Day Sixteen
Today we departed from Happy Land Campground heading east towards Wawa, Ontario. Happy Land was a fantastic place to stay and we spent a few additional days here. This extended stay had a little motive behind it; this was to allow for other campgrounds to start opening up. Lady winter was doing her best on refusing to leave and all our preferred campgrounds along our route were delayed in opening.
During my employment at Bucars RV, I made fun of a product to my co-worker that consisted of coloured bands you put on your steering wheel to remind the operator of tasks needs to be done. I found this a silly concept, and was in disbelief that anyone would forget how to pack up an RV. This is where I eat crow! I received a pack of these as a stocking stuffer one year and I am actually glad I have them! There are so many small tasks to preform before you could even think about moving your RV. I found myself checking and re-checking certain steps until I started utilizing these. I am happily using my dummy bands and thankful for them, sorry Peter 😞
When we left Happy Land Campground, we emptied our grey and black tanks, filled up with water, and headed into town for fuel and propane. We quickly fueled up at the nearest gas station and headed to Canadian Tire for propane. There were only a few marked locations that would fill RV propane and this Canadian Tire was in the best location for our RV while towing our truck. When we arrived the service guy informed us the pump is down and unable to fill. I was in a dilemma, at this stage stage we were extremely low on propane and we planning on boon docking this evening. We figured there would be plenty of opportunities to fill up along the way, keeping me from driving into Thunder Bay and possibly doing another Winnipeg episode.
The drive around Lake Superior was beautiful, even for a early spring. I could just imagine what a fall drive would look like with all the autumn leaves. The road itself became very hilly with lots of twists and turns and I was beginning to handle the RV with a little more proficiency. Lori put on some music and the four of us set sail on a four hour tour, a four hour tour. The weather started getting rough and the tiny ship was tossed…… er …. Sorry, squirrel!
As we continued our way to Wawa, we kept our eyes peeled for any propane stations. After a few hours we chanced upon one and pulled in. I entered the store and was informed the staff trained to fill propane was off for the day, so we moved on. We where about an hour out from Wawa when we sighted another station and quickly jumped the RV over one lane and began to quickly brake in order to make the entrance. At this time our fridge had been off for five hours and we were relieved a little to finally have struck propane! When I pulled up to the pump, my heart sank! a sign on the pump read “out of order”.
When we arrived in Wawa, we took a slow drive down Main Street looking for a propane station… do you think we could find one! Nope.. nothing. At this point we had two options, pick up a 20lb propane tank, and using a special connection on my propane tank called an extend-a-stay, tie into the propane line temporarily, or, keep moving down the highway to what looked like a truck stop. We opted for the truck stop for two reasons; one, I did not want to be in a public parking lot with a propane tank sitting by our RV; two, Wawa gave us the distinct impression they did not want you to rest anywhere in their town.
We pulled into the truck stop, only to discover the stop was one of those two pump stations with a little employee hut beside it. Time was pressing as it was past Six o’clock and the puppies were getting vocal for some dinner. We parked behind a few other semi trucks sitting on a secondary road that was running parallel to the highway, and made dinner. I was not impressed with Wawa, or this truck stop and made the call to drive into the night down to Sault Ste. Marie.
The drive was amazing! There was little traffic on the highway and I took my sweet time. The highway winded along the lake giving us some spectacular views of Lake Superior. While driving I began to notice a large amount of warning signs cautioning for possible moose on highway at night, since the sun was beginning to set, the thought of coming across a moose crossed my mind but figured what would the odds of that be? Lori counted three female moose standing along the highway in different locations. We arrived into Sault Ste Marie around ten thirty and found a Flying J truck stop. We pulled into the parking and nestled our RV in amongst the rigs spending the night and retired for the night.
