Joe & Wilma's Excellent Adventures

 May 23, 2024

Thursday

Rossport, Ontario, Canada

This morning we left Marathon and moved down the road 72 miles to Rainbow Falls Provincial Park just outside of Rossport. 

It was 36 degrees last night, 39 when we were de-camping.  No heat wave up here.  

Joe noticed something he didn't like on the left front tire of the RV, so now we have that to deal with.  He's on the search for a new tire but shopping up here is not that easy.  We stopped at Canadian Tire but they were no help, and the place in town they recommended was getting ready to close for a 3-hour lunch.  Go figure.  He's going to make some calls tomorrow and see if he can find something in Nipigon, otherwise we will have to proceed carefully to Thunder Bay.

We bought our first Canadian fuel today for the RV, $1.699/liter translated to $4.72/gallon.   We have fueled the Jeep several times but this was our first big hit -- $224.13 in U.S. dollars, 47.47 gallons. It was our first fuel stop for the RV since crossing the border at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

As we drove this road yesterday and again today, we saw lots of raging creeks and streams along the highway, from the heavy rain Tuesday night.  Water was streaming off the rocks lining the highway too.  This is Mink Creek.

We had tried to find a campground further up the road in Nipigon but didn't have any luck -- the campgrounds didn't answer the phone and we couldn't leave a message so we booked in here. This is our first provincial park. But this is great because our campsite is perfect!  We are about 100 yards from Lake Superior shoreline, a pebbly beach, a clear view from the RV.  This first picture is the view from inside the RV, with the Lake just right there!

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Just look at those rocks!

 We arrived at our campsite at 1:30 and after lunch I drove the Jeep down to the shore, set up my chair, and spent an hour collecting pretty rocks.  A couple walked by and asked what I was catching (I was using my rock scoop).  I told them "rocks."   

I got my shoes wet today, accidentally.  I had taken my chair down and kept moving it back, but the water kept lapping up on my feet.  But this little rock shelf -- I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to wade out to it tomorrow.  I am hoping for sunshine.

 Just as I walked up the little bank with my bag of rocks to the Jeep, Joe walked down (after I carried my bag of rocks up).  He did take my chair.  My new friends walked by just as we got to the RV so we visited with them for a while.  Then he felt like he needed a real meal and our only 2 choices that we knew of were a fancy restaurant ahead, and a restaurant/bar behind us.  We had not been impressed with the fancy restaurant in Wawa so we drove back to Schreiber to a restaurant/motel named Hungry Moose.

Well, it turns out it was Senior Night and Bingo Night.  The only place to sit was at a 4-seat table that had one person already seated.  So we joined him.  We did not play bingo (we didn't have daubers, or Canadian dollars -- but they would have provided them to us.)  The food was not great, Joe had his first taste of perigones with smoked sausage.  I tried to play it safe and went for a cheeseburger, but it didn't even taste that good.  

When bingo was over, everyone cleared out and we visited with the owner.  He had started the bingo games during the pandemic for something for people to do.  Very nice guy, interesting to talk to.  When we left, we drove on through this town, which is famous for its railway history and has a 3-train museum.

We saw these train cars on the tracks, probably 15 of these that look like apartments or something on flatbed trailers.  We never did figure out what they were -- maybe living space for railroad workers?

Also in the literature was this Catholic Grotto, behind the church.

We drove down to the beach but couldn't get that close.  There are hiking trails here from the beach.

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On our way back to the campground, Joe took a side road "shoreline drive," which was pretty awesome.  We ended up right on the shore, and believe me, Joe drove right out to the shore.

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As we left, we caught a photo of the sun reflecting on the water.  

And we found a family of "Canadian Geese" in Canada.  We thought they were all in Vincennes and Fort Wayne.  We actually had a small flock on the golf course in Marathon, but these were really cool because they had babies with them.  And the adults kept protecting them because we had a hard time getting a picture with the babies in in -- the parents kept hiding the babies.

We crossed another raging creek, Hewitson Creek, which was really pretty.  I climbed over some brush to get a good picture.

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There are frost warnings out here for tonight, low of 37, but tomorrow is supposed to be 53, sunny in the morning and partly cloudy in the afternoon.  It will be interesting if the lake has fog on it in the morning, we have seen that more than once.  And we would have a birds eye view if that occurs.