Thursday, September 29, 2011

Heading home

I am blogging about Wednesday, though today is Thursday.  I'm sitting in a Starbucks (surprise!) while Don is out finding a place to do his nails.  It's the first real day of fall -- at least, in Thunder Bay.  The sky is grey, clouds hanging low and being blown to and fro.  We had to swerve around numerous empty garbage pails and lids to get here.  The leaves are swirling.

I am finally wearing one of my warm shirts, for the first time all tour.  In the next 36 or so hours, I'm gonna have to wear four more plus a couple of sweaters in order to justify their presence in my suitcase.  :-)

Ah well, if I hadn't packed them, the weather would have been freezing all month!

So, back to Wednesday.

Another travel day, so not terribly exciting.  Even Mr. and Mrs. GrumpyPutz were hidden out of sight (and sound).

We woke up early -- yes, really -- so we could say good-bye to Sam and Susan before they went to work.  Sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee, commenting on articles in the paper -- you know, that stuff people normally do when they wake up early for work.  :-)   Sam grabbed an extra cup, which he acknowledged would make him late for work, but... I guess he didn't want the visit to end, either!  Susan left first, Sam when his coffee was finished -- I think he got out the door around 8:20, which didn't bode well for his 8:30 start. :-)

I got some last-minute stuff done for the OFS and home -- the cell connection from the provincial border in to Thunder Bay being rather questionable -- then got dressed and packed up, while Don filed the gas tank.

We left the house more or less when we'd wanted.  MapQuest sent us on an extremely convoluted route out of town, much of it under construction, too.  A few wrong turns and u-turns later, we were finally close to the highway.  Quick Starbucks search and... bonus, we're just about to be there!  Properly loaded up, we hit the highway.  Despite the late highway-getting-to, Mr. and Mrs. GrumpyPutz are nowhere to be seen.  :-)

We did a little happy-dance as we crossed the provincial border.  Almost home!!!

Took a little detour / scenic route / didn't really know what we were doing into Kenora, but found our way back to the main highway without a problem -- somebody should really update MapQuest, though, that 17A is the way to go around!  OK, I guess that would be us...

Internet and cell connections disappeared -- ah yes, we must be on the north shore of Superior.  You know, the place where the map shows a bunch of coverage and we and our other touring friends have yet to find any?  Let it go, Lyssy, let it go...

Another little happy dance as we passed the sign indicating the time change.  Now we're the same time zone as home!

The rest of the trip was fairly standard, albeit with some construction taking time away.  We ended up reaching Thunder Bay about an hour and a half later than we'd wanted to get there -- oops!

We had offered to take John and Sharron out for dinner as a thank you, but their grandson was staying with them on a surprise visit this week (his mom was sick), so we'd decided to order in, instead.  When we arrived at the house, Sharron and Nathan were heading out for a "b" errand -- getting bread, bananas, etc.   We loaded our stuff in with John, making our way around the lego and trucks (most of the time!).  Had a nice visit, were wondering what was taking Sharron and Nathan so long, but they finally arrived, with the reason for their delay -- Nathan was halfway through a banana-strawberry smoothie!

Back in the house, Nathan took it upon himself to show us all his toys.  Don enjoyed playing with them far too much.  :-)   Nathan was showing us all his police cars and ambulances with sirens on the top, and I mentioned that Don used to be a firefighter and had a fire truck with a big red siren.  Nathan's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he nearly exploded... then he found his two red fire hats and all of his various fire trucks.  Boy bliss.  :-)

The adults tried to figure out where to order in from -- it got narrowed down to Kelsey's or Appleby's, but Kelsey's was the easiest menu to find, so it won.  Yes, we're definitely closer to home -- all we needed was for Kim to greet us at the bar!

Sharron attempted to get Nathan into the bath, while John and Don headed out to pick up the food.  Apparently, there was quite a fight over who was going to pay the bill. Don won, but I'm not sure how he did it -- I ask no questions.  :-)

Occasionally accompanied by Nathan, who was having trouble falling asleep, the four of us sat at the kitchen table and ate our meals with a lovely bottle of Shiraz, followed by a bottle of "Sharron's Plonk", as John called it -- which was perfectly good as well.

Just when we thought it was safe... Sharron brought out dessert!  Neither Don nor I could even conceive of it -- we'd eaten far too much already.  We promised to do it for breakfast (oops, just realized we didn't keep that promise, AND I forgot my leftovers in the fridge -- hope you like lemon-pepper shrimp penne, John and Sharron!).

A bit more visiting, and then it was definitely nap time!  John and Sharron were in Nathan's room, with him on a camping mat on the floor and Remo (the golden retriever) out in the hall.  We, once again, were given the master bedroom -- people are far too nice to us!

Musically -- and maybe doing a little almost-home-happy-dance,
Alyssa

2 comments:

  1. What! Remo slept in the hall? Oh my.

    And oh dear. I didn't even think to give you the master bedroom! LOL -- then Ellie really would have insisted on sleeping with you!

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  2. No, it gives us paroxysms of guilt when people give us their own bedrooms -- we're supposed to be loafing on their couches, not taking over their rooms!

    Although it would have been fun to have Ellie to snuggle with. :-)

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