Day 1 - Home to North Bay

After a (reasonably) uneventful drive we made it to Dreany Haven Campground, just outside of North Bay at around 2:30 in the afternoon, with 247 miles under our belt. Only 1726 miles to go (omg – I will NOT be posting the miles to go until we are a bit closer!). The weather was pleasant for driving – an average of 24C, with skies mixed.

I will admit to being wildly excited at times – seriously, I thought I’d burst into tears I was that wound up. Thankfully I’m a bit calmer now, but I don’t think it would take much to wind me up again (I’d just have to play one of the travel Alberta songs to tip me over again).

The dogs travelled pretty well today, although if they could talk they may have been saying “are we there yet?”. Especially Spike who spent much of the trip looking out of the window.

The first part of the trip was a little longer than might be expected as we skirted Ottawa and all of its construction. I think it was a good decision as we didn’t hit much traffic. Our first stop was in Arnprior for a McDonalds breakfast sandwich and another coffee. We let the dogs out to stretch their legs then piled back in and were on our way again. The country side between Arnprior and Chalk River was pretty, with some farmland and rolling hills.

Once we passed Chalk River we were more into the shield, with the odd lake here and there. After a stop for gas in Deep River, we were lucky enough to see a rest stop right on a little lake (no comment on how we turned ourselves around on the highway…). We stopped for about 1/2 hour and ate our lunch beside the lake. Lovely.

From there it was smooth sailing all the way here. We got settled quickly, went for a short walk, and had our traditional cold beer. It is a small campground with not much place to walk, not to mention narrow sites. A big rig pulled in beside us and really, there isn’t much room to sit at the picnic table. We could have driven another 1 1/2 hours to a provincial park north of North Bay, and knowing what we know now, perhaps we should have.

Campground review: The picture below is of the camper in our spot at Dreany Haven – before the big rig pulled in beside us. You can use your imagination to see what sitting out at the picnic table might be like :-/

We did take advantage of the pristine showers at the campground – they looked brand new and couldn’t be any cleaner.

Supper tonight was DiRienzo sandwiches, with some sliced cucumber. No cooking for me tonight!

I've been trying to post this from Windows Live Writer but keep getting errors - so I've transfered everything except the map (drat) over to my tablet to give it another try...

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

~Herman Melville