In Saulte Ste Marie, we stayed at the Glenview Cottages and RV park. We pulled into the park right behind 2 other RVs. We all got spots right next to each other, the first two happened to be traveling together we would learn later. Because it had been raining for several days now, the lady checking us in told us we could take up two spots so that we could straddle the puddles at the ends of the two spots. So there we all were 3 RVs taking up 6 spots, but you didn’t hear us complaining. Drizzle continued as we disconnected our truck and connected our water, electric and sewer. The camp host was another great tour guide once we asked SSM had for us to explore, she whipped out her map and went on to tell us the things to see and places to eat. We were craving some good seafood after driving along the lake and seeing sign after sign advertising Fish and Chips and fresh Walleye and other seafood choices. She sent us down to a local steak restaurant that as advertising Shrimp and Lobster fest. We would try this out for dinner. First we had business to tend to.
On the way to SSM, the truck told us it was time to get an oil change, so Curt wanted to get this taken care of soonest. We headed to Canadian Tire, which reminds me of a Tire Store crossed with a Walmart (that doesn’t sell food), carrying every household item as well as tons of Auto supplies. By now it was after 4 pm, in addition to getting the oil change, the passenger side window was not working right, not going up and down well, sounding like the motor was dying. Since it was so late, there was no getting all this done this late. So we made an appt for tomorrow morning and headed back to the Steakhouse for dinner. Curt ordered the Prime Rib and I got the Lobster and Shrimp. The cost of the lobster and shrimp was a bit high, but I was already tasting the lobster dipped in melted butter! But NO…I was very disappointed. First they brought out bread that you could tell was micro was waved as it cooled it got hot and chewy. I complained about this, the waitress apologized and returned later with some fresh bread, it was very good and made me mad we didn’t get the fresh the first time. The lobster was overcooked and chewy! The loaded baked potato had scimpy amounts of butter, cheese and bacon bits. For the price we paid, I expected a much better meal. When the waitress came by to ask us how our meal was, I told her that I was disappointed with the overcooked lobster. After that, she never came back, we had to get another waitress to fill our water. Well lesson learned, from now on we will be checking Yelp before accepting recommendations. When Curt went to put a review on Yelp, he learned that the restaurant only had a 2 star review. We would have never gone here had we checked this first.
Back to the camper and Curt was happy that we had 6 TV channels!
The next morning, we woke early and headed to Canadian Tire to get the Oil Change and have them fix the window. After we dropped off the car, we walked down the road to a restaurant to get breakfast. Not much choice on breakfast, this restaurant was attached to a hotel, but it was a nice place and the service was excellent. We got a good amount of food, coffee and tea, all for under $20. We took our time talking about our next stops of our trips. After about an hour or so, we headed back pick up the truck. Unfortunately, since it was Saturday and the Ford Service Center was closed, they were unable to fix the window issue, but the oil change was a success and they checked all the fluids, the truck got a clean bill of health!
So a few days ago, I came out in the morning to see that the paper towel roll was disturbed and pulled out. I looked at Daisy and asked her why she jumped up on the counter and what she was doing messing with the paper towels. She just looked at me and wagged her tail. But as I looked closer, I realized this was not Daisy…we had picked up a hitchhiker at one of our stops—a rodent!!! As I looked I around the camper looking for other signs, I looked in the oven and there was some of the papertowel and also some of the insulation. Oh NO…Curtis get up!!!!! I yelled for him to get up. He came out and agreed with my conclusion and so he headed down to get a mouse trap, but the only thing they had was a glue trap and the mouse was messing with the trap—we saw footprints, but they weren’t stong enough to capture it. So while we were here at Canadian Tire, we got some extra-duty mouse traps. More to come on this saga.
After picking up the truck, we stopped at a Farmers Market and got some fresh Romano beans (never had them before, but they came highly recommended), fresh cherry and roma tomatoes, and lime sugar cookies. .
After that we headed down town to go to the SSM Canal National Historic Site. The Canal contains a lock to join Lake Nicolet and the Saint Mary’s River to Lake Superior. The weather was finally sunny and the temperature was supposed to get to mid 70’s, a good day to get out and do some trailing and walking. There is a canal on the Michigan side as well and that is the one that gets most of the commercial traffic, so the Canadian canal gets mostly recreational traffic.
The boats enter the locks and then the conductor closes the gate. The water then falls 21 feet to allow the boat to get through. After the 20 million gallons of water exits the lock, the gates open and the boats proceed through. The boats need to give the Canadian side only about 20 minutes notice in order to get through. After watching a tour boat go through, we wandered down to the end of the pier and were able to get a panoramic picture of the Canadian side around to the USA side. We also walked a couple of trails. We were trying to walk to the other side of the island so we could see the American locks, but the trail was washed out due to too much rain. I was not adventurous and didn’t want to get our shoes wet so we headed back. We also saw a few sea planes take off, didn’t get any great pics or see any land, but they were around.
Below Curt is pointing at the US flag and the Canada flag!!
Of course as we were visiting the locks, we eyed a cute little wine bar and stopped in there for a glass of wine and a charcuterie plate, our favorite!! We sat at the bar and had some great conversation with Lindsey our barmaid and the manager of the place. Today was their one year anniversary, so we kept trying to get free wine from them, it almost worked, but not quite!!
We headed back to the camper and I sent Curt out to get us some wood so we could have a campfire. They were out at the campground, so he doubled back to the gas station and picked up some local wood.
The next day we had to get up early to go on a train ride. We took a train ride up to northern Ontario to the Agawa Canyon. It was a long train ride, 3.5 hours out and 4 hours back and about 90 minutes to explore the Canyon.
The train car and seats were comfortable and the windows were large so you could see all of the sites. They told us there were moose to be seen, but still we have seen NO MOOSE!!
Check out the fish in the water…the Lochness Monster!!
We got some nice pictures of the scenery and once we reached the canyon, we took all of the trails to see the 3 waterfalls that were scattered there. The one trail we passed on took you to a look out, but it was 300 steps up and there would not be enough time to see the waterfalls if you took the overlook trail so we passed on that one. It was a nice day to walk the trails,, so we were happy. The trip back, however, was a long one.
By the end I had had enough was starting to get some motion sickness. Finally we pulled into the station and we had to hurry back to rescue Daisy who had spent a long day in the camper and a quite dinner of left overs was in order. After dinner we enjoyed a campfire using the second half of the wood—you are not supposed to move wood, so we had to finish it up tonight, as there was rain in the forecast tomorrow.
The next day it was supposed to rain all day. What better way to spend a rainy day, than to do laundry. Of course, as I have said our internet was crazy. Because we were so close to the border, the phones kept picking up Verizon, but would only give us one bar. It was impossible to search the internet for additional laundry facilities when the first place we went to was closed, even though the hours posted said they should be open. We actually had to go and sit in the parking lot of a Tim Horton’s Doughnut shop so we could pick up there WiFi to search another facility. We were on the way to a place when I spied a coin laundry—one in the hand. We turned around and tried it out. It was a small place, but the lady who worked there was so helpful and pleasant, glad we turned around. The only part I didn’t like was when I was sitting at the table loading up a blog post (since the WiFi was tolerable), a man tapped me on the shoulder and told me to get up because these were the folding tables. So not wanting to cause a scene, I stood up and finished my post while standing up with the computer on one of the washing machines. The machines were good, as we were in and out in less than 2 hours. I think that is a record for us and not only that, we paid the bill with all of our left over coinery and didn’t have to get change of any bills. Clean laundry and when we returned, the rain stopped and I was able to sweep and mop the floors of the camper. They really needed it with all the mud and dirt we had been tracking in with the rain the past few days. During the housecleaning, I discovered that our house guest had made it into one of the kitchen drawers as evidenced by his droppings. Well of course this freaked me out and we ended up taking out all of the drawers to find out how he got in. Again sent Curt out to get some steel wool so that I could block that entrance and keep him out of my drawers. We hadn’t seen him in a day or so, but he was chowing down on the peanut butter Curt was putting in the trap…UGH!!!
After my cleaning frenzy, we had a nice dinner at home. Curt cooked up those romano beans we got a the farmer’s market using a ham hock we had in the freezer that we bought in South Dakota and I baked some chicken in the over since it wasn’t really hot—high today was 70 after the rain cleared out. We had a long drive in the morning, so we watched Ninja Warrior and went to bed early.
On the road again in the morning.