More Trans Canadian Highway #17

September 7-9, 2016 – Days 19-21 The LONG DRIVE!

We continued our eastward trek – through Ontario. Canada is definitely a country of open spaces, and long distances. Leaving Thunder Bay we were again on Highway 17 – fairly good roads, some construction but not much traffic. The roadside scenery was varied with forest like settings, lakes (and more lakes), and more granite with interesting rock stacking – some resembling the 1^st Nations Inuksuk – the Good Luck Traveler symbol, but still no moose sightings. Mid afternoon we took a much-needed break in small town of White River – fuel stop and an A & W Root beer called to us.  A nice surprise was that this little burg was the birthplace of Winnie the Pooh – 1914 Lt. Harry Colebourn in the Canadian Army, purchased a black bear cub in White River. He named the little bear Winnie after his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The bear went with Colebourn to Europe; while he was serving in France he gave Winnie to the London Zoo. It was there in 1926 that A.A. Milne came up with the Winnie The Pooh stories for his son Christopher Robin. After a long day we stopped for the night in Wawa, Ontario – famous for their BIG Canadian goose statues. Placed around the small town to attract people off the interstate to come into Wawa.

Day # 2 of the LONG Drive – ditto of many of the previous days, but we have Ottawa in our sights and know that a couple of more of these long days will get us there. We continue to enjoy the ever-evolving scenery and have lost count of the number of golf courses that Ontario must have. Every area with any population at all has at least one if not more courses. The Canadians are very athletic folks.  A new curiosity along the roadsides has been a number of chip shacks. These were food truck like vehicles set up along side the road, many near lake parks and other places where vacationers might gather. They were sort of appealing, but luckily the few that were still open for the season were not convent fro us to pull into. After a very long 300+ mile day we came to rest next Porky’s Chip Shack in the small town of Narin Center, Ontario.

Day #3 --- ditto! Although this was not a boring day! We had several adventures that tried our good spirits, but all worked out ok! A few miles into our morning travels we were pulled over by an Ontario Highway Patrol Car – yikes, blinking lights on a black car behind you is never a good thing! Not knowing quite where to pull over on a highway with very narrow shoulders was another concern. The officer was very polite and wanted to let us know that Ontario has a very strict seatbelt law. He could not see that we were wearing our seat belts – we have no shoulder sashes. After realizing we are in an older rig that we indeed did have seat belts (yes, we wear them), he let us go and was very friendly despite Guinness and Coronas initial loud greeting!

Adventure #2 came at lunchtime. We drove looking for a roadside rest – few and far between and when they are there – we can’t always see them in time to get into them. Needing a break we got off the highway in the town of Petawawa. A nice town, with a big military base. We drove sort of blindly looking for a parking lot that would work for a break. We spotted one, and entered….. oops, good entrance, but sadly no easy exit ! Figuring we could get out by unhitching, we took a few minutes to walk the dogs and eat lunch. By the time we had finished the parking lot that had only a few cars in it was filling up quickly. There was a big military celebration across the road, complete with bagpipes and drums – parking was at a premium and we were taking up way too much space. Quickly we flew into action: car off the dolly, dolly off the MoHo, wiggle the MoHo around, reattach the dolly, put the car back on the dolly! PHEW – it was quite a well oiled machine that got it done and we were able to get out of the way of may cars wanting our spots.

Adventure #3 – we drove on towards Ottawa – a bit tired and worse for wear at this point, we found a campground but had trouble trying to actually get there. Hate to admit it, but really do miss not having the Maps/gps program in Canada. – After 30 min or so of being lost and frustrated, another call to the campground straightened us out and we got there!! Boys were we BEAT – 3 days, 1000+ miles and a day from Hell was about all we could handle. Oh do we ever know how to have fun!