Back in the U.S.A. (7/6/2015)

Today's first Excellent Adventure was crossing the border back into the U.S.  You never know what to expect at border crossings, what questions they will ask, what food they won't allow across.  We got a fairly early start (9:15) and hit the border about 9:55.  There was a back-up, but not too bad, but it was moving really slow in our lane (the RV lane).

 It was hazy looking out over the Detroit River at Detroit, whether from fog from the river, smoke from the Saskatchewan fires, or just city smog, I don't know.

Our lane wasn't moving at all for a while, but finally we moved up a car length.  Then we heard this loud noise, like a shot.  It was the hose on our air pump to the air horn we got for Christmas.  Fortunately there was enough noise that apparently no one else noticed, so no problem there.  In a little while, the lady managing the traffic motioned us to move over into the truck lane (she stood out in the middle of the lane and stopped the trucks while we repositioned).

We only had one truck in front of us now, and they get through pretty quickly, but we were right beside a truck hauling baby pigs, 5 layers of them (you can see their noses sticking through the holes, and they were noisy).

 We didn't get boarded or inspected this time through the border crossing, but they did confiscate my eggs!  I had an 18-pack with only 3 used, and they threw my pack away.  Who knew that was on the list!  I actually think I bought them in the U.S. but I couldn't prove it so they just took them.  Other than that, though, we got through without incident.  Marilyn and Collins got boarded, and they took her eggs and frozen chicken.  Dave told them they weren't carrying any of that stuff (or that they bought it in the U.S.) so they came through unscathed.

We hit the interstate almost immediately and there was no waiting for our fellow travelers, so we just headed on out to our campsite at Belleville.  We did see a big Uniroyal tire as we came through Detroit, and we passed their big airport.

Once we got set up, we had a little lunch and then headed out to explore.  Joe did a first -- he washed the dishes so we could move along a little quicker!

Dave and Mazie had their own agenda, so it was just the 4 of us.  We drove over to the little town of Ypsilanti.  Marilyn thought she had seen this billed as one of the prettiest towns in America, but we decided she had that mixed up with another town, it wasn't anything to brag about.  But we did find the Hudson Museum there, called the "Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum" which was on Collins' list, so we toured that. 

That sign was inside the museum.  There was no one there to sell tickets, it was absolutely empty, but the back door was open so we toured on our own.  They had displays of Tuckers, Hudson, Frazers and Kaisers, and Corvairs.  Actually, Ypsilanti was the home of the main Corvair plant, which were build from 1959 to 1969.

This Tucker car was used in the movie "Tucker - the Man and His Dream" starring Jeff Bridges.  Joe thought he has watched that movie on TV.

My friend Mike Carter had a 1964 corvair, so we had personal knowledge of this one.

1946 Hudson Terraplane

This last one was a very rare Hudson Italia, 20th of only 26 made.

We finished with the museum and drove around the little town some more, then headed to the grocery store back near the campground.  Joe decided it was a pizza night and I had picked up a brochure at the campground for a pizza place with 3 locations.  After I found the closest one, we got Dave and Mazie and headed down there (Collins and Marilyn stayed home and had salads).  The pizza was advertised as "coal fired", and it was very good.  Had a nice meal.

On the way we had passed the city library that had a beautiful flower bed in front, so I got Joe to stop there for pictures on the way back (of course, we had passed it so we had to turn around and go back, and 2 cops drove past while he waited for me).  The cops are busy in this area, we had seen 4 pulled over issuing tickets already, so I hustled back and we were on our way.

This last picture is a close-up of just the letter D to showcase the individual flowers.

We got back to camp and I spent the rest of the evening getting the blog caught up.  We do have Wifi here, but it isn't very fast, and it sometimes comes and goes, so I finally had to turn on our own Hotspot to get them done.  But I think I'm current again, so I can forgot all that stuff from the last week and let my mind start capturing our new excellent adventures.

Windsor, Ontario (7/5/2015)

Although we considered just taking the day off, we decided to drive into Windsor and check out a couple of the things Collins had listed for our stop here.  Dave and Mazie decided to skip our adventure and trim and wash the dog, then drive out to a couple local wineries (where they bought 3 bottles of wine, but who's keeping track).  So off we went, first to the Canada Club Brand Center.  On the way we spotted a Best Buy so Marilyn checked in there for her Canada GPS software, but they didn't have it, so we continued on.  The guided tour started at noon, so we spent a few minutes wandering around the gift shop, then began the tour.  It was interesting, covered the history of how Hiram Walker decided to start this whiskey business in Canada, and continued through the prohibition years that, while was incorporated by Canada, did have an effect on the whiskey business across the River.

Our tour guide was good and made it very interesting.


This is now a museum, but a lot of the furniture, the walls, floors and ceilings, and the craftmanship of the carved wood are all original.  I sat at Mr. Walker's desk, and his ledger (original) is right there to look at.

You could see the Detroit River, separating U.S. and Canada, right through the windows in this building.

We stopped in the Speakeasy in the basement, and Joe made friends with Al Capone, who was a repeat customer of Canadian Club (no surprise there).

Then we ended in the tasting room, where we were each served a sample of their two new flavors, only available in Ontario, since October 2014.  A 100% rye and a maple rye.

So here's my very first ever taste of rye whiskey.

You can see that I thought it was yummy.  The second sample, the maple, was a little more palatable.

We left there and took their recommendation for a lunch spot -- Kildare's, a pub down the street.

Then we went to the Willistead Manor, the mansion one of Hiram Walker's sons built, 36 rooms for him and his wife (no children, but lots of servants).

The house and grounds were beautiful, on 15 acres I think, which is now a park, and the house is used for weddings, etc.

We probably got to see about half of the rooms, which did not contain much of the original furniture but did have period-authentic furnishings which were all donations.

The house was lovely of course, and our tour guide there was also very good.  I learned that the "drawing room" is the room the women withdraw to after dinner when the men went to the buillard room for their whiskey and cigars (or whatever).  So I have decided to name my scrapbook room at home my "drawing room" because it is where I go to withdraw (sounds better than "woman cave").

We finished that tour and headed back to camp.  I kept trying to get on the internet to work on the blog and finally went down to the office and sat in a chair for an hour and got one day posted.  Hopefully our next campground will have better internet, and we will be back in the U.S. so I can use my own Hotspot.

After dinner, we gathered again at the picnic table for a few games of 99.  The weather today and this evening was absolutely lovely, nice to sit outside, and I think we can open the bedroom window tonight.  I hope we can make it across the border tomorrow without getting searched again, but we will see.

On to Essex, Ontario (7/4/2015)

Today we moved on to Essex, just a few miles south of Windsor, Ontario, which is just across the river from Detroit.  It was a fairly uneventful day.  We got on the road about 10:50, and drove 115 miles with a nice stop for lunch right along the beautiful Lake Erie.

We drive through lots of farm country, and lots of huge hothouses.  We think the hothouses are for hydrophonic tomatoes, but we don't know that for sure.  But these make the ones around Vincennes look like toys.

We had another beautiful day, no rain, temperatures in the 70s.  We arrived at the campground about 2:30 and decided to take the rest of the day off (except that David did some laundry).  They had two pools here so we probably all should have made use of them.  We stayed at a golf resort that was very nice, but I couldn't get the internet to work so that was frustrating.  I finally ended up at the office, trying to sit on an uncomfortable chair with my laptop on my lap, trying to get my pictures loaded into the blog.  We played cards (the new 99 game) outside on the picnic table before calling it a day.