of cars so we thought it might be awkward setting up our camper. We pressed on to Fort William Historic Campground. A crew was tearing down a concert from the previous weekend. The campsites were empty so we set-up and had a dinner of mashed potatoes and mung bean curry.

Comments

Mary in Malibu

Tuesday, June 7th - Angeles Mountains, Los Angeles to Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu, California - Day 117 It is great to welcome Mary back on the trip. The kids gave her a huge hug as we picked her up at the airport. They are all really excited to talk to someone other than their parents. We are all driving to our wedding on June 25th. Sixteen days until we need to be in Victoria, British Columbia. Our plan was to drive up the coast from Los Angeles, halfway to San Fran cut inland to Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park (which is close by) and then head north to Yosemite, before driving back down to Big Sur and then into San Francisco, potentially north east to Lake Tahoe and north to Redwoods National Park. It’s a busy schedule, we’ll see how it goes. On the way to pick up Mary we got a well-deserved oil change for the Santa Fe, courtesy of Valvoline. It was expensive but quick and easy. We were thinking of driving throu...

Back to the Coast

Tuesday, June 14th - Sacramento to Big Sur State Park, California - Day 123 In the morning, we got on the road and drove along the Sacramento river which watered acres and acres of fields on all sides of us. We took a scenic drive before getting on the highway. A brief stop at Walmart and Dollar tree replenished our supplies. We phoned Big Sur State Park to try to get a spot for the night. They had nine spots available, we were three hours away, we needed to hurry. When we finally reached the coast, we drove along a curvy cliffside road that was very beautiful. Views of waves crashing into the rocks on the coastline below were exquisite. Gen was behind the wheel. There were no passing lanes, she finally found a spot to pull off the road and subsequently had several minutes of vehicles continuing to pass us before we could get back on. We finally reached Big Sur State Park and were welcomed with a grove of Red Woods towering over the drive into...

Simnett Travels

Search This Blog