Our RV Adventures

Today was another fun, but long day, and a late night too. So I’m reposting some more of our visit to the Sault Ste. Marie area in July 2013.

We left for the Canadian side of the Soo Locks about 1pm. And after showing our passports at the border, we first headed down to the Bushplane Museum.

First up was this Canadair CL-215 firefighting amphibious water bomber, one of the premiere planes of the type.

It fills its tanks by landing at high speed on a lake or river, opening the tank fill doors,

and then waiting until water starts gushing out of this overflow outlet. In 8 hours they can may as many as a hundred bombing runs.

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Whenever I see one of these old Bell 47’s all I can think of is “Whirlybirds”, an old TV show.

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Next up is this replica Fokker Tri-Motor, built for the movie, Amelia, about Amelia Earhart. Although I never flew in one of these, I did fly in a Ford Tri-Motor a number of times when we were living in South America in the early 60’s.

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Here’s a neat little homebuilt amphibian, an Esperanza 4.

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And this is pretty much the “end all and be all” of bushplanes, the de Havilland Beaver. First designed in the 1940’s, over 1600 were built until production ended in 1967, with more than 1200 still flying. A real workhorse.

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And RC-3 Seabee

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And for some reason, they also had several old cars there. This the fabled Stanley Steamer, a car that I had never actually seen in person before.

Doesn’t look like you’d have to change the sparkplugs on this one.

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The next two are a couple of Fords. The only problem with the car displays is that there was absolutely no info on them anywhere, I even ask some of the guides and no one knew the make or year of any of them. Bummer.

After seeing a couple of good films on bushplanes and aerial firefighting, we left the museum and headed north up PH17, looking for moose.

Yep, we were on another Wild Moose Chase.

Jan had been told there were a lot of moose about 20 miles north of town in the Mile Hill area. So off we went. But although we found the area with a lot of “Watch For Moose” signs, no moose.

Sometimes I feel like Coronado searching for the Seven Cities of Gold. They’re always right over the next hill.

On our way north we had passed a Boston Pizza, one of our favorites, and by the time we came back past, it was 4:30 and we couldn’t resist stopping for dinner. And as usual, we ordered the large Meater, to give us plenty of leftovers.

On a related note, what is it with the northern Midwest and cold drinks. First, pretty much every place we eaten since Bend, OR never has any sweetener on the table. And after they bring you your drink, they don’t even offer. You have to ask for it. What’s up with that?

And I’m sorry, but ordering a glass of ice water or iced tea does not mean three lonely ice cubes floating on top of a glass of tepid liquid. It’s usually pretty cold up here. Why do they have to ration ice cubes?

Leaving Boston Pizza and heading home, we stopped off at a Tim Horton’s to pick up some muffins for our next travel days, and also got Iced Hazelnut Cappuccinos to go.

Except for having to wait in line behind a bunch of semi’s, we didn’t have any trouble getting back across the border. I guess Jan’s past hasn’t caught up with her yet.

As I mentioned yesterday, tomorrow we’re going to drive down to St. Ignace and take the ferry over to Mackinac Island, and then the horse-drawn carriage tour around the island.

After we were home for a while, Brandi sent over a bunch of Landon school pics for this year. A real cutie. Can’t wait to see him in about 3 weeks.

Love the hat and bowtie.

Later, just as the sun was going down, I got this shot of a big freighter going by.

Don’t know what ship this is, but there are thirteen 1000 footers here on the Lakes, the largest of which at 1,013 feet, is the Paul R. Tregurtha. The American Century we saw going through the Soo Locks the other day is also one of those 1,000 footers.

Thought for the Day:

“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” – Albert Einstein

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We were off to Nick and Terry’s about 10:30, earlier than normal, because this was going to be a roadtrip day.

But first Nick and I spent some time trying out a couple of cellphone boosters to try and get a better signal at his house. He’s located in kind of a dead area, especially for Verizon, even though there are a couple of Verizon towers only a few miles away. Plus a metal roof and siding doesn’t help things either.

The first one we tried, an older Wilson trucker’s unit, is so old that it’s only 3G, not 4G. The second one, a new WeBoost unit, (the new name of Wilson) that’s really made for RV use.

Hooking it up temporarily showed an increase in signal bars, so tomorrow we’ll try to mount the outside antenna up on the tower to see how it helps.

About 1pm we all headed out for Mt. Dora, FL, about 75 miles away. Jan wanted to check off another item on her bucket list.

She’s been wanting to see the Starry Night house, i.e. The Van Gogh house, there. (Hey, what can I say? She’s checked off so many things over the years, it’s getting to be a short list).

Initially the owners painted just the wall in front of the house with a replica of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to please and ‘soothe’ their 25 year old autistic son. The city of Mt. Dora immediately tried to force them to paint over the wall, fining them $100 a day until it was done.

Told that the wall had to match the rest of the house, the owner’s took them at their word . . .  and painted the rest of the house to match the wall.

At various times the city tried to label the house a ‘sign’ and then also ‘graffiti’. After winning a couple of initial court tussles, the Pacific Legal Foundation stepped in on the side of the owner’s, citing Free Speech rights, and the dominos started falling.

And by the time the last one ‘plopped’ the city was out almost $60,000 in legal fees, and paid the owner’s $15,000.

Oh, and also cancelled the $10,000 of $100 daily fees, too.

So now the house is all Van Gogh all the time.

Jan and I, both Van Gogh fans, think it’s really neat.

I wonder how our RV would look painted like that?

After hitting a couple of antique mall/stores, where Jan added to her cloud of octopuses with a couple of new additions, it was on back over to Sanford where we had dinner at the Longhorn Steakhouse there.

Nick and I both had the 12 oz. Ribeye, mine with Broccoli,

and his with French Fries.

Jan had her fav New York Strip and Terry went with the Tuna.

Then we all got to watch Nick eat dessert.

I had mentioned to Nick during the meal that it was our treat since it was his birthday yesterday, and Farrah, our waitress, apparently overheard, so the birthday boy  got a unexpected treat. And he didn’t share, either.

Tomorrow will be mostly a stay-at-home day. But not our home, Nick and Terry’s, where we’ll work on some more projects before going out to eat.

Thought for the Day: 

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers. – Socrates

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