Day 43 - Vermillion Bay to Falcon Lake - Tues, July 30

Last day of our big trip! We stayed at Chris and Lottie's hunting lodge until early afternoon, visiting with Lottie and updating the last few days of our blog, thanks to their great internet connection. Chris left at approximately 9:00 AM to go bait their bear feeding stations.

 Our campsite at Chris & Lottie's hunting camp

Suzanne & Robert...
leaving for our last leg of this awesome trip!

We were filling up in Vermillion Bay before we left and ran into Sheila and her friend, coming back from a visit to a friend's fishing camp just north of Vermillion Bay… what are the chances? Quick visit with them and we were off. We had nice partly cloudy skies and nice driving temperature. 

If you've followed our blog, you might remember that we posted this photo of the very insightful road signs that we have encountered on the Ontario highways, like this one...

Here's another one that we saw today...

We started seeing so much granite driving towards Kenora. Then, taking the Kenora bypass, we passed through the awesome rock cuts!

Click here for a 1 min 23 sec video of the drive through some of the rock cuts... Bill Hamilton's song "Canadian Shield Song" captures the mood of our trip very well! Thanks, Bill!

A beautiful, easy drive, back into familiar territory! Getting back into the Whiteshell, we wanted to take a photo of the all so familiar sign at the entrance of the park. Did you know that the sign is made up of actual granite? We had never noticed that until today! Very cool!

We filled up at the Falcon Lake Shell for the last time on this trip. 

We've actually driven 12,735 kms since we left Fernie with the trailer on June 14. We got to the cottage to be greeted by Colin, who had done a very good job of getting the cottage all cleaned up and ready for us. (We 're sure that he keeps it up meticulously at all times, whether we are here or not!)

During today's drive, we once again were expressing to each other how much we had so thoroughly enjoyed our travels. "What a beautiful country we live in!" seems to be the mantra of this trip!

Day 42 - Fort William to Vermillion Bay - Mon, July 29

Our campsite in Fort William

We woke up to a sunnier day. We played a bit of backgammon (I am in the lead) while having our coffee, then sat outside and worked a bit on updating our blogs as we are several days behind not having had internet connections. We never did go visit Fort William and its attractions, even though it looked very interesting! We wanted to get on the road to Vermillion Bay to visit Robert's cousins and families.

We enjoyed the beautiful drive into more familiar Ontario territory.

Robert enjoying the drive, 

even after 12,500 kms of driving 

since we left Fernie in mid June...

Just before 7:00 PM, we got to Pine Acres Camp, in Vermillion Bay, which is mostly a hunting camp now owned by Robert's cousin Chris Lavoie and his wife Lottie. 

Getting close!

 The camp headquarters... where we had the get-together...

Our campsite... camp headquarters in the background...

The camp has been in the family since 1974 when Uncle René and Aunt Joyce (Chris's parents) bought it. Uncle Rene passed away a month ago on June 19... we had started this trip from Falcon Lake on June 18 and had stopped on our first day to visit Uncle René in the hospital. He died the next day... we were so happy that we had the opportunity to see him before he passed.

 Cousin Chris in the camp "headquarters"... 

Chris, Lottie, Forrest and dog Winnie

They had organized a pot luck supper at the camp so we could see as much of the family as possible. We spent a great evening getting re-acquainted with this side of Robert's family, and getting to hear many family stories.

"Voyageur suit" that had been made for Robert's great

grandfather, I. J. "Doc" Lavoie and eventually

handed down to Robert's grandfather Paul Lavoie

About "Doc" Lavoie, Robert's great grandfather...

 The approximate date that Robert's grandfather (Paul Lavoie) 

received the outfit from his dad, "Doc" Lavoie

 The get-together!

 (Left to right) Debbie and Richard, Aaron, Robert, Suzanne, Jeremy, Patti, Chris and Winnie the dog, Ashley holding baby Owen, Hunter, Zach, Harold, Hailey with Susan, Lottie and Autumn.

 Owen, the youngest in the family... (2 months old)

 Owen, Zach, Hailey and Hunter

 Cousin Chris and his wolf kill of November, 2012, one of the
many trophies on display in this lodge... most are his.

"Hello!"

 "Stop staring at me!"

 "Where are the pic-a- nic baskets?"

 "Stay away!"

"I'm watching you!"

"No... I'M watching YOU!"

 "Did I hear someone say pic-a- nic baskets?"

 Getting late, but still enjoying our time together!

 Late night snack???

Chris and Lottie's brand new stereo!

To see more about the camp, go to www.pineacresbearcamp.ca

Day 41 - Sleeping Giant Prov Park to Fort William Campground - Sun, July 28

Our campground in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park

Jack had spent the night on our campsite, sleeping in his luxurious, roomy Prius! We spent the morning having breakfast and chatting with Jack until early afternoon. Interesting and very insightful young man! Very helpful too!

 Jack's luxurious sleeping quarters in foreground...

 The Sleeping Giant! Jack and Robert were on top of that yesterday!

We stopped for a nice lunch at a great little restaurant on the road between Sleeping Giant Prov Park and Highway #1.

The cool little restaurant after we left the campground...

Nice patio on the lake... it was a little too cool to eat there...

 Suzanne, reading about the history of Pass Lake, 

where this restaurant was situated.

 The amazing Skor dessert we both loved!

 Cliffs right across from the restaurant... the rock is so cool here also!

 Near Thunder Bay... The Terry Fox lookout. 

This is where he ended his 3000 plus km run...

 Robert, intrigued by the Giant... 

 Trying to figure out where they had explored the day before...

 In Thunder Bay Safeway parking lot... a Red Green solution...

Motorhome stopped running? No worries! Just tow it wherever you go camping!

We got to Fort William Campground, had a nice walk on their property's nature trails and settled in for the night.

 Greeted by a flock of Canada Geese at the Fort William Campground...

 Sunset on our campsite