Somewhere between here and there....

Our holiday is finally underway and we have been BUSY! We left our home on Friday afternoon, amid rain and thundershowers and drove like mad for 5 or 6 hours to get to Sudbury. This may seem like an odd spot to stop, but we really did have a purpose.....

Saturday morning had us up bright (well, maybe not *that* bright) and early and we headed off to the main attractions in Sudbury - Dynamic Earth and Science North. We started the day over at Dynamic Earth and the Travelling Project got out for a picture:


No, that's not the moon in the background. Here, this might help:

This is the Big Nickel. Sudbury mines a lot of nickel and a good portion of it goes into the manufacture of coins like the nickel and the toonie. That's DS#1 attempting to hold up the Big Nickel. It was built in the early 1960's to celebrate Sudbury's mining heritage.

The observant among you will notice the complete lack of progress on the Travelling Project. Unfortunately, the weather left me with the mother of all headaches and I had been taking Advil like it was candy. When I get headaches this bad, I generally can't see clearly enough to stitch. I didn't even try. I felt like I wasted a good 5 hours of stitching time, but what can a girl do?

We then went on a tour of a mine (one that was built specifically for tours) and learned a good bit about mining in the last 100 years or so. It was a fun and intersting tour. My father worked in the uranium mines near Sudbury as a blaster when he first came to Canada in the 1950s and 1960s so we got a little taste of what it was like for him. It doesn't surprise me that he's lost most of his hearing either!

After we were finished at Dynamic Earth we drove over to Science North to explore. It is a fantastic science center and we had lots of fun exploring all the exhibits. The boys both spent tons of time at the K'Nex center building and racing race cars. We saw a neat 4-D movie too. It was a tiring day, but I'm so glad we went. We've always wanted to go to Science North and this holiday gave us the perfect reason to go.

Five hours later we left Science North and drove a couple of hours to Blind River and a motel that left a lot to be desired - I did wonder if they actually charged by the hour, but once inside, it wasn't *that* bad but there was no Internet access (*sob*) so I couldn't update blog....

Today was one of our longest driving days - I think we drove for almost 12 hours. We were up early (and none of us were too bright!) and drove and drove and drove. Once we crossed the border into the US (we crossed at Sault Ste. Marie and met the nicest border guard - her sister stitches!), we stopped at the Soo Locks briefly. I intended to get the Travelling Project to pose for a photo, but it wasn't in the mood. The locks were interesting and we were fortunate to see one large ship heading into Lake Huron and another smaller tour boat heading into Lake Superior.

Then we dove back into the van and drove on to Tahquamenon (it rhymes with phenomenon) Falls. We had a lovely walk over to a small waterfall (only a 50ft. drop). I realized while we were there that I am really spoiled because I live quite close to Niagara Falls. Tahquamenon Falls is no Niagara, but it was interesting - the water going over the falls runs every shade of orange to dark brown to something resembling motor oil - and all because of natural organic matter in the water. The Travelling Project wouldn't make the trek to the falls, but it did pose for a picture by the sign:

(and yes, the headache has finally let up, so stitching has resumed!)

After the falls we headed on the longest leg of our trip - we were aiming for Duluth, Minnesota. We got frequent glimpses of Lake Superior on our way. It was surprising to see long stretches of beautiful beaches - the Canadian side of lake Superior doesn't have anything nearly as nice. We did get out briefly to walk down to the water and stuck our toes into the lake. It's still pretty darned cold, though.

One of the most interesting things that happened was when a black bear went charging across the road just a short distance ahead of us. It took us all by surprise, but by the time we got to the spot where he left the road, we could no longer see him. The camera didn't make it out of the case fast enough, so no pictures.

Our drive took us through Wisconsin for a short distance - and the project came out for a photo opportunity:


We drove straight on to our hotel in Duluth and I'm updating blog before bed. DS#2 is just freshly out of the shower and DS#1 is going in. Time for bed for all of us!

And tomorrow is the highlight of the trip from my perspective...........

Nordic Needle awaits!

Yipee!!!!

I'll post about my adventure at NN tomorrow night if we stop somewhere with Internet access. I'll try not to buy out the store.....