Dec 18 - another easy drive

We left Stef's at 7a.m. and were parked by the St. Lawrence Market a little after 8. Since we were early (Sandy's appointment was at 8:30) we grocery-shopped for veggies and then she headed over to the hairdresser.

I walked back to the car, stowed the veggies, checked on Abby and then walked over to the big Loblaws at Queens Quay and Jarvis. I had a cappuccino to keep my batteries charged and browsed the bookshelf for my favorite authors. Since I haven't been doing any flying lately, I am way behind or to look at it glass-half-full -- I found three books to read. I think that I'll have some reading time on this trip and want to be prepared. The main purpose of going to this store, though, was to visit their hot sauce section. It's not really a hot sauce section -- has all sorts of flavors from around the world.

Well, I was completely disappointed. There was a small section of Patak's sauces and not much else. I've found better selections at Sobey's stores. It's possible that the character of the neighbourhood has changed and demand dropped for these types of foods.

Whatever. I bought two "medium" (not hot, they didn't have hot) bottles of Patak's mango pickle and went back to the car. For the next 1/2 hour I busied myself with cleaning up garbage in nooks and crannies while I ran the engine to keep me and Abby warm, listened to music etc. I headed back to the market and wandered around a little and sure enough, at 10am, Sandy called to ask where I was and we met at the market. We both picked out a something to eat for the road -- she a muffin and me a tea biscuit somewhat reminiscent of the ones that my grandmother used to make but naturally not as good.

Memories are like pain, if you're a glass half full person. Over time memories always get better -- never an aftertaste to old memories -- especially if they are associated with family. Bad tastes, like pain, fade. If you're not careful however, regrets, missed opportunities, things said or unsaid, can crowd your mind. I always prefer to think of good times, myself, and we've had many.

So ... muffin and tea biscuit in hand, we went back to the car and headed out. It had started to snow, but more like a drizzle or a dusting, nothing really accumulating and as I expected, before we even got to the 427 to head north, it was behind us. By the time we got north of the city it was sunny and stayed that way until we got to the cottage. There was a little bit of snow in Barrie, perhaps a foot or so in Parry Sound where we stopped to pick up wine that was awaiting us, and 6-8" on the ground at the cottage.

The lake is frozen, with 3-4" of ice. I walked out a few feet from shore to check. It will be a little thicker this morning and I'll set my ice fishing lines. My minnows are still alive !

The driveway was clear and we parked at the house to unload. Later on, once the 4-wheeler was started and out of the way, I moved the car into the barn. This morning I'll change the tires and put on the roof racks and ski box.

We had arrived at 2:15 p.m. The house was at 50F as expected and with the furnace turned up and the fire blazing it had reached 68F by the time we went to bed, which was actually faster than I expected. I have no way of knowing how much of that is the fireplace vs the furnace. We sat by the fire to eat dinner. Outside, it was 7F when I went to bed and it's about 9F right now.

Today, apart from my outside car-related chores, I don't really have anything planned, well, other than ice fishing which isn't really an activity, per se. I'll probably go into town although Jim was going to pickup the mail. We did see them briefly yesterday to say hello, but they were headed out for dinner. Tomorrow I'll go to Britt for Mass and re-pack the car. I had left a bunch of stuff in the car thinking that there was no point in bringing it in, but Sandy reminded me that she has presents to wrap ... oh well, I'll shuffle that stuff in too once it's light outside.

That's all, I think ... oh, it is worth noting that we're now 1500 miles into that 7700 and change. That's almost 20% of the miles under our belt. It's the ho-hum part though, roads traveled many times before. Monday is a long stretch, probably a 13 hour drive, and we've done that road to Thunder Bay a few times, but not in the winter. After that we break new ground. I've never driven more than a few miles west of Thunder Bay. At 1928 miles from Loring to Edmonton, over three days, this is a significant drive -- although, when you consider that our normal drive from NSB to Loring is 1500 miles, perhaps it's not much different.

Onward !