May 20th, 2014

After metaphorically shaking the dust of Iron Bridge off my wheels, I set the GPS for St. Thomas and just drove.  Unfortunately, my brain was still a bit foggy from flu or food poisoning or whatever, so when I noted a sign saying I was going west, not south or east, I didn't bother looking at a map, just figured maybe I had driven too far east (since my original plan was to go to Sudbury before St. Thomas) and now needed to backtrack before dropping south.  When Samantha (my GPS voice) told me to turn left, I figured that that must be south, so all was well.  However, when I pulled into Sault Ste. Marie, I knew I'd made a mistake - and when I saw the signs for the International Bridge to the U.S., I pulled over and finally got out the map.  Sure enough, Samantha wanted me to drop south into Michigan and cross back into Canada at Port Huron.  I thought for a few minutes and decided to opt for Interstate driving with a speed limit of 75 mph (120 kph) instead of crappy Ontario backroads with a speed limit of 80 kph. Crossing the border into Canada a second time was kind of entertaining, as I explained that yes, I had been in the states for 6 months, had been in Canada for almost three weeks, and was taking a shortcut from Sault Ste. Marie to Port Huron.  The border guard actually asked me the value of goods I was bringing into Canada from the states.  I reminded him that I'd been in Michigan for four hours and really hadn't accumulated anything. Lucky for him, he waved me on, since I was major cranky and exhausted and just plain awful feeling at that point.  I made it to St. Thomas that afternoon, to visit my good friends Jim and MaryLee Covil. MaryLee fixed me some soup and sympathy and I settled in for a lovely visit.  No pictures of this part of the trip, for obvious reasons!!

My wonderful friends, Jim and MaryLee