Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, we are thankful for a safe trip to Ontario.  We are thankful for being able to spend time with family and friends.  We were thankful that we had a nice place to stay at the lake. 

We are also thankful to be home.  There is nothing like your own space.  To be able to climb into your own bed is pretty nice.

After arriving home, we have stayed pretty close to the house.  Ron has been busy outside working on the neglected yards and cleaning our very dirty car.  Yesterday, I caught up on laundry and today I worked on preparing a thanksgiving dinner for us.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh My

Today we travelled from morning to night.  We went from Ontario, through Manitoba and into Saskatchewan.  We gained two hours by crossing two time zones.  We left Thunder Bay just after 7:00 a.m. where it was already warm and muggy.  

The morning was beautiful with a nice sunrise.

We crossed northern Ontario through lots of construction and even came upon a bit of an accident.  

The roads ran between rocks and trees.  

The clouds blocked the sun most of the day but we were treated to a rainbow along the way.  

Since we were trying to make time today, our stops were short.  Thank you Dave and Cheryl for supplying us with teas, coffees and a few pastries.

We drove into Manitoba and were immediately greeted with a much different landscape.  

We crossed through this province and into the “land of living skies.” The clouds hung low and we went through more rain.  

Even though it had been stormy most of the day, Saskatchewan came through with a beautiful sunset.

Ron continued to drive through rain.  The skies darkened and my eyes felt heavy.  After 1400 kms and over 14 hours of driving, we pulled into Moose Jaw.  

Thankfully, our day of travelling will be much shorter tomorrow.  We will be able to sleep in our own bed with the “For Sale” sign still in our front yard.

Day 2 - Sudbury to Thunder Bay

I do like travelling but it is definitely tiring.  We were up early and ready to leave the hotel in Sudbury before 7:00.  Ron started off driving since it was still dark.  

As it started to brighten up, fog hung over the trees and in the fields.  

There were still lots of maple trees which caused our journey to continue to be what we were looking for.

We stopped in Sault Ste Marie later in the morning for gas and picked up lunch.  I took over the wheel as we drove along Lake Superior.  The shoreline was gorgeous.  

The slightly curvy road around huge rocks along the lake gave us another beautiful day of scenery. We stopped to eat our sandwiches at a nice lookout.

We stopped in Wawa to take a picture of the goose. Fun fact… the goose is 60 years old and is made of steel.  I happen to be half Steele and am also 60 years old and have been called a silly goose. 

We continued down the highway and were getting a little tired but our goal was to get to Thunder Bay.  As our exhaustion settled in, our minds turned to Terry Fox who had to stop his journey in Thunder Bay in 1981.  

By the time that Terry had arrived in Thunder Bay, he had run 5,324 kilometres.  This young man died at age 22 but his desire to raise money for cancer continues to this day.  

Before we left the trailer, the kids were doing the Terry Fox Run at school.  Emma had read to us the information that she knew about Terry Fox. His run started and ended before Ron and I were even married and now our grandchildren know about his Marathon of Hope.  

We finally rolled into our hotel and ordered a pizza for a late supper.  Time to sleep and get ready for another day of travel.

From the Trailer to Sudbury

We started our long trip back to our unsold house.  We left the trailer around 8:30.  It was another beautiful morning at the lake but all good things must come to an end.  It was a wonderful September at the trailer. Dan and Barb were the best hosts.  

We had told everyone that we would start our trip back to Alberta when the leaves were at their peak for colour.  We did it!

Our destination was to go through Algonquin.  

As we started our drive through the park, we were thrilled to see the perfect display of fall colours.  We had already enjoyed watching the leaves change around the trailer.  We had also watched many leaves fall from the trees so we weren’t sure about our drive but we were not disappointed.  

We stopped at a trail and hiked with many others to the Lookout.  It was a beautiful view and we congratulated each other on picking the perfect timing to travel through northern Ontario.

We continued through the park , enjoying the views.  We stopped at Canoe Lake and snapped a few more pictures.

Once we were on the west side of the park, we put some miles on.  We arrived in Sudbury around 6:30 and settled in for the night.

Only about 29 hours to go….

Goodbyes are Done!

It’s always nice coming back to Ontario and saying hello to family and friends.  Saying goodbye is not so nice.  The difference this time is that as soon as our house sells, we will be back.  That could be in a month, few months or perhaps a whole year.  We know that it will happen sometime.

Jenn and the kids were supposed to come and visit yesterday but then Jenn got sick so our goodbyes were over the phone, texts and messaging.  Today, we went to church with mom and dad and then out for lunch with them.  With Napanee being the church that we grew up in and got married in, we were able to see lots of old friends.

We went to mom and dad’s after the restaurant and had a little visit.  

Mom pulled out a cake from the fridge and cut us each a piece.  Austin, Tina’s youngest son, had brought a cake to mom and dad’s on Friday.  It would have been Tina’s 56th birthday.  I took small bites on my piece of cake, choking back the very near tears and wishing that she would walk in the door and yell at us for eating her cake.  

When Tina first got sick I sent her a Three Sisters Willowtree ornament. Mom had brought it to her house.  I am now able to take it to mine.  

Saying goodbye is hard but making memories to take with you is a lot easier.

Abby and Emma

When we first got to Ontario we had hoped to go to Sarah’s first basketball games.  We had loved watching her play when she was with us in Pincher Creek.  Unfortunately, our time with Sarah wasn’t in the gym but rather a full day at the hospital.  It made us all sad but I told her that at least we spent the day together.

On Tuesday, we drove west to visit with some old friends.  We had supper in Trenton at one of our favourite restaurants with Dave and Cheryl.  I was pretty tired and not feeling the best but it was so good to spend a little time with my bestie.  She gave me a willowtree friendship box.  

We drove to Jenn’s from there to pick up Abby.  She spent the night at the trailer and then wanted to go for a run with Grandpa in the morning.

I walked along behind thinking that she wouldn’t make it that far but she surprised us both and then stated that she is “competitive.”  When she did stop, she walked with me to get my 10,000 steps and then wanted to go to the end of the road.  

She went over 9 kms with no complaining.  We stopped along the way to take pictures of the scenery and our time with Abby.

Ron and Abby left right after an early lunch to head to Kingston for her eye appointment.  My cold had progressed to aches and pains and so I was ordered to stay behind.  I crawled into bed for the afternoon.

Ron dropped Abby with Jenn after her appointment and came back to the trailer.

This morning I was feeling a lot better and so off we went to Brockville.  Our little car sure has been racking up the kilometres.  This time we were off to see Emma.  She was doing a cross country run.

We haven’t been in that area too much so it was nice to have a look around and we enjoyed being there to watch her run.  She looked a little nervous at the start.

It was a three kilometre run with some good hills along the way.  She arrived at the finish line breathing hard.  She did it.  

We haven’t been around too much to be able to go to these events and it was really nice to stand at the sidelines.  Hopefully soon, we will be able to take in more events like this.

We drove a different way back to the lake.  The leaves are absolutely beautiful and every corner seemed to produce a new burst of colour.  

We’ve missed fall in Ontario and so we are enjoying every beautiful autumn day.  The weather has been great and the colours spectacular.

Our time in Ontario is coming to an end with just one more weekend here.  We have seen lots of friends and family, enjoyed having Jenn and the grandkids around, had a few surprises along the way and loved being at the lake.