Dryden and Thunder Bay

After the weekend everyone moved out of the park so the prime location were available. We move the bus for a beautiful view of the bay. One evening a para glider circled and landed in the large field just in front of us he was flying across Canada promoting camps for children. They had PR school bus with the crew and and equipment that parked behind for the night.

We left there last Wednesday morning heading east all the way to Dryden (130 mks) (the home of Chris and Sean Pronger) We found a quaint little RV park just on the edge of town, well sheltered with trees but enough openings that out satellite dish worked well and wonder of wonders, so did the cellular Internet system, finally. Karen immediately set off on searching for treasures and was very successful. one was a geocache hotel which is a larger container and therefore held all kinds of trinkets, she came home in a high state of excitement. I know I know ....I should really take her out more often.

While walking the downtown area we found a fabulous bakery and restaurant which has caused me to reevaluate my focus on the purpose of a geocachers widowers group, I was set to have monthly meetings in a local legion but after finding this bakery and sampling the wares, I thinking of exploring our next stops for such places, just for scientific research of course.

Friday we moved onto the Happy Land RV park just east of Thunder Bay, only 1 km from Kakabecka Falls, or as the locals call it, the Niagara of the north. It's a significant falls to be sure but Niagara?? perhaps they haven't seen the real ones. The Queen was off on her quest immediately, having used the Internet to it's full ability to pre-plan her finds but her success ratio took a hit here, some area's had too many people, some were were just in too rugged a terrain but she did come home with a smile and more notches on her belt.

Yesterday we went to the recreation of the original Fort William, a large complex on the "Kam" river, the full name is a very long Indian name, as difficult to spell as it would be to pronounce. It (the fort) is staffed with volunteers, all dressed and acting in period time with several vignettes of local event back in the day of serious fur trading. We're told that Fort William was the major meeting point for exchanging trade goods from Eastern Canada (Montreal) for the furs from the western adventurers from the vast unexplored territory of the North West Trading Company. They would meet here for 10-14 days each July exchange loads and have a small drink or two. I found it really interesting to wander through all the aspects of the life and work places back then, the wood wright's shop, blacksmith, canoe maker. They even had a team of oxen working with a cart, wicked horns on them but well trained. We spent the afternoon there and finally came home with sore feet and a welcome nap before supper.

The other item of note and my kids will chuckle at this, there is a "Swiss Chalet" in Thunder Bay. For the uneducated it's my favorite restaurant, excellent BBQ chicken and I've been suffering from withdrawal since leaving Edmonton. Well, the craving is satiated for a brief period anyway, in looking ahead I see there is one in Sudbury so we'll be stopping there for sure.

The weather has been mostly good, warm enough but a bit windy, mind you I was loving the tail wind coming from Dryden to Thunder Bay, managed 10.5 mpg where we normally get 8.1. When you're driving a brick down the road it really help to have a tailwind.

That's about all the news from here, today we're off to the city to walk the shore line and see what's in for big ships. We're only booked in here till Monday morning but Karen had found 5 stained glass shops in the city so I suspect we'll be staying an extra day while she checks those out, fine with me, more chance to hit the Swiss Chalet again!

Take care everyone and enjoy the summer.

Jul 12, 2009

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