I know, I know... where was I?

Well.... it has been a while, hasn't it?

We got back from vacation about a week ago. My daughter's addiction to Furcadia, a busy work schedule, and a crippling toothache have prevented me from getting to this sooner. So what has happened with me in the last month or so?

Well we went on vacation. Like our more fun trips, this one was a road trip, taken with my sister and law, my niece and her new baby, and brother in law and his dog. He and I huddled in front of the computer for the day or two before going, using Google Maps, the Ontario Parks site, and freetrip.com to plan our route. He would be going on his Harley, we'd be in our Ford Focus, and his daughter would drive the 4x4, with my daughter as her navigator.

 

Where we were headed

On the first day, we saddled up and got out the door quickly. My brother in law put the doggie goggles on his dog, and... well, you had to see the look on the face of pedestrians in every town we went through. The double takes were priceless.

North-eastern Ontario is a beautiful and forlorn place. You pass through towns with beautiful cliffs and landscapes, and you wonder why you've never heard of them. But the truth is, nobody has heard of them - they are several highways and roadways away from any major city. As we got further along, we had a decision to make - straight across to Highway eleven? Or up through Algonquin park?

In a spirit of adventure, we went up through Algonquin Park. Keep in mind what this place is... a wilderness so huge that it is the size of a small state or province. (It is actually twice the size of Rhode Island, and also bigger than Prince Edward Island.) We passed by lake after lake in this idyllic paradise, kind of wishing we could stop. But we were headed for another idyllic paradise.

Our first day, we were aiming for Sudbury. But it was a long trip, and we would come up short.

 We rounded the shores of Lake Nipissing, and I stared out at this slightly less than great lake. I had always wondered how big a lake had to be to look like the ocean - I knew the Great lakes were bigger than such a lake needed to be. I knew from maps that Nipissing was big, much bigger than most fishing lakes. And as we looked out, I had my answer. You could see the other side width-wise... although the other side was distant like ocean-going passages I've seen, such as the St. Lawrence or the Straits of Georgia. But lengthwise, you could not see the other side, and indeed it looked like the sea. I've often wondered in fact if the early explorers looking for their route to India thought perhaps they had reached the sought for sea - they must have as they hit the shores of many of Canada's deceptively large lakes, and until they tasted the water.

At any rate, Sudbury was out of reach - we knew that . So we stopped in a wonderfully quaint French Canadian town on the shores of Lake Nippissing - Sturgeon Falls. We planned to camp our way around the province, but this one night (the only night) we stayed in a hotel.

Most of the restaurants were closed, but we found a pub slash pool hall that was open, which was part submarine shop, part pizza parlour. In fact, this place's schizophrenia was so complete that they had totally separate menus for each facet of its personality. Before we got there, my brother in law was a bit nervous... he thought it would be a bar, basically. But it turned out to be a friendly looking place. And I was happy... they had a smoked meat sub!

(to be continued... my account of reaching Lake Superior - with pictures.)