Travel & the Girls...

Well, in a nutshell Cara, the girls and I are back.  We drove over 8000 km, spent nearly 100 hours together in the van, crossed the border 6 times, got harassed once, swam in all 5 Great Lakes, almost died once (not my fault - a semi jack-knifed in front of us with no shoulder & a cliff beside me).  We learned many things, including the long driving days aren't bad, we just need more time between the long stretches, that and International Falls sucks.

We took over 400 pictures so eventually we will either corner you for 6 to 8 hours while we show you every nook and cranny between here and Cooperstown or we will eventually blog a few 10-15 picture segments...

So to tide you over here is a few pictures, and the sad news of Frances graduating to the 5-point harness and Teresa moving to a newly procured booster chair in the van...

Last night Kris, Susan & Anika were over and it was bedtime for the girls.  I asked Teresa if she wanted to give Frances the bottle (much to Cara's initial chagrin) and both girls loved it.

That is now Teresa's smile.

Yeah, that's right.  We saw it.

North Bay, on the Doorstep of Ottawa - Day Four

The Yost Family is now safe and sound in Ottawa, our destination city. Our last stop on this leg of the trip was North Bay, a very nice city with a very stinky beach. After we left the hotel we went to mass, then off to a park by the beach where they had two restored carousels and the tiniest train one can ride. We hung around and the girls wore themselves out until lunch. We then packed ourselves up and headed off. I must say, it didn't feel like we drove over 2200 kilometers. This trip has been wonderful, the fact that the girls are great travelers helped a great deal. I would do this again in a heart beat. Oh, wait, we have to get home somehow....

This is the Pro-Cathedral where mass was held

On our way to the park

This carousel had lots of different animals, not just horses. Teresa picked the moose.

Just look at the cute little train!

And it came with an engineer and everything.

The girls and I on stinky beach

Grandpa has been reading to Teresa non-stop, except for bathroom, work, and bridge breaks.

Grandma got to enjoy some nice cuddle time with Frances

Random Yost mayhem.

Living History - Day Three

Today took us deeper into Ontario, as we visited Lake Superior Provincial Park, Pancake Bay, drove towards Lake Huron and ended in North Bay. We stepped back in time by viewing some native pictographs and spent our lunch time picnicking and playing on the beach. Dinner was in a little town called Spanish, at a place where they serve fresh walleye from Lake Huron. I am also very excited to report that Ken thinks it will be possible for me to put my feet in all five Great Lakes! An exciting prospect indeed.

Neither Ken nor I can resist standing in front of overly large structures to get our picture taken. Here we are by the goose in Wawa.

If you were a tourist and saw this sign you would be excited right? Well....

This is what we saw. As it turns out, the magnificence of the falls depends on the hydro facility. If hydro opens the dam, the falls are spectacular. They did not feel it appropriate for me to have a good 

photo-op.

We pulled into a nice area on Lake Superior called Old Woman Cove for a bit of a play.

This was on the path to the pictographs. The split in the rock used to be part of a volcano. Seriously. Nature is amazing.

This is the area of Lake Superior where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. The winds were 50 knots and the waves 35 feet high. The fact this happened on an inland lake is remarkable to me.

These are the famous pictographs, painted by the Ojibwe.

This is the rock shelf Ken and I had to walk across to view them. As you can see we risked life and limb for a first hand look at history.

After all that work it was picnic time at Pancake Bay. The beach is really nice, and it got it's name because this is where the voyageurs would use up the rest of their flour to make pancakes, knowing Sault St. Marie was a short distance away. 

Ken and Teresa ended up changing into their swimsuits and going for a dip, Frances though it would be a big time saver to swim with her clothes on.

This is the Motel we are at in North Bay. By far the most awesome yet.

Hope you Like Lakes - Day Two

It's a good thing the Yost family enjoys a good lake, because, as it turns out, this country is full of them. Day two involved us traveling from Thunder Bay to Wawa with a stop to put our feet in Lake Superior in between. I will confess that the thought of putting my feet in the largest of the Great Lakes made me giddy, and it was certainly a highlight of the day for me.

Mmmmm, motel breakfast

The Terry Fox memorial on the spot he had to end his run. I got a little emotional when I saw it. They have done a beautiful job with the site.

Teresa and Frances burning some energy at the memorial before we force them back into the car.

Aguasabon River Gorge, this made Kakabeca Falls look like a ditch.

We are saving money by keeping a cooler full of breakfast and lunch stuff, and the best part of this has been picnics. 

We went for a bike ride on a hiking trail (not recommended) and this was just a random view on the way. Our trip has been full of this so far, and it's boggling the mind of this prairie girl.

A Yost family foot portrait. We all got to put our feet in Lake Superior.

Ken likes to go the extra mile, so he put his whole body in.

We also stopped in White River to see the "birth place" of Winnie the Pooh. Ken insisted on purchasing a souvenir t-shirt (for Teresa) and we met a lovely family traveling from Edmonton, so the girls had some playmates for a while.

Road Warriors - Day One

For those of you who were not aware, the Yost family is on the move! We are driving from Winnipeg to Ottawa and back again. Since even the cheap motels seen to have wireless internet these days you can adventure right along with us. Day one involved us leaving Kenora and driving out to Thunder Bay, here is some of the stuff we saw along the way.

This was a place called Raleigh Falls, just a simple little (downright gorgeous) picnic spot

Hence the name. I still can't believe this was just a rest area

Kakabeca Falls. This is a provincial park Ken had visited as a child with his family.

The falls are breath taking. There is a native legend that a Ojibwe chief's daughter named Green Mantle led their Sioux enemies over the falls in order to save their people from attack, and if you look closely you can see her in the mist of the falls.

This is where we bedded down for the night, the motel that time forgot.