Lake Superior Watershed Road Trip - Day 1
Nov. 14th, 2007 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skinscriptDay 1 dawned bright and early. Luckily, I missed that cause I slept in like a smart person would. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goblie on the other hand, watched it from her window. Excited at the prospect of endless hours of no company but me, no doubt.
*cough*
Moving on...
We tooled around the city for some time before we actually set off, because we had *necessities* to pick up. Stuff like a camera (for goblie), chocolate provisions (for me), gasoline, and of course the all important fishing poles were mandatory before we headed off. We got underweigh at about 12:30 or so, and headed North. From the highway we could see Lake Ontario; the first of four of the Great Lakes we would see on our journey. The companions of the trip were myself, goblie, and Mini Inf's delegate, Rosie the bear.
The trip to Huntsville went pretty quickly, thanks to good company and the ceaseless use of the exceedingly precious FM transmitter for goblie's iPOD. We stopped at Huntsville to visit my Gram and to try and catch our first glimpse of deer. Sadly, no deer, but my Grandma was happy to see us!
She was in fine form, and we talked about good places to go and people to see on our trip. Since she lived in Batchawana for over 15 years, she had many friends and experiences to share with us.
The road was remarkably clear, which definitely made me happy. We stopped outside of North Bay to enjoy looking at the lake, and decided to make Sudbury the ending point for our first day. Somewhere between North Bay and Sudbury it got dark. (No sunset, BOOOO!) and it started to rain. *mutter*
In Sudbury our first great "find a place to sleep" search began. We stopped at the first hotel... all booked up. Seriously??? Yep. All booked up. ooook. (Insert random driving around here. Note: Map of Sudbury in trunk. So useful.) After the fourth hotel employee chirped "Sorry! All full!" at me, I was beginning to lose my happy thoughts. Then I realised I needed to eat. It was 8pm after all, and a Hungry!Infie is a Cranky!Infie. Only one worse is a Hungry!EarlyMorning!Infie. That one is just.... best to avoid.
Just saying.
Anyhow - we went to the Kelsey's (woo Canadian franchise!) for dinner. One huge meal later, we had determined that there was a silver stick hockey tournament AND a mining conference in town. Chances of a hotel room immediately plummeted to zero, and I decided to drive on. The waitress at Kelsey's suggested I was nuts to do so, since the next place of any real size is Sault Ste Marie, and by her estimation a good four hours away. As usual, I simply ignored this (probably good) advice and decided to forge ahead anyway.
It was raining a LOT, but we made the trip in about 2.5 hours (it's only 260 km). We took the first reasonably sized open motel upon hitting the city, and thus ended up at the Howard Johnson's just in the Soo limits on Highway 17. The room was clean, and fairly well maintained, but the TV and one lamp didn't work! The TV!!! *cries* No internet access either. It was here that I realised I had left my laptop charger at home, meaning writing was out of the question, along with any kind of ongoing trip updates or other useful computer stuff. *SIGH*
We settled in to try and sleep fairly fast, and I noticed that we immediately gravitated to each having different sides of the room. Definitely a good trait in a long haul hotel roomie!
End day 1
goblie on the other hand, watched it from her window. Excited at the prospect of endless hours of no company but me, no doubt.*cough*
Moving on...
We tooled around the city for some time before we actually set off, because we had *necessities* to pick up. Stuff like a camera (for goblie), chocolate provisions (for me), gasoline, and of course the all important fishing poles were mandatory before we headed off. We got underweigh at about 12:30 or so, and headed North. From the highway we could see Lake Ontario; the first of four of the Great Lakes we would see on our journey. The companions of the trip were myself, goblie, and Mini Inf's delegate, Rosie the bear.
The trip to Huntsville went pretty quickly, thanks to good company and the ceaseless use of the exceedingly precious FM transmitter for goblie's iPOD. We stopped at Huntsville to visit my Gram and to try and catch our first glimpse of deer. Sadly, no deer, but my Grandma was happy to see us!
She was in fine form, and we talked about good places to go and people to see on our trip. Since she lived in Batchawana for over 15 years, she had many friends and experiences to share with us.
The road was remarkably clear, which definitely made me happy. We stopped outside of North Bay to enjoy looking at the lake, and decided to make Sudbury the ending point for our first day. Somewhere between North Bay and Sudbury it got dark. (No sunset, BOOOO!) and it started to rain. *mutter*
In Sudbury our first great "find a place to sleep" search began. We stopped at the first hotel... all booked up. Seriously??? Yep. All booked up. ooook. (Insert random driving around here. Note: Map of Sudbury in trunk. So useful.) After the fourth hotel employee chirped "Sorry! All full!" at me, I was beginning to lose my happy thoughts. Then I realised I needed to eat. It was 8pm after all, and a Hungry!Infie is a Cranky!Infie. Only one worse is a Hungry!EarlyMorning!Infie. That one is just.... best to avoid.
Just saying.
Anyhow - we went to the Kelsey's (woo Canadian franchise!) for dinner. One huge meal later, we had determined that there was a silver stick hockey tournament AND a mining conference in town. Chances of a hotel room immediately plummeted to zero, and I decided to drive on. The waitress at Kelsey's suggested I was nuts to do so, since the next place of any real size is Sault Ste Marie, and by her estimation a good four hours away. As usual, I simply ignored this (probably good) advice and decided to forge ahead anyway.
It was raining a LOT, but we made the trip in about 2.5 hours (it's only 260 km). We took the first reasonably sized open motel upon hitting the city, and thus ended up at the Howard Johnson's just in the Soo limits on Highway 17. The room was clean, and fairly well maintained, but the TV and one lamp didn't work! The TV!!! *cries* No internet access either. It was here that I realised I had left my laptop charger at home, meaning writing was out of the question, along with any kind of ongoing trip updates or other useful computer stuff. *SIGH*
We settled in to try and sleep fairly fast, and I noticed that we immediately gravitated to each having different sides of the room. Definitely a good trait in a long haul hotel roomie!
End day 1
