Tag: Travel

Day 2774

Back in Canada!

11 days from Superior Arizona to Fort Erie Ontario, it has been a trek and I think we kept the drive days short enough that we all survived well. Of course we are not done with our roaming just yet as our park doesn’t open for a week yet but we will kick around the Niagara region for a while, visit some friends and family and mooch dock in a couple of driveways. So todays destination is another Walmart just over the border.

6:20 and I’m waking up to a cold overcast day here in Erie PA, but I’m looking forward to being back in Canada and knowing we are just two hours away is a good feeling. I also know we have one hundred miles of some of the meanest drivers on the road, the folks out west are bad drivers but the literally the east coast driver are vicious. Breakfast this morning was a toasted bacon & tomato sandwich always a good choice even better when the tomatoes are vine ripened, it is a cold morning 48ºF (8.8ºC) and there is rain in the forecast today again. Six count them six day of driving with the wipers on, seriously the April showers are suppose to yield to the May flowers!

On the road before nine o’clock after a little longer warm up, just a few hundred yards back to I-90 and east bound toward New York state and the Peace Bridge crossing back into Ontario and our home country of Canada, and yes it is still cold, the trees are just budding, and still some snowplowing debris in the parking lots but it is still great to be back. But the border, crossing the border at the Peace bridge reminded me of our crossing at the Bluewater bridge back in the spring of 2020. We exited I-90, had no traffic in front of us, a single lane going to Canada, but no traffic either direction, when we got in sight of the Canadian customs there were six lanes open 4 regular 2 Nexus and one car at one lane. I slowed down and entered the Nexus line and from the time we entered the border and customs booth we were 35 seconds and we were rolling again, I watched the dash cam to check the time from our exit off of I-90 till we cleared the toll arm and entered the Queen Elizabeth Way was less than 6 minuets.

And the Walmart is less than 2 kilometers (1.6 miles), we picked a spot in front of the garden center and settled in before noon. We are playing a waiting game, another Walmart tomorrow then a Harvest Host and we will see what next week brings as we determine when we can get into our park. It is 4:30 and I’m typing away we watched a movie and I have the golf on, I hear there is a new pope, but we still don’t have any sunshine, so the solar system is not happy, but nothing a little generator time can’t fix, we are facing east so hopefully it will peak out tomorrow. For dinner tonight we went out for Chinese at Happy Jacks in downtown Fort Erie, we haven’t been for we figured at least eight years and I suspect even longer, and the food was just as good as I remember and we have enough left overs for another meal.

Today’s numbers: run time today 2:03 hours distance travelled 161 kilometers (100 miles) we consumed 48 liters (12.7 gallons) of diesel fuel, we averaged 77 kilometers per hour (48 mph) and our fuel efficiency was 30.15 liters per 100 kilometers (7.8 mpg). Lower average speed today a good quantity of 55 mph speed limit as well as a number of construction zones, plus a longer warm up period because of the cold.

The trek numbers: total distance covered 3487 kilometers (2229 miles) we purchased 1078.99 liters (277.38 gallons) of diesel fuel and a quick calculation has us at 29.27 liters /100 km (8.04 mpg) average fuel efficiency, and while not totally accurate was we were not topped off at the start or finish I was over ¾ on the gauge. The painful number was the cost of fuel $1178.32 Canadian ($853.82 American), at the time of writing this blog I have not received the amount of our last fuel purchase discount but I’m expecting less than $20.00 so it is not going to change the numbers drastically. There will also be some toll charges from Oklahoma, Ohio and New York as well as the Peace bridge

Day 2772

Ninth travel day.

Tuesday morning on the sixth of May and todays travel should only be around two hours, so far we have traveled 1766 miles (2842 kilometers), and today will add another 140 miles today, and our destination today is a Walmart parking lot in Bowling Green OH, as we plan a visit with Miss Betty and her family later today.

5:45 was wake up time this morning, and I woke to a thunder storm, although it appears to be letting up, but everything just feels cold and damp, I guess that is the price of a winter of warm dry in the desert. Our overnight spot was without interruption, but a steady drone of the interstate, and a delivery truck at the restaurant at six o’clock this morning. Now we get to order breakfast from Cracker Barrel, it will to go so I can enjoy my perked coffee in the coach will watching the morning news. And yes there will be a wee Irish blessing.

As i walked around the building to pick up our breakfast it amazes me that as much as all the Cracker Barrels look pretty much the same, and we have stayed at a number of them, but the atmosphere can be so different, and the old saying that you only get one chance to make a first impression. And before I have even got my order because the cashier was wandering around the store and almost seemed put out that I would bother her, but I got my order and walked back to the coach where we enjoyed breakfast with a cup of fresh perked coffee. Miss Laurie had pecan pancakes, and I had ham and eggs with biscuits & gravy, and yes there was an Irish blessing in our coffee this morning.

We are only planning of travelling 140 miles (225 kilometers), and every weather app is indicating rain, so to avoid loosing a whole day we will make our way to Bowling Green OH, we pull out at nine o’clock and head north on I-69 toward Fort Wayne IN, where we hook up with I-469 to US-24 as we turn east toward Ohio. The rain is gaining in intensity and the wipers are now on the quickest intermittent speed, again Indiana your road condition in horrendous, and as we cross into Ohio it becomes even more apparent, we ate east bound toward Toledo, but will hook up with US-6 for the last few miles into Bowling Green. The rain is brutal and just wont let up as we find a spot in the Walmart parking lot we are a long way from the store, Miss Laurie needs some items for snacks today so I suggest taking Ruby so I go to unattached Ruby and come back well dampened.

I stayed at the coach while Miss Laurie went shopping, because of the rain I started the generator and ran it for almost an hour and a half, part of the last half hour was to operate the air-fryer while Miss Laurie made bacon wrapped cheese stuffed dates, always a hit where ever she takes them. We are ready to head to Pemberville shortly after two, we have not visited Betty since last October and she has had a new house built since then, so lots to catch up on as she prepares her present home to be shown this weekend. After a couple of hours we drove past the new home, we will tour it when it is complete this fall. our next stop was Brian & Linsi’s home where they had prepared a big pot of potato soup, the perfect answer to this cold damp weather.

Needless to say we were late getting back to the coach and just couldn’t talk myself into finishing off this blog, in fact I was the first to crawl into bed, I even turned on the mattress warmer as I crawled in between the sheets. To say I was tired would be an understatement it is tiring driving in the rain, it just takes so much concentration that it beats you up mentally as much as it does physically.

Today’s numbers: 2:54 run time, 139.5 miles (224.5 kilometers) we consumed 17.3 gallons (65.5 liters) of diesel fuel, we only averaged 47 mph (75.6 km/hr), and averaged 8.0 mpg (29.4 liters per 100 km). The speed was so low because we hit three sections of road construction on I-69 and a accident on I-469 that had some stop and go traffic, the rest of the numbers look good