Ontari-ar-i-o

Clever old us, we thought leaving Winnipeg bright and early on a Sunday morning would be pretty simple, but we ran into miles of police tape and traffic redirections – nothing that got in our way – because of the Manitoba Marathon.

We drove along for a while, rain and shine,

bought some fruit (California, not BC)

and saw ourselves

and then were welcomed to Ontario

where the landscape is thick with inukshuk, some say erected by hitchhikers, which are also relatively numerous in these parts.

and then just a lot of northern Ontario scenery, as promised: rocks, trees, water (repeat):

We stopped for lunch and met a valiant dog (kept very busy guarding the place from birds and beavers, according to his owner) who kept a close eye on our rig

while we tucked into some excellent pirogies (hand-made by a local Ukranian woman) for lunch.

And passed many such moose signs,

as well as 3 live and 2 dead ones, and other sobering sights.

And finally rolled into Thunder Bay safe and sound about 11 hours after starting. We had a little ramble along the industrial strip in search of food, to provision ourselves for the next leg. This venture raised some interesting questions, like what was the yellow scum round the edge of all the puddles?

We gave up on that one, and it all ended with a splendid feed.