This post is about Tuesday August 22nd
We left the Woodlands Provincial Park long before it became overrun with dogs for the upcoming dog show. We headed on out and proceeded to kind of jig jog our way north and west at the same time. We didn't want to drive up through Ottawa so we wanted to find a way around. It was pretty creative taking back road after back road trying to find our way because there was no direct route in the direction we wanted to go. This GPS would not track my route that we actually took, so the map below does show us actually going through Ottawa. I sure miss my Microsoft Streets and Trips on the laptop. It would show exactly where we went and save the map.
As we drove further north and west, we suddenly saw a school crossing guard pop out of the woods with a flag in her hand. She really came out of nowhere and behind her came a whole troop a little munchkins! Seriously, they were just walking out of the woods and across the road to a school. We have no idea where they were coming from!!! There was no real sidewalk or even a walking path. But here came the munchkins:
As we wound our way along across the flatter lands of Canada, we saw such beautiful farm houses and countryside. This very flat section just south of Ottawa reminded me a lot of the area around Milwaukee where I grew up in the tiny German concentrated village of Cedarburg. Everything seems so nice and neat as a pin in this area. It's evident that there is a lot of pride of ownership in these farmsteads.
Again, just like the New England states, every little burg had a beautiful church and steeple raising up to the sky.
We rounded this corner and saw such an adorable little shed, nicely decorated with hanging baskets and a Canadian flag. I would like to imagine this was someone's little she shed or weaving area. Maybe it's a woodworking shed or some other craftsman's hangout.
For once the skies were blue and the clouds were big puffy white ones. The humidity had dropped and we weren't experiencing any smoke from the wildfires further to the West and North. As we wound our way along through the countryside it was a gorgeous day to be on the road.
Cruising along, I saw this field of peaceful cattle relaxing in the sunshine. This is why we enjoy our RV ing. It's not just to get in the woods and go camping, but it's also to see the countryside as we travel along. We don't see scenes like this from the interstate, for sure.
Now things started to get hillier as we worked our way up around Ottawa and headed towards the Algonquin Provincial Park. The park is huge with about 15 campgrounds in it. The main route across the interior of the park on highway 60 has the majority of the campgrounds and we think is much busier this time of year. We decided to take the loop up around the top and go to the fewer populated provincial parks instead. Either way, we are working our way over to Sudbury and then Sault Ste Marie to cross back into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
As we traveled along, we were coming across taller trees... beautiful pine forests some cedar and gorgeous lakes reflected in the amazing blue sky.
We were just passing through a little larger town called Pembroke. We stopped and got a few more groceries and found the next best thing to bratwurst. We were going to try it. It's called Canadian Italian sausage. We still didn't find any really good bakery buns, so we had to make do with regular store-bought mushy hot dog buns.
We also needed to stop and do a fuel up. This is our first time fueling up with Canadian fuel, of course at the Canadian prices. We stopped at a Circle K. The price on the post is $1.766 per liter which calculates out to $6.69 per US gallon at the Canadian rate.
When we use our credit card it will convert it over to US prices which brings it down to $5.03 a gallon. Added to that is also the bonus of our credit card giving us back 5% cash back on all purchases, so that actually brings it down to $4.70 a gallon. That's a little easier to live with.
We noticed that our miles per gallon has dropped somewhat. That is because we had disconnected the driving battery to work on the solenoid the other day. That causes the engine computer to reset itself back to factory defaults. Now it needs to learn our driving habits each time we start and stop. I don't know if it's the next 10 times or the next 20 times. Then it will adjust itself again back up to the 16 mile per gallon range. Right now it figured out at 14.8 miles per gallon.
We worked our way up to a Provincial Park that had three loops of campgrounds within it. The main park is called Driftwood. The nice young kid at the counter said he could only go by the measurements on his computer screen and said we cannot fit on the last few of their campsites that were open. Only one was electric. We asked if we could just look at the site and let him know if we fit.
He said okay, and gave us the campsite number. We drove on over to that loop, and yes of course it was very big and would easily accommodate us. So we went back to pay for the site. It was $49.44 with tax Canadian.
Steve explained that when he worked at the Wisconsin state parks, the sites are figured for a travel trailer plus a towing vehicle like a pickup truck parked in front of it. So if the site says only a 25 ft trailer will fit, it really means the site is closer to 50 ft long! Steve actually went through and recalibrated all of the campsites in his Park when he still worked there and had them change them all on the reservation computer.
And here is the front part of the campsite with at least 20 ft in front of us! Keep in mind, we are 25 ft 8 inches long, plus the bed slide overhangs almost 3 ft. Plenty of room! I wonder how many people get turned away because their computer says they won't fit --- without looking at the site first???
We set up our lawn chairs and I completed my page in my travel log. We had a couple glasses of wine at the end of a day of driving. This happened to be the longest travel day so far I believe. 231 miles!
Binney relaxed at our feet and kept an eye out for chipmunks or squirrels. I think she had enough traveling for today too, and we went out and walked around the loop so she could stretch her legs.
As we walked around, we noticed more and more leaves that are turning color already. It's not even September yet! Scattered on the ground are all these little small red maple leaves already.
Dotted here and there among the trees, certain ones are turning crimson red. That's so hard to believe. Where did Summer go?
Even the sumac is starting to turn red here. That's usually what turns first over in our part of wisconsin. Here the sumac looks a little different and it has clumps of green underneath it like may apples? Maybe this isn't even sumac.
At first I was thinking maybe it was certain trees that had gotten stressed during some hot weather earlier in the summer. But then as I looked at these leaves, it definitely looks like frost had landed on them and made them change color? Either way, it's a sign of things to come... winter.
We had a very nice stay at the Driftwood Campground.
We traveled 231 miles today
2,130 mi total so far
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That's interesting about campground lengths and Steve recalibrating them. There doesn't seem to be any standard in how the lengths are calibrated in the U.S. either. Nice that several places let you go and check them out.
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