The drive was going to be about 5 hours so we had tons of snacks, a movie for each car, and new activities. About an hour into our drive I was trying to keep up with Grammie who seemed to think she was still in her Z car and just as I reached her a police officer going the other direction whizzed by me and promptly turned around. Oh man. I haven't been pulled over in more than 10 years!
He walked up and asked for my driver's license and noticed we were from Pensacola and asked what we were doing in the area. I told him we were just camping in Ontario. He peeked at my speedometer seeing only mph and said he thought I might be having a problem converting mph to km/h and I just nodded my head. Technically, I didn't lie right? He didn't give me a ticket but did say something about it not counting anyway. Do tickets out of the country not count?
After about another hour we stopped for gas then a pit stop at Tim Hortons. I'm not sure if these are a northern thing or a Canada thing but they are always packed! We had trouble even getting into the parking lot at 10am! I thought it was just a fast food place, but when we went to the counter to order a snack, the kids were drooling over the doughnuts. I quickly vetoed and had them choose between yogurt or a muffin and we got back on the road.
When we hit the main big city we would be driving through, it was black all around us. Like tornado black so I sighed and got ready for a rough drive. Somehow Grammie got us all the way through it with only some sprinkling. We successfully skirted all the rain. That is until we got to the park. We stepped out of our cars to a hot and muggy 78 degrees thinking we might have made a wrong turn and headed back to Florida! The clouds didn't look great so we decided to leave my car packed for now.
I'd asked the check-in person if there were any must-dos while we were here and she just shook her head. Ok, I guess we'll just be enjoying the beach then. I also asked if there were any grocery stores or restaurants nearby so we headed that way. The place she recommended was closed on Tuesdays so we kept going to grab some groceries. This store wasy TINY with only about 4 30ft aisles! And $5 cream cheese - yikes!
We noticed a restaurant across the street from the store so we parked and hoped for the best. I'd had my fill for awhile of fish and chips so I was hoping they might have a little something different. It turns out they weren't to vegetarian friendly so we opted for the pizza. Our server was actually a little shocked when Brayden asked for a pizza without pepperoni! Grammie and I looked at each other both imagining the cooks picking off pepperoni from a frozen pizza.
Well, I'm not sure if the pizza was actually frozen or not, but we were very surprised it was quite good. Lesson learned. We boxed up the last few pieces for the girls' breakfast the next day and headed on to Grammie's bed & breakfast to get her and Brayden settled. It turns out they actually were staying in the finished basement of a very nice couple's house. We talked for awhile about Florida, sports, travel, and Canada then were on our way to find the ice cream store everyone was telling us about.
The shop was in the middle of a tiny town and when we walked in it seemed like we stepped back into the 1950s. There was a counter with barstools atop a checkboard floor, an old-fashioned menu board and signs, and Coca-Cola paraphenalia everywhere. The owner was so good with the kids and just seemed generally happy to meet people and be there. While we were siting inside eating it started raining lightly but steady.
Not one to want to set up or take down a tent in the pouring rain, we decided to go back to the park and set up. Grammie has learned over the past few days how to jump in and pick up one of the jobs to get us set up in record time. We went down to the beach to check out Lake Erie and put out toes in. The water was a little warm but definitely not swimmable for these Florida people!
Since the park didn't have much to offer, we decided to leave pretty early again in the morning. Grammie and Brayden left us so the girls ran to the small park next door and I got us ready for showers and a rainy night ahead.
We three had been up pretty early with the storm coming so we hopped in the tent and read until all our eyes were heavy. We made it to 8pm! This would be our last night without stinky Brayden so we snuggled together and giggled until we all fell asleep.
Quote of the Day: "But your phone says 7:30!" as Ryan peeked at my phone before bed. I convinced her it was our time at home so she would go to sleep. Evil Mom.
