Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Day 4

Day 4:

This was our day to follow the shores of Lake Superior on and off. This is superbly beautiful scenery. The road is cut through the granite of the Canadian Shield in places, producing strikingly colourful deep salmon-coloured rock cuts. In other places the rock is a deep purple or pinkish. The views of the lake come and go but are usually spectacular, punctuated by various headlands and islands. To top it off the CP Rail track is visible in many places for those few who care about such things.

The travel was interrupted on a number of occasions by road construction, but that did not detract from a wonderful day. The weather started out cloudish, then cleared and ended the day with mist rolling in from the lake as we neared the city of Sault Ste. Marie. We are camped just before the city and will move past it tomorrow.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the Winnie the Pooh shrine in White River from which town the original Winnie black bear was sent to the London Zoo to be immortalized in the writings of A.A. Milne. A close second was the wildlife we saw: two black bears who are likely distant relatives of that original Winnie and our first moose.

(For those still following the adventures of Leo’s driving, he cheated today. He usually drives at the speed limit, but that is only 90 km/hr here in Ontario. So he drove 95 instead in an effort to improve his passing rate. But he still only passed 2 cars in 780 km of driving. He did, however, pass a tractor and a backhoe during that stretch in a desperate attempt to get some more points.)