Simcoe, Ontario

Well, another Charlotte story to tell.

Sunday morning Brian and I packed up. My son told us about a fantastic place in Grand Haven to have breakfast, Morning Star Cafe.  So we piled into our individual cars and met at the cafe for breakfast. It was outstanding!!! Then we headed on our way from there. .

We drove to Detroit, Michigan to the airport so we could get familiar with it for when we pick up Haylie, Sean and Chloe flying in from Kansas on Christmas eve morning. We found the airport without any trouble but when we tried to find the bridge or the tunnel to cross over to Windsor, Ontario, we missed them completely. We followed our GPS and it tried to take us back to the Port Huron/Sarnia crossing, which was way out of our way. We lost an hour just getting back on track and finally crossing over to Windsor.

We were heading to Rob & Michelle's house in Brantford for the night but when we hit London, Ontario we called them and cancelled our plans. We drove right into a horrible blizzard with white out conditions and traffic was crawling on the 401 heading East. We could see there were at least 10 cars in the ditch and guard rail plus a semi jack-knifed and there were tons of emergency vehicles on the other side of the highway. They were diverting westward traffic off the 401 to the 402. We finally got off the 401 near Ingersoll, driving to Tillsonburg and took the #3 to Simcoe. It was really scary driving in this awful stuff. London hasn't seen this kind of storm for 30 years the news said shutting down schools and roads with 4 - 5 feet of snow blown in from Lake Huron.

We found a really cheap motel room with a kitchenette just west of Simcoe called "Fairview Motel". They have weekly rates so we booked the room for four nights and are staying here since Monday till Friday morning. I'm looking for a job but this is a difficult time of year to get work.

Brian got hired by Canadian Tire basically before we moved, they just wanted to see him for a face to face interview but with his background they snatched him up and made a place for him. We arranged our cell phones to be changed to local numbers; we're arranging house insurance and have a meeting with the lawyers on Thursday; I found a hair salon today and finally caved -- wiped out the gray roots and got it cut and styled -- I feel like a million bucks right now.....it was just the pep in my step that I needed.

The weather has me a little worried though -- the snow just won't stop coming down. Everyone here is shocked and caught off guard. They haven't seen this much snow in years. Anyone who has ever heard my 'whenever I move' story in the past, may be thinking, 'oh yeah, Char did it again!'.....just when we move here they get a freak snow storm. LOL

A few more days and we'll be in our house. Worrying a bit about how this weather is going to affect delivery of our furniture but all I can do is pray and trust the Lord to handle this. Hoping we get everything taken care of that needs to be done. So excited. The next time you hear from me, we will be IN our new house and hopefully I'll have a job.

Long Point Provincial Park

We left Brian's mother's house this afternoon. It was very sad, she walked us outside and hugged us both and said, ‘I haven’t felt this bad since Susan went off to college’. We hugged her again and reminded her that once we get moved we would be coming up to visit her every month and she should work on her monthly ‘to do’ list for Brian. I felt bad having to say goodbye and leave her all alone. She had travel plans coming up in a day or two so she had something to look forward to with her bridge group. I still can’t believe Isobel is 83 years old.

We arrived at Long Point Provincial Park and it was raining for the last hour of the drive. It was dark by the time we got here so we can't even see where we are until tomorrow morning when we get up. It is not something I recommend when setting up camp!!!! Thankfully we found a few "pull-through" sites because there is no way I was going to direct Brian in backing up this motorhome in the dark AND in the rain to boot. As it was I had to get out of the motorhome, and with my little flashlight act like an air traffic controller, to direct him through the site till we could get it parked. I basically walked ahead of him in the rain as he followed me driving the motorhome like a lost puppy!!! Men!!! Just get out and check out the sites with a flashlight because I want to 'get er done' and obviously it can't be done from the road when you can't see 2 feet in front of you!!! It was funny but a bit frustrating.

Tomorrow our Realtor will pick us up at Long Point and drive us to the new house where we are meeting the home inspector. I'm anxious to see it again and hopefully take a few of my own photos of the inside of the house.

Interestingly I met a man at the campground tonight who just happens to live just down the road from where we'll be living if we get the house.

Turkey Point Campground

We camped last night again at Lakewood Christian Campground outside of Sarnia. Headed out today driving along Lake Huron, exploring little towns along the way. We actually arranged to meet with a realtor to look at a house but she forgot and we surprised the owner, who nicely took us around to show us his house. This, ironically, was the second time that we looked at a house showed by the home-owner and that person was a man showing the house unexpectedly without his wife's knowledge -- apologizing for how messy it was. Kind of funny.

Anyway, along the way, we stopped in London and bought our first Ipod. Wow!
We drove on to Turkey Point Provincial Park for the night.

Sarnia

SARNIA HEADLINES: Drive-thru bandits take Tim Horton’s till.

Two customers at a Tim Horton’s drive-thru near Sarnia, Ont., took more from the pickup window than they were supposed to. Police said two men pulled up to the Bright's Grove coffee shop window around 4:40 a.m. Tuesday. They said one man then crawled through the drive-thru window. A second man held his feet so he wouldn't fall into the restaurant. Police said the first man then used a knife to cut the cables on the back of the cash register and pulled it back into the car before the vehicle pulled away from the drive-thru.

We are now in Sarnia but it IT WASN'T US!!! HONEST! We drove around the area and went to a house on Lakeshore Road, which was listed for sale. We noticed an "open house" sign just down the road so we pulled up to that house and realized we would be 2 days early as it was advertised for Sunday. Just about the time we were walking back to our motorhome, the owner drove up and got out of his car. He came over to meet us and started chatting -- a very friendly guy named Phil. Come to find out he use to live in Calgary but also use to live in Sarnia and moved back here a few years ago. He was very familiar with all the South-western part of Ontario. He told us about Sarnia from a more positive perspective. Then he offered to show us around his house. He was moving to Vancouver now because of his job. Anyway, it was funny, how it all worked out. He took us around this beautiful house and we were very impressed but knew it was way out of our league and we were right, it was way beyond our budget.

Phil was very helpful and very trusting to show two complete strangers inside his house, especially after the Tim Horton's robbery a few days ago. LOL Phil told us how to get to the nearby Centennial Park that has public beach access to Lake Huron. (Everyone we meet says they would never swim in Lake Erie because it is so dirty but that Lake Huron is great!) We told Phil that we were planning to stay at the Lakewood Christian Campground on the edge of town. He confirmed that it was a good place to stay so we drove outside of town to view an acreage for sale then we headed over to the campground.

As soon as we arrived we notice how clean and organized it was for a set up of 300 seasonal campers plus a lot more for overnighters. We set up for the evening and then rode our bikes around with Teddi running along beside us AND trying to chase squirrels! Teddi is about 70 years old in dog years so by the time she got home and ate her dinner, the poor girl just dropped onto her bed by the campfire and didn't move until we went in for the night. She loved every minute of it.

Well that’s it for the evening. Tomorrow it is suppose to rain all day and we are pulling out. We’re going back to Michigan tomorrow to see the kids for another four days.

Chatham and Mitchell's Bay

We looked over the area of Chatham today and made contact with a realtor we had spoken with in June. I suggested we meet for lunch at Tim Hortons because I really needed a “double-double”. This is when I learned something today about Ontario. The Tim Horton's chains across Ontario do not accept payment by debit or Visa, they only accept payment by Cash, Mastercard or by pre-paid Tim's card. It was a good thing I had cash on me. The manager explained to us that all Tim's, across Ontario, are just now getting debit machines in. I told her, "You've got to be kidding me. We've had them in Calgary forever." She said they were behind Calgary when it comes to getting things into getting these things. We were not happy and I said to Brian, "Well, maybe we should reconsider moving to Ontario and specifically Chatham if Tim Horton's is not up to date with the times! Maybe I should write a letter". The manager said, "Oh you don't need to do that, we're definitely will be getting the debit system anytime now, it just hasn't happened yet."

We sat down to eat when the realtor, a local resident, arrived as planned. I told him about the debit and Visa thing just as the manager came over and handed me a complimentary $25.00 Tim's card hoping this would get us off to the right start. Obviously I thanked her and was more impressed by the way she handled the situation. Of course, I felt like crap about it, but hey, it got me set up with free coffee and donuts for awhile, didn't it? Later when I read up on the situation I found a blog about it written by Steve Thoms commenting on how Ontario’s backwards ways. Neither Brian nor I ever heard anything about this but it seems there are a lot of places in Ontario that don’t take debit or credit cards. This really surprises me.

As we drove across Southwestern Ontario we noticed a lot of trucks carrying tomatoes. Leamington is known as the “Tomato Capital” of Canada -- they even have a Tomato Festival every year. The tomato is the largest vegetable crop grown in area. They also grow corn and we noticed lots of fields across Southwest Ontario growing tobacco. The moderate climate and soil are perfect for growing tobacco even though the government is trying to control it and offered farmers $300M to quit growing tobacco.

We drove as far as Mitchell's Bay today where we camped for the night. Mitchell's Bay is a community of about 350 year round residents located on the east shore of beautiful Lake St. Clair. Their website says they are well-known throughout the entire Midwest for great fishing, boating and camping and has some of the best smallmouth Bass and Pickerel fishing to be found anywhere in North America! I guess people come from as far away as Great Britain, and many travel from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Texas to enjoy the world class fishing!

It must be true, because we met a guy from Ohio, named John, who pulled his fishing boat to Mitchell’s Bay. He didn’t have a camper and just slept in the back up his pickup. John said he takes off several weeks at a time to just get away and fish. He was a heck of a nice guy. He and Brian chatted for quite some time and then Brian asked him over to our motorhome for a beer or two. We had an interesting evening chatting with him for a long time. Brian kind of needed the socialization with someone other than me. We had some issues with the campsites around us -- set up strangely for non-seasonal campsites with the electrical plugs 75 feet from the water taps. We got out and started setting up camp in the pouring rain when we discovered we needed to add on the extra water hose extension just to get it to stretch far enough to reach the tap. Even then it STILL didn't reach. Another camper offered to loan us her extra hose when we found our electrical plug in wouldn't reach anyway so we had to unhook and move the motorhome off the gravel parking sideways on the grass just to get it to reach. When Brian went to the office to pay, he told them about it and how difficult that was. An older gentleman there said, "well, you know this place was built back in the 70's". Brian said, "and this is now 2010 so don't you think you should upgrade the accommodations?" The owner was real nice and drove over to the site so Brian could point it out to him. We were stunned that nobody ever complained about the stupidity of this before. It all worked out but we sure thought that was the strangest set up we ever saw.

Wheatley

Woke up and got a slow start traveling today. So enjoyed just relaxing. Brian and I have decided Fall is a great month for camping because everyone has gone back to school and summer is basically over so no crowds. The leaves are going to be turning soon, you can feel it coming. Nature is getting ready. The squirrels are busy gathering acorns and everything looks like it is winding down.

We drove through Simcoe, Delhi, Tillsonburg, Aylmer, St. Thomas, Blenheim and Wheatley before settling down for the night. We've discussed it and think that Tillsonburg is really nice but we're still checking the areas we feel we want to live in.

We found the Lakeside Village Motel and Campground just outside of Wheatley. The campground is right on the bluffs overlooking Lake Erie. We pretty much had the campground all to ourselves as the seasonal campers are gone right now...maybe they'll be out on the weekend but for now it is very quiet except for the heavy winds. The multiple wind turbines around the countryside between Blenheim and Wheatley suggest it might be too windy for us to live here. Tonight we got a little taste of it as our motorhome swayed us to sleep.

Tomorrow we are heading down to see Leamington and then back up to Chatham-Kent.

Rondeau Provincial Park

Arrived at Rondeau Provincial Park near Blenheim, Ontario. Was having a very emotional day as we left Brantford this morning. It all became very overwhelming for me as we found ourselves traveling the back roads looking for houses. It felt as though we were lost but we weren't. I had a panic attack and broke down. It just closed in on me and hit me hard. We decided to go back to our original plan, calm down and drive along Lake Erie and check out the little towns we could be living in to see if can get a better sense for the area. The stress was really getting to me of all this waiting while we move forward....in other words traveling by blind faith but tonight, well tonight God gave me the most beautiful signs that He is with us and that we are on the right path.

Our campsite has electricity but other than that it isn't much of a park....or so I thought. I remember the poster about nature trails and what this park has to offer. It mentioned the Monarch Butterfly migration. I didn't think much about it but just as it was getting dusk, we looked and suddenly notice 100's literally 100's of Monarch Butterflys roosting in the trees for the evening. We were able to get some pictures. I turned to Brian and said, this is a sign from God -- butterflys are symboling of transformation, change and new beginnings. Think about it. How many butterflys did we see all along this trip? 1. Mackinac Island Butterfly Conservatory, 2. walking Sage back from the playground we saw about 10 Monarch butterflys, 3. must have been 100 Monarchs roosting in the trees this evening.

It had been a rough day for us...stressing out while trying to get off the backroads and stop trying to find houses to look at; I had a panic attack and started crying. Then tonight, it all changed. It was like God was showing me that we were like the migrating butterflys -- we're on the right path.

Then we walked Teddi through the quiet campground over to the most beautiful setting for a sunset -- on the lake. I couldn't risk going back to the camper to get my camera so we were forced to sit down and remember it. It was the most peaceful moment in my life!!!! It was magical and time-stopping beautiful. I felt the best peace ever in my life. I knew what God was doing -- I turned to Brian and said 'God wants us to know His perfect peace and that we should be at peace about all this...He's got us on the right path and its all going to be ok.'

Finally we had to finish the walk with Teddi but I asked Brian to give me a minute. Then I prayed and thanked God for everything.

Sept 15th -- the next morning. I got up early and started walking toward the sounds of ocean waves against the shore. I followed the sound across the backside of the campground till I found a footpath to the beach. There it was...Lake Erie! The beach was desserted and quiet. The houses along the shore must be leasing the government land but all was quiet. I listened to the waves rolling in and took a couple of pictures, then headed back to campsite.



We found a dragonfly inside the camper this morning. When Brian walked to Lake Erie, he came back and told me he was swarmed by about 50 black flies and began to tell me the annoyance of black flies...something I am not familiar with. I only thought I would have to worry about millions of mosquitos in Ontario but the black flies sound horrible. There are a lot of bugs here!