Day 86, 87 & 88 - Kenora, Ontario to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Day 86 – Nipigon to Kenora, Ontario
September 22, 2008

Luckily the rain stopped overnight so we again were spared the nuisance of having to pack up our trailer in the rain. Once more we got up on time as the day would be a long one with about 550 km to drive through Ontario again. This province is just endless. It is the largest province in Canada of course, but travelling through it is made worse by the fact that its longest dimension lies east to west. This is our 4th or 5th day driving through it and we still are have not reached the Manitoba border. I think Leo told me before that just the north end of the Lake Superior is something like 864 km long. All I know is that it is a very long drive from one end to the other end.

We gained another hour shortly after we left Nipigon as we entered the Central Time Zone which gave us lots of time to get to our campsite. We found a really nice RV park on highway 17 just east of Kenora along Long Bow Lake which is in the Lake of the Woods area. We got here early enough that after we set up the trailer Leo went out to take some pictures of the surrounding area and perhaps of some trains in Kenora. I had hoped he would get some pictures taken before it started to rain again as it looked like we were in for another thunderstorm.

Out of all the things he could have photographed, he wound up taking pictures of the mineralizations in the granite of the Canadian Shield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield) as shown in the many rock cuts which have been blasted out to make paths for the highways in this province. He really loves this granite rock here, and is always impressed by the fact that it is 3.5 billion years old, being amongst the oldest rocks in the world. In a map of the Lake of the Woods which he saw he claims he can see various arcs in the shorelines hereabouts which represent ancient meteorite strikes from the early millennia after the formation of the Solar System when large meteorites did still frequently strike the earth. As the Canadian Shield has been little altered since that time, he likes to imagine it retaining better evidence of these strikes than most other places on earth. I have no idea whether there is any scientific support for these ideas, but he believes them nevertheless.

But I think he is really getting a bit desperate with these photos of rocks, and you are free to agree with me if you wish. If you do find them interesting, then please don’t say so or it will just encourage him to take more in future. Take a look at these pictures and decide for yourself.

Tomorrow we will go to Winnipeg and visit with our old neighbours before we move on again closer to Calgary.

Pictures for today can be found here.

Day 87 – Kenora, Ontario to Brandon, Manitoba September 23, 2008

We had a late start today as we again were hit by a thunderstorm and rain during the night. It was a pleasure to listen to the thunder rolling through the sky but it did keep us from sleeping for a few hours. The thunder seems different in Eastern Canada than in Alberta. Back home many of the lightning strikes seem to go nicely down from the clouds to the ground. But in the East, at least from what we have experienced, the lighting is more often intracloud rather than directed at the ground. If you count seconds after a flash of nearby lightning you can consequently often hear a peal of thunder rolling along the sky further and further away for a full 25 seconds until the next nearby lightning flash commences. Listening to all of this was a delight in its own right, although it did interfere with our sleep for a while, as did the strong rain which followed.
Once we were on the road the weather slowly cleared up and by the time we got to Winnipeg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg) the sun was shining again and it looked like it would stay dry for a while.

We visited our old neighbours Shirl and Jim Kress in their new home in Winnipeg and had a really nice visit with them. We got caught up on what they had done the last few months and talked about their plans for renovations to their new home. It looked like they were starting to settle down in their new surroundings.

We were back on the road again by 4 p.m. and wanted to get as far as we could towards the Saskatchewan border as Manitoba is mosquito country, and as I still have fresh memories of the plagues of mosquitoes we endured when we came through on our way East originally. We made it as far as Brandon, and yes, there still were a couple of mosquitoes, but they were nothing to worry about. We did not even have to go on a mosquito hunt in the trailer before we went to bed.

It was late by the time we set up our trailer so after uploading another couple of blogs with pictures we went to bed.

Day 88 – Brandon, Manitoba to Moose Jaw, SaskatchewanSeptember 24, 2008

Our plans for today are to get to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Jaw,_Saskatchewan) for our last stretch home. We also choose Moose Jaw as it has a big train yard with a working turntable, if Google Earth is to be believed, so Leo would be able to take some pictures. The sun was shining and it was a real nice fall day with the smell of the leaves, the ripe grain still left in some of the fields, and the yellow colours of the trees presenting a very enjoyable view.
We got to the Moose Jaw campground around 3 p.m. and Leo was in his glory with all he had seen in trains so far already. After we set up the trailer he took off to ‘explore’ and I got to sit outside and do some reading.

After Leo`s dubious experiment with rock photos I have decided not to publish any of his pictures from today as they were just shots of various locomotives of CP Rail and other companies from which they had leased machines and I feared losing more blog readers if I did include them! No pictures were taken again during our drive itself today, but then we have travelled this road on our way out so we have seen it all before.