Combermere Ontario to Sudbury Ontario

Despite forecasts to the contrary, the morning was again cold and blustery with occasional light rain. We packed up, loaded the trailer and hooked up. Sherry went down to Cabin 26 to pick up the young people. I was impressed how lightly they had packed, leaving most of their gear in Heather's car.

With all our gear ready, Sandy and I headed down to Cabin 26 and called GM for the tow. They said he would be there withing the hour. While we were waiting, Sherry showed up with the clan to say goodbye as they were heading south. With ten minutes to spare, Ralph the tow truck guy, a pleasant lad who owned the gas station in Combermere, showed up. He told us he had a car to go to Oshawa and asked if he could take the Grand Am to his shop and double it to Bancroft. I couldn't see the problem with that so we followed him to his place where I fueled, signed some papers and wrote a note to the GM dealership. I gave him the keys and took his promise that the car would get there.

Sandy and I headed north to Barry's Bay and turned east towards Algonquin Park on 60. The temperature display on the Wing was saying 5C and it kept spitting. Sandy was dressed in layers but all I had on my legs was jeans so, after 30 miles, we stopped in Whitney to add clothes. I put on my Gore-Tex pants, jacket rain liner and snowmobile gloves. Sandy elected to try out her heated gloves for the first time. As we were getting dressed, snowflakes started falling.

With all the clothing, the ride through the park was pleasant. Traffic was fairly light but the OPP were out so I set a leisurely pace. On the west side of the park, near Dwight, we had a few miles of heavy rain but that let up quickly.

We stopped at Tim Horton's in Huntsville for soup (Sandy) and chili (me). I heve never seen a Timmie's jammed up like that one was, but we weren't in a real hurry so I stood in line and eventually got our food. I added my rubber rain boots to the apparel to warm my feet up on the next leg of the journey. One gentleman on a Nomad pulled in. He was heading from Petawawa to Wasaga Beach, his home, where John at J&R looked after his bike. We talked Vulcans for a bit and then he headed out.

Food done, we took the fast road and headed up Highway 11 to North Bay where we fueled and turned west again. As we got closer to Sudbury, the overcast changed to cloudy with sunny patches and the temperature rose to 12C. We pulled into the driveway and unloaded quickly. A quick call to the kids let us know they were safely home, and we spent the evening catching up on the final Survivor:Panama and Grey's Anatomy episodes saved on the PVR.

Tomorrow I head for Wasaga Beach (trailering the bike for its 50K servicing) after checking on the car and seeing if I can get a dentist appointment. It should be an interesting few days.