North Bay, Ontario

We got up early this morning and packed up for our trip west.  Everyone woke up and wished us a fond farewell.  Nice having Katie and Danny home while we were in Morrisville.  As usual, Tom and Carolyn were excellent hosts.

Traveled north out of Morrisville this morning and crossed into New York, taking the Interstate up toward Montreal.  Should have picked one of the lesser used border crossings because it took a while to get through the one on the interstate.  There was only one lane open, but they finally opened up another lane.  We must not have looked like much of a threat to Canada, because we got through with no problems.  Interesting driving through Quebec trying to read road signs - had to use some of my limited (very limited) French to understand the signs.

Skirted the lower edge of Montreal with some back roads and worked our way over to Ottawa, Ontario.  On our way toward Ottawa on a back road, we ended up at road which went through a tunnel under a lock on the St Lawrence Seaway (boy, there's a lot of prepositions in that sentence).  Fun watching a huge freighter pass over us!  Kind of like the old Stapleton Airport in Denver where the airplanes taxied over the Interstate.

 

Drove through Ottawa (found out that the map I had of Ontario was of a 2012 vintage and didn't have any of the new Canadian thruways).  Eventually made it through and traveled north up to North Bay.  Most of the countryside around Quebec and the Ontario area around Ottawa was flat and farmland - where it wasn't metropolitan cityscape.  As we drove further north toward North Bay, it turned into mostly recreational areas, featuring campgrounds, water sports, and other outdoor activities.  North of Pembroke, the highway ran through heavily forested areas with not much population.

This evening we're spending the night in North Bay, actually it's Callander, but who's doing the fact-checking?  Went to dinner at a local brewery - Cecil's - which was fun.  Then checked out the lake view on the way back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we're heading back to the States - probably going to stay at Marquette, MI, but not sure yet.  Should be a time change in our future somewhere after we cross through Sault Ste Marie. We go through Sudbury before SSM - with all the mining there, it always looks like a war zone (or at least it has in the past).