A journey of a thousand miles......

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with single footstep." - Ancient Chinese Proverb

Yeah, well for us a journey of 6,500 kilometres begins with turning the ignition!

Day #1 - Parry Sound, Ontario - Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.  (500 km)

This was a relatively light day, but according to the Government of the Northwest Territories we have to leave from Greg's hiring address which is, of course, London.  This means that technically today we drove from London to Sault Ste. Marie which is 800 km.  We were glad to be off the road, though, because it was raining most of the way, quite heavily at times.

We made a stop today in Blind River to visit with the woman who actually hired Greg.  Agnes Cudmore was the principal at the school in Tuk for the last four years and she has decided to retire.  She and her husband have been driving back and forth across Canada for the last four years and we thought they might have some great advice about how to navigate the roads in the North, and they did.  They corroborated a lot of what we had heard from others and researched.  It was very reassuring to talk with them about life in Tuk, and what to expect.  Tonight we had dinner with a friend of Greg's who lives and works in Sault Ste. Marie.  It was lovely to see Elaine again, and thank you for the use of your St. Christopher statue, who will hopefully keep us happy wanderers safe in our journey.

While we were driving today, we saw the Canadian Shield - which is a regular occurrence for us in Parry Sound.  It gets really rocky as you drive north through Sudbury, the nickel capital, and then after Sudbury there is, believe it or not, lots of farmland.  We even saw a Mennonite couple in their horse and buggy along the side of the road in the pouring rain.  The only protection they had from the rain was the big black umbrella the woman was holding.  It was really raining quite hard at the time and I felt badly for them. Apparently there is a large Mennonite population, which reminded me of Southwestern Ontario in the Kitchener Waterloo region and St. Jacob's area.  You could definitely tell which houses and farms were Mennonite and which ones weren't by the lack of electricity and poles around the farm, as well as the enormous vegetable gardens growing near the Mennonite farmhouses.  Another thing that distinguished them were the clothes lines, a few of which still held items that were obviously not clothing of current trends!

One thing the kids began to notice was that the road signs became bilingual as we approached Sudbury.  They were really impressed with that, and were trying to pronounce a few of them, with my help of course! They were especially prominent as we drove through Sault Ste. Marie.

We shall begin our day tomorrow with Greg going to get our van's oil changed to the synthetic variety, which apparently is slower to freeze, so that it can circulate through the van and get used to synthetic, while I take the kids for a swim to get some exercise and stretch those muscles before our ride to Thunder Bay.

All in all, a successful day. Tomorrow will be much longer, but the kids are enthusiastic.  Our first 500 kms are over.  Here's to 6,000 more!