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

Meow Wolf and O

Wednesday, May 25th –Lake Mead National Recreation Area to Las Vegas, Nevada – Day 104 We woke up in our roadside turn out and got ready for the day. Our plan was to go for a swim at Lake Mead, see the Hoover Dam and head back into Vegas. The morning was stifling hot, we were looking forward to the swim. We drove to the visitor centre at Lake Mead Recreation Centre. We could see Lake Mead on the way. The water was well below the high-water line on the rocks. At the visitor centre we got our passport stamped, filled our water bottles, and received junior ranger booklets. The air conditioning was so nice we set up the kids to work on their booklets and hung around. The kids finished up enough activities that they were sworn in by a very nice ranger before we left. We decided to go see the Hoover Dam first. We dropped the trailer in the parking lot. We heard it might need to be opened at the security checkpoint and we couldn’t be bothered. The H...

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 1

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91 Utah is another planet. I cannot do justice to the sights that I have seen in Canyonlands National Park. They are beyond compare. I would encourage everyone to visit. The pictures we have taken do not convey the beauty of the scenery we witnessed. We woke up in the morning after a late night. The kids did some schoolwork. We ate our oatmeal. We tried to clean up the dust that was all over the trailer. The wind had subsided in the night and the morning was pleasant and warm. Aisling had made us promise that we would climb the rock that they had all been climbing on. We strapped on our hiking boots and started towards the rock. A quick climb later we were at the top; on the way down, we were looking for pretty rocks. The road to Canyonlands sits between two buttes with their cliffs rising on either side. The drive was thirty minutes to the entrance. The visitor centre had displays that detailed what each layer of the canyo...

A Desert Forest - Part 4

We finally decided to move to our last destination before the sun set. The Arch Rock Nature trail was next. We reached the parking lot and saw the rocks in the distance, we were debating what we wanted to do. We just started moving and once we did, we found ourselves racing down the trail to the rocks. The kids wanted to play monster and once they started running, everyone else was running as well. We had another poo-mergency with no restroom in sight, the evidence is buried in the desert. There was more climbing on the rocks. We took pictures of the sun setting and took a quick look at the Arch rock before starting back to the car. Gen was behind the wheel, an hour later we were leaving the park’s south entrance. We stopped at the Ranger station to freshen up in the bathroom and fill our water bottles before heading to our campsite. Luckily, the site was the overflow campsite for the park so was minutes from the outside of the park....

Simnett Travels

Search This Blog