Day 3 -- TCH Marathon, Ontario

Yes, we're still in Onatrio :)

We drove around 430 miles today. That is more than the total of the previous 2 days, so we're feeling pretty good about ourselves. We started early today, since Buck woke up around 5:30 am. After arriving first to the hotel-provided continental breakfast, we headed off on our full-day driving tour of the Great Lakes. We covered both Lakes Huron and Superior today (we're only 1/2 way through Superior right now). Neither of us remember seeing (or swimming in) the Great Lakes. The scenery is beautiful. I tried to snap a few pictures of the our constant companion -- the water-- as we raced by. RKZ was big on making good time today after our false starts. I couldn't blame him.

We spent a few minutes chasing geese in Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced "Soo - Saint - Muhree" -- or just "The Soo"). Buck loves to follow geese around parks. I guess his dad does too, because they had a good time doing it.

We passed through Wawa, Ont. and a town that was the "original" birthplace of Winnie the Pooh (which we can't remember right now). We've ended in Marathon -- which is quite a misnomer as it would be difficult to run even a 5K here. We were hoping for a little cottage on the water. There were a lot of little resort places we passed (more missed vacations). Of course, we ended up in a Travelodge eating Pizza Hut & drinking Molson Canadians. We're quite the world travelers, eh?

A few funny thoughts as we traveled:

1. The Native peoples of Canada (refered to as "Indians" in the US, sometimes) are known as people of the "First Nations" throughout Canada. We've been driving through many reservations on our trip. From our touristy perspective, the road-side shops sell similar stuff to that of the Native Ams in the US. Lots of Dream Catchers. Buck loved the drum music that was piped through the loud-speaker, though. RKZ wouldn't let me buy $200.00 moccassin/boots. Spoil Sport. Of course, I think I saw a similar pair at DSW.

2. We don't know who builds them, but it must be a lot of travelers...there are tiny stone "figures" that line the rocks along the TCH. I will try to snap a few pictures, but we pass them quickly & they're pretty small. The figures are generally shaped like stone "people" (see the figure being used for the winter Olympics in Vancouver 2010). A group of pranksters made similar figures but with rocks that made the heads look like penises. Sorry that I didn't get pictures of all of that. We'd already lost too much time to stop.

3. Along that artistic vein, there are also a lot of "giant" (meaning really big) statues along the TCH. Just today we saw a giant goose, a large moose with a man in his mouth, a bronze horse and a waterfall with both a jet-ski and 4-wheeler at the bottom (all statues or sculpture or whatever, mind you). Again, no pictures. This is turning into a blog where you have to use a lot of imagination. I vow to take funny pictures tomorrow.

Today, just scenery.