Day 1- Canadian Maritimes - Hitting the Road to Sault Ste Marie

 It's time! 

Actually, time runs out so fast, it's good to get going while we can. To heck with the diesel prices, we will do more boondocking and less campgrounds. But we are still going to go!! As long as Canada lets us in, that is.

We are in our 60s and it's time to see more of this beautiful world before we run out of steam. Having the smaller motorhome now makes it much easier to travel, and less expensive for sure. With the bigger Safari motorhome we were averaging 8 or 9 miles to the gallon. With this one we're doing usually 13 or 14.

It's time to smile, and enjoy what we are setting out to do for the next month or two.

In my last blog, I posted a tentative map of some of the places we're going to go. These are merely places that we're going to drive through to get somewhere. There are no real destinations of any towns in particular. But what we like seeing are the beautiful natural areas. It's just that we have to get past big towns to get to some of them. 

If you have any suggestions of beautiful areas to visit along our way, please drop them in the comments below. 

One of the last few things we had to do at the house was to pick all of the apples on our trees. The branches were hanging way down as it was, but we also needed to get the apples off and stored in a cool dry place. When we get home, we will work on canning applesauce and pie filling and maybe freezing some of them in slices for baking.

Steve started picking them on our very last evening at home.  We ended up with six boxes of them. We didn't want to pile them up too high so they didn't bruise on each other just from the weight. This is a huge crop from such small trees, and we gave some away to the neighbors already.

We have been packing items on and off for a week. I went over my lists and crossing things off as they got put into the motorhome. I actually have two different pages... One is for the things we commonly take, and the other is for special items that we need for a long trip. We had a granddaughter over for the weekend and she helped with a lot of the back and forth and loading up stuff.

Nickydoodle was getting increasingly worried each time we went out of the house with another load of stuff. He made sure to bring along his little stuffed reindeer, his most favorite toy. It's on the love seat right next to him. He carries this around like a baby. 

We had a visit on Tuesday with my brother, and then finished up a couple other last minute obligations early Wednesday morning. Then it was time to hit the road. With smiles on our faces, it was time to back out of the driveway and hit the road pointed North.

So we had Nick's favorite toy packed, and his ball, his rope, and all of his food and medicines. He's been dealing with high liver numbers and we are trying various medications to bring them down. He's due for another blood work up in 6 weeks. He feels fine looks fine and acts fine. The numbers just aren't fine.

Heading north is really no big thing for us. We are traveling familiar roads all the way up into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We go up this way often, so it really wasn't anything new to see. We stopped at Thompson Roadside Park between Escanaba and Manistique on US2. We usually try to stop here cuz it's such a beautiful beach, easy access, and a nice break to make lunch after a couple hours of driving.

We drove further east towards Sault Ste Marie. These ominous clouds rolled up over head and we were worried we were in for a big storm. It was getting a little windy and we were getting a few splatterings of raindrops on the windshield.

Fortunately, our route took a turn to the North and those clouds rolled on further to the South and the East. We were able to avoid the storm completely and soon the sky was a beautiful blue and speckled puffy white clouds instead taking their place. That was fine with us...

We rolled into Sault Ste Marie just about supper time. We stayed on the Michigan side and didn't cross the border yet into Canada. We wanted to rest and take a break and watch some of the ships coming in through the canal into the locks. 

We were thinking of staying at Aune Osborne Campground, which is right on the river to watch the boats.  They only have two empty sites available and they were right next to the busy noisy road. So instead, we pulled into the boat landing next door and found a nice wide open spot. The winds were blasting and increasing up to 30 miles an hour. We would go out and look at the water a little bit and come right back inside. We cooked supper and watched some of the boats go by.

There's this great website called Marinetraffic.com that you can click on in your area. It shows you all of the boats coming and going.  It tells you where they are from, where they are headed, who is the captain, how long, wide, etc. and what they are hauling. It's really interesting. Nautical boat fanatics take pictures and post them on the website as the boat goes through their area.

We watched the John Boland go through and then the Sunda. It was so neat to see them churning against the wind and the waves headed towards the locks.  We saw a smaller boat with waves crashing right up over the top of it it was so windy and rough.

It was a great spot to park with a front row view of the waterway. We watched some birds flying around and relaxed while we ate our dinner.  There was nobody else in the parking lot nor were there any fishermen out at the boat landing. With those type of waves, there wouldn't be anybody going out fishing... 

We probably could have parked right there in the lot, but we didn't see any signs that said no overnight parking. Instead we decided to get out of the wind and move over to the local Walmart a couple miles away. 

As we pulled into the Walmart, the parking lot was almost empty? On a busy Wednesday evening? The employees were all gathered at each of the doors, waving customers away. They just said they were closed. No other explanation. So we drove on to the far end of the lot where there were a couple other motorhomes. RV overnight parking is allowed at this Walmart. So we found a very level spot in a very quiet area and settled in for the night.

More of those ominous clouds gathered overhead, even making long tubes of dark formations. It was really very strange.

We had a restful sleep, the lot was pretty quiet. We only heard one truck come in but it was over at the other side during the night. There was nobody else parked around us and we enjoyed the peace and quiet. We had a grassy area right next to us for Nick to use, and of course we always clean things up afterwards. 

In the morning, we went inside to grab a few last minute items. We forgot to ask why they were closed yesterday, what had happened? Oh well, they were open in the morning and we were able to check out and say thank you for letting us stay overnight at the service desk. It's always good to let them know we appreciate the service they offer to traveling RVs.

Now it was time to get ready and cross the border into Canada! We follow all the rules and do not carry over fresh produce, fresh chicken or eggs. Dog foods is in it's original container, any of the meat in the freezer is printed with the store brand label and country of origin. You cannot have meats that you repackage into Ziploc bags or vacuum sealed on your own. 

We had our passports ready and Nick's rabies vaccination paper. We had our can of bear spray accessible to be examined if they ask. We've done this before, and we know the routine. 

We paid our toll of $10.65 to cross the bridge, in the middle is where we passed from the United States into Canada. See you USA in about 6 weeks!!!

We passed over the St Mary's River on the big bridge and queued up at the almost open slot at the customs building. There was a guy ahead of us just leaving and we slid right in behind him when the time was right. There was one of their car waiting to the left of us. That was it. Three cars and us. No long lines.

As per routine, one must turn off their engine, take off their sun glasses, and roll down all windows on the driver's side so they can see into the backseat. 

We were asked the very basic questions quickly, handed over our passports, and we were wished a safe journey and we were on our way! 

WELCOME 

TO 

CANADA!!!!

Just wait till you see on the next blog where we found to camp overnight. It sure beats Walmart!