Cross Canada tour cont'd

So the stay at WalMart was not a ideal place to camp the very first night in our new camper - well not new - we bought it used. The previous owners kept it up though and it sure seemed like new.

We had planned an alnighter across Ontario and obviously after the mishap in North Bay it was not in the cards. We had hoped that if we made through Ontario quickly we'd have plenty of time to make stops in the pairies - this is not what happened.

We were exhausted from the night before and made a couple stops. The first being in Big Nickel! (Sudbury for those not in the know).

We stopped at a pretty cool roadside mini-mail that looked like it was all made out of logs - but it was just a facade - a very cool facade. We got out of the car to look around and eat. We had taken the camera with us but we forgot to take pictures. At the last minute I snapped one of Marla and Ella heading to the car. I think this is near Iron Head, Ontario.

Here's Marla at Lake Superior.

Alas, we did at least make it to the time zone change (which is still in Ontario).

We arrived in Powell River

But first let me tell the tell of how we got here. My mother has made a habit of making a scrapbook of houses that the kids have lived. I think this started with my nephew Bryan. Marla and I were really busy leading up to the move so we gave Declan the camera to take picutres of the house. We told to take pictures of anything thing he wanted to remember. Voila!:

So we packed up - it was rough - it was a hot day - it was uncomfortable - and I worked way too hard the days leading up to moving day. The movers came the morning of the 9th and packed the ginormous truck but our stuff occupied a tiny little space within it. The turck apparently holds four homes minimum.

We left Lower Sackville around 6pm and planned an all-nighter drive to Ottawa. We hoped to be there the next morning BUT...

Victoriaville happened. I had a touch of pericarditis. I got to ride in an ambulance and i was treated at first like I was having a heart attack. Oh what fun. What a start to vacation. What really sucked about the situation was that I was tired and the pain only really came when I lay down. But I only spent a day in the hospital and was in Ottawa in time to go to bed. I was ordered to take it easy for 20 days which would somewhat conflicted with our plan to drive across the country but what the hell.

So we spent a few days in Ottawa and celebrated the triple birthday: my mom, Ella and Darby on July 12th:

But then we left in a hurry because we had to get to Powell River by July 22nd. We had no idea how long we could drive in a day with the kids.

It turns out we can't drive long at all. In North Bay, there was another incident equally evil - blowout on the trailer:

And Marla did not want to drive any further until with replaced the spare. Alas, where can you get a spare at night in North Bay? So

we stayed at WalMart!