This morning was a slow start again. We didn't hear a milk truck roll in, despite Wilma telling us that one would drive past us around 8am this morning. Jonathan rallied out of bed by 10am in order to go out and have a coffee with our camp neighbours and get some intel on Ontario sights and Stratford and the drive to Manitou and taking the ferry route to get to Toronto. I emerged with coffee a short while later, and we shared info with Kim and Conroy about our respective cities. We exchanged addresses and both gladly offered up our driveways/street corners as possible boondocking spots if were were in a pinch for parking while in each other's cities. Jonathan and I also spent some time fixing our back bed window which had part of the screen popped away from the little dial that cranks it open and closed. We think this may be where the mosquitoes came inside at night. Poor Oliver's feet were ravaged and it was a tough night for him. Mosquitoes and flies are definitely a nuisance since we hit Ontario! Glad I loaded up on more anti-itch cream. Need some kids Benadryl to add to the medicine cabinet for those craze-inducing night itches.
11:50am we left Slate River Dairy Farm (our lovely 2nd Harvest Host) and went back into Thunder Bay a short drive down the road to Canadian Tire for torque wrenches, fly swatters and more RV sani chemicals. Kids and I walked across to the Tim Horton's to get timbits and juice treats for the road and maxed out our $10 Timmy's gift card perfectly at $9.97. Amelia later did some math and realized that with what they ate, and what I ate, meant that the woman at Tim's gave us 22 timbits instead of only 20. They were quite tickled.
With 106899km on the odometer, we fueled up at the Esso (lots of fueling up!) $134.51. We had a load of trouble trying to track down some propane for our Rig. The Canadian Tire had a large tank with the pump for the horizontal tank, but they didn't do that anymore. The petro can apparently had a leak and theirs wasn't working either. Both places recommended Big Pines RV & Trailer Centre, which is what Jonathan had looked up online. So off to Big Pines we went. It was a dodgy looking place, but the guy was friendly. Their pump for the propane didn't have a gauge for reliable filling and for what was supposed to be a 1/3 tank fill ended up a vague $30. We shrugged it off, as originally we thought the tank was quite low and we definitely didn't want to run out.
By 1:45pm we were finally "on the road" officially and back onto the Hwy 11/17 east. It wasn't too long before we saw our first glimpse of Lake Superior! yay!
3ish we were driving into Nipigon to the Tourism Info Centre. Turned out to be closed, but had a neat big billboard style map of the town and we decided to drive in to to check it out. We parked on what appeared to be the main strip of the town. Kids were excited about the "General Store" and ran ahead to look inside. I popped into the tiny thrift shop in search of kids books, while Jonathan went and caught up with the kids. The thrift shop was not much bigger than a shoe box and the kids book selection was a single shelf, but I found three books plus a Canadian Poems for Canadian Kids book which looked fun. All four for $1.00 and I got lots of conflicting intel about getting to Toronto from the three senior ladies running the shop. They all agreed that Wawa was worth a stop. When I reached the General Store, Jonathan was getting his own intel on the routes from the owners of the store. They very generously shared their favourite routes and some information on which way might be faster/more interesting, etc. Super nice people! We left the store with some of the elusive chip-clips we have been searching for, along with some fun campy postcards, a rubber mallet (Oliver) and some more scotch tape.
There was a very cool playground set up nearby with a splash pad. We went to check it out. It was a story telling of Paddle-by-the-Sea and his journey around the Great Lakes. Each set of play structures was part of the story and reflected what he would have seen or paddled through. This playground story continued through the town in various parts along a trail that led to the water. Jonathan had turned on the splash park and he almost got dumped on by a big bucket. That's when he grabbed Amelia and dragged her under it and they both got soaked! Pretty fun. Jonathan and Meems went back to the rig to get changed into dry clothes and Ollie and I walked down the trail and played on the playgrounds as we went. Jonathan and Amelia came down a short while later (I assumed they were bringing the RV, I was wrong) and Jay went back up to get it while the kids and I dipped our feet in the water off the boat launch dock, then watched a guy launch his boat off the trailer. We had some food and left around 5pm.
Just over two hours of driving and we arrived in Marathon and pulled up at Pebble Beach. It was beautiful! What a gorgeous view of Lake Superior where we got to dip our feet in the cold clear water and explore among the large round river rock beach. Amelia made a game of "stones are lava" and we walked along all the logs and bits of driftwood. We enjoyed the beach for quite some time, then decided to look up Penn Lake Campground to see if it might be somewhere to camp for the night. Penn Lake Campground was nothing super exciting and we drove to the day use area to let the kiddos out to play on the playground and cook up some ravioli for dinner. I waded in the shallows of the lake while Jonathan cooked. We drove once more around the campground to see if there might be a spot to fill with fresh water, but no luck. We had also decided that we were not super keen to stay the night there and drove back into town. We saw that the Canadian Tire parking lot already had a handful of "campers" parked for the night and since it was 8:45pm, we decided to just pull up at the far end (closer to The Beer Store) where one other trailer/camper was pulled up for the night. When you pull the curtains closed, we could be anywhere, haha. Once tucked into our beds, we heard the first train roll through and it felt like it was going to come right through our RV! Then the wind started up and it was honestly the strongest wind we have experienced in our camper! Jonathan's wind app said it was over 35mph, but felt stronger. The whole RV was swaying like an elephant was ramming it. Felt like we were in Kansas! Between that and the train every hour or so, it was a pretty sleepless night for Jonathan and I. Kids slept through it all! We finally fell asleep properly around 5am when the wind died down.
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