Saturday, August 25, 2012

Chutes Provincial Park (again this summer), Ontario, Canada

Friday August 16, 2012--thru Sunday August 18, 2012

We had an early morning wake up call from Monty again today. He's keeping us on schedule! The wind has picked up, it's cloudy and looks like rain is coming. Good that we're leaving:) It's a great campsite for sunny days but no sense hanging around if
it's not nice.

We are heading today to Chutes Provincial Park in Ontario Canada. As the only provincial park on Highway 17 between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, Chutes is an excellent stopover for travellers and a base to explore the North Channel of Lake Huron. Situated on the Aux Sables River near Massey, Ontario, the park gets its name from a chute that once diverted logs around the waterfall.

It will be about 7 hours today but the road starts on Rt 2 which has been
an easy drive for us (easy for me to say since Ed is the one driving). We're planning to stay thru the weekend so we don't have trouble finding a campsite.

We got a call from Ed's broother, Doug, while driving to let us know their Uncle Paul died--'in his rose garden'. Uncle Paul was a very sweet man who's wife died last summer. Ed started to reminisce about Uncle Paul: Ed says Uncle Paul was his introduction to fishing. He and Ed's dad would take Ed deep sea fishing for flounder. Uncle Paul had a little row boat, too, that Ed says Uncle Paul would scare him by walking around the boat and making it seem tippy.

Ed remembered Uncle Paul's infectious laugh and his great party spirit.
He would dance away at weddings and be dripping with sweat! I remember his laugh as well and how really sweet he and Aunt Ellen were.
They will be missed.

We find a great WalMart in Saute Saint Marie in MI before going over the border and load up on goodies and reading material for me. I have broken my Kindle Fire during this trip. Amazon.com is replacing it for free (love that company)! I broke one last year too while camping.

We get back on the road refreshed with a sandwich from SubWay...yum! Then we had a short wait, but easy entrance to Cananda before it started to rain hard. We have another almost 3 hours to go but Ed says if it's raining he's driving on. We shall see.
The rain is torential in many points on this section of driving on Canada Route 17. Theres a motorcycle couple in front of us that is hard not to feel really bad for. They must be miserable!

When we got there the weather has cleared somewhat. We decided to stay at Chutes for the long weekend. We were afraid the next stop we went to would be full.

This is our second stop here this summer.  The girl at the registration desk even remembered Ed.  "I always remember the happy ones" she told him. Nice compliment.  I guess not everyone is happy camping?  What's with that!?

We arrived on Thursday and we're leaving on a Sunday in hopes of getting a good site at Samual DeChamplain.  Our intention is to stay 2 or 3 days and then the
remaining couple of days at Voyageur.  These are both Provincial Parks in Canada.  Provincial Parks are expensive at $37.25 a  night. The good news is they have electricity, water, showers, laundramats and bathrooms.  I guess you get what you pay for!  Also, they seem to have wider more grassy sites which I like.



No comments:

Post a Comment