I made it, I drove from Ignace to Thunder Bay and it was a nice drive. As we drove toward Thunder Bay, our campground was about 15 km outside of Thunder Bay. We stayed at Happyland RV campground. It was a nice campground and we had a great spot with lots of trees and secluded. It was probably the first campground that we didn’t get direct sunlight. If we put out the awning, we had shade from morning til night. As we pulled into the site, we noticed that the next door neighbors had a North Carolina license plate and they also had a FSU license plate. Needless to say, they eyed the Gator on the back of Curt’s truck right away. We struck up a good conversation right away. But it would have to wait until we came back from getting some food.
We headed back to Kakabeka Fall (the city where the campground is located) for lunch. We were famished and I knew what I wanted to order at the little pizzeria we found–French Fries!! This was the 2nd time I have gotten the French Fries in Canada and these were the best ever!!! The waitress brought us vinegar to put on our fries??? But Curt being the adventurous type, tried the vinegar on his fries. Not bad he says, so I had to try it. It was not bad, but I’ll stick with the plain old fries. They remind me of the boardwalk fries. I ordered a personal pizza too, but wanted to make sure that I finished the fries so I brought the pizza home for later. Curt got a panzerotti, a calzone type thing that was made with fried bread instead of pizza dough and loaded with cheese, meat and sauce. They don’t have good iced tea here in Canada, they use Nestea instant tea or Brisk canned tea.
Headed back to take Daisy for a walk and settle in for the night. Unfortunately, no WiFi and no TV channels. Curt has been a good sport, he really is a TV junkie and it has absolutely been difficult with no TV. I think if we ever do this full time, we will have to invest in a satellite TV that gives us TV as well as internet. We splurged and bought the unlimited data before we left Washington, but since we have been in Canada, we don’t have “unlimited”—once you use 1.5 gigs, it slows incredibly. Not only can I not keep up with friends and family on Facebook, I cannot post my blog. I know that disappoints everyone.
So anyway back to Thunder Bay, on Monday, we were up and ready to explore downtown. It wasn’t the best of weather, a little cool and overcast, but we made the best of it. We started out exploring Prince Arthur Landing, Marina. Below are some pics from the excursion:
We headed off to lunch at Wacky Wings, that is a franchise here and the place has good wings and food, Curt had the wings and I had a Chicken Caesar Wrap, but the fries were not the “real” French fries we have come to enjoy. Wacky Wings is a cross between Buffalo Wild Wings and Dave & Busters. We passed on the games part and headed home to the camper.
We have been having some Camper difficulties. As you know if you have been following us, we had to take it into the shop back in Minot to get a piece installed to fix our kitchen slide. Or at least that is what we thought. It didn’t fix our slide or any of the other issues we have been having. But one of the biggest issues we have been concerned about is our trailer brakes. Back when we were at Ellsworth in South Dakota, another Grand Design owner came to say hello and took a look at our tire rims and told me that we had a brake seal leak issue. He introduced me to the Grand Design Facebook page where I heard others sharing their concerns about brake issues. We have not had any braking issues, but wanted to make sure there was nothing to worry about. After the Minot shop refused to check the brakes, I decided to email Grand Design Customer Service line and ask if there were any concerns. After a few days we received a call back and they told us to take our trailer into the shop to get them checked as soon as we could. This was concerning to us, so on Monday while in Thunder Bay we called an RV Service Person (I looked up on the internet and found the place with the best reviews). We called Al Repair shop on Monday afternoon and told him our concerns and he said can you bring it in TOMORROW?? Yes he said TOMORROW? Not 3 weeks from now. Not only that, he knew we were living in the trailer, he said, and “what is the best time for YOU”??? Best time for US??? Who was this Al…our hero!! We took our trailer in the next day and had it to his shop by 1000. He asked us to wait until he took the brakes apart and he could give us a quote. It was about 45 minutes later when he came to get us and show us the issues. The brake seals were in fact leaking and that was the reason for the black grit on our tire rims. We authorized the repairs and he told us to call back about 1400 and he would give us an update. Wow!! I finally had piece of mind knowing our brakes were up to snuff. All thanks to Al!!!
While we were waiting for Al to make the repairs on Tuesday, we had Daisy with us and decided to go and explore the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.
On the way to Sleeping Giant that was about 45 minutes East of Thunder Bay, we passed a monument for Terry Fox. Terry Fox is a young man, who while a teenager was diagnosed and lost his leg to cancer. He was considered “cured”. And in honor of the many children and other people that he met in his cancer journey, he decided he wanted to run his “Marathon of Hope”, across Canada run to raise money for cancer research. He started his journey in St John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980; he ran the equivalent of a marathon a day (26 miles a day) across 5 provinces when at mile 3,339, and his cancer recurred and forced him to give up his run. He inspired an outpouring of immense national pride and raised $24M for cancer research. He passed on June 28, 1991. This monument is dedicated to his memory on behalf of the Ontario citizens.
We had purchased a National Park Pass for Canada, but the only time we have been able to use it has been in Alberta. Most of the Parks we have been seeing are Provincial Parks (like State Parks) and they do not take the pass. The Sleeping Giant Provincial Park charged $15 to spend the day and wanted to charge us $11 for a map.
But we decided to bypass the purchase of the pass and just drive through staying a few miles ahead of the vehicle pass monitor lady. We were just looking for a picnic area with a view as we packed a picnic lunch, but didn’t want to pay the money, so we just drove down to the end and back. Down at the south end there was a campground and General Store. Oh and we also passed Rita Lake–of Aunt Rita fame.
View from the South end of the Park.
We stopped at the Terry Fox Monument on the way back and ate our lunch for free!!
We arrived back at Al’s repair to pick up our trailer and were on our way with piece of mind and recharged brakes. We were supposed to leave the next day, but we decided to stay another day since we had not even looked at where we would be staying the next day and it was supposed to be nice weather on Wednesday. Thankfully they gave us permission to stay in our spot for an extra day…Yeah!!
On Wednesday we took Daisy out for the day again and headed down to Kakabeka Falls. There were a few trails here and we got our exercise in. See the pictures below. Daisy was enjoying herself trying to chase the squirrels and pull my arm out of the socket in the meantime. Usually she doesn’t pull too hard, but not today. But she deserves some leeway once in a while, she has been such a good girl this trip.
So we headed back to the camper to plan our next few stops. This is where we ran into difficulty. We knew our next big stop was going to be Sault Ste Marie (pronounced Soo Saint Marie, as we know now), but it was a good 8 hour drive and usually we would like to make that into a 2 stop trip, but unfortunately, our first choice for stopping was booked up so we went to the next place a few miles further up the road—Wawa!!