Day 7: Over the Top
Beaches: 2
Waterfalls: 1
Gemstones: hundreds
Canadian Road Rage Episodes: 1
Actual results of those “Falling Rocks” signs: 1
Memories:
Danny: Mom taking our picture at the Sleeping Giant; Grace and I had a really good time in general.
Grace: The Amethyst mine
Therese: Canadian road rage, the views while driving
Gordon: The two Sleeping Giants; the kids doing Ninja Warriors in the skate park; the Finnish restaurant: Hoitos
I must admit, waking up in a motel room is much more comfortable than in a tent. It was also nice to be in Thunder Bay instead of about 30 minutes away. We stopped at a nationally famous restaurant: Hoito. Hoito is a Finnish restaurant founded in the early 1900’s by workers who wanted an affordable place to eat to match their affordable lodging. The food was delicious and the atmosphere was still working class.
After that it was off to the Thunder Bay Marina. The weather was warming up and it was a nice day for a stroll. We wandered along the shore admiring the “Sleeping Giant” island. For a while, Gordon swore it was a different island but the locals soon set us straight. A bit further we came to a really cool skateboard park. It was empty so the kids ran around playing “American Ninja Warrior”.
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| The real Sleeping Giant |
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| Not the Sleeping Giant |
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| At the skateboard park |
After that it was time to head out of town and over the top of the lake. The drive was quite spectacular and no photos can do it justice. We wanted to visit an Amethyst mine and a waterfall before we reached our motel.
First up was the Amethyst mine. It was about a 20 minute drive on a winding gravel road after our exit. But the drive was worth it. After a brief tour explaining the origins of the mine and the geological origins of Amethyst, we were set free to dig through rock piles and the ground for amethyst stones to the tune of just $3 a pound. The mine has been in business since the early 1960’s. It’s a relatively small operation, not really a mine, rather a rock pit which sometimes blasts out rock and other times breaks rock loose with pressure hoses. The kids had a blast finding the perfect stones and using various tools including a hose with pretty high pressure. We planned on two pounds each but walked away with about 11 pounds of truly beautiful stones.
We spent more time at the mine than we had planned so we were a bit behind schedule. But since we were still pretty much full from breakfast, we decided to press on to the small town of Nipigon (pronounced Nipi-gun). One of our magazines recommended La Luna Cafe and Bakery as a good stop to eat. It was one of probably 4 places to eat in the whole town. The food was delicious. Very health, lots of wonderful greens and a very helpful and talkative proprietor who recommended a waterfall coming out of a gorge which was very close to our motel.
We had a very nice leisurely very late lunch. We popped in to the next door Nipigon museum. There we were able to see the world record holding speckled trout. Actually, we saw a replica. The original was burned in a fire. But toward the back of the museum was the charred remains of the original fish. Never have I seen so much time and documentation dedicated to a fish. Cross that off our list!
During our beautiful drive along the rocky cliffs of Lake Superior we encountered a huge rock-slide across the road. Just days ago, this road was closed with a 2 hour detour. As it was, our drive was slow and we got to see the bulldozers and scoopers removing rock from the washed out road.
We also got to witness a bit of road rage. I should explain that this highway is relatively new and has a passing lane on either side about every 5 miles so it is easy to pass if you’re just a little bit patient. Up ahead of us was a tanker with it’s flashers on as it descended a steep grade. Behind me, a huge dump truck laid on the horn and crawled up my tail lights. He passed me in a huff, driving across the double yellow line. After he passed me, he honked at the next car, a small blue sports car which was about 5 cars back from the slow moving vehicle. He followed this car as closely as he could, occasionally creeping out into the no-passing lane trying to get around. We got to a red light with a wait to drive through a single lane in the construction zone. The guy in the blue car got out and started yelling at the dump truck guy. The light turned green and the blue car guy got back in his car. Again the dump truck tried to get around him right at the intersection. The light turned red before I could go, so we’ll never know the ultimate outcome. At least we know that in Canada, no one was going to be pulling out a gun.
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| Rage truck |
We arrived at the waterfall which I am now too tired to look up the name of…it was quite spectacular and worth the stop. Then it was on to our Motel.
My research paid off again as this place, while older and small, is extremely clean. The couple who runs the hotel lives in Florida in the winter. They said they never get out while they are here, they’re so busy keeping this place up. It’s beautiful, nestled in the woods and across the road from a little pond which Danny explored a bit.
Then it was a dose of the Olympics and bed. Tomorrow we head through some Canadian forrest as the road veers inland to avoid some extremely rough terrain near the lake.
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