Canada-By Way Of Detroit

It is unfortunate when you meet great people and do not keep in touch with them.  We were not going to let this happen with Mark and Colleen, folks we met and floated down the river with while in AZ.

Prior to heading south (yes south) to Canada we were able to attend Julia's first gymnastics meet.  Several stations were set up and the kids were split into groups of three each group taking a turn at every station.  Although Julia is a darned good gymnast she was rather shy of 'performing' in front of such a large crowd.

Shelby however would had been raring to go-yup just look at that face-she's ready.

 Kelly helped Julia feel more secure in this station

 And once she felt comfortable she took off on her own

 The happiness on her face brought tears to Grandma's eyes

 Of course every participant received a trophy but this is the most cherished one in my humble opinion.

 After a celebratory lunch at Old McDonalds, we headed out for Canada.  And yes we traveled south.  Our friends live in Windsor which is south of where we live in Minnesota.  Crazy it was when I realized this fact.  Going through Chicago and Detroit, well not absolutely through but crazy enough, was a nail biter but we made it.  And then there's crossing the border.  There are two places to cross here, one is the tunnel the other is the bridge.  We wanted the bridge but went the tunnel way by accident and again quite by accident found our way back to the bridge only to find ourselves wondering which lanes do we go in-the truckers lane or the car lane.  We had been told to use the car lanes and we did.  The car lanes, due to construction, were damned narrow.  Rounding a corner found us riding a curb for a bit (no big surprise hey Mikey?), thank goodness we did no damage to the motorhome.

Finally there she is the bridge to Windsor.  Note the weight on that bridge as David so kindly pointed out!

 It was a great view of the Detroit/Windsor waters

 And our first Canadian flag-yep we made it

 In Windsor they still have roadside vegetable stands put out by normal people who either raise their goods or get them from the huge greenhouses in this area.  David was pretty darned excited to get a few of these great tomatoes and peppers

 And new potatoes

 At $5.00 for three of the containers.  The tomatoes were a dollar a piece.  They were huge and tasted great.

 Point Pelee was on the agenda for a day trip.  First up was a board walk through the marsh

 We spied turtles basking in the sun

 And water lilies

 And this, our friend Mark tells me, is a gator trap.  They bait the gators into the trap, close the lid and wallah you got yourself a gator.  He sucked me in hook line and sinker....there are no gators here for goodness sake.  It was a good story told by a great bullshitter and I believed him.

 This is a map of the county where Windsor is in.  It shows Point Pelee bottom right.  If you click on the map you will see that we are now south of Detroit.  Point Pelee is the southern most tip of Canada from where you  can see Cleveland

 Below is the legend for the park.  A great place

 A very interesting fact

 Here we are, the four of us, standing farther south than any other Canadian was at the time.  By the way the water was darned cold.

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When we aren't sight seeing we do a lot of this...until the boys started playing Face Book Texas Hold em and then they got Colleen involved.  Now you see these three each with a laptop in hand playing like it is real money.  Me, I am content to watch thank you very much.

 

Another day found us in downtown Windsor at this restaurant enjoying Dim Sum which is authentic Chinese Tea which means a sharing of food.  We were joined by Mark and Colleen's daughter and family and had 9 of us at a table.  Colleen has been forever dubbed by her family as the one who says yay or nay to the food as it comes by.  Wait people carrying trays of authentic Chinese food stop constantly offering a new good each time.  We had never had any of these foods and found many that we both enjoyed and a few not so much.  It was yet another great experience.

 And then one can't miss the boardwalk on the Canadian side that looks over into Detroit.  This is not smog but is mist.  It was a hot, humid misty day (most of the days have been in the 90's with 400 percent humidity I am sure).

 There are many gardens in this area

 One night we dicided a corn dog from the local fair would be just the ticket for supper.  As with most fairs there was a tractor pull.  They look like no tractor that I have ever seen but...
They rev up their engines

 And go like hell pulling a boat load of weight

 Stirring up a shit load of awful smelling dust and fumes. 

Colleen and Mark are great hosts and there is more to share, stay tuned.  Did I mention that it has been sweltering here?  Seriously who comes to Canada thinking you are going to melt in June!