What a good nights’ sleep we had. We both woke up refreshed today. The air mattress was firmer, we were warmer and and we both slept well for a change, and the fact that there were no raccoons visiting during the night helped as well. I was up early, made coffee, took a short hike around the campground and returned to start then next blog post while the coffee was brewing. Carol got up and we made breakfast of homemade bread for toast, eggs and bacon. Rain was predicted for 11:00 so we wanted to have the tent down well before then so we began reversing the process from two days ago.
Everything went smoothly, and it is all much faster coming down than going up. Fitting it all back in the car is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle but it fits. Just as we were getting things into the car, rain started. Just a few drops at first then a steady drizzle. We got a bit damp, but all of the gear stayed dry..the tent and mattress and sleeping bags were already in the topper before the first drop arrived. The cooler and a couple of plastic boxes got rained on but no harm done. Other campers around us were really scrambling to get things out of the rain, fortunately we were just finishing up as the rain arrived.We put the bag of trash on the hood of the car and drove to the dumpster as we were leaving the campground. Carol tossed the bag in the dumpster and we made our way to the gate and the rain began in earnest. The GPS directed us toward the Canadian border in Buffalo and we traveled through the countryside on two lane country roads. This is a beautiful area of rolling hills and valleys and neat farm houses. American flags seemed to be displayed everywhere. A lot of pride in home and country was evident. In the town of Warsaw, NY we found a Walmart… the travelers friend… as I was in need of a new chair. My old fat self broke my chair last night by the fireside, so we needed anew one, and a few other things as well. After shopping we got back on the road and rolled through the countryside…this is so much better than the Thruway. As we approached Buffalo we got back onto the Thruway, Route 90, and made our way toward the Peace Bridge and the Canadian border.
There was about a ten minute wait at the border and a friendly border guard greeted us and we chatted a bit..he was curious why Carol didn’t have dual citizenship since her Mom was Canadian. We felt badly chatting like that as the cars behind us had to be stacking up. Welcome to Canada. We took the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way - a big highway) toward Toronto. We stopped once at a McDonalds - they always have clean restrooms - and had a smoothie. Our little Subaru moved through traffic with east and the GPS took up right to Waterloo, our destination for the night.
My dear friend (my Japanese son?) Koji lives in Waterloo now and a visit is in order. We got to the hotel around 4 or so, checked in and I got yesterdays post finished and posted and we both got showered and Carol took a nap ofter had some cheese and crackers and wine and iced tea. We met up with Koji at 8 at a nearby restaurant and chatted for hours. Koji was a student at Brown where I ran the Multimedia labs, and I met him almost the first day I opened the new lab in the List Art building. Had to be January 2001. We have been best of friends since. Koji is a film maker, check out The Virtual JFK. Koji is in the throes of making Hollywood connections for his next project, which sounds very exciting, best of luck with this Koji. I sure wish Koji lived closer. Thanks Koji for treating us to a great evening. It was late when we returned to the hotel and Carol and I were in a deep slumber almost immediately. . .