Day 4... Ontario vs Manitoba

First, I would like to share with you what seems to be the theme for our GPS for the past 2 days. Drive 700 kilometers, then turn right!! hehehehe

Our day started out early as we are trying to stick by the advice of the truck driver who took our furniture to Saskatchewan and told us to stick to daylight if we were going to do this drive in the winter. Sundown and the twilight can take much longer when you are driving the twisting and winding roads along the rocky shores of Lake Superior. This, combined with huge signs that say "WATCH OUT FOR THE MOOSE AND DEER AT NIGHT" can make it seem as though the rocky wall on the right is either a Moose, a deer, a female deer... (hehehehe) but i digress.

Pine Trees. Lots and lots and lots of pine trees. Every so often, the scent of pine seeps through the vents and you look around at these endless rolling hills full of pine trees with 3 to 4 inches of snow on each of their branches surrounded by pristine, untouched white snow and you can't help but feel like you're in the middle of a post card. Ontario is beautiful. I know Neil said it last night, but this is something you have to experience for yourself. I could use a thousand words to describe what we've seen in the last couple of days, but I don't think it does justice to how you feel when you realize this is where you live. We would have had to stop every 5 minutes to take a picture in order to capture every moment we went around a bend and said "wow". Maybe I'm a little melancholic for having just left Ontario, but I cannot emphasize this enough - If you live in Ontario, drive up here!!

2010 kilometers. That's how long it took to drive from Toronto to the end of Ontario. Yesterday, we were wondering what today's drive would be like and I asked Neil if the rolling hills and rocks ended as soon as we crossed the border between Ontario and Manitoba. He looked at me and said "I'm sure it's not as though you're on the hills with twists and turns and then suddenly, boom! it's flat. Who knows? We'll see tomorrow!" As it turns out, the answer to my question is, YES. You cross into Manitoba and you immediately go into a 401-look-a-like highway and it's all flat as far as the eye can see!!! It's soooo weird!! It's as though someone said, well - the hills have ended... new province name please!! hahahahaha

And so here we are. In Winnipeg (aka. the Peg!). Officially in the Central Standard Time zone. One hour behind most of Ontario. We drove for about an hour from the border and noticed a few things. First, the highway is weird. Cars merge onto the highway from every which way. From the left mostly! It's kinda freaky. That will take some getting used to. Second, we are glad La Mama got us the GPS. After that first right turn after 700 kilometers, we went through the Peg and it's twisty, and and down streets that go north for 1/2 a block and then west for another 1/2 a block and so on and so forth. We're pretty sure a few Winnipegers cursed at us and our Ontario plates tonight! And that's pretty much all for Manitoba first impressions. We checked into our hotel and ordered room service and realized how close we are to our new home from here. Only a 5 hour drive to our new life!! eeeeeek!! hehehehe

We'll take a quick look at the Peg in the morning and then we'll make our way home. We'll have to come back another day to explore a little more.

So for now here are the main differences between Ontario and Manitoba.

Ontario: Hills, twisty and winding roads, lakes, pine trees.
vs.
Manitoba: dark, flatter and they have weird names and logos for the beer and liquor store!

Okay, to be fair, we've only been here for a couple of hours, so i guess we can't make a final decision based on just this. We'll make better comparison after a few visits.

Tomorrow as I said. We get to our little house on the prairies. We haven't set up cable and internet yet, so you might not hear from us on the blog for a couple of days. We will take lots of pictures catch up with you guys as soon as we get connected!

Meanwhile, know that we are missing all of you already and we will keep you posted as often as possible.

Nighty night from two temporary Manitobans!

Vero & Neil.

P.S.: This one is for Cristoven. We made it to your home town!!!! Max the Moose says hello!!



Oh, and of course, Killer's daily photo:

Here he is waiting to be transported to his hotel room on the luggage carrier at the end of the day.

Day 3... the long haul to Thunder Bay

So here are the GPS directions for the day. Get on to highway 17, drive 700 kms and hang a left.

Other interesting things from today: Ontario is big. Very big. So hugely big that we are spending a third night here. This time in Thunder Bay. Again in a Comfort Inn. I think we should just buy some stock in the company since we spend so much time here.

Things that have been lost so far on this trip: Patience with a Philips FM tuner for our IPods. Veronica ended up having to hold the wire running from the tuner to the IPod a certain way to get it to play properly for the better part of the day. One crutch, colour silver. Somewhere between Sault Ste. Marie and Parry Sound. Not sure where we left it, but now she is one-crutch girl whether she likes it or not.

Things learned so far on this trip. Ontario is beautiful. I know everyone says to drive that to the west coast of Canada, its better to go through the States. Having driven along the shore of Lake Superior for the better part of today, I say that everyone should make this drive at least once. For example, here's a couple of pictures along the way. Note the relation of the direction of the road to the Sun in the pictures.


.

Other things learned on this trip: If the music on the radio is not Veronica's, she instantly falls asleep. Like low-grade narcolepsy asleep. We were listening to HER IPod, which Dan and Rachel kindly provided the music. While she was flipping through songs she landed on The Cowboy Junkies cover of Sweet Jane. I asked her to let it play because I like that song. Two seconds later her eyes were shut. If I want a conscious navigator, its nothing but Miley Cyrus, Madonna and Cher the whole way.

For Dad, here's the damn goose from Wawa.

I got a little tired today, so I turned the wheel over for a few hours...

And here we are 695.5 kms later, still waiting for our left turn on to Arthur St. W

Signing off for some tired travellers,
Neil

Day 2... northbound!

Our trip today started in Parry Sound where the snow had started to fall. But don't worry La Mama, Ron and Roseann, the further north we went, the dryer the road got as you can see behind our travel companion (courtesy of La Mama), whose name according to Neil is "Killer". Now i ask you, how can you give such a sweet little doggy a name like that? hahahaha

One of the things that Neil and I (and our friend Valerie) said we would do on this trip would be to take in the scenery and pay attention to our surroundings. And today we did just that.

We stopped on the side of the road on Highway 69 (just before Sudbury) to take a couple of pictures of the ice that has formed on the rocks along the highway. This one is a little small compared to some other ones we went by, but as much as we wanted to take these pictures we were also trying to be safe when we did pull over. Here a a couple of the best ones we took today.



We stopped in Sudbury for lunch and proceeded on towards Sault Ste. Marie. On our way there we were able to take the "photo of the day" when we drove through Spanish, Ontario!!! I mean, how could i resist? These pics are priceless. Take a look! hehehehehe




Last, but not least, as we drove through Highway 17, the sun started to set as we drove by Blind River in the North Shore area. Unfortunately, our camera did not do justice to the colours we were seeing, but we managed to capture some of it. Picture this - blue-ish ice on the water, green pine trees, white snow and pink and orange layers of sunset in the horizon. Breathtaking!! This country is so beautiful!



So, all in all... a good day! The weather cooperated. (Knock on wood). We made it to Sault Ste. Marie on time and had a great day today :)

Tomorrow we drive to Thunder Bay! Will let you know how that goes by the end of the day! :)

TTYL my peeps!

Veronica :)

And we're back. And on the road.

Wow, been a little while since we have posted here to let you know how things are going. We've been a little busy. Plus it's tough to post from an empty house with no internet. We had the obvious big news over the holidays, then I had to fly back to Saskatchewan. Just under two weeks later, I had to fly to BC for two more weeks. From there I swung a flight back to Toronto. Meanwhile, Veronica has been wrapping up things at her office and putting in all the hard work organizing the move.

Our household belongings left for our Saskatchewan home on the 25th and will actually be getting there ahead of us. Big thanks to my friend James who will be there to oversee the delivery of our stuff.

We are officially on the road, but not without our hiccups along the way. No one ever said this would be easy. We are camped out in our hotel just outside of Parry Sound. Tomorrow, bright and early, we head for Sault Ste. Marie. Another short hop before some longer hauls later this week.

I want to thank everyone who came out on Saturday for Veronica's birthday and to see her off. I would say us, but it seems everyone has said goodbye to me several times already, so Saturday was all about Veronica. It was great to see everyone one last time before we headed out.

Another big thanks to everyone who helped us out over the last 5 months as we have gone through this and a big thanks to everyone who looked out for Veronica while I have been away.

Signing off from the road,
Neil