Day 2388

Wednesday April 17th 2024

Day 9 of out trek north

Dear Journal:

Well if everything comes together correctly our trek north will end today, we are waking up at the Cracker Barrel in Roseville MI and I have a special breakfast planned for today, we are less than an hour from the border and other than one more fuel stop we will be in Ontario late morning. When I first got up this morning at 6:11 the skies were overcast, and now at 7:18 there is light rain falling, almost exactly as forecast, our weather app is showing a few scattered shower this morning with the heavier rain later today. The temperatures have retuned to seasonal as well the temperature this morning is 54ºF (12.2ºC) with a little breeze, the sad part is that this temperature is the forecast high for todays end destination. We ain’t in Arizona anymore!

But first things first, breakfast and a cup of fresh perked coffee and yes this morning there was a wee Irish blessing in my cup (the end of the bottle). This morning I ordered the “Country Fried Steak” along with scrambles eggs, hash browns, biscuits and gravy, Miss Laurie ordered French toast with “Country Fried Chicken”, maybe a wee bit extravagant but just a typical American breakfast. Along with breakfast I also got to experience the worst customer service that I have ever experienced at a Cracker Barrel, which just go to prove that even an American standard like Cracker Barrel can have issues at times.

Today is our push for the border so we have to prepare for Canada Customs, always a fun experience, trying to remember all the purchases that we are bring back into Canada. My laptop time is 5:58 so I’m thinking is is really 8:58 if it ever catches up, we will be hitting the road in the next few minutes where we will head (east?) on Interstate I-94 that will dump us in to Port Huron at the Bluewater Bridge and our border crossing point. But first one last fuel stop and as bad as the fuel pricing is in Michigan it is still better than Ontario. It is also where I will update Navi to metric so the speed limits in Ontario will be easier as the speedometer on Thunder only reads in miles per hour, and the speed limits just over the bridge are all over the map.

After our fuel stop we are only 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the bridge, and as we approach the bridge the fare to cross the Bluewater bridge is always a mystery, but todays rate was $9.00 American ($12.45 Canadian) compared to last years rate of $18.75 Canadian of back in spring of 2020 at $12.75 Canadian, the receipt today was RV-4 a rate for RVs I assume while often they charge us as a truck, I guess it just depends who is in the booth that day.

Canada Customs was a breeze, of course it helps when I pulled into the wrong lane and the poor agent had to walk over to us to check us through, just the regular questions, how long away, goods or services purchased, and of course the alcohol or tobacco question. That last question is such a silly question because we have a few bottle of alcohol that have crossed the border probably a dozen times so now we just reply we received two bottles as gifts and we have a few part bottles, which is kind of true, along with beer from three different cases, and a few other odds and ends that migrated with us.

Shortly after crossing into Ontario the rain started, not heavy enough to be worth stopping for, but heavy enough to make driving difficult, and as we head further north there are hardly any buds on the trees and temperature just keep dropping. Welcome to Canada EH!

Navi is showing our arrival in Goderich (our summer home) by around noon, and as we take Hwy-21 north along the Lake Huron coast line the winds are buffeting the coach, this old coach doesn’t get pushed around very easily by a little wind, but I can feel the attempt. We made it into Goderich at 12:10 according to my iPad which now seems to have caught up to all the time zones, and we stop at a grocery store to pick up some item that we could not bring across the border.

While Miss Laurie is shopping I decided to exercised the generator, it has been month since I last operated it and as the solar panel harvest today is not strong, so it can replace some battery power as it warms up. Miss Laurie has returned and is putting the groceries away, and we restart Thunder and drive the last ten kilometers (six miles) to Lake Huron Resort. I have to admit this does feel like coming home as this will be the fifth year of six that we have worked here.

Welcome to spring in Ontario or as I refer to it as rain and mud, don’t get me wrong I love seeing all the plants springing to life but as much as everyone was excited by the mild winter, there will be issues because the ground never froze to all the rain had to soak into the soil as opposed to running off. The result is a very wet campground this spring, we were hopping for a couple of days to get our site prepared, but everything is too wet, and the damp cold air is not real welcoming, but a month from now all the wet will be forgotten and life will move on.

Day 9 Stats: 215.6 kilometers (134 miles) solar harvest 84 amp / hours (solar can suck when it rains) $0.00 camping, 21.68 gallons (82.05 liters) of diesel fuel.

And this ends our spring 2024 northern trek 2130 miles (3428 kilometers)

Day 2387

Tuesday April 16th 2024

Day 8 of our trek north

Dear Journal:

It is a few minutes after six when I roll out of my bed this morning, and although it is not light yet there is a beautiful pinky-orangy glow to the east as the first signs of dawn come into focus. Mister Sam met me in the galley of the coach for his morning treats, after which he headed to the top of his post for his morning nap. The cat post gives him a birds eye view through most of the coach windows, as you never know when a rouge squirrel could come into view. The outside temperature on our thermometer was 50ºF (10ºC) and the temperature inside of the coach was 64ºF (17.7ºC), better than I would suspect for the middle of April. I snapped this photo through the side window, I don’t think that even Walmart is ready for me and my pajamas in the parking lot snapping pictures.

Today we will leave the Walmart in Bowling Green and cross I-75 on OH-6 and head to Pemberville where I hope I will be able to park in the American Legion parking lot for the day. We will unhook the towed and our first stop will be to visit with Miss Betty, then we can return to the coach to prepare for dinner, but after dinner I’m planning on some night time driving, just enough to take us north through the city of Detroit and then to a Cracker Barrel for the night. It appears to be a little more than an hour away and it seems prudent to transverse tonight instead of waiting till noon tomorrow. We expect to finish our trek north tomorrow in Goderich and would like to arrive early to get parked and settled in.

Second day with black coffee, and I personally like the taste of a good dark roast coffee, strong but not bitter. It’s now 4:08 according to my laptop and it still thinks we are in Arizona, so every time I open google maps there is our flashing dot in Superior AZ. The sun has risen here in Bowling Green, and already I can feel the warmth through the coach window. An omelet for breakfast with a second cup of coffee, Mister Sam is watching birds from the coach window, the quiet morning is shattered by a team of mowers cutting the grass on the Walmart property. Now that is a true sign of spring on the east coast, as there are not a lot of lawn movers in the desert, and as crazy as it may seem I’m looking forward cutting some grass in a few days.

Today is a special day, in fact any day we can spend with the Ward family is a special day. It is still hard for me to fathom the loss of Butch and it has not even been a year since his passing, he was such a lovable guy, his smile was infectious and he was always smiling, he was also a schemer always planning his next event, whether it was a trip to his favorite restaurant of having friends stop by. I remember last May when we stopped to Butch & Betty at their seasonal campground he worked to get us a site closer to his, in amongst the seasonal sites as opposed to the transient site area. And the year we first met Butch at the campground in Florida he was always planning a cornhole or pickle ball event that would end up at his site for a “Brandy Alexander” at his site. The man was infectious he was always smiling and was always on the go, whether biking, playing, or working the man was like that damn Eveready rabbit. So today we are taking a detour into Pemberville for the day, first and foremost will be a visit with Miss Betty, it has been less than a year since the loss of Butch and we will stop and visit every time we are close until they don’t want to see us any more. We will also be stock piling the best pizza sauce that we have ever had, and will spent the evening with Betty’s family breaking bread and enjoying a glass of wine.

We arrived in Pemberville by 10:30 and found street parking very near our destination, we disconnected the towed and made our way across town to enjoy an visit with Miss Betty. we talked about her difficulties as well as her plans for the months to come, there will be a number of challenges in the weeks and months to come, like returning to the campground this spring, the opening of their trailer which will bring a flood of memories. I went to Subway (I guess it’s been a while since I have been to a Subway, the whole menu has changed) and picked up some sandwiches for lunch, we enjoyed some potato chips from a couple of local (Ohio based) companies.

We later gathered at Brian & Linsi’s home for dinner, barbequed burgers and chicken, I have to mention Aunt Jackie’s pumpkin cookies, and in true Ward family fashion family and children coming and going all evening. We over stayed but it is always hard to pull yourself away from a Ward family event, there is so much love and appreciation, as well as good natured fun, these events are always entertaining. We pulled ourselves away around 8:30, fired up Thunder re attached the towed and we headed north, with tonight’s destination being a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the north side of Detroit. This moved us through the lighter evening traffic with less difficulty, we made our destination before 10:30 and this Cracker Barrel was far enough from the highway that it was a quiet night.

Day 8 Stats: 106 miles (170.5 kilometers), solar harvest 172 amp/ hours $0.00 camping ($25.00 breakfast), no fuel purchase today.