Staying the night in Wawa, Ontario, far short of our intended destination for the night. I am enjoying this trip even more than I had hoped.
WOW the east shore of Superior is BEAUTIFUL! It's not that any one spot is the best in the world; it's more that you drive along, hour after hour, and every single moment it looks like a scene from a postcard. It's impossible to make any progress, because we keep stopping to enjoy places. Pancake Bay and the Sand River were especially nice stops.
The towns of northwest Ontario have a sort of back-in-time feel, in a good way - like the greedy 80's and delusions-of-grandeur 90's and paranoid 2000's never happened. There are lots of hitchhikers here (we'd take one if we weren't in a two-seater). The houses are very not-ostentatious - I've read that American incomes are higher than Canadian on average, but I suspect that Americans pour every dime of the difference and more into their houses, hoping that people will be impressed. Here, houses are for living in, not for showing off. (I think they do their showing-off with four-wheelers.)
Similarly, the hotel we're in (Beaver Motel) has a very pleasantly aged feel, clean and in good shape, but unmodern and unsophisticated - comforting, like staying at your aunt's house. There's a very friendly motel cat, too. But it's got wireless internet. Best of both worlds.
OK, I'm a border kid full of Canadian blood, so I'm probably not an impartial judge. But I'd really like to take this trip again, next time over a whole month...
WOW the east shore of Superior is BEAUTIFUL! It's not that any one spot is the best in the world; it's more that you drive along, hour after hour, and every single moment it looks like a scene from a postcard. It's impossible to make any progress, because we keep stopping to enjoy places. Pancake Bay and the Sand River were especially nice stops.
The towns of northwest Ontario have a sort of back-in-time feel, in a good way - like the greedy 80's and delusions-of-grandeur 90's and paranoid 2000's never happened. There are lots of hitchhikers here (we'd take one if we weren't in a two-seater). The houses are very not-ostentatious - I've read that American incomes are higher than Canadian on average, but I suspect that Americans pour every dime of the difference and more into their houses, hoping that people will be impressed. Here, houses are for living in, not for showing off. (I think they do their showing-off with four-wheelers.)
Similarly, the hotel we're in (Beaver Motel) has a very pleasantly aged feel, clean and in good shape, but unmodern and unsophisticated - comforting, like staying at your aunt's house. There's a very friendly motel cat, too. But it's got wireless internet. Best of both worlds.
OK, I'm a border kid full of Canadian blood, so I'm probably not an impartial judge. But I'd really like to take this trip again, next time over a whole month...
