Round 2 - Laurentian

If every day [of this road trip] has been a winding road, it has also been a really soggy road. We awoke this morning to heavy rain in the Soo, and it continued off and on until Sudbury.
We arrived early, and so in an attempt to kill off some time before the university tour, we stopped at the Big Nickel, which is, incidentally, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Neither A nor I could remember how old he was when we all came to Sudbury on a camping trip and went down the mine, but we're thinking it may have been 10 years ago. I seem to remember it being grey and wet then too.
Laurentian University is enormous compared with Lakehead. Our tour guide was better. He started us off by taking us to the roof of the tallest building on campus so that we could have a bird's eye view of everything. Apparently in the winter, the town zambonis a good chunk of the lake and everyone skates for free.
He focused more on student life than on academics, as the tourguide at Lakehead had. Overall, the dorms are bigger, the buildings are older and not as well outfitted, the food services sound better (read: healthier to a mom). When asked his preference / opinion comparing the 2 schools, A said it like this: one's a big SUV with nothing on it and the other is a fully loaded small car (always the automotive metaphors). Laurentian is the SUV.
He's leaning toward Lakehead, but months from now, who knows which way the final decision will go.
Long wet uneventful drive from Sudbury to home, but we did see 4 rainbows as we drove across the 407. We're both kinda road-weary, but ending with rainbows was a nice touch.

Round 1 - Lakehead

This morning, we toured Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. They have a BSc program focusing on geoarchaeology that A is interested in. Given that their open house was originally scheduled for a Tuesday (?!) in December (!!?!) (who comes all the way to Thunder Bay on a Tuesday in December?!!), we decided that summer holiday suited us better. Here's what we found out.
Pros: very community focused - curricular foci seem really current - all lecture halls have been built or modified for laptops and internet - very small class sizes - they have a paleo DNA lab that is foremost in North America
Cons: food service doesn't sound as healthy as at UVic, but maybe that was because our tour guide had a penchant for hamburgers - floors in the dorms are coed (mom's con, not A's) - double rooms are very small
Jury is only just starting to deliberate, but A liked the small class sizes and the dorm set up didn't seem to bother him.
Then, we started the drive back. From Thunder Bay to the Soo where we have stopped for the night, is about 8 hours. Add in my stops for pretty views of Lake Superior (who was not completely fogged in today), stops for bridge repairs, and stops in general, even driving with polite disregard for the speed limit, it did indeed take 8 hours. The sun came out at Agawa Bay in Lake Superior Provincial Park, so the views of the lake for the eastern part of the drive to the Soo were lovely. Boy, she's big.
Tomorrow, we have to get from here to Sudbury for Round 2 - the tour of Laurentian. That's about 4 hours, then from Sudbury to home is another 6. I should be sick of driving by now, but the roads have been clear for the most part, so it hasn't been strenuous. Wait until we reach the GTA...

Thunder in Thunder Bay

We started this morning at kilometre marker 1000. Given that we started yesterday in the high 1600s, that's kinda cool. Shortly after leaving Wawa, we saw a moose mother and baby having breakfast. Animal sightings continued with a turkey vulture, a rabbit, a deer at the Terry Fox memorial, and something black and dog-like that was either a coyote or a young wolf because it didn't make sense that it was a dog.

Not a great drive today. 5 hours from Wawa to Thunder Bay, and at least 3 hours of that was spent either in pea soup fog or inside a cloud - we haven't figured out which. The staff at the Tim Hortons in Nipigon said it was fog off Lake Superior. Needless to say, there weren't any pretty views to be seen. The Terry Fox memorial is still poignant, but it would have been nice to gaze out over the Lake from high up.

Top of the list of things to do once we got to Thunder Bay was touring Fort William. Today was a First Nations festival, Ashinawbe Keeshigun. Not only was admission free, but there were Native dancers, extra exhibits, and they fed us! We had smoked whitefish and wild rice at the wigwams outside the fort walls. We had freshly baked bread and strawberry juice in the kitchen. We had a great time wandering through the buildings and looking at the special exhibits and displays.

They'd been forecasting rain all day, and it arrived JUST as we got to the car. As we drove to Kakabeka Falls (the Niagara Falls of the North), the rain got harder. The thunder got louder. The fork lightning got brighter. By the time we got there, it was raining so hard, we didn't want to get out of the car. But get out we did, and it was wet! But the Falls were beautiful, and a few minutes later, the sun was out again.

Fingers crossed for a drier, clearer day tomorrow.

Lovely Lake Superior

Well, we made it to Wawa. I think I'd have been more surprised if we hadn't. We're staying at the Wawa Motor Inn which is fabulous! Yay me! So, we've ended well. Let's see how we began.

We began early. On the road shortly after 6am. Average speed 70mph. Great roads. Thank you Mike Harris for the terrific job you did spending my tax dollars improving the highway to Parry Sound. Too bad you stopped there. Between Parry Sound and Wawa, the TransCanada is mostly a 3 lane road, with ownership of the 3rd lane alternating regularly between left and right sides of the road. What surprised me most about today was how flat the terrain was once we got past the Soo. I thought it would all be huge rocks, but it isn't. There are large, flat valleys and 'plains'.

Thessalon doesn't look anything like I remember it. We did the math, and it was 30 years ago this summer that I worked at McCreights Junior Ranger camp, near Thessalon, for the summer. I high pruned trees, planted trees, tore down squatters' cabins, coloured maps of Crown land, and reconstructed a bridge. We had one day in the Soo, and after prowling the mall, we saw Ghostbusters. 1984. I remember parts of it really well. I've always liked rocks, and the day we tore down the squatters' cabin, I found a nice (big) piece of conglomerate or puddingstone near a waterfall near the cabin sight, which I brought home. In a box. When my parents picked me up from the Bay street bus terminal, my dad picks up the box and says, "what do you have in here - a rock?" Well, now that you mention it - yes! I still have that rock. It lives in a place of honour in the front hall of our house.

We only stopped to gaze at Lake Superior once. It was at a 'view', and we climbed down from the parking to some rocks nearer the shore. Even under grey and threatening skies, she's still magnificent.

Wawa is a player in our historical trip because it was here, on September 17th, 1960, that the TransCanada highway was completed. It took over 40 years of pleading to get a road to link the 228km from Wawa to the Soo. Initially, it took 8 hours because the road wasn't very good. Today, it took us 3 hours. There are Wawa Canada Geese all over town, including in the parking lot of the general store across the street and over the entrance to the restaurant attached to our hotel. It's been 25 years since P&I stopped at that general store to gas up on our drive across Canada. Then, there was a chipmunk who liked to run into the store to grab peanuts. We didn't see any peanuts today, but we did see a well fed squirrel outside.

Tomorrow, we have 5+ hours to get to Thunder Bay. Included in that stretch will be more views of the Lake and the Terry Fox memorial. But for now, it's time to sleep. Early start again tomorrow.

Road Trip

It's rather an iconic summer thing to do, isn't it, the road trip? Tomorrow, Sprout and I depart in the wee smalls toward Thunder Bay. If you don't know Ontario, our province is huge! It easily takes 3 full days of driving to get from one end of it to the other. GoogleMaps says Thunder Bay is only (!?) 18 hours away, and while we are road warriors and easily able to do 13 hours in a car without blinking, that is usually because P is doing the driving. This trip is just mother and son. I've never done a road trip on my own before and while Sprout can do some of the driving, this is as much a personal challenge for me, as a way of getting to Lakehead and Laurentian universities for tours.

Let's talk about the vehicle of choice for the adventure. (I'm about to sound like a Top Gear episode - move over Jeremy Clarkson). Cruising across a sunny summertime northern Ontario in a Mercedes Benz convertible sounds divine. She would be a great little car except for a few things, and that's why we have chosen instead to take the VW Jetta.
Reason 1: gas mileage - the SLK requires high octane premium gas, and she guzzles it. The Jetta is a diesel. 'Nuff said.
Reason 2: Mod cons - the SLK is a 2002. She was made before blue tooth, GPS, or satellite radio. The Jetta, on the other hand, has sat nav should we need it, and Sirius.
Reason 3: rain. Hard to drive with the top down when it's pouring. And according to the Weather Network, not only are we in for wet, we're also in for cold. The Jetta's sunroof will have to do, should the rain stop long enough to open it.

I have been told that a uniquely Canadian thing is measuring distance in time (see length of Ontario example above). Don't ask me how many miles or kilometres we'll be covering, but I can tell you estimated drive times. Tomorrow, we have 10 hours to Wawa homeoftheGoose. Sunday, there's 5-6 hours to Thunder Bay. Monday, after our morning tour of Lakehead, we have 8 hours back east to Sault Ste. Marie. Tuesday morning early, we leave the Sault for the beautiful drive alongside Lake Superior. We have to make it to Sudbury for noon, because the Laurentian tour is at 1pm. After that, we continue on home, which is another 5 hours.

All told, that looks like 34 hours of driving over 4 days, broken up by lakes, rocks, trees, the Terry Fox memorial, scenic lookouts over Lake Superior and Sleeping Giant, a trip to Fort William (I hope), and a picture in front of the Wawa Goose. And likely, lots of stops at Tim Hortons.

Look out Gitchigoomie
- here we come!