I need to wind up the blog so here are the final few days in point form:
- once back in London we went to see the "lottery house". It is in a new development close to Sheila's place. There were some really neat design features, especially the kitchen! Some of the decor was not my taste. Sheila bought a ticket as she has been lucky lately...she won a trip to Universal Studios for two from East Side Mario's. She (and Kevin) will be joining 100 other winners on a flight to Orlando at the end of August.
- Sheila took us to the London Marketplace located downtown. There is everything here from soup to nuts! We had time for a snack of a yummy tart and a cup of tea from The Tea Haus. I had some English Garden Early Grey loose tea (has the flavours of jasmine and bergamot). It was so good that I bought a package to bring back home.
- Sheila and I then visited a kitchen store near the market place while Hannes guarded the car...wanted to make sure our parking meter didn't run out before we were done. Got back with 2 minutes to spare! Bought myself a new apron, badly needed!
- My BIL Kevin got the pool cleaned out while we were on the road so it was ready to go. I had a few fun splashes in the pool. It was hard to get it, but once in, the water was beautiful! Also enjoyed the hot tub a few times.
- Thursday, May 24 the whole family...Sheila, Kevin, Kristina and Alayna, in addition to Hannes and I went to The Mongolian, which is a place where you are given a bowl and pick the ingredients you want to be stir fried. It was so good. I went back 3 times and tried something different each time. On the way home we had the driving tour around London. It was a beautiful night and nice that we could enjoy the scenery without rain.
- Friday, May 25 was another fun day...went to Angelo's Bakery & Deli to pick up some items for our BBQ on Saturday. What an amazing bread department they have. There were probably 30 different kinds of bread available. And a few free samples to try out with balsamic vinegar and oil. Yummy!
- next stop was Costco! I had to go since, as everyone knows, we don't have Costco in Thunder Bay. It was crazy busy, of course. That reminds me, I need to look into getting a Costco membership. Then I can go shop there the next time I am in Winnipeg!!! lol
- Sheila and I had an appointment with her daughter Kristina at the hairdressing salon where she works. Kristina did a wash and set for both of us as we were going to a Peruvian fund raising dinner. She did a great job and we both looked awesome! Sheila does volunteer bookkeeping for an organization called Heartlinks. This is a non-profit charitable organization that funds and operates education, health, nutrition and literacy programs to help people of Peru. It was a very nice event.
- Saturday, May 26 was our last day in London so we made the most of it. We did a mini road trip...first stop was Belmont where Kristina and her boyfriend Stephen bought a house. We couldn't go in to check it out as they were not getting possession until June 14. We enjoyed the countryside along the back roads. Beautiful rolling hills, lovely farm land, small towns, etc. Next stop was Sparta, where we had lunch at the Sparta House tearoom and restaurant. They had shelves throughout the restaurant filled with interesting tea pots. It was another neat little town, filled with touristy shops. And of course I found a something to purchase...a very cool necklace. We carried on to Port Stanley, another very touristy area, located on Lake Erie. Lots of walking around and checking out shops. We did enjoy some ice cream here.
- BBQ dinner of smokies at the house with everyone there including Stephen, Kristina's boyfriend.
- Sunday, May 27 - left London and encountered heavy rain and lightning on our drive to Sarnia where we crossed over into Michigan. Came back to Canada at Sault Ste. Marie, where we spent the night.
- Monday, May 28 - stopped at Pancake Bay, just outside of SSM on our way home. We encountered heavy fog on the way home and it was pretty scary driving. Along the roadside are many, many signs warning about moose and we kept wondering if we would ever see one. Sure enough we saw a little one a little ways outside of Thunder Bay. We slowed right down to get a photo of him. Managed to snap one in focus before he took off into the bushes.
- Arrived home and we could tell it had rained a lot, but we had no idea how much. Did not find out until Tuesday morning about the flooding in Thunder Bay.
- It was a great trip. We put 4149 kilometers on the car. Saw lots of amazing scenery and spent quality time with our family and friends. I took about 1300 photos and am now going thru them. I have already started the deletion process...some will end up on this page at some time or another.
- One of the highlights for me was that we saw all 5 Great Lakes on this trip. We drove over Lake Michigan on the Macinac Bridge. In fact, Michigan was on one side and Huron on the other. The bridge is amazing and very high up.
- Ontario is extremely beautiful and diverse in its scenery. I highly recommend anyone to travel across this province.
