Arrival in Moncton, NB

We're finally at our destination.  Eight days scheduled at this campground to make day trips all over the Atlantic Provinces.  :)

One Night in Quebec and another in St. Jacques, NB

We drove out of Ontario and into Quebec. We had been warned that all the road signs were only in French. It didn’t cause too much trouble. We just followed the numbers (same in both languages.) The campground brochure was in French and we had to use sign language to find out where the trash dumpsters were. Over-air television was plentiful since we were just outside of Montreal, but 5-6 stations out of the nine we could get were in French.

We had a first on Friday, though.  We crossed the St. Lawrence River, a huge water way that gets bigger and bigger the farther northeast that you go.

We followed the south side of the river after Quebec City and decided to take a closer look at the local neighborhoods. We left the freeway and drove into this little town on the river. I don’t remember it’s name but it was probably St. Something, as many of the Quebec cities are named after Saints.  Many of them sport a church with similar steeples to the ones in the picture. Beautiful little river towns just waiting for the summer tourist season to begin.

 You can see the St. Lawrence in the background of this picture as we approached the town.  It’s the brown water on the right of the picture.

As we traveled through Quebec, we found most people to be bilingual and ordering a sandwich at Subway was easier than we thought it was going to be when we heard the customers ahead of us ordering in French. We found this sign at the campground office when we checked in. (now in New Brunswick but still very French.)  The address this night is really St, Jacques, NB for all of those who care.  For the others reading this blog, that is my mother's maiden name and the last name of many of my relatives.

Sounds like an invitation for a beer.

We've had another first - we're in the Atlantic Time Zone, four hours different from Home. Sunrise and sunset are early and late, making for long days this far north.

125 years for the Port Huron Church

Sorry about the tardiness of this post.  I found this post from last Sunday and it was never made public.  For this last week we've had spotty internet connections so today I'm also posting last night's ramblings and a comment for tonight.

Sunday, May 18, 2014
Today's celebration was a great event.  Church went on for an hour and 40 minutes, but nobody minded. We had lunch at the country club and got to do lots more visiting.

First Presbyterian has been standing on the same corner for many years

Later in the day we went down to look at the St. Claire River and the Lake again.  The ships were all gone from the bottom of Lake Huron.

View of South Lake Huron with Canada across the river

The campground has been interesting. This is the weekend that Canadians celebrate Victoria Day. Many have been at the campground, enjoying their long weekend.  This next picture is of the Blue Water Bridge over the St. Claire River, into Sarnia, Ontario. Can you see the line of cars (little bumps on the far span) going east, ending their weekend of camping or shopping or whatever a little early. Many of the businesses were have Canadian appreciation specials. Half of the license plates around town were from Ontario.

Blue Water Bridge to Sarnia

First Day in Canada

Wednesday was a busy day. Bob's old golfing buddies from the Port Huron Church invited him to play golf in the morning.  After thunder storms on and off all night, the morning was perfect for golf. Linda did some laundry at Gary and Shirley Rhody's house and then went out for lunch with one of the other golf widows and Shirley. In the evening we had dinner with a long-time Presbytery of Detroit friend, Needa Nichols.  A busy, full day.

Thursday we drove over the Blue Water bridge into Canada.  It was a quick and uneventful crossing.  At the end our our driving day, we had reserved a spot in Grafton, ON.  When we entered the park, we learned that an Egg Fest was going on.  We didn't have a clue what it was.

It happens to be a group of people, all of whom own a small, fiberglass trailer that was made in the seventies and could be pulled by a small car.  They were called Bolers. We met some nice people camping here.  Our Phoenix Cruiser looked like a giant among these trailers.

Here is one that's painted to match the car pulling it.

Do you like pink?

This seems a little more reasonable

Just another day at the State Park

We've done some maintenance things, today - oil change for the RV, added propane, gasoline.  We are going into Canada where things are more expensive, so we're trying to be prepared.

We had dinner last night with Kathy and Bill Emery, a beautiful evening on their back porch where we could watch all the birds that they attract to their feeders. Tomorrow Bob has a golf date with some Port Huron golfing buddies and I have a date with Shirley Rhody who volunteered her washer and dryer so I  can catch up on some laundry.  Then the golfing widows are going to lunch. It should be fun.

Some campground pictures:

Some violets across from our site.

First campfire of the trip - actually warm enough to sit out and enjoy

Relaxing At Lakeport State Park

Yesterday (Friday), we drove down to Warren and enjoyed lunch and an afternoon of visiting with the folks at Celtic Cross during their annual Trash and Treasure Sale.  We knew this included a great bake sale, and we came home with some samples (thankfully no Trash or Treasures).

Gary and Shirley Rhody from the Port Huron church had invited us for dinner and cake afterward. It made for a day full of fun and visiting.

Today we're just vegging out at the park.  I couldn't resist another picture of the trillium.

We walked out to the beach.  When we turned around to look at the campground this is what we saw.  You can see the trees are barely starting to leaf and the campground is hidden.  It was cold on the beach, though.

Lake side of campground

Then when we looked out to the lake, we saw ten Great Lakes freighters sitting out in the lake. Gary told us that they are sitting there, waiting for clearance to go north. Earlier, there was so much ice in Lake Superior that they were going in convoys, escorted by the Coast Guard up through the lake.  The ice is gone and the convoys are over, but these ships are still waiting for pilots.  I guess they are "salties" (ocean-going boats) and therefore need a pilot. You have to look carefully, but you can see some of the ships on the horizon in this picture.

One night in Indiana and then our destination in Michigan

Wednesday's stay was outside of Peru, Indiana and a campground specializing in Disk Golf.  Mmmmmm...  They tried to explain all about it even though it was raining and there was no way we were going to play.  We did buy a pizza from the campground office, though.  When we checked in, we were given a menu for fresh pizza with a whole variety of toppings, cooked for eating at your designated time. As Bob says, "It was a 'no-brainer' - pizza for supper."

We drove north on I 69, right into Port Huron.  It's cold and gloomy here and the trees are just starting to leaf, but the real treat was behind our camp site.  There is trillium blooming all through the woods here at the Lake Port State Park.  Beautiful!