We’ve been dreaming about this trip for a number of years
and we are finally doing it! Mike’s Aunt Cherie and Uncle Bob have a cabin in
Ontario, Canada on the Montreal River Harbour.
Now passports are required, so back on May 20th (Todd’s 16th
birthday!), we went and applied for our passports and received those in the
mail about 4 weeks later.
We wanted an early start and our goal time was 6:00a.m. Of course we were up until midnight the night
before trying to pack everything possible….
We didn’t quite make the goal time, but pretty close. We pulled out of the driveway a little before
7:00. Finally we were “heading north”!
(which is what Mike always says anytime he sees a vehicle on the highway going
in the opposite direction as we are) It
was a quiet ride as the kids fell back asleep almost immediately.
Four hours later we arrived in Title Town. We stopped for something to eat and had to
get a picture of Todd at Lambeau Field, of course!
We were on a quest to get to Canada so not much sightseeing
on this part of the trip! It was a beautiful day for a drive; the sun shining;
the puffy, “cotton ball” clouds dotting the bright blue sky. As we crossed over into “God’s Country”
(Michigan, if you aren’t familiar with that saying), we saw Lake Michigan on
our right. I always love the view of the
water right behind the sand, stones, and tall grasses.
We made it to Sault Ste. Marie and the border by late
afternoon. We were a little apprehensive as we had never done this before. The border patrol was pleasant. We handed
over our passports, told him where we were going and how long we planned to
stay and that was that. Bob had told us
to just answer the questions and not go into a lot of chit-chat. Mike did a good job keeping the conversation
to a minimum :)
From there it was about 90 minutes to Bob and Cherie’s
cabin. We texted family back home one
last time and signed off. As we headed
up Hwy 17, it was cool to see signs in both English and French and, of course,
everything is in the metric system. (At
this point we enjoyed listening to speech #552b from Mike on the stupidity of still
using the system of customary units in the U.S. J) We weren’t exactly sure where we were going, but
the scenery was so spectacular that we didn’t really mind at that point. We kept our eyes peeled for moose, but didn’t
see any.
We arrived at the cabin around 7:00 and dogs and puppies
escorted us to the right house. Bob,
Cherie, and the mosquitoes helped us carry our bags into the cabin. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and took a
walk down the dirt road. The kids, and
Bob and Mike hiked up to the top of a rock, while Cherie, Ben, Bruce and I
walked up to a smaller lookout. I could’ve
stayed there all evening. The sun was
setting over Gitche Gumee. Breathtaking!
A perfect end to an eventful first day of traveling….
Cindy
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