Trans Canada with K2 and Tintin

12 September, 2017,   Blog Post No. 16 10 September – On the downhill run now.   480 km.   Made it thru to Whiteshell Provincial Park just east of Winnipeg where we had stayed on the eastward leg.   Huge improvement in weather, back to shorts and T shirt.   Upsala, English River, Ignace, Dyment, Dinorwic, Wabigoon, Dryden, Minnitaki, Vermillion Bay, Kenora all flashed past in a blur of Tim Hortons and ESSO stations and the inevitable roadworks slowdowns.   I think the Ontario/Federal Govt is taking its slogan “Build on the North” seriously.   The road contracts seem to be enormous judging by the amount of equipment deployed.   F airly straight run home now, dodging fires and snow.   Clearing Ontario was a great milestone, tho the return weather was much clearer and the views around the top of Lake Superior more spectacular.   We were lured into a superior “Trading Store” in Upsala to buy fudge for stay-awake energy and came out wi...

9 September, 2017,   Blog Post No. 15 7 September – Fairly uneventful drive thru Muskoka to Chutes Provincial Park, in Massey. We stopped in Parry Sounds for a walk.   Marveled at the massive road construction projects on Highway 69.   We anticipate these will lead to the transformation of the country north of Superior in the coming years.   Lovely countryside, brief but torrential rain, a nice camp at Chutes 8 September – Drove from Chutes PP to Wawa, good weather and delightful scenery.   We drove close 400 km this day, we are definitely on the downhill run.   Endless Ontario at the top of Lake Superior seems to give one an urgent desire just to escape.   Enormous amount of roadworks on the TransCanada.   Delays of up to an hour a day.   It will be interesting to see if the Western sections of the TransCanada are receiving such lavish attention.   Nice camp at Wawa, but a near frost in the evening.   Luckily we had toppe...

6 September, 2017,   Blog Post No. 14 5 September - Drove into downtown Ottawa early in the morning but were totally frustrated by the parking system, even with research on a rather spotty internet connection at the camp.   Most of the public parking seemed to be underground (too low for our vehicle or length restricted.   Traffic in downtown Ottawa was a bit of a zoo because of ongoing constructions and detours.   Our GPS would be thwarted by a road closure and send us off on another loop.   Then we had a bit of luck, we blundered into an Ottawa police lot with a 4 hr limit, set up for public users who were reporting car damage to the police.   After checking all the instructions, both in English and in French, it appeared it was actually a public parking lot at a special location, not a restricted use lot so we paid up with a credit card, ($12 for 4 hours), set up the dogs with air and water and hailed a cab to take us to the National Gallery of C...