Been Gone

So it's been quite awhile since I posted last but I was away on my long road trip, ten weeks on the road with my sister and brother-in-law. We went out to Alberta through Northern Ontario and the Prairies and came back to Ontario through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Ten weeks is a long time to be with two people you don't normally live with and sometimes we got on each other's nerves but in general we had a good time together. My sister is a good navigator and planned our daily routes from one campground to the next. 

My sister but especially my brother-in-law like to visit local breweries and bars, sometimes I felt like that was all they wanted to do. For me, I wanted to see the sites and not just sit on another outdoor patio having yet another beer, so sometimes I went off on my own. They also are far more relaxed in the morning, often having two cups of coffee before they even think of breakfast, that I can't do and so I started eating cereal or having a yogurt while having my first cup of coffee, otherwise I would have been starving before we had breakfast. On one occasion, when we only have a couple days in a location, I left to do my own thing after eating a yogurt and a few pieces of corn bread. 

We had campfires most evenings. My brother-in-law excels at chopping wood. My opinion is that he isn't as good of a fire maker as he thinks he is. For one thing, he uses all of the kindling he's made to start the fire, then when the bigger pieces don't light there's no small pieces left to keep the fire going. When he has a nice fire going with the kindling, he doesn't put a larger piece of wood on to get it going. He often knocks down the fire before it's hot enough and so usually has quite a smoky fire rather than a roaring fire. 

We didn't drive long days, although sometimes it felt like it. Most days we were at the next campground by about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, enough time to set up, walk the dogs and relax before dinner. We were quite lucky with the weather, while we had to drive in some rain storms and some strong winds, in ten weeks, we never once had to set up or tear down in the rain. 

We drove over 8000 kilometers to our destinations and over 9000 kilometers if you add in all the driving to visit various sites. We're still on speaking terms and have another short trip planned for September before the trailer has to parked for the winter. I'm going to get my photos downloaded from my phone and organized a little, then I'll do several posts about the trip.