July 3 and Home July 4

 

After a leisurely exit from Kenneth & Pat's, we thought "hmmm, maybe we can make it home by July 4th".  And so, the challenge began.  11.5 hours on the road with one lunch break and short stops for gas and switching drivers.

Crossed the border, ate and camped at NY's Akwesasne Casino, headed out by 8:30am.

We drove straight to the Warren VT 'after-parade activities' where Malcolm was running a beer and taco tent!  Great to see him and the Toast & Eggs crew!

Hope you enjoyed the journey, we sure did!

For those interested in numbers, here are some stats:

28 friends and family visited including a week with Christine!

30 ebiking days, 4 days on water, 1 truck tour, lots of walks/hikes

9600 miles for 12 weeks through 17 states and 5 provinces

9 US and 5 Canadian national parks
other national: 2 monuments, a river, a rec area, 2 BLM, 2 USFS
14 state parks, 1 regional park (Calif), 4 Canadian provincial parks

Lodging: 55 places, 15 of those for more than 1 night (-:

Gas prices US$/gal: our average cost was $4.09/gal
US: $3.06 (Arkansas) to $4.90 (California, but saw higher in Wash)
Canada: $3.90 (Alberta) to $5.11 (British Columbia) yes, converted

So many good times: immeasurable and priceless !!!

Manitoulin Island June 30-July 3

Our brother-in-law Kenneth and wife Pat live on Manitoulin Island - "the largest lake island in the world," situated in Lake Huron.

After a nice lunch on Gore Bay, we had impromptu visits with other family on the island! 

Left to right is us, Kenneth's daughter Kim, Kim's daughter Sarah, Pat and Kenneth. 

We also met Kim's partner Brian but he's inside recuperating from ankle surgery.

Here's Kenneth with grandson Robbie (Kim's son).

Robbie's two kids make four generations on the island!

Rick (Robbie's Dad), with Pat, lives on the island too.

Kenneth is working on his fourth streetrod, a 1938 Ford truck.

Caught a nice bike ride to Beach Road and Misery Bay.  That was about 18 miles total.

We really enjoyed our visit with Kenneth and Pat and family!!

Canada again, eh! June 28-29

Heading out from International Falls MN (finally), we had a big drive day to a Harvest Host site just northeast of Thunder Bay Ontario.

Thursday was another big drive day, in and out of the Lake Superior northern coastline.  

We stopped to see the famous 28' tall Wawa Goose.

Landed the 'last site available' in Lake Superior Provincial Park.


Pretty-colored rock art on the beach.

Lemons to Lemonade June 25-27

Sunday we changed hotels - cheaper and more remodeled.  It's a 'contactless' hotel where you type in a texted secret code and your key pops out of one of these doors.  It was just down the street a mile so we moved 3 vehicles (loaner car and 2 bikes) in two steps. 

Since it was a drizzly chilly day we drove to the Rainy Lake Visitor Center 14 miles away to check it out.  This visitor center is quite bigger than the Ash River Visitor Center (in Orr) where we'd embarked on the big boat tour the other day.

Canoe trip for several hours from Rainy Lake VS into the waters of Voyageurs National Park!

Tuesday we figured we had all day to play (since our part wasn't due in til Wednesday), so we biked the 14 miles to Rainy Lake VS.

THEN, at the RLVS, we got the call that our part had come in early, and our repair would be done by 4 pm.  HOWEVER, we had to wait out a thunderstorm, then bike back a lot faster than our leisurely way there.  Thanks to ebikes, we're talking 16 mph the whole way back.  Still time to snap a shot of giant fur trader!

We got resituated at our contactless hotel in International Falls and decided to head out in the morning back into Canada.

Unexpected layover in Minnesota June 23 - ?

Dropped off the rig for a simple seal replacement on the rear wheel since piper had noticed some oil leakage.

In the meantime we had a nice walk to see - what? - another large statue?  This 26' tall Smokey the Bear had been the largest Smokey statue, but since 2021 there's a carving that's bigger in SD.

Found a steep little path down to the Rainy River with Canada behind us.

Then we got the call.  It's not just a seal we need, the shaft assembly for the axle has hairline cracks going through that circle part.

So now we're at a hotel til at least Tuesday.  Luckily the dealer had a loaner car, and we biked our ebikes to the hotel too.

Hmmm, things to do in International Falls.  Yesterday (6/24) we went to the theatre (first time together since covid) and saw Stephen King's The Boogeyman.  Pretty scary!

Voyageurs National Park!! June 22

Having to duck into the US, we realized Voyageurs National Park was only 30 miles off our route!  This park commemorates the French-Canadian fur traders' route that helped to open up northwestern US and Canada.

Besides the three Visitor Centers, the park is only accessible by boat.  So here we are on the 6-hour boat tour we'd booked several days beforehand.

I.W. Stevens cabin on Stevens Island.  We spent a half hour on the island to roam the historic buildings including a guest cabin, sauna, and root cellar.  Stevens lived on this island for 50 years til he was 94 yrs old.

"Dinner" was at the Kettle Falls stop.  The dam that replaced the falls was originally intended to provide electricity but actually only regulates the water height between Rainy and Namaken Lakes.


All this water heads toward Hudson Bay.

We had four bald eagle sightings and saw two nests along the way too!

This park reminds me of Green River Reservoir State Park in Vermont, but on a much much bigger scale.

Minnesota June 20-21

Baudette was a destination to pick up prescriptions!  Willie the Walleye  offered another of these giant sculptures that folks in this part of both countries seem to be so fond of.

We biked around International Falls - home to the "world's largest pulpwood storage yard."

Just amazing amounts of wood piled up, in rows longer than multiple football fields.

Seaplane dock on the Rainy River.

And there's Canada across the river!

This is the Welcome you get when crossing into the US at International Falls, the best welcome sign we've seen so far.

It was nice to anchor down for 3 nights (yay!) at Arnold's Campground.

Back in the USA June 19

 

We scooted into Minnesota for a  few days.  

How could it have been 12 days since we did laundry?!  That's a record.  Time to change our quarters cup.



We spent the night at Warroad City Campground, on the shores of Lake of the Woods.

Manitoba June 18-19

Happy Father's Day!  We had a nice brunch in Carlyle, SK.  Driving into Manitoba looked similar to Saskatchewan for a while, but with more trees.

Turtle Mountain Alpacas is the friendliest Harvest Hosts site we've visited.  We were greeted with fresh eggs, and electric for our rig!

We set up our camper and headed out on an 8-mile bike ride to Killarney Lake.

Very active scene w boating, swimming, splash park and nice bike trail.

In the morning we took up our hosts' invitation to see the alpacas up close.  Our host called them in from the field and in they came! They're so cute.  

A unique car collection was also fun to see.

I couldn't resist a pair of warm alpaca socks.  Here's the website if you're interested:  https://turtlemountainalpacas.ca/

Saskatchewan Jun 16-18

Driving through Saskatchewan was described to us as the 'Groundhog Day' movie, reliving the same unchanging scenery over and over.  Ummm, pretty good description.

Varying grain elevators, drilling rigs, and farm animals to change it up.  Freight trains seem to average 150 cars!

Piper likened these to chess pieces.  (I think he drove too long that day.)

We camped at a little public park in Gull Lake.  Then had a long drive day through more of Saskatchewan. 

Mac the Moose, the "World's Tallest Moose" provided some entertainment at a visitor centre in Moose Jaw.  The title was regained from Norway after installing new antlers on Mac in 2019!

Moose Mountain Provincial Park was a good overnight.  We thought about staying longer, but we booked a campground a few days out and created a deadline.  You'll see.

Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta June 15-16

Dinosaur Provincial Park in the Badlands was a good find for an overnight.  Nice bike ride before settling in for the night.

Hadrosaurus fossil display

Badlands and Red Deer River

Evening at the campsite.

In the morning we caught the Badlands hike and checked out the Visitor Centre.

BTW, this is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its abundance of dinosaur fossils.

Goodbye Canadian Rockies June 15

We managed to book another 'last site available' at Tunnel Mt II in Banff.  Then headed east through astounding mountain views.

Lake Louise June 14

Lake Louise is so pretty, even in chilly drizzly weather.  Pleasant walk on the Lakeshore Trail (4.5 km out & back).

Chateau Lake Louise with some renovations going on. They seem to be repainting and maybe shoring up the foundation.